An Attractive Bridge O'er Plenty Multi-Cache
EuDes: Unfortunately, 'smaller kids' must have found it very easy and have taken off with it. 😥 Sadly, it's time to go.
An Attractive Bridge O'er Plenty
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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Background
The locality around Lower Plenty was initially settled for grazing in the 1840s, but the population was not large enough to allow any community to develop. The township had its beginnings when a bridge was built across the Plenty River on the mining track to the new Caledonia gold diggings. These diggings took in a tract of country north of Warrandyte and covered a very hilly area extending from the Yarra River, north across Kangaroo Ground, to above St Andrews (originally named Queenstown) and embraced all the country between Diamond Creek and Watsons Creek. Despite small quantities of gold found at Scotts Hill, Kangaroo Ground in 1851, the field was not rushed until early 1855.
Several routes to the diggings were developed, but the route through Clifton Hill, Heidelberg and then on through Lower Plenty, avoided the need to cross the Yarra River. This meant however, that the Plenty River needed to be crossed and the original route appears to be along what is now Martins Lane, fording the Plenty River at the bend, and then around the hill and on through Eltham.
The building of a bridge shortened the route, and later the Toll House and the Plenty Bridge Hotel were erected near the “Old Bridge”. The old bridge, which still stands, is not the original as the first bridge, a wooden structure, was washed away in floods.
(adapted from Henderson, W.F., School at the Crossing Place: Lower Plenty Primary School No. 1295, 1874-1974, 1974)
The Cache
As much as I dislike offset caches, our 5th cache IS one although you can actually do it without your GPSr.
The posted coordinates should have had you at a plaque commemorating the opening of the restored bridge, however it looks like it has been stolen!!! To find the cache now, count the number of rows of bluestone that make up this end of the bridge (this side only). Walk that number of metres alongside the bridge (don't swap sides) and you should be able to easily find the cache.
The cache is a 400 ml Sistema container. You will need to be careful when retrieving or replacing this cache, not only for all the usual reasons but for the additional reason that if you don’t take care, the retrieval and terrain ratings will increase a couple of star levels!!! Bike riders may appear seemingly out of nowhere and the nearest house faces you as you retrieve.
Three points of note:
1. The terrain rating is accurate. This cache is accessible by the disabled.
2. No-one knows that this cache is coming on line. The FTF will therefore be obtained fairly and squarely (not that there is anything of great value to be obtained from it).
3. Three of our first four caches were muggled or deleted within their first 100 hours. BE QUICK.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Fbhgu fvqr bs oevqtr. Gur pnpur gvgyr naq gur greenva engvat fubhyq or nyy lbh arrq.
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
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