Easter Hunt

While some of you think Easter is the time to hunt for eggs, we thought it was a great weekend to go looking for a different kind of treasure. The weather was perfect for a full day of geocaching, so I mapped out a loop that would take up most of the day.

Our first stop was in Franktown. GC1HA3T It’s too early for the blooms on Lilac Lane, but we’ve seen them before and this early in the season there are no people around to catch us snooping around. It was a quick, easy find, and a great way to start the year. There was another cache not far off, but there were other people there when we arrived. One of them even walked over to talk to us as we were wandering around. I just said I was out looking for pictures and she said it was a great day for it. We left that cache for some other time.

Our next stop was in Carleton Place, in a little park on Mill Street. GC1T81G There are some Hackabery trees there, and those are apparently quite rare in Canada and especially in this part of Ontario. It’s a nice park by the rushing Mississippi River.

From there we went to another part of town and wandered down a trail near a calmer part of the river. GC1MY8V We were glad to have found this cache at this time of year. It won’t be long before one would have to make some major blood offerings to the mosquito population that would surely be living here. Apparently my hubby used to park beside this trail to have his lunch, when he was working in Carleton Place, but he never walked the trail before now. Isn’t it amazing what a little treasure hunt will get you to do?

Then we made our way to Almonte. One cache couldn’t be found, but apparently we aren’t the only ones who couldn’t find it, so we didn’t feel too bad about that and carried on to look for another in the same area. GC16GCJ It was a lovely walk through the woods, and I worked off some of the lunch we had in Carleton Place. By this time we were getting quite hot, and even stopped to cool our feet off in a stream.

People seem to like to hide caches in cemeteries these days. The next one we went to was not in the cemetery, but near by. GC21KT0 We thought this was a strange place for a pump though, as we didn’t know dead people go thirsty.

I think my favorite cache of the day was down a skidoo trail along a township line. GCP1XQ We disturbed some frogs in the puddles along the way, and ran into a few thorn bushed trying to avoid the muck, but it was an easy walk along a pretty trail. I picked up two treasures at this one, leaving behind items of equal value.

We stopped at the Innisville Rest Stop, which is supposed to be a multi cache, but we were only given one set of coordinates, and no clues, or instructions to find others. There was nothing at the given coordinates, and certainly nowhere to have hidden anything, so I really suspect they just wanted you to park there and explore the nearby businesses. Actually, a lot of what the cache listing says is there is not there anymore (including the restrooms), so perhaps they just forgot to deactivate the cache listing.

We made our final stop of the day in Perth, at the Garden In The Round. GC1EDHM This garden was created for the blind, and in season, it has many very fragrant plants.
I think we were out for six and a half hours, including our stop for lunch. It was a wonderful way to start our geocaching season.

Meadowbrook Mystery

We knew there was another cache right near the Ambassador Hotel, where we were staying. We also knew it was along what may be a another swampy area, somewhere between a major road and a railway line. The trick was to find a way to get to this area.

In the country, that wouldn’t have been a problem. But in a city, most rivers and waterways have houses along them, and no access to what lays behind. Well, there may be access, but finding it might be difficult. And once you do find it, where are you allowed to park?


On Sunday, June 8, 2008 (okay, so I'm a little behind in my blogging, but hey, I have a life), after cruising around in circles a few times, we decided to try from a different angle, and that’s when we found not only access to the trail, but a place to park too. Luckily nobody else had parked there when we needed it. This cache is listed as the Meadowbrook Mystery, though the main mystery is why they named it that. It was well worth the effort to find it though, as we were immediately treated to the sight of ducks turtles sunning themselves on the rocks in the river. Something else was splashing around in the water too, but I wasn’t sure what at that point.
We wandered down the trail, and discovered that the graffiti artists had been busy under the overpass. I’ve never been this close to graffiti before, but certainly didn’t expect to find it in this particular location. About there we saw more thrashing around in the river and it turned out to be some very large carp, that apparently come up the Cataraqui Creek every year to spawn.

The trail wound through some nice countryside, complete with a little stream and lots of wild flowers. The cache itself was off the trail in the woods where the mosquitoes were just waiting for us to arrive. I’ve never seen so much in any one cache before, and would love to have explored it further, but only had so much blood to give, so grabbed the first thing on the top of the pile and replaced it with the biggest thing in my kit (since it was also the easiest thing to grab), and got us out of there as quickly as possible. I was almost back to the car before I realized that what I had picked up there was a fuzzy bald eagle puppet. I know someone who will likely love that :)

On the way out we saw a rabbit sitting on the trail. That was a nice bonus. It was a great evening for geocaching and a great trail to follow, bugs and all.


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