The Vancouver trip Part 2 - The Return

For our return trip to Calgary we allotted 4 days although many people do it in one long day and I usually do it in two. My husband flew out just for the road trip home and we wanted to take our time, visit points of interest and geocache along the way.

Our first stop was at Bridal Falls Golf Course for lunch with our friend who owns the course. The restaurant in the clubhouse serves amazing food. We started with a mango butternut squash soup that was just spicy enough to be flavourful but not enough to burn your tongue. Then we had salads accompanied by garlic toast drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette. I chose the green salad which had morsels of figs and feta cheese tossed in and was delicious. Alana and I shared a slice of lemon tart afterwards which was just the right finish for the meal. I highly recommend this restaurant as a lunch stop even if you don't golf but since this is a geocaching blog let me get back on track.

There were two caches within a short distance of the golf course. The nearest was Welcome to Bridal Falls (GC1H34K) which was at the end of a field just past the driving range and a quick, easy find. The second cache we went after was a BC Parks 100 cache called Bridal Veil Provincial Park (GC2Y1GD). This one took us into the woods of the Provincial Park where we did some stream hopping before finding the cache. We made it a lot harder than it was partly because the trees made it difficult for the GPS to pick up satellites. Eventually the old goat realized we were off track and doubled back to make the find.

 

The next destination on our "Stop and See One Day" list was the Othello Tunnels along the Coquihalla river. This is a series of no longer used railway tunnels that have become a pathway into history.

 The Kettle Valley Railway ran through these 5 tunnels built by Andrew McCullough in 1914. The tunnels are connected by trestles which have been converted to walkways. The views of the river from the path were beautiful and the tunnels were very cool to walk through.

 At the end of the tunnels and quite a good walk past the gate we located the hint that let us know we were nearing the cache. After some scrambling up and down rocks we finally found the cache.

Although we were deep in bear country we managed to complete this adventure without running into any grizzlies and that was a relief to me!

By the time we got back to my truck it was getting quite late so we had to make time to get to the town of Merritt for the night. I'll fill in the rest of our trip soon! If you get a chance to go to the Othello tunnels or if you are heading down the Coquihalla, this is a nice place to take a walk, stretch your legs and enjoy the views!

Scouting for a campground near Bragg Creek

On Sunday our little family took a drive to look for some potential campgrounds for future camping trips. We have lived in Calgary for five years but have not gone camping in the area, so we wanted to see what sort of sites are available. Our target area was south of Bragg Creek off of Highway 66, following the Elbow River. And since we were going for a drive, I thought we might as well pick up a few caches just for fun!

Our first stop was in the Redwood Meadows neighbourhood on Highway 22 before Bragg Creek.  To protect the townsite from the Elbow River floods a berm was built which makes a great walking path and happens to lead to two caches. The first one we sought out was On the way to Grandma's House (GC189XA). For a regular sized cache it was hidden in an unusual place but we made the find and headed off to Sherpa's Cache (GC17CF5). As we approached the trail head for this one, I glanced into the forest on our left and saw a beautiful buck laying beneath a tree enjoying the cool cover of the trees on this hot day. He was undisturbed by our presence and continued to rest as we passed by. The search for this cache was trickier and involved scrambling over rocks until the old Goat spotted the container. Inside the ammo can we discovered a travel geocoin ( SW#3's Shamrock) that we picked up to move along. When I entered the coin tracking number to log our find, I discovered that it had travelled to Europe, Eastern Canada, Hawaii and the southern USA and had ended up back at a cache just hundreds of meters from its origin!


Since we were so close to the Elbow River and it was a very hot day we went down to the edge of the river and dipped our hands and cooled off for a few minutes before continuing our journey.

We drove right past Bragg Creek as the line of traffic coming in and out was not inviting and continued on to Kananaskis Country on Highway 66. We stopped for a quick micro called Kananaskis Country Cache (GC12C97) right at the big sign for Kananaskis Country. The littlest goat jumped out of the car, walked over to GZ and plucked the cache from its hiding spot! She is getting to be an amazing cacher.

Just a few hundred metres away was the first campsite we wanted to check out and at the beginning of the path down to it, was another cache called Gooseberry (GCQM20). This one took a bit of walking around in the trees as the GPS couldn't get good satellite signals but eventually we found the spot and earned another smiley.

We checked out the campsites at McLean Creek and decided those would be the ones we try out when we get a chance to camp. Then there was just time for cooling off in the creek before heading back toward Calgary.

We made one final stop just before reaching the Trans-Canada highway and that was at a cache called Wolf Kubs Kache (GC3FK11) hidden by the Strathmore scouts. Parking near this cache was not allowed so the old goat and the littlest goat waited in the car while I made the trek to GZ to try my luck. This cache was easy to locate but hard to pick up. I had to use all my arm strength to retrieve it from its hiding spot and then repeat the process to replace it in the same spot! Should have sent in the old goat!

We are getting in more caching this summer by blending it in with other activities and taking opportunities to do quick ones when we can. They often bring us to places we never knew existed or ones that we have been meaning to get to but haven't taken the time. Where are you exploring this summer while you geocache?

Caching in the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary

As a family, we enjoy birdwatching and any chance to see wildlife up close, so a day of geocaching in the Bird Sanctuary is three kinds of fun! Family time, geocaching, and wildlife viewing all at the same time.

There is a very creative puzzle cache called IBS: Gnome's Animal Lodge at the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. The cache container itself is out in plain sight right at the entrance to the Sanctuary but in order to open the cache you need to walk around the trails and collect answers to questions on the cache page. This gets you visiting every part of the park and gives you a chance to view different songbirds, waterfowl, deer, muskrats, beavers, weasels, owls, and other creatures if you are lucky. There is a second cache called the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary Cache which gets you to do the same thing but the Final cache is off site. We collected all the answers for that one as we went around but didn't pick up the last cache as we were ready to go home by then.

As we walked we had amazing encounters with deer today. My daughter was thrilled when a young deer appeared beside her eating leaves that grow along the walkway. Alana held very still and watched with a huge smile on her face and then talked about it for the rest of the day. That is an experience she won't soon forget!

We also saw evidence of beavers hard at work.

The park looks completely different than when we have seen it in the fall, especially with the Bow River running high from the summer rains. The views along the river were beautiful as usual.
There were portions of the trails that were closed due to flooding but this would be temporary. Don't let it dissuade you from visiting the Sanctuary.

There is a third cache in the park commemorating the Colonel James Walker Historical Site. This is a regular cache with a container full of swag to trade.

Even if you haven't been bitten by the geocaching bug, there is lots to see at Inglewood Bird Sanctuary and it is well worth a visit any time of year.