Spelunking in the suburbs

Firstly, if you are like me you will be wanting to know what the heck spelunking is.  Legoman, while often unable find the salt directly in front of him in the pantry, is a wealth of information about all things trivial, particularly with interesting names. I am informed that spelunking is a much more interesting word than caving or cave exploration.

Secondly, if you are like me you will be wondering where on earth are there caves in suburban Brisbane? Well, let me fill you in on our adventure filled Sunday. Last weekend, while scoping out the lookout at Mt Gravatt mountain, Legoman discovered a geocache nearby. The cache description stated to never look for this one at night, and that it was not safe for children. We figured in broad daylight we would press on and I would turn back with the kids if it became too rugged.

We easily found the cache and then turned around and saw this huge hole. About 3 m deep we of course had to climb down and have a look. Unfortunately, being a cave and all it was too dark to see much. So an expedition was planned with our neighbours the Menace brothers  for the following weekend. Backpacks were stocked with provisions, torches, rescue rope and maps. The Menace brothers being the oldest were straight in.

Liongirl, who had dressed for caving with boots, fairy skirt and pet lamb, was given the coveted job of winding up the battery free Ikea torch.

When we got to the bottom this time, we were prepared for some serious exploration.

I had felt a breeze down there last week and suspected a connection to a larger cave we had found. Sure enough, there was a tunnel and the boys were off.

A few minutes later and we stepped out into a massive cavern with several light well holes filled with ferns. Hence the suggestion not to go geocaching around these parts in the dark. Yep, the tiny figures at the bottom are the dads.

And we found the other bigger cave entrance, no warning signs, no barricades, no theme park entrance ticket booth.  Just pure unadulterated boy's own adventure stuff with the possibility of spiders, bats,  a cave in, skeletons and treasure. For the record we only saw some dead huntsmen spiders and a small frog.

But it was so super exciting, we had to go all the way back through and up our original rope.

And then we packed up all our gear and talked about caving, and talked some more and then we were all so hyped up we thought we had best find some more geocaches. The caves must be known to locals as there was evidence of a fire within the large one and they are quite close to some houses that back onto the forest, but I am still amazed that they were not closed to the public for safety reasons.

 We were thankful for the opportunity to take a risk and sail unchartered waters so to speak. I think that opportunities like these  are particularly important to boys who thrive on quests and adventure and whose everyday lives are often so safe and sanitized that they can only obtain this kind of adventure in a computer generated world.

After all this we were pretty worn out so it was straight up to the cafe for Lemonade icypoles.

There is nothing better than  adventuring in your own backyard with neighbourhood mates. We feel so lucky to live where we do and have a neighbourhood of like minded kids and parents. And we are getting really excited about Halloween as our whole street gets right into this celebration as well.

Trolling for treasure

Who's that trip-trapping over MY bridge? Why that would be Liongirl and one of her besties. We rounded up some nerd friends good mates and went on a Geocaching marathon.  The clue for this location was that we would have to "troll to find this cache". The boys found it almost instantly, tucked under the end of this bridge. And look who we popped back into the cache to continue his adventures.

Meet "Travel Bug". Our friends were sitting in a Roadside diner on the way to Toowoomba when they thought they might just check their iphone app and see if there were any caches around. Lo and behold about 2 k's up the road they found a cache containing this bug who had made his way across the world from Texas in the United States. He is now sequestered in a cache under a bridge in Toowong. Apparently you can hop onto Geocaching.com and log all his locations.

Since the energy was running high we decided to push on and see if we could locate a few of the numerous        caches hidden within the sprawling Toowong Cemetery. We had a visual clue of the gorgeous stained glass windows in the Temple of Peace. Roboboy's mate found the tomb almost straight away, but where could the cache be hidden safely? Let me just say that trying to keep a gang of small children from disrespectfully walking over tombstones is no mean feat.

This tomb is a fantastic piece of anti- war propaganda. It was erected by a man who purported to have lost all 4 of his sons in the war. There is even a statue in honour of his dog "Pup" who was also killed. Tucked behind the large structure was a small bunch of faux flowers in a dish. Roboboy was the lucky finder of this cache, hidden in a most ingenious manner. Treasures were pocketed, others replaced in the cache and the logbook completed. If you stumble across "Geo-Legoman" in your caching travels, that would be us.

We found two more caches here before arsenic hour hit and it was time to get those toddlers back home. There is something gorgeous about old tombstones in the slow light of dusk. Dedications to long gone " Henriettas" and "Berthas". And some simple ones that just make your chest constrict a little.

No graves were desecrated in the finding of these caches. We did however replace some cool treasure items with some slightly dodgy bits and bobs from the coin drawer in our car. Comet boy and Magnet girl who had found one of the caches only hours earlier had logged in but not taken anything. Legoman wants to have a dedicated cache stash in the car at all times for fair trade swaps. He is even considering leaving lego bricks at every location.

 If you have not yet tried Geocaching, and you are part of the huge crowd of people who own an iphone ( that would be the entire universe minus me and a handful of others), give it a go. It's super fun, and very addictive. Legoman and Roboboy even found a cache this morning while waiting for the new tyres to be fitted onto our car.

Treasure hunting the Geocaching way

Yesterday was a public holiday here in Brisbane for the Exhibition or Ekka as we all call it. Given that several of the occupants of this house have been almost continuously sick for the last 3 months, and the Ekka is a cesspit of disease, we made other plans.

A few days ago, one of my oldest and dearest friends wrote this post about going Geocaching in the Latvian countryside. Like all important things in life, she had first learnt about this from her hairdresser. Geocaching is the ultimate treasure hunt. Random strangers hide treasures all over the countryside, then leave clues and GPS coordinates for fellow treasure hunters to follow. Of course in Latvia this involves scouring the stone ruins of windmills and finding the tombstones of Baronesses. Our curiosity was piqued, nerds that we are, so we jumped straight onto Geocaching.com.au and signed up (it's free). We were stunned to discover at least three hidden caches in our surrounding area , one hidden within a local park that we have frequented since Roboboy was first toddling.

There was no time to lose, snacks were packed, helmets buckled and our little biking convoy was on its way. Legoman is yet to own a bike so he enjoyed the job of towing Liongirl along. We seem to always need a snack stop within about 2 minutes of leaving the house.

We had approximate GPS coordinates on the iphone and a brief clue to indicate which section of the park to look in.  Of course we had to make several stops to sample playgrounds and collect flowers. I can highly recommend this trike and rope system for needing to get a toddler to travel long distances, the trike cost $19 in Kmart from memory and this journey would be at least 2-3 kms return.

The clue suggested we search within a particular area of the park, quite daunting when you don't really know what you are looking for. The kids were checking under all the trees, around trunks, along fences when Legoman finally spotted the cache. Excitement galore from us all.

Quite high up in a tree, hidden nesting inside an old bike helmet were the cache goodies. We knew there would usually be a notebook so we could record ourselves as finders, and sometimes there would be trade objects as well. You know, take one, leave something behind in its place.

Look at that. Amazing to think that we had been pounding the paths past this avenue of trees for the last 5 years, none the wiser to the treasures hidden there. We carefully recorded our details and packed it all up and hid it again. ( we plan to sneak back with a trade item, Roboboy has his eye on that snail) This cache spot is apparently one of a series of 15 with an individual clue in each spot to lead to a further final cache.

 Legoman is hooked, he and Roboboy are already plotting to team up with our neighbours the Menace brothers to tackle another cache within riding distance. He was also most excited to discover an iphone app that shows you the coordinates and clues for the three closest caches to any location you might be in (yes, that is 1.4 million caches worldwide). Or just jump onto Geocaching.com and you can search all of Australia and New Zealand as well.

 Bored of girl talk at a cafe? Sneak off to that cache hidden just around the corner and be back in time for your pancakes. On holidays at the beach, sitting around while your wifey tries on togs in that little boutique? Duck out to that cache and be back in time to find  her a matching sarong. I think men and boys everywhere would be rejoicing to know there was such a fantastic excuse to sneak off from all the boring girl things we drag them along to. The only problem is, I want to go too.