Location:
LETTERBOX HYBRID CACHE THAT STARTS AT THE POSTED COORDINATES. OBTAIN NUMBERS FROM THE VICINITY OF THE POST OFFICE AND GENERAL STORE TO CALCULATE THE GZ.
Letterbox Hybrid
Letterbox Hybrids are based on an older kind of container search, called letterboxing. Because letterboxing began in 1854, before GPS existed, the finder follows written instructions to discover the container.
Each letterbox contains a logbook, and a rubber stamp. When letterboxers find the container, they stamp the logbook with their personal stamp, and also stamp their own notebook with the stamp from the letterbox as a souvenir of their visit. The stamp and logbook remain in the letterbox for the next visitor to use.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The rubber stamp is not a SWAG item, please leave in the container.
Learmonth
Learmonth is a picturesque township, located in Central Victoria, Australia, 136 kilometres (85 mi) west of the state capital Melbourne, and 23 km North West of the regional city centre of Ballarat. The township was first established in 1837. It was the original local government office headquarters of the Shire of Ballarat.
With more people moving into the town following the land sales, a Post Office opened as Lake Learmonth in 1858 with William McKay as Post Master. He would have run the PO with a small trading business from the hotel. Lake Learmonth was renamed Learmonth in 1860.
By 1861 it was reported in the Ballarat Star that William McKay was erecting a very handsome structure of brick and bluestone, for the purpose of a Store and Post Office. Until his death in 1870 William not only held the position of Post Master but, like many other district men, was also contracting for the District Road Board, later the Shire of Ballarat, in building roads, bridges etc. as the town and district developed.
It is believed William would have had a manager to run the store while he was contracting and Mrs McKay raising the family. An advertisement of 1869, when Arthur Staunton was probably managing for the McKay's showed how useful the business would have been for the local population –
Goods for Sale: A choice of drapery, crockery, groceries, ironmongery, chaff cut, grain etc. Registrar of Births, Deaths and Vaccinations and Agent for the Ballarat Mutual Employment Institute. Arthur Staunton – Dunrobin Store - Learmonth.
From 1870, William's wife Margaret, daughters Grace and Isabella each held the position of Post Mistress. In 1891, the Post Office and Store were sold to the Spiers family who had run the store for some years prior. In about 1917 the business was purchased by Mr Crosthwaite. After more than 100 years of trading as a general store and post office the business finally closed in 2020.
REF: http://www.learmonthdhs.com.au/
Calculating GZ
USE GEOCACHING TOOLBOX COORDINATE PROJECTION TO FIND GZ: Enter the starting coordinates, the angle WZE, with respect to the North, and the distance EJF in meters to the projected point.
Find these numbers from both the adjacent "Bus Stop ID = VWXYZ" and "Phone Box No. = ABCDEFGHIJ".
CHECKSUM SOUTH = 27, CHECKSUM EAST = 27
Ballarat GeoTour:
This cache is placed as part of the Ballarat GeoTour. This GeoTour was made possible after receiving a grant from VicHealth as part of their Reimagining Health grants in 2020. To discover more caches in the Ballarat GeoTour please visit: https://geocachingvictoria.com.au/ballarat-geotour