Round and round they go, and have done such in Australia for almost 2 centuries.
Yes I’m talking about the Windmill – an Aussie Icon seen all over Australia.
Windmill – Aussie Icon
This is one of a planned series of great Aussie Icon hunts. Travelling around Australia you undoubtedly see windmills: Dead ones, Rusted ones, High ones, Spinning ones, Coloured ones, Huge ones, all seen along the roadside, adjacent farm houses, along river banks, in gullies, in country town parks, in museums, in fact wherever…
This series of geocaches is designed to help you when travelling around Australia, by breaking up the trip, and to discover a bit of a history lesson as you seek windmills in locations with a written history of the windmill and/or local region adjacent.
It will take you from one State to another. Rather than make routes starting, going & ending nowhere in particular, I’ve decided to make all these windmill hunts start in individual states capital cities and end in the Nation’s capital; it’s my home base so I can maintain the cache. It gives you a good excuse to visit your capital. (And hit the local geocache scene too).
I’ve chosen major or popular highway routes (rather than outback exploration) that go from each state’s Capital cities to the Nation’s capital.
With each of these trips, I’ll be giving the actual coordinates of the relevant windmills along the route – you then have to visit them enroute and determine the vital statistics and any other required info at the location. This will then be put into a formula to determine the final location of the cache in the ACT Region. The final location of the cache will not be difficult or long and tedious to get to, unlike my other caches or many in the ACT. A very short walk is all that is required from a nearby carpark.
No windmills are on private farm land. All are accessible by car (no bush bashing required), they are all just a few metres off the highway, or in the centre of towns you will pass through, eg town parks. If there is limited access (to the base of the windmill) due to the time of day a park closes, I’ll mention that for the relevant windmill. All can be easily seen from road though.
Street view could be useful .........
Use that (& your time machine) and all is revealed, 100%.
In many of the windmills, you will be required to count the number of blades on the fan. This will be difficult to impossible depending on the strength of the wind.
Therefore, a digital camera IS ESSENTIAL.
Now onto this particular geocache:
MELBOURNE to CANBERRA.
Windmill # 1
S 37º 38.833 E 145º 03.085
Number of blades = AB. . Height of water tank at base of tower, rounded up to the nearest metre = C.
Windmill # 2
S 37º 38.469 E 144º 50.354 Park closes at 4:30pm.
Number of blades = DE. (=Number of blades this windmill SHOULD HAVE).Diameter = FG ft. Water was pumped with a lift of HI.5 metres to the top of a nearby hill. Ownership passed to Ben Chaffey in 19JK. Dams first dug LM years ago.
Windmill # 3
S 36º 45.124 E 145º 34.392
You should now be standing near a building and see two 12 bladed windmills either side of you. Mr. N. McKERNAN – What day in September? = N.
Windmill # 4
S 35º 43.582 E 147º 18.706
Number of painted blade colours = O. Or, the number of colours of the “MUSEUM” text on the sign at the base of the windmill, the “Museum sign”.
Windmill # 5
S 34º 55.500 E 148º 09.971
Number of blades = PQ.
Windmill # 6
S 34º 33.503 E 148º 22.781
Number of blades = RS.
Windmill # 7
S 35º 23.082 E 149º 12.013
Number of blades = TU. The number on the tail = V.
Note : As you approach the final windmill and the cache location, south of the village of Tharwa, BEWARE – there are a great many KANGAROOS.
Windmill # 8
S 35º 39.857 E 148º 59.321
Number of blades = WX. Number of steps on the ladder + 1 = Y.
MELBOURNE FINAL cache location
S. 35º (T+U-B+O-C)(A+L).(F+X-Y)(P+Q)(C+M-N+V)
E. 148º 5(D+H+J).(K+T-R-P+O)(H+E-G)(S)
Watch out for KANGAROOS.
Cache is IN the base of a dead tree - no need to disturb any vegetation or move any rocks.
Finally, as with all windmills, from time to time a blade may fall off and you may see the windmill before it is replaced. So, count how many blades should be there.