Southern Desire

At your own risk you can jump directly to Part 2 (Field work). The stage info is collected in boxes - this is all what is needed for the puritans.

Part 1: General information

Target audience/What to be expect

Those who enjoy going for a longer walk and like multi caches where the cache is mainly a virtual guide along the walk. Do not expect anything of the following: a special container, tricky tasks, an adventurous hike, breathtaking stages.

The recommended mode of visit is on foot. The route is suitable for MTBs too though biking is prohibited in some segments). Visits by car are discouraged.

The best seasons for this cache are spring and autumn. Winter visits are possible too if there is not too much snow. The cache could be a good choice for days which are not suitable for mountain tours.

The route involves a mixture of forest trails, meadow paths, field tracks as well as paved roads and will lead you through a variety of diverse landscapes (settlement areas, forests, agricultural areas, view points). The character of the walk and of the cache are similar to my Josef Krainer cache with the additional asset of offering a round trip. To get an impression of what to expect have a look at my photo collection (taken on two different days).

Route and terrain information

Start: The cache starts and ends in Enzelsdorf.

Public transportation: The start can be conveniently reached by public transportation: get off at the stop "Enzelsdorf Ort" which is served by the Verbund lines 510 and 521.

Parking: Those who come by car can park at the public parking lot below the church in Enzelsdorf.

Terrain: Expect a walk of approximately 19 km and 500 height meters elevation change (your mileage might vary a bit depending on which route you take). The terrain rating of 3* has been exclusively chosen due to the length of the tour. The terrain never becomes more difficult than 2.5* at most.

Time requirements: Plan for 4-5.5 hours (add further time for detours like the Hühnerberg summit). Very fit cachers who do not take breaks will be able to finish faster. Please do not visit the final when it is dark.

Route: The cache route starts and ends at Enzelsdorf and essentially follows the route of the southern loop (Südring) of the GU Süd Rundwanderweg (GSR for short) for which also three other loops (North, West and East) are offered. The loop chosen for this cache is in my opinion the nicest one among the four (and also the one with the lowest tarmac proportion). In some sections deviations from the marked route are possible (e.g. the detour via the Hühnerkogel summit).

In most sections the trail is well marked and I have added a few auxiliary waypoints (prefixed by H), however bringing along a map is still recommendable (even more so if you intend to deviate from the marked route in some sections). Maps with the correct GSR South route can be found at gipfelrast.at and at www.wandermap.net. Note that the routes offered at www.outdooractive.com and at www.bergfex.at contain mistakes and do not always match the marked route.

Food and beverages: Inns along the way are Schlager/Muellerwirt (closed We), Gocklstubn (closed Mo) and Steira-Herzl (open Th-Su afternoon) in Enzelsdorf and Hubmann in Wutschdorf (closed Tue+We). Some inns, bakeries and coffee houses in Fernitz and Hausmannstätten are not far off the route.

Logs/Photos

Logs that report about your experience as well as photos along the way are very welcome and highly appreciated by me, but please avoid spoilers which give away stage informations or contain the coordinates of the final.

Part 2: Fieldwork

Collect the variables A, B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K at the Stages 1-9 (I do not use E to avoid confusion with East and avoid I for readability issues.)

Stage 1 (Church Enzelsdorf)

N 46° 57.012' E 015° 30.580'

You have arrived at the Saint James church (Jakobikirche) in Enzelsdorf. I considered for a moment to be mean and to test your Latin but then my nice side won. So a more relaxing task waits for you. Have a look at the gravestone on the facade to the right of the entrance door. A1: The number of helmets displayed in the coat of arms. A2: The total number of consonants in the buried person's first and last name. A = A1 * A2 Backup 1: Leave the church area and walk towards the parking lot. Watch out for a green mast with a red-white-red trail marker. Count the number of letters in the white part and add 7 to get A. (Comment: Unfortunately, part of the text has faded out over the time and need to be guessed. Better rely on Backup 2 in case of doubt.) Backup 2: Next to the mast there is a bench. Count the total number of letters of the two words punched out from the metal sign attached to the bench. Add 10 to this number to get A.

Background info: Today's church building which builds upon some elements of older churches dates back to the 17-th century. The first church at this location has already been mentioned in documents in the mid 12-th century and belongs to the oldest church buildings in Styria. The church in Enzelsdorf is consecrated to Saint James and thus is also visited by pilgrims traveling on different versions of St James's Way. One of the noteworthy aspects is a Roman gravestone from around 100 A.D. that got integrated into the Southern church wall (do not miss to have a look at it).
Further information on the church (in German) can be found in a folder of the Fernitz parish and on www.bergfex.at.

Route information: Walk back down to the main road again and turn left at H1. From there follow the trail markers.

Stage 2 (Hunter's Eldorado I)	N 46° 57.291' E 015° 31.016'
You should have arrived at a raised hide. B: The number of rungs of the ladder leading up to the raised hide. (Comment added August 2021: It could be that one the rungs got damaged/lost. Make use of the backup and the parity check in the hint in case of doubt.) As a backup: Continue to the backup waypoint T2. There you will encounter another raised hide. Obtain B in the same way as above.

Route information: Continue along the marked route. Near H2 you leave the forest area and follow a road for a while. Do not enter the area of the riding stable, follow the road a bit further: waypoint HH might help you. On your way to Stage 3 you will enter another forest area.

Stage 3 (Who is going to win?)	N 46° 57.944' E 015° 31.360'
Enjoy the forest area. A more urban part is ahead of you. Watch out for a tree with black text (several letters and one number) on a white field. One letter and the number are fighting for who dominates the other. C: The sum of the number and of the letter's code (just one letter; use A=1, B=2, etc).

Route information: Waypoints H3 and H4 might be helpful to keep you from losing the GSR trail. After having left the forest area a more urban part is ahead of you. If you do not insist on following the GSR route and do not mind a longer way you could consider taking a route via the Buchkogel. The GSR route turns right at H5 and then follows the creek for a while. This route makes you pass the Naschgarten, a collaborative Garden project and the associated geocache.

Stage 4 (Unhappy Douglas Adams)

N 46° 58.553' E 015° 30.525'

You have left the centre of Fernitz behind you and are heading for Hausmannstätten. I hope you enjoyed the flat walk along the creek before the route will involve height meters again. Watch out for a green sign with three lines of white text on it. D: The number of letters of the longest word on the sign. Backup 1: Continue your walk and watch out for beehives placed on the meadow. Next to there there is a black sign with some white text and something in yellow on it. Take the letter code of the second last letter on the sign to obtain D. Backup 2: Watch out for a red bench. To obtain D add the number of planks of the seat (ignore the back rest) to the number of screws with which these planks are fixed.

Route information: If you decided to follow the GSR route, waypoints H6 and H7 might be helpful on your way to the next stage.

Stage 5 (Its best times are gone)

N 46° 59.275' E 015° 31.328'

This place might evoke some memories in long time cachers. On warm days it might offer you a break from being exposed to the sun before and after this stage. Watch out for a square-shaped metallic cover (slightly above ground level) with three lines of text on it. F: The total number of letters in all three lines. As a backup: Watch out for a kind of "window" grille with many tiny square-shaped holes arranged in a matrix. Count the number of rows of the matrix and add one to obtain F.

Route information: At waypoint H8 you can either stick with the GSR route and follow the road further or immediately head for the summit of the Hühnerberg (Chicken hill). The latter option shortcuts the tarmac portion and is nicer but longer. Be careful as the route is a popular route for adventurous MTB-ers - there is ample of room however to get out of the way of the bikers.

At the summit you can take a rest at the bench and have a look at the summit register (which unfortunately meanwhile is abused also as log book for the Top of chicken hill traditional which used to be guideline-conforming and had a separate container when I found it.

Stage 6 (Where are the chicken?)

N 46° 59.008' E 015° 32.075'

Regardless of whether you arrived here via the summit of the Hühnerberg (Chicken Hill) or via the GSR route, you now have arrived at a point where several hiking routes cross. Watch out for three yellow arrow-shaped sign posts. Each of them provides an estimate for the required walking time. G1: The sum of the three walking times estimates (all taken in minutes) G = G1/10. As a backup: Below the yellow signs there is a white sign with some text in green and in black. Count the number of letters of the last word in green and of the first word in black and add these two numbers and subtract 2 to obtain G.

Route information: The further route leads you down from the Hühnerberg. Then follow the Krenngraben road. At waypoint H9 you could decide for a short detour to the Haus der Stille, a location which I regard as worth to be visited. There used to exist a geocache there too but that got archived a while ago.

Stage 7 (Hunter's Eldorado II)

N 46° 58.175' E 015° 32.183'

Another area that seems popular among hunters. You should have arrived at another raised hide. H: The number of rungs of the ladder leading up to the raised hide. As a backup: Continue further along the way. Soon you will reach a little cross behind a small fence with a bench next to it. Look at the backside of the cross. How many V-shaped objects can you see there? To obtain H double this number and add the total number of half cylinders that form the seat of the bench (do not take the back rest into account).

Route information: In Gnaning waypoint HA might be helpful to you. A small forest trail leads you to Tropbach. Then follow the road. For those who have not been in the area before two traditionals, the 380 KV Wutschdorf cache and the Jakobsbach cache, could be motivations for a detour.

Stage 8 (Time for a decision)

N 46° 57.072' E 015° 31.834'

You have arrived at a signpost : time for a decision. Are you sure you want to continue with this cache or are some other destinations more attractive to you? For this cache you need the three potential destinations mentioned on the sign or rather just their first letters. J: The sum of the letter codes of the first letters of the three destinations. Backup 1: Before reaching Stage 8 you should have passed a large green sign on the left side of the road. Count the number of red points on it and subtract 1. Multiply the result by 3 to obtain J. Backup 2: Go back to the crossing which you recently passed. There you should encounter a signpost with many signs, most of them listing villages. Have a look at the lowermost sign . Take the total number of letters of all five words and subtract 4 to obtain J.

Stage 9 (The last stones?)

N 46° 56.613' E 015° 31.531'

You now have reached the last stage before the final. Hopefully the stones encountered here are no obstacles to your success. Watch out for a stone to your left with originally three letters (one got damaged) and a number on it. K: The number on the stone. As a backup: Roughly 30-35m further along the way you will find another stone to your left. Watch out for the number on it. You obtain K by subtracting 1.

Calculations
I cannot offer you a bench for performing the calculations. If you have mobile internet you can however make use of the multichecker. (The multichecker option is an experiment - if it gets abused, I will remove this option.) U = ( A + C + F + H) * (B - K) - 2*G*K + 5 V = (B + F ) * D + (G + J + K) * (A + K - D) + 12 X = 56.200 + U / 1000 Y = 32.000 - V / 1000

Route information: At HB leave the paved road and turn right into the small trail. In sommer when not appropriately dressed you might prefer to stay on the road to avoid an encounter with an area of stinging nettles.

Final	N 46° X' E 015° Y'
The cache container is a small lock and lock container which only contains a log book, a pencil and a cache note. It is hidden at a characteristic hideout location. Please rehide the cache container well.

Route information: The GSR route will bring you back to the church in Enzelsdorf. Waypoint HC might be helpful.


Change log:

May 1, 2017: Added link to German description.
May 9, 2017: Added a comment and a hint for C.
November 1, 2017: Added a second backup for Stage 8 as the sign required for the original task might have went missing.
November 6, 2017: The sign at Stage 8 is available. Removed the statement about the missing sign from the cache description, but kept the second backup option.
April 13, 2019: Added a second backup question for Stage 4.
August 16, 2020: Added a second backup for Stage 1.
August 25, 2021: Added a hint for variable B at Stage 2 and fixed a minor flaw in the formulation of the question for backup 2 at Stage 1.