Wolfe Island

We attended our favourite Martial Arts weekend, Kingston Kicks, recently and managed to get in some geocaching in the process.

First, before even checking into the Ambassador Hotel, in Kingston ON, we took the ferry over to Wolfe Island. It was a nice day, and we were not sure we would get another chance. We had never been over there before, but you can see many of the wind turbines from the mainland.

I often hear how noisy they are, but it there was only a slight breeze and though they were all rotating gently, we didn’t hear a thing. There are a lot of them though, in every direction you look.

There are probably about 40 caches on the island, but mostly we went after the non micro ones. We covered most of the island in the 3 hours we were there. It’s not really all that large.

The first one we found had a surprise waiting for us. I’d rather not tell you what that was, but it certainly made me think we were in for a fun day. There was also a travel bug in that cache, so I took that and have since placed it closer to home.

A lot of the caches were in or near trees, living or dead, but there was also one hidden inside another container that would definitely freeze to the ground and not be accessible in the winter time. It was easy enough to find, but even so, I’ve never seen anyone else hide a cache quite like that before.

There really isn’t much on the island to see, other than the wind turbines, but my favorite cache of the day was down along the lake shore. There was some amazing scenery there, but the sun was facing the wrong way at that point, so my best pictures were facing the opposite way. Too bad. Maybe I can get back there earlier in the day next time. And I do think there will be a next time.

Kingston Kicks and Beyond

The weekend of May 23-24 we went on our annual trip to Kingston Kicks, a martial arts weekend, held at the Ambassador Hotel. Saturday was a full day of seminars and Sunday there was a tournament. I love to go to these things as I get to see lots of people I don’t see otherwise. It’s like a big reunion every time. There is even a party on Saturday night, and a good time was had by all.
On Saturday I got to meet a couple of ladies I have only ever talked to online before, and we went off to lunch at East Side Marios. I’m not involved in the seminars, so it was good to have something to occupy my time for part of the day.

Later, after the seminars, we went after our first cache. Kingston has a lot of micro caches, and, I’m sorry, even though the bigger ones don’t have any "real" treasure in them, I still like them better than micros. All that work just to sign a tiny log just isn’t as much fun somehow. I knew there was a micro nearby, and off and on all day, I tried to get the GPS to pick up the satellite signals from inside the building. No such luck. There must be too much steel in the building, or something. But once we got outside, it was obviously not far off. We found it and then went looking for another one, also within walking distance, but even though we found lots of good hiding places, that one eluded us. Perhaps we will have better luck with it next year.


Sunday we stopped in Gananoque on the way home. First we went to a nice park with water running through it. There are boardwalks over the dams there, and lots of art to look at also. That cache was officially missing that day, according to the online log, but we thought we would scope out the area, and maybe figure out where to look next time we go through town, just in case the cache came back, or got replaced by the owner. We have driven over that bridge several times, but this was the first time we had ever stopped to explore the park.






Then we went to visit an old friend who usually is still down south when we are going through. This time we caught him at home and had a nice little visit with him and his new wife. After that we went to find a section of the Gananoque trail. The thing I love most about geocaching is that it points out things like this, that you may never have found any other way. It’s a lovely trail, with lots of big rocks and I would be quite willing to go back and explore more of it, cache or no cache. I don’t know what it is about me, but I do like big rocks! This section of the trail also lets you get a good look at a grand old oak tree. As I often say, it’s not the treasure in the cache that’s important, but the ones you find along the way. Nature certainly provided lots of treasures along this trail.


We went back into town and down to a little park on a bluff. After following the GPS for a few minutes, and getting a general idea of where to find the cache, we discovered a couple of kids poking around in that area. When they saw us, they strolled over to a picnic table on the opposite side of the park. I thought, perhaps they were also looking for the cache, and didn’t want us to know where to look. Well, I didn’t want them watching us either, so I went to the edge of the bluff, and found a set of stone steps to take us down towards the water. By the time we came back up, the kids were just peddling their bikes out of the park. That gave us a chance to look for the cache. The over head trees gave us a bit of trouble, but we found it.

The last cache of the day was called Timmy’s because a Tim Hortons was nearby. We figured that was a good excuse to take a break and have something to eat. After eating big meals all weekend, we decided to get some chicken wrap combos this time. Once fed, went off to feed the bugs. The cache is on another part of the Gananoque Trail, that is within walking distance of Tim Hortons. For some reason the mosquitoes were hungrier here, and we were glad we didn’t have to walk too far in, or hunt for too hard for his cache.

All in all, it was a great weekend.

City Caching

We spent the weekend in Kingston, for the annual martial arts event known as Kingston
Kicks. As usual, we had a great time. I took a binder full of cache listings, in case we
had any spare time to go exploring and we managed to squeeze in a few during the late
afternoon or evenings each day.

We did our first ever city cache on Saturday. Actually we looked for three caches that
day, but we only succeeded once.

The first one was in a parking lot, so you had to wait for any vehicles that came along to
be empty, and then keep an eye open for new ones arriving. We waited patiently for one
vehicle to leave. The lady in it must have been waiting for someone to finish work as she
sat there for quite a while. When she left we move our car right over in front of where the
cache was supposedly hidden and then had to wait when another woman showed up with
an entire grocery basket full of stuff to load into her vehicle. After all that we looked in
the only place there was to look and found nothing. There simply was no place else to
look. It was a big empty parking lot, with just a couple of well spaced trees for
decoration and one of them was right in front of us.

We did better at the second one. Luckily, by then, the businesses it was near were closed
as I don’t know how you can look for this sort of cache on the sly. In fact, it wouldn’t
surprise me if someone who worked nearby, decided to call the cops if they spotted
people like us prowling around like that. I must say that I really prefer a more wilderness
setting for such activities. As it was, gloves were needed as there were all sorts of other
gross things where this cache was located. There was even a pair of thongs!

I’d had enough of this city type caching so we went looking for something a little more
rural. We found a trail along a swamp and started in on that, but it was too wet and the
mosquitoes were hungry so we decided to give up for the night. It looks like an
interesting area though, so we may try that one again some other time.