The best laid schemes …

Today was a fun day, but not quite the day that we’d originally planned. My intentions were to go caching with my brother (known in caching circles as SG-3), two of my nephews, and a Tasmanian caching friend known as Snuva. Our intended target was a cache up in the hills behind Risdon Brook Dam. This was the scene of an amusing and entertaining misadventure at the beginning of the year, involving Snuva, SG-3 and I in search of an earlier version of the cache we were aiming for today. On THAT occasion we managed to take a somewhat circuitous route (we were never lost (we knew exactly where we were: that’s one of the advantages of carrying a GPSr), ending up on the wrong side of a cliff-edged gully, that required the careful and delicate negotiation of certain obstacles in order to reach our destination. It was worth the effort, and we were looking forward to going back there again … but with a more direct and sedate route in mind.

Our intentions, however, were thwarted. All the people were present, the weather was wonderful … but apparently this week’s heavy rain had caused flood damage at Risdon Brook Dam, and so it had been closed to visitors today. Bother! A case of “gang aft agley”.

Cut to Plan B.

Instead, we set off to do a nearby walk and cache on the banks of the Derwent River. There is a striking contrast between the natural beauty of the river, with the mountain behind it plus the surrounding bush, and the majestically ugly industrial complexity of the zinc works. The early part of the walk follows the bank of the river into a little bay with an old boiler rusting away. I managed to add a teensy amount of drama to the expedition by finding a wet rock to use as an excuse for sitting down abruptly. Fortunately only my pride was damaged … oh, and the GPSr’s protective case did its job but is now somewhat the worse for wear.

After the little bay the track heads uphill. Thomas mentioned the altitude from time to time, which simply confirmed the obvious: it was pretty clear that we were going uphill, it’s just that now we had the numbers to indicate exactly how much. Snuva’s contribution was much more useful. She’d been here before, and managed to dissuade SG-3 from blithely following the GPSr arrow when we reached our first “point of closest approach”. This saved us from what is reputedly a rather epic cross-country down-and-then-up-again prickly scrub-bash.

Thank you Snuva. My knees are grateful (as is my cardiovascular system!)

The resulting route was thus more roundabout than SG-3’s all-too-direct approach might have been, but MUCH more manageable now that we have seen the steepness of the gully we skirted.

After finding the cache and snacking on chocolate frogs and muffins it was time to head back to the car. The day had been a glorious one, with brilliant sunshine to make up for the damp greyness of the past week. Mind you, that damp greyness had made the creeks flow, which is very rare in this area.

All in all, a very enjoyable trip in good company. Thomas and Morgan (my two nephews) seemed to experience a sense of accomplishment. Morgan was very proud of himself for leading us back to the car (although at one stage I think he would have liked a teleporting machine to get him back faster), and Thomas proved quite eagle-eyed in spotting the cache. I captured this nice shot of the two of them as they headed back around the bay not far from the finish.

So, sometimes it doesn’t matter if the best-laid plans go astray. There are still great places to find, and it’s nice to do so in good company.

Later in the day I headed off on my own and did a couple of other caches, not least because it was too nice a day to stay inside, and I needed some more exercise after a week spent mostly indoors out of the rain. The wildflowers are just coming into bloom, and we’d spotted some white correa on the morning’s walk. I also came across a few heath plants near one of the caches I was hunting this afternoon. This one was just too pretty to ignore, so it had its photo taken. (I still can’t work out what happened to the second cache that I thought was near here, though. It was a puzzle I thought I’d solved; but evidently not. I’ll think about it some more … but not right now because it’s taken me ages to get these photos in the places I wanted, and so it’s now the turn-into-a-pumpkin side of midnight.)