Alexandra is located in Victoria, Australia – within the Murrindindi Shire. It is a town that proudly features a number of preserved historical buildings, dating back to 1850. Alexandra is located near the Goulburn River and is surrounded by rich pastoral land, breathtaking mountain ranges and majestic waterways.
Take your time to look around Lake Eildon. Relax and enjoy the view, or experience the thrill of water sports like waterskiing, kayaking and wakeboarding. You'll find some of the best trout fishing Victoria has to offer in the nearby waterways. For breathtaking views, the striking Cathedral Range State Park offers invigorating hikes to the furrowed pinnacles, or for that adrenaline rush, the mountain offers some great rock climbing. Explore the Lake Eildon National Park, enjoy the wineries of the region, or for that family adventure, visit the Alexandra Timber Tramway and Museum or have a picnic in one of the many parks or reserves.
Rainbow Trout is a GeoArt series of caches with a range of puzzles – some easy, some quite hard.
The Cache is a one litre poly pipe with room for swaps and trackables. BYO pen. Please return the cache as you found it.
Don’t go to the listed co-ordinates, as it may be on private property, up a mountain range, or at the bottom of the Goulburn River, and the cache is not located there anyhow. Use the puzzle below to find the actual cache location.
The Puzzle –
Terrestrial Orchids
Terrestrial Orchids are jewels of the Australian bush. Most are small and hide among the undergrowth, where many people do not realise they exist. They can flower at any time of the year, including the depths of winter.
Orchids in Victoria are mainly deciduous, with their soft stems, leaves and petals die back over summer and in alpine areas during the freezing winter. They have thickened roots, called tuberoids, which store energy and DNA to produce the next year’s flower. This helps them survive bushfires.
Terrestrial orchids have a strong symbiotic relationship with underground fungi which helps the orchid absorb the necessary minerals and nutrients for it to thrive. They rely on insects and birds to pollinate and develop seed. Seeds can be spread by wind, water and ants, but their minute size limit their ability to germinate.
The flowers are bilaterally symmetric with three outer sepals and three inner petals. The middle petal is often very different to the other petals, forming the labellum and can be triggered by an insect landing on it to help with pollination.
They can be hard to find in the bush due totheir small size (5-60cm tall), by having a brief flowering period and often have inconspicuous flowers. Look at them closely and you might find them exceptionally beautiful. They often flower better after a bushfire because competing vegetation is missing and more sunlight reaches them, or a chemical released during fires promotes flowering.
Many orchids in this district flower in late Autumn, Winter, and Spring.
Some common names of orchids of the Eastern Highlands are: Donkey Orchid, Spider Orchid, Pink Fingers, Blue Caladenia, Purple Beard Orchid, Nodding Greenhood, Sun Orchid, Leek Orchid and Austral Ladies Tresses.
