View from the top of The Spinnaker
Orroral Valley from GC1XAJQ Ridge of Stone geocache
Saturday 24 May: Day trips in the Namadgi #3 – The Spinnaker – S/R. A morning ramble from the Honeysuckle Creek camp ground. Map: Corin Dam. Leaders: Jenny and Rob H. Transport: ~$24 per car.
6 of us drove in 3 cars to the Honeysuckle camp ground car park.
Further Information
Provided it’s OK with the walk leaders, do GC168XY Honeysuckle Dreaming. See spoiler pics on phone.
If time and inclination in the arvo, do:
GC26965 Exploring History – Honeysuckle Creek
GC11FNJ Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station (earthcache). See phone for questions
GC168XW Namadgi Billabong (multi). See multi clues and spoiler pic on phone.
Then drive to the collimation tower car park on Orroral Ridge and do caches on the Ridge of Stone.
Summary
Distance: 13.4km | Climb: 720m | Time: 8.30am-12.40pm (4hrs 10mins); 1.00-4.00pm (3hrs) | Grading: M/M,ptX; H(12-)
Track Map
Photographs
Photographs are available, where you can start a large sized slide show.
Google Earth
Download the Google Earth .kmz file here.
Track Notes
I drove out by myself so I could continue geocaching after the walk to the Spinnaker. A zippy trip allowed me time to skip down the Booroomba Rocks Track from the Honeysuckle Creek camp ground car park and find GC26965 Exploring History – Honeysuckle Creek before the others arrived.
We set off through the European wasp traps and along the Orroral Ridge Road, then turned down the fire trail which goes to the tanks. Over the bridge and up to the corner where the footpad starts. It’s becoming well trodden in and took us to the open area containing the fire place and ‘sun-dial’ rock.
No mucking about from Rob and we headed straight up the side of the hill, soon gaining the scrappy scrub and regrowth. We hit the lovely rock overhangs, then continued steeply up to the crest of the hill. We approached the top of the Spinnaker from the back, entering through a slot in the boulders.
Fabulous views, but my mind was on less important things. I thew my pack down and spent 20mins of our 30min morning tea looking for geocache GC168XY Honeysuckle Dreaming. GPSr was jumping all over the place and I finally gave up. Returning to the relaxing party, there was the cache within inches of my pack. Another DOH! moment.
We retraced our steps, in good old Oz fashion – the blokes silently walking out front and the gals talking away behind us.
Back at the bridge over the creek my companions continued back to their cars and I sat down to work out GC168XW Namadgi Billabong. However, I’d sat on my glasses at some stage and they only had one wing. This made it difficult to read the instructions for the cache, so I counted the tags on all 5 posts (concrete + flexible). Crunching the numbers, I got a 2-digit number for the thousands of the longitude decimal minutes. So back to the drawing board and with a second correct count, calculated the final GZ which matched where I knew it would be from the photo. A quick walk back up the fire trail, made the small adjustment and found the cache.
I wandered back down and took a walk along a new looking track which took me to the tracking station site.
Here I did the clues for GC11FNJ Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station and will email in the answers. I like earthcaches – no stuff left lying around.
Back to my car and a drive up the Orroral Ridge Road to the collimation tower car park.
Being old and stupid, I’d neglected to load the nearby traditional caches into my GPSr before I left home. So, with phone reception and the Geocache app, accessed nearby caches and laboriously wrote down the co-ordinates and hints, then put the coords in my GPSr. That’ll teach me.
A pleasant stroll SE along the ridge to the Belfry where I found GC168Y0 Bats in the Belfry. No way could this be found without the spoiler pics. Returned to my car.
Then another wander NW along the ridge. Found GC21HAX 300 Spartans.
Approaching the cave I heard voice and ran into some guys climbing above the top crawl exit from the cave. Said g’day. Entered the cave through the front door, mistakenly looked for the cache up the crawl, so popped out and said g’day to them again. Retreating, I examined the correct crevice and found GC1GE7M Lego Land II.
The next one was right up my alley. I’ve walked this footpad a few times, but never been to the edge where this cache is. Lovely boulders and tors and a slightly different view of the Orroral Valley below. Found GC1XAJQ Ridge of Stone.
Yet further up the ridge, it was more difficult to approach GCJ163 Lego Land. Re-reading the cache description, I obviously used the non-safe approach. Being by myself and with no rope, I could only get within 12m of the cache and above it.
Back on the footpad, I wandered to and found GC4XG3C Bendy Boulder.
A couple of texts from my daughter in Sydney as I wandered back. Her birthday tomorrow and due to produce my grandson any day.
Party
The Spinnaker: 6 – Jenny and Rob H (leaders), Tristan R, Jenny S, Lorraine T, me.
Orroral Ridge of Stone geocaching: me.