Charles Darwin Walk

Not sure what has been stopping me from actually adding some content to my new blog, but I just seem to get a blank every time I sit down to write something. So today I'm forcing myself to post something, even if it is just photos from a recent geocaching walk.

I did this one in late August, it's the cache GCKM2P - Monkey Puzzle. I had to be in Wentworth Falls that morning with a friend, and after we'd finished our business we decided to go caching.

My friend had done this one previously, but agreed to do it again with me.

This one is a multi-cache, with the first waypoint at the start of the Charles Darwin Walk, at the back of Wilson Park, on Falls Road.

The track follows Jamison Creek down to the top of the Falls.

The walk is (obviously) named after Charles Darwin, who visited the area in 1836, towards the end of his voyage as a naturalist on HMS Beagle.

We had a lot of rain over winter, so the creek was running high.

It rained slightly on our walk, but not enough to worry us. But that could have been the reason that there weren't too many other people out on the track.

We reached the second waypoint just before we got to the viewing area above the Falls (with views over Jamison Valley). Luckily my friend had done this one before, because he recognised that the signs I needed to calculate GZ had been replaced with newer signs and that it was now impossible to work out the final coordinates.

Even better, he had the phone number for the cache owner, and called him to tell him the bad news about the signs and to ask for the final coordinates. The cache owner gave us the coordinates we needed, then offered to meet us at GZ as he lived nearby.

GZ was back up the track, on the other side of the creek. Apparently there is normally a spot where you can get across & keep your feet dry. But as I noted before, it's been raining a lot lately and the creek level is up. We got the crossing point. My friend is tall enough that he jumped over. I didn't think I'd make it without falling backwards & getting completely soaked. So I tested out my waterproof boots and just walked across the creek. Here's the bleeding obvious - waterproof boots aren't waterproof once the water goes over the top of the boots!

The CO and my friend chatted while I searched for the cache, and after stumbling around blindly for a bit, I eventually managed to find it, and became the first person to log this cache in over a year. Then the CO generously offered to drive us back to the car, saving me from having to wade through the creek again.