3 Days of Cow Parading and Geocaching!

I have been unplugged for a few days while I went south to Bunbury visiting very dear friends Richard and Lynette.

During this extended weekend visit Richard and Lynette had me on the moove (in more ways than one) virtually from the moment of arrival.  They are avid Geocachers and roped me into several searches.  This is an excellent way to exercise without realising that's what you are doing, plus it is a great way to see the country and some fabulous spots that would most likely go unseen.  I think they were impressed  with my intuitive scanning technique which found the first cache....and I must say it was very well hidden and took a super sensitive being to nail its whereabouts!!!

No one would pose for a pic so Flynn kindly obliged...he is sitting just in front of the plant that the cache was hidden under.

 Geocachers go to ingenious lengths to make their containers blend in with the landscape, this was some type of nut/pod that had been drilled to take a plastic phial which holds a mini scroll to log your find on.

My Icelandic link for this post is that friends and fellow Geocachers of Richard and Lynette were in Iceland while I was in Bunbury and we were able to track their journey around Iceland through the Geocaching website and they visited and found a cache in Sauðárkrókur the place I hope to soon call home!

While we were on the trail of caches we also linked in the Cow Parade an art initiative that was on in the Margaret River region.

This one titled 'Moo-Vaders' by Nathan Morris was placed outside the Margaret River Chocolate Factory, so we had a quick look at the cow and longer drool look at the chockies inside....we did not go home empty handed!

We stopped for a coffee in Margaret River and saw this one outside the Pharmacy, titled 'Pharmoosist'  by some artist friends of mine Penny and Michael Wise.  Unfortunately it had been a little vandalised and many of the medicine/pill lids had been ripped off.  We did find that several cows where in hospital due to a sickly bout of vandalism.

This one is called 'Moodles' and created by Iona Presentation College

'Books Moove Me' was created by Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators.  The herd of cows will all be auctioned off for charity in July and I hope this one ends up in a library somewhere.

'Herd But Not Seen' by artist Peter Lowe also had the hidden name of Betsy.

'The Grass Is Always Greener' by artist Tim Brett

'Dreams Of The Daliesque Bovine' by Suzanne Horton

This one is for Harry Potter fans 'Professor Bovinicus' by Len Zuks. 

'Moorine Marauder' by Geographe Marine Engineering was at Cape Leeuwinn which was near a difficult cache find...more on that later in this post.

'The Dark Cow' a bat like creature suspended at Lake Cave by the Cave Team.

 This one was our favourite called 'Free As A Cow' by artist Ron Roozen who takes a tongue in cheek look at another artwork in the region titled 'Free As A Bird' affectionately called 'Chick On A Stick' by locals and 'Free As A Cow' has now been nicknamed 'Rump On A Stump'.

'Free As A Bird' at the Laurance Winery

A lovely view of Leeuwin Lighthouse in Augusta

On the way I took a few photos,  these are Bluebottle jellyfish or otherwise known outside Australia as the Portuegese Man of War washed up on the shore.

Previous visitors had constructed small Cairns from the abundant rocks.

Two completely black gulls...I have never seen those before.

Trying to get to this cache was fraught with difficulty, firstly we took the long route...discovering a shorter one later.  We had to clamber over rocks for 1.7 km, the clue given was that it was located at sea level and yes I took this literally and got quite wet.  Lynette and I did around a kilometre and then decided to turn back as the rocks were becoming quite slippery...Richard soldiered on determined to get to the cache. However he also had to give up as the rocks turned into a sheer wall which was impossible to cross.  This is when we discovered a closer 4 wheel drive track which brought us to within a couple of hundred metres of the target, we all started out together but us girls gave up when we realised we would need to walk through huge piles of seaweed and most likely get quite wet...but Richard did us proud and succeeded in logging our claim. 

Richard on his victory walk back!