[POTS] Good Prospects for Mr. Hellyer? Traditional Cache
Hidden : 5/27/2006
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
3.5 out of 5

Size: Size: small (small)

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Geocache Description:

The first cache in the “Pioneers of Tasmania Series”, and the first of two dedicated to Henry Hellyer (check out the other one here).

This cache is located near a stone cairn laid by Henry Hellyer in 1831. Hellyer was a surveyor and architect employed by the Van Diemens Land Company, a company which undertook the ambitious task of finding good sheep grazing land on the North-West coast of Tasmania. In this quest for a suitable location it was Hellyer who did most of the hard work, literally putting the previously uncharted North-West and West coast hinterland on the map. Some of the journeys he and his companions made through the then dense and impenetrable forest, such as the walk to Surrey Hills (50km behind Burnie) from Stanley, the trek over Mts. Roland, VanDyke and Claude from Port Sorell, and another trek from Stanley to the West Coast returning via Cradle Mountain and Black Bluff which almost killed him and his team were amazing feats in themselves.

In his work surveying the area around Surrey Hills in 1831 it’s imaginable that Hellyer placed many cairns on the numerous mountains and hills to assist him. What’s a little less easy to imagine is that one still stands, 175 years later in the Black Bluff Range on Mount Prospect, near Cradle Mountain. It was rediscovered in 1985 by a Burnie surveyor, and in 1988 the Australian Institution of Surveyors’ Tasmanian Division placed a bronze plaque on the cairn in recognition of Hellyers work.

Anyway, back to the cache. To reach the cache you will need to park just off the highest point of the Cradle Mountain link road, where you would normally park to reach Aloysius’ “Rocky Mountain High” cache and follow the Penguin-Cradle trail from there for 1-1.5 hrs to your destination. The trail is a very thin pad through tough knee-high grass marked with wooden stakes every 10 or so metres, and the cache lies about 30 metres off the trail near Hellyers Cairn.
NOTE: The cache is not hidden IN the cairn, so there is no need to touch it.

Please take care walking this trail!!! It’s thin and almost nonexistent in some places, most of the poles will guide you well, but some have disappeared. Due to the alpine climate the weather can change in an instant (it changed more than once at the time of hiding the cache, from sunny to foggy, to rainy and back again), and the mountain, although modest, is very exposed. Finally, due to the long grass, we can only imagine that during the warmer months there will be snakes in the area (we have seen them nearby).

The cache is a small Team Tiges PVC v2 container (about 200ml), which at the time of hiding contained small swaps including balloons, magnetic clips, a badge and a small plastic snake.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Whfg abegu bs gur pnvea. Haqre n ebpx, bofpherq ol n ebpx.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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