After my Pine Lake Adventure, my husband and daughter wanted to do a series of caches as well but didn't have the stamina to do 100. So we headed just North of the city to a series placed by a veteran cacher who goes by the handle KinderKen. He placed 13 separate caches along a quiet country road where there are often moose, deer, coyotes, muskrats, ducks, hawks and other birds. We started at the West end of the road because it was closer access for us but it didn't make a difference to your searches which one you started with.
The area is certainly quiet with very little traffic, lots of birdsong, some cows warning us off their pastures, and lots of buzzing mosquitoes. We had the first cache, (GC3F4QM) A Snaky Road Cache, in hand very quickly as I had seen one just like it on the Pine Lake Trail. Each cache had an original container and was hidden in a different manner than the previous one. Some required a bit of a climb, others just needed a good pair of eyes or three. We added in one cache along the same road (GC2VYB8) Just Off the Trail which was placed by Sleepy_hollow. The littlest goat found it with no problem after a boost up the bank by Mama goat. We enjoyed the little meadow this one brought us to, with a variety of wildflowers in bloom.
The final cache in the Road series is called Ziggy Zaggy Road cache (GC3F4YG) and is rated higher on the difficulty scale. Unfortunately, this one proved to be too elusive for us and we had to go home with one DNF. We did stop at another cache just down the road (GC23G73) Mountain View Trackable Bed and Breakfast to drop a geocoin to move along its way. We enjoy picking up these travelers whenever we can and checking out the maps that show how far they have come. We have several travel bugs and coins circulating in the geocaching world right now and hope that people will keep them moving.
Doing these road caches inspired us to do more series and our next adventure took us along the Bearspaw Lasso Trail for a string of hiking caches.
Showing posts with label travel bugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel bugs. Show all posts
Saturday, 10 August 2013
Sunday, 2 September 2012
Summer trip to Vancouver and a little caching
I had hoped to reach 300 cache finds by the end of the summer (I know, its not about the numbers!!) but our recent trip to Vancouver and back has blown that goal out of the water! We may be heading for 400 before the end of the year!!
My Mom came to Calgary for a visit at the beginning of August, flying out here on the 8th and spending a week joining in on our activities. Then my daughter and I packed up the truck and drove her back to Vancouver and stayed for our own visit. While we were in Vancouver we went to White Rock beach for an afternoon of playing in the sand, collecting pretty rocks (not to keep) and visiting with friends.
Imagine our surprise to find out that there was an earth cache just metres away from where we sat?! So we walked over to the White Rock (GCP6M8) and took photos of it and logged our find!
Like many Earthcaches, this is a glacial erratic that was left behind when the glaciers receded from this area. It has been painted white to aid in navigation as it can be seen for a long way out to sea and from satellite photos. Finding an Earthcaches always brings a geology/ecology/earth science lesson with it and makes geocaching that much more interesting. Usually to log an earth cache you need to answer some questions about what you see and take a photo of the cache to prove you were there since there isn't a log book.
The next day we went with some friends to the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) for the day. We had two 8 year old girls along and spent most of our time following them from ride to ride as they tested their mettle on swinging, sliding, twisting, turning contraptions! By the smiles and shrieks, fun was the order of the day! After a quick bite for dinner, I explained geocaching to everyone and then we set off to find the one cache that is hidden on the PNE grounds. (GC3APCA) Hastings Park Cache is located in a nice treed area with several walkways surrounding a pond. The reeds of the pond hid a few ducks and a heron the day we were there and we could hear a frog as well. It is a welcome respite from the noise of the fair grounds and offers time for digestion before heading back to the rides.
Our next adventure was more laid back as we went to visit my sister in North Vancouver for lunch and a few caches. She is a new cacher and had dropped off a travel coin in a cache and then had decided she'd like me to pick it up and take it on our trip back to Calgary. However when we visited the cache, the coin had been taken but not logged. We are hoping the previous cachers were just inexperienced with geocoins and will log it soon, but there is always the chance that they have decided the coin is something they want to keep. Unfortunately, this happens frequently to geocoins and travel bugs and is one of the drawbacks in letting go of these objects. They may be taken by collectors or muggled by non-geocachers.
In my next post I'll tell you all about the caches we found on our drive home from Vancouver including cache #300!! Keep reading!
Imagine our surprise to find out that there was an earth cache just metres away from where we sat?! So we walked over to the White Rock (GCP6M8) and took photos of it and logged our find!
The next day we went with some friends to the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) for the day. We had two 8 year old girls along and spent most of our time following them from ride to ride as they tested their mettle on swinging, sliding, twisting, turning contraptions! By the smiles and shrieks, fun was the order of the day! After a quick bite for dinner, I explained geocaching to everyone and then we set off to find the one cache that is hidden on the PNE grounds. (GC3APCA) Hastings Park Cache is located in a nice treed area with several walkways surrounding a pond. The reeds of the pond hid a few ducks and a heron the day we were there and we could hear a frog as well. It is a welcome respite from the noise of the fair grounds and offers time for digestion before heading back to the rides.
Our next adventure was more laid back as we went to visit my sister in North Vancouver for lunch and a few caches. She is a new cacher and had dropped off a travel coin in a cache and then had decided she'd like me to pick it up and take it on our trip back to Calgary. However when we visited the cache, the coin had been taken but not logged. We are hoping the previous cachers were just inexperienced with geocoins and will log it soon, but there is always the chance that they have decided the coin is something they want to keep. Unfortunately, this happens frequently to geocoins and travel bugs and is one of the drawbacks in letting go of these objects. They may be taken by collectors or muggled by non-geocachers.
In my next post I'll tell you all about the caches we found on our drive home from Vancouver including cache #300!! Keep reading!
Wednesday, 15 February 2012
Travel Bugs and tracking codes
There is another fun element to geocaching that add to the educational angle as well. Travel bugs are small trinkets or pre-made tags that travel from cache to cache via the cachers who find them. They each have their own mission, whether it is to arrive at a destination cache or to travel around the world or even to race other travel bugs to a certain city, and they are aided in their travels by us geocachers. In order to keep track of the bugs, they are given unique codes that must be registered on-line before beginning their treks. Then, when a geocacher finds a bug in a cache, he/she enters the tag code on www.geocaching.com which will show where the bug has travelled from and what its destination or mission is.
Our family has three plastic goat figurines that we have attached travel bug tags to (because our team name is 3billygoats) and these have all travelled in different directions, one down to New York city after a stop in Hawaii, one has become lost in the Czech Republic, and one is currently wintering in North Dakota after a long stay in Manitoba. This adds an opportunity for a geography lesson for interested kids.
If you do decide to pick up a travel bug, it is a courtesy to make sure you move it on fairly quickly instead of keeping it at home for an extended period. We have lost a few that we have to assume have been either kept by an uncharitable person, or have been lost when a cache has been muggled (destroyed by vandals). We are always sad to lose one of our bugs but we hope that the majority of cachers understand that the fun is in keeping the bugs moving.
Have you found any unusual bugs? Tell me about the most interesting bug you have helped along.
If you do decide to pick up a travel bug, it is a courtesy to make sure you move it on fairly quickly instead of keeping it at home for an extended period. We have lost a few that we have to assume have been either kept by an uncharitable person, or have been lost when a cache has been muggled (destroyed by vandals). We are always sad to lose one of our bugs but we hope that the majority of cachers understand that the fun is in keeping the bugs moving.
Have you found any unusual bugs? Tell me about the most interesting bug you have helped along.
Thursday, 9 February 2012
What's in Your Swag Bag?
Whenever we head out for a day of geocaching we carry along a small bag that contains a few essentials. Besides our GPS receiver we carry
When we find a cache, my daughter (littlest goat) and husband (old goat) look through the trades in the cache while I sign our team name and date in the log book. If there is something the little goat would like to take from the cache, she then chooses something equally good or better to place in the cache. We have found some caches containing garbage, broken toys, spoiled stickers and unpolished rocks and these containers get cleaned out and a few pieces of our swag left inside. Food is never left in a cache as animals can smell it and will destroy a container trying to get at the food. All swag should be child-safe as much as possible as this is a family friendly game. After trading, we place the log book back in the cache and put the cache back exactly where we picked it up so the next person can find it. And make note of which cache we found so we can record it later.
As with any outdoor activity, dress for the weather, bring water and snacks, respect private property, and if you go alone, tell someone where you are going. And have fun!!
- extra batteries (in case our GPS is low or a cache requires batteries)
- a couple of small sharpened pencils (to sign logs or replace missing pencils in caches)
- a pen
- extra note paper (for full or missing log books or to solve puzzles or write down clues)
- a whistle (in case our daughter, who carries the bag, gets lost)
- swag to trade (more on that below)
- muggle cards (non-geocachers are called muggles, and these cards explain what we are doing)
- any travel bugs we need to move on (more on travel bugs in a later post)
When we find a cache, my daughter (littlest goat) and husband (old goat) look through the trades in the cache while I sign our team name and date in the log book. If there is something the little goat would like to take from the cache, she then chooses something equally good or better to place in the cache. We have found some caches containing garbage, broken toys, spoiled stickers and unpolished rocks and these containers get cleaned out and a few pieces of our swag left inside. Food is never left in a cache as animals can smell it and will destroy a container trying to get at the food. All swag should be child-safe as much as possible as this is a family friendly game. After trading, we place the log book back in the cache and put the cache back exactly where we picked it up so the next person can find it. And make note of which cache we found so we can record it later.
As with any outdoor activity, dress for the weather, bring water and snacks, respect private property, and if you go alone, tell someone where you are going. And have fun!!
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