The Border Dispute. 1 "The end" Traditional Cache
The Border Dispute. 1 "The end"
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(regular)
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An interesting area, with an interesting problem...can you say: "Someone messed up ?".
Which State are we actually in ?, NSW, SA, or Vic ?
Firstly park at co-ords S 33 55.763 / E 141 00.163. Have a look at the Todd monument whilst here, it will give you a better idea on the size of this mistake.
The Border Dispute
Probably the most enduring evidence of the work of the early surveyors are the State borders. The first of these, the Victorian border, was laid out in 1847, following considerable effort to fix the correct longitude of 141° east before pegging could begin.
In 1839 a New South Wales Government surveyor, Charles James Tyers, established a base station (Tyers' Mark) at the mouth of the Glenelg River, near the south-east corner of South Australia, from which he fixed a mean longitude of 141° 01' 23".
This fixing was first challenged by mapmaker John Arrowsmith, then recalculated by Commander Owen Stanley, then remeasured by a Captain Stokes and again by Commander Stanley, all of whom came up with different answers. Finally in 1847 the New South Wales Government Surveyor Henry Wade met with his South Australian counterpart, Edward Riggs White, at the Glenelg River to establish the correct border.
The two surveyors agreed to adopt Stanley's original recalculation of Tyres' fixing (141° 02' 03"). Unfortunately, an error in their methodology led them to erect the cairn marking the border 38 chains into South Australia. Re-measurement of this longitude in 1911 would reveal the border to be actually 150 chains into South Australian territory.
Lack of supplies and funds brought work on marking the border to a halt at the 124-mile point, but in 1849 the two governments agreed that White should continue the survey to the River Murray. Forced by drought conditions to retreat at the 206.5-mile point, White returned to complete the survey in December 1850.
In 1868, the South Australian Government Astronomer and Superintendent of Telegraphs, Charles Todd (later the first President of the South Australian Institute of Surveyors) established a temporary observatory just north of the river. Todd re-determined the 141° east meridian using telegraph signals, and marked the South Australian-New South Wales border with a large obelisk. The following year, surveyor Thomas Evans connected this to White's stone piles and found that they were 179 chains west of the new meridian fix.
This loss of over 500 square miles of South Australian territory sparked a legal battle. In 1847 South Australian's Lieutenant-Governor Robe had proclaimed the line drawn by Wade as the eastern boundary of the province. When Victoria was proclaimed a separate province from New South Wales in 1851, the western border was defined as the South Australian border and specific reference to the 141° east meridian was deliberately omitted.
In 1894, South Australia declared Robe's proclamation null and void, but a High Court judgement in 1911 ruled that the surveyors' marks constituted the boundary. Thus the step in South Australia's boundary at the River Murray appears on most maps, an ongoing reminder of the difficulties faced by the surveyors of that era.
Enjoy the area, it has unique red sand, and you can also do the Border fence run up to the nearest cache about 4 kilometres away.
We saw about 300 Kangaroos in packs when we drove this fence whilst placing this cache.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Gur srapryvar genpx sebz gur obeqre pebffvat pnpur vf npghnyyl va orggre pbaqvgvba guna gur byq Jragjbegu ebnq !