Tuesday 24 June 2014

Windy Woodlands!

We've visited the Woodlands Historic Park a few times, and enjoyed touring the adjoining Living Legends facility also.

The weather was fairly pleasant for previous excursions but it was definitely rather wild today!

On checking just now it seems the recorded wind speed (at the time of our bushwalk) was near gale force.  Yep, Nick and I were very keen geocachers!  Our efforts logged another 13 found caches, bringing our overall tally to 393 - so we are well on track for finding our 400th during our anniversary month.  Hooray!

One cache was no longer accessible as there is an Eastern Barred Bandicoot (EBB) reserve located within the park.  You can read about these endangered animals here.  After walking a bit over 3km, we decided we'd done our dash for the day and returned to the car for a picnic lunch.  A group of Conservation Volunteers were gathered at the picnic area, perhaps set to do some work for the EBBs.

A trio of magpies flew down to supervise our lunch preparations.  During the latter part of our picnic, a strong gust of wind blew food containers, food and other stuff onto the ground.  The magpies were very pleased of some cheese and crackers but a bit ho-hum about the dried fruit!

Saturday 21 June 2014

Murdered marshmallows!

Nick had to work today. He left home around 5:00am. The rest of us slept in - as long as Oscar (the starved) cat deemed appropriate!

We took our time getting ready but once breakfasted and presentable, we ventured out to collect a parcel of mailed goodies and then visit one of our local libraries.

It was a short drive from the library to this lovely park. The ducks greeted us enthusiastically and a couple of crows keep an eye on us from the trees.

Nick and I explored the park a while back but it was new to Vaughan and Erin, who enjoyed hot chocolates (with marshmallows) while chatting with the resident ducks.

When we had all finished our drinks, I stacked up our small collection of picnic gear and we strolled down the track.

Vaughan was keen to paddle in the shallow water but we encouraged him to walk further.  We had wandered around to the other side of the creek and I was taking photos of the paddling ducks when Erin commented that the crows were taking over our picnic!  As we'd eaten all the muffins, I wasn't greatly worried but Vaughan scrambled across the creek to chase them off.  (He really just wanted an excuse for crossing the water at the causeway)!

While he was in hot pursuit, I remembered the marshmallow bag was open, inside the crate.  When Erin and I returned to the table we could see the bag had been breached and there was a trail of marshmallow crumbs on the table!  Vaughan was not impressed, though had a bit of a smirk when he described one crow with marshmallow stuck to it's beak!

Friday 20 June 2014

Friday fun ...

We haven't been geocaching for a while.  As it was Friday, I made orange poppyseed cakes as well as a batch of hot choc mix so we could enjoy a simple afternoon tea picnic, after school.

It was quite cold, so our hot drinks were much appreciated as we stood admiring the views (after finding our first cache).

We drove on, doing about a 60km loop in total - and finding two more caches, bringing our overall tally to 380. 

We started caching in June 2010 so are keen to find our 400th cache for our 4th anniversary!