Geocaching can be a crazy adventure and often you get a rush of adrenaline attempting to locate a cache. We found this out on our hunt today.
From thinking we were being followed, to trying to avoid parking tickets and dangerous climb up a steep hill. It was all in day of geocache hunting. Today we accomplished finding 7 caches in total and had one unsuccessful search.
Geocache 1 - THRIFTY N 43° 10.342 W 079° 15.900
We decided on trying to locate this one for two reasons. First of all it was close to home. Second it was in the parking lot of a thrift store and right beside the thrift store is a Dollarama.
We first made a stop at the Dollarama to buy some items that we could drop at some of the caches we found.
After picking up some lucky St. Paddy's day coins, mini skirt guns, squishy animals and pins we headed out into the parking lot to search.
Geocache 2 - Floral Clock N 43° 08.926 W 079° 02.858
After locating THRIFTY and a short Tim Hortons stop we headed on down the QEW and over the Garden City Skyway to Niagara Falls Ontario. Along the Niagara Parkway there is a tourist spot known as the Floral Clock and it is exactly as it sounds. A big giant clock and in the warmer months is filled with hundreds of flowers and plant life. Its a great spot for pictures.
Finding the cache was relatively easy. Inside we found a real treat, our first trackable. A trackable is an item which has a code number that is logged online. This item is something that is intended to be moved around to various caches. The one that we found was very interesting as it was half a heart and the idea is for it to eventually find it's other half. With the tracker was a note stating that the origin of the item was in South Africa.
Geocache 3 - Birds, Bees and Butterflies N 43° 08.928 W 079° 02.715
About 200m away from the Floral Clock geocache was the Birds, Bees and Butterflies. This was what they call a micro cache. A micro cache or micro geocache is a small container that usually only contains a log book. This was our first micro so it was pretty exciting for us. Steph hadn't been the one to locate a cache yet and was determined to find this one. Sure enough she spotted it and was all giddy and excited when she found it.
The one thing that we really enjoyed about finding this geocache was the stunning views we had of the Niagara River and gorge in the winter time. Even if your not up for geocaching you should head down there for the view itself.
Geocache 4 - A Powerful View N 43° 08.648 W 079° 02.689
Just down the road from the last cache we found was another one. We hopped back into the car and drove towards the falls for about two minutes where we found a small parking lot for tourists looking to snap some pics of the stunning gorge. Only about 20m from our car we spotted the cache which was very cleverly hidden. When I began to open the cache the rest of the Beach Clan thought I was doing something wrong. Inside were a few trinkets and a musty wet log book which we attempted to sign.
Geocache 5 - Concrete Prints N 43° 05.551 W 079° 04.244
Concrete Prints was a fun cache. It's in a high tourist area and very difficult to locate parking without paying for it. We only wanted to find this one cache and weren't willing to pay the $10 to $20 to park. After driving around the location a couple of times looking for a spot we could hopefully get away with leaving the car for a few mins we pulled into an underground parking area for a large hotel next to the old Planet Hollywood. I stayed in the car while Steph, Elizabeth and David ran out to hunt for the cache. After a few minutes of frantic searching while I was barking orders from the car I felt the need to get out and help. I moved the car to a spot that was supposed to be for buses only and jumped out to go help hoping not to get caught. When I arrived they had already found the cache. Way to go!
Geocache 6 - Always!!! Getting Stepped On N 43° 04.162 W 079° 03.970
Our next adventure took us further down the road and past the American Falls, the Bridal Veil Falls and the Horseshoe Falls to the Dufferin Islands an oasis of nature with trails, wildlife and stunning winter lights. This cache was near the entrance to the park and was a bit tricky to find. We thought it was incredibly smart how this small cache was hidden. In the cache there was simply a log book.
Geocache 7 - Travel Bug Hangout N 43° 04.065 W 079° 04.218
Crossing over a bridge and about a hundred or so metres down a path our phone starts buzzing again to let us know we are close to our next find. David had picked this one out and is what initial led us over to Dufferin Islands.
In the icy water ducks were swimming around and the bridge to the island itself was closed off due to the winter light displays. We were a bit confused as we had first believed that the cache was on the island. However after some searching we discovered its hidden location. In this cache we came across our second trackable a small metal tag attached to a leather key chain with the name Neil on it. The tag itself was a Penguin. On the back it read "Peter The Penguin" and the tracking number. David asked if we could take it so we left one of our items and took Peter along with us.
When we arrived home we looked it up on geocaching.com and found out that someone in Scotland had started Peter on his journey in memory of her husband Neil. What a touching story and we are excited to be a part of him finding his way to South Africa, one of Neil's favourite places to visit.
Geocache 8 - Ground Zero N 43° 03.985 W 079° 04.265
Our last cache of the day and definitely the most difficult. Looking at the coordinates on our phone it appeared as if this geocache wasn't far from the Travel Bug Hangout. We had to walk back around the pond and over the bridge to reach it and it seemed it was close to the public washrooms. However just behind the facilities was a steep hill and when we arrived we noticed that for us to find the cache we had to climb the hill. Up we went grabbing on to any tree or branch that we could to keep us from falling back down the steep incline.
Once at the top we kept searching for the cache which was described as "a small camo'd pill bottle". When our phones buzzed to indicate we were close to it we began searching everywhere we thought it might be with no success. The GPS on our phones seemed to be acting up as well. Suddenly it indicated to us that we were 12m away. When we would go to the spot it would then say we were 10m away in another direction. After some time of hunting for the cache we realized we had to give up, head back home and log this as DNF (did not find) on the geocache site. This was the first cache we were unable to find. We'll save this one for another day and next time try and find a spot to park our car and approach it from the top of the hill.