Kemptville

We had a nice visit at Tim Hortons, with a lady from Kemptville one day, and she mentioned how she knew others, besides us, who went geocaching. She thought it sounded like fun, and thought she wouldn't mind trying it sometime. A week or so later, I discovered a new cache very near her home.

It was the first time I'd ever walked along the Kemptville Creek, and as always, I was thankful to whoever decided to coax us down this pathway. One end of the path comes out very near this lady's home, so next time we get a chance, we may just knock on the door, and take her for a little walk, just so she can see how it's done. Maybe after that, she'll be interested in joining in on the fun herself. It's a great excuse for a little exercise and fresh air.

Holiday Monday

Long weekends are a good time to do chores, but there have been so few nice days that when we get one, we can't get ourselves to stay home all day long. I found a loop close to home, but most of the stops would have been long hikes through the woods. After feeding the bugs yesterday, we decided to avoid such situations......except for one.

It seems there are old circus wagons and cages abandoned in the woods not too far from here, so we couldn't resist trying to find that. After a good dose of bug spray, we took a little walk up a section of the Rideau Trail, off Dwyer Hill Road. There is some interesting areas back there. The woods have a different look about them. There are rocks breaking the ground in some spots and fine green grass growing between the trees in others. There is also a great number of empty beer and liquor bottles amoung the bushes....not to mention tires. I think there must have been some good bush parties back there recently.

As it turns out, we were in error, looking for the cache at the way point we had. We should have been looking for a tag on a tree to redirect us. The bug spray wore off, or washed off from the sweat, and the nasty little critters found us, so we hightailed it back to the car. We will try this one again though, as it's a nice walk. I just have to figure out just when that day is, between when the bugs die down, and the hunters come out.

Since we had eliminated so many other stops from the loop I had designed, we backtracked and took a road across country to Malakoff Road where we were able to pick up two quick grabs before heading into Kemptville for ice cream. The Red Barn still has the cheapest ice cream around. You can have two small cones for $5. I must warn you not to make the mistake of ordering anything larger. Small has 3 scoops.

Ingenious

Last weekend we hunted down a series of caches that were hidden by a man who doesn't just put something under a log or behind a rock. He creates clever hiding spots that look like they belong where he puts them. Sometimes this means screwing something to a building, or hinging the lid on something that wouldn't normally have a lid. These caches are sometimes right out in the open, and the trick is to get at them without drawing the attention of those going by. I think he must really scout out an area and then sit and make devious plans on how to place a cache so that you won't think to look there, or if you do, you have to come up with some sort of distraction so you can get at it. We found several, but there was one we didn't find. There was a gentleman sitting in the park watching us the whole time. He probably wondered what we were up to as we wandered back and forth and poked at things. Rest assured, we will go back and eventually find this one too.

And I've Lived Here, How Long?

Today we followed 3 trails in the area that we have never been on before. We've driven by a couple of them for over 30 years, and never even knew they were there! The other one is within walking distance, and while I suspected there was a trail there, I've never been on it before.

The first was the Merrickville Beach trail.....an old snowmobile trail, from the looks of it. I believe there are plans to join it with the trail behind the French School (St Marguerite Bourgois).

The second one was near the Riverside Park on County Rd 44, outside of Kemptville. Lovely trail. It actually leads down to the river before turning to follow it.

As we were just finding the trailhead, another group of people were leaving. Turns out it was the owner of the cache and his entire and extended family. Wow. I almost met a real pro at this. From his profile page, I found he has over 1200 finds already.

Then we carried on to find a causeway to a park on an island that we never knew was there. John C. Foster Park is 23 acres of parkland. We've only been driving by this for the past 33 years! We would have stayed to explore more of the trails but we heard gunshots, and remembered it was hunting season. Not the best time to be poking around in the woods and we had not thought of that until then. I guess we'll have to explore some urban areas for a while.