Geocaching // Hiking The Trails

The Spring time makes me excited for many reasons, but none more exciting than the fact that I can finally get back out and do some Geocaching! There's nothing like getting lost in the woods, going on an adult sized scavenger hunt, especially when you know the entire world is in on it. There's hundreds in my area just dying to be found and logged by me. Cherie is also a big fan of it, and has taken up speed walking, too. So, looks like I got myself a hiking buddy! 
Last week when we went on our 10.5k hike we realized we were going to come across a couple of Geocache along the trail we were on, so of course we were on the hunt. It was a good opportunity to brush up our Geocache knowledge and check out the new updates on the official Geocaching App. 

We realized there were more Geocaches than we thought on the trail but we had already hiked about 6k while pushing strollers through a fairly rough terrain (consider running with weights in your hands with your arms fully extended, whilst jogging up and down mulchy, muddy hills), so we decided to grab the 2 that were the closest. The first one was right on the trail, a small capsule hidden fairly easily in a stump. Now, this is really nerdy of me, but, I'm always so excited when the Geocache container is not something boring. Sometimes, it's a cool, camouflaged, metal capsule that's harder to find then say, a film container or a bulky lock'n'lock box. 
This container was filled with a few tiny trinkets. clearly left by children, and the tiniest log sheet I've ever seen. There was only one small space left for us to sign. The best part was that it seemed to last the entire winter unscathed, the paper was dry and there was next to no condensation inside or yucky stuff on the outside. Which really is the only negative to Geocaching, if you don't like getting your hands dirty, or coming across the odd creepy crawlers.

A short way down the trail on our way to the next nearest Geocache, we came across a lady with a beautiful horse. He was a bit spooked by our strollers, but, it was exciting to see Josie experience her first encounter with a real live horsie. It was love at first sight. 

The second Geocache on our trek was a medium sized, medium difficulty item. Unfortunately, Cherie had to stay with the kids, so she couldn't follow me off the path to hunt for this one. My GPS is slightly off in my app, so I felt like I was looking in the wrong place for a good 10 minutes before I realized I needed to be about 20ft to the left. Once I figured that out (oops), it wasn't too hard to scope out the giant tree route like the hint said it would be under. 

Medium capsules are always fun because there's a bigger space to keep trinkets. This one again was full of things clearly left by families with children, but every once in awhile there's a gem. Like a card in this box left by a man by the name of "Jack Wiener", hilarious for all the dirty minded people like me out there, and this button, which belongs to Rabbit Dash Cafe, a Port Elgin favourite and friend of our coffeehouse.

Now that I can see further through the town on the Geocache app, it will be easier for us to plan our hiking trips around a good scavenger hunt. I can't wait to find new trails and new adventures! 
xo Amber