10 year old cache

Ten years ago, not long after satellite signals for navigation became publicly available, a guy named George hid the first cache in Victoria.

Another person to blame!

At 60km from Melbourne, the name “Melbourne’s 1st” is a bit of a misnomer, but he picked a good spot in the hills above Strath Creek, and the cache has survived the intervening decade (although the container has been replaced at least a couple of times). A celebration was duly planned by some cachers to mark its tenth anniversary.

Thus it was that my caching friend Muzza, Sabrina the visiting PhD student from Germany (who had never heard of caching before, poor soul!*), and I headed northward for a caching run in the country that would include an “event” and a visit to this landmark cache.

It was a glorious spring day, and recent rains had greened the countryside beautifully. Capeweed, which I’m sure is a virulent pest, was sprawled across the hills, creating vast patches of yellow glowing in the sun. There was also sobering evidence of the devastating fires of February 2009, accompanied by signs of recovery with new plant growth and house rebuilding.

We visited several caches during the course of the morning (it’s pretty much the case that I haven’t found anything that Muzza hasn’t found … and, of course, the slate was completely clean for Sabrina), many of which had some spectacular views. Sabrina got to see some typical Australian bush (there were large tracts that hadn’t been affected by the fires), saw her first kangaroo and kookaburra, and found her first cache. I’m not sure, however, that she was entirely convinced by our reassurances about how worried to be about snakes and spiders!

Just before lunchtime we stopped at one cache that offered a superb vista over the hills and valleys, as seen in the first two photos (hmmm, I’ve just noticed the non-horizontal horizon in the first photo—normally I only do that with oceans!). We then headed down to Strath Creek to meet up with about 70 or so cachers for lunch and chatting, and the original George had been located and was able to attend and tell the story of how he came to hide the cache.

Shortly afterwards a large convoy headed up to visit the birthday cache. Needless to say this was an easy “find”: the cache had already been located when I got there, and the log book was being passed around so it was just a matter of waiting my turn in order to sign it. You can see how crowded it was in the first photo below (and that’s only about half of the people who attended the event, because some people had found it earlier in the day or earlier in their caching careers).

Muzza, Sabrina and I then headed homewards, stopping at another cache on the way which had views over the rolling green hills in the last photos. In the 12 years that I have been in Victoria, I have never seen the northern and western countryside so green. There are dams that are brim-full, and after years of seeing parched straw-yellow-brown hillsides and muddy and dry waterholes it is a stunning—and relieving—transformation.

* Yes, I know there are two ways that this can be taken: it’s sad that she’s never experienced it before, or it may be unfortunate that she now has!