Caching Three Stars – November

The month of November has proved to be quite a challenge, both in actually finding caches and in writing this month’s Caching Three Stars. With all of the bad weather, short hours of daylight, and the everyday commitments of this peculiar thing called life, we were not able to find one cache. That’s right! Another milestone achieved, or not. Since we have seriously started caching, there has never been a goose egg in our monthly tallies. So here is my dilemma. How do I write the Three Stars of November when there are none? While contemplating what I was going to do, I started reminiscing about our most memorable caches – the ones with the most story behind them. Then it hit me. Why not write on my three most memorable caches. So here we go. I will endeavour to tell you the interesting stories behind our three most memorable caches.

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Jessica’s First Cache

I have seen these guys twice since I started caching! (click to enlarge)

We have been caching for almost two years and Jessica’s First Cache (GC330DB) is the winner of our first star for our most memorable cache finds. The cache was placed by Fast Finders and is located near a high school. Can you already see where this may be going? Normally, Geocaching.com doesn’t allow caches to be placed near schools unless you have special permission. The cache owners were students and were allowed to place it there. Well, the cache was released after midnight and, with us loving late night caching, we set out to find it. When we arrived near the school, I parked up on the road as to not create suspicion. My wife and I walked down an embankment and proceeded to ground zero. While we were standing in the parking lot, I looked up at the car and seen a police woman looking in the car with a flashlight. We just stood there waiting for her to notice us. She must not have seen us as she got in her car and drove away. We took off in the woods to find the cache. While we were searching, I heard the sound of brakes whistling followed by a car door closing. We stood and waited. After hearing another door closing followed by a car leaving, I decided to check it out. As I looked out from the trees, I seen the police car driving away again. I told my wife that if she came back, we would have to talk to her. Sure enough, the cop came back so we walked out to explain to her what we were doing. I told her we were geocaching and showed her our GPS device. She didn’t know what geocaching was and didn’t seem interested in knowing. She thought we were drinking in the woods. At 41 years of age, I assured her we could do that at home. At that moment, another police car showed up and a male cop got out and knew about caching. After that the K9 dog unit showed up followed by a fourth police car. I remember thinking that it was a bit overkill for two forty-something geocachers. The male cop told the female cop to let us get the cache and we would leave. The police woman would have none of that. She insisted that we leave. We told her it wasn’t a problem and apologized for our actions. The next morning, I came back, on my way to work, and still managed to get an FTF. To this day, this has been our most memorable geocaching experience.

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Thinking Outside The Box – It’s Your Lucky Day

Imagine trying to find a nano here. (click to enlarge)

In the summer of 2011, we travelled down the Burin Peninsula to attend a caching event that was being held by shantrent and shermandkim. There was an overabundance of caches placed for this event. Some were easy and a few were very difficult. Placed by shantrent, Thinking Outside The Box – It’s Your Lucky Day (GC30E8G) happened to be a very tough hide. It was a nano cache that was placed somewhere on the beach. I will not divulge the cache container. All I can say is that it was like finding a needle in a haystack. Upon arriving near ground zero, we started searching for the container. We knew it was hard but were excited. Our son, tiny seeker, got bored and started picking up pieces of wood and throwing them. There was one lone rock in the area and he picked it up and threw it. We told him to get back to searching again. After a fair bit of searching, we gave up and moved on to other caches. After finding a few more, we ran into the cache owners and told them we couldn’t find the nano on the beach. They decided to come over and see if it was still there. They couldn’t find it, their own cache. Been there, done that many times. The cache owners were puzzled. They said that they laid a rock next to the cache. I spoke up and said “Do you mean this rock that my son picked up and threw away?” We all had a great laugh as the rock was now one hundred meters away from ground zero with no idea where it used to be. We helped them look for it for awhile before moving on. We found out that they found it shortly after we left. We had a great time at the event and fondly remember the laughs we had at this cache site.

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Protect and Serve

Not an actual photo of the crash. (click to enlarge)

While attending the Coast Guard College in Sydney, NS in January of 2012, I went out in the town to do a bit of night caching. The cache I was looking for was called Protect and Serve (GCWCJY) and was placed at an abandoned police station. The cache was placed by bmn747 and was located in the front parking lot, near an intersection. When I arrived at ground zero, I quickly realized that not only was the cache buried under a bank of snow, its location was probably frozen shut. Without being seen by the traffic driving by, I proceeded to dig the cache location out. It didn’t take too long to uncover but my second assumption was right. It was frozen. Without drawing too much attention, I started to kick the cover until it broke free. I retrieved the container and proceeded to sign the log. While taking the log out of the bag, I looked up at the intersection just in time to witness a car T-boning a pickup truck. The police showed up mere minutes later. I quickly signed the log and put the cache back. I, then, stood around for awhile. As the police was questioning the drivers, I heard the truck driver blame it on the woman in the car. The truth was, the truck driver turned left and cut off the car coming towards it. The woman in the car tried to stop but couldn’t. It was then that I stepped forward and gave the woman my contact information. I also explained it to the policeman. That was the funny part of it. After I told him why I was there, he was trying to comprehend why I would sit there digging in the snow just to sign a log. I told him he wouldn’t understand unless he was a geocacher. This was my first time seeing a car accident firsthand and up close. Truly memorable!

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What about you? Do you have a great story behind one of you finds, or hides? If so, please tell us. We would love to hear about it! Use the comment space below.

Until my next post, I hope that the short days, heaps of snow, and life doesn’t prevent you from getting some caching done. Happy Caching!

Frank (Jewel)

Caching Three Stars – October

Since I spent almost all of the month of October in Sydney, NS attending training at the Coast Guard College, the Three Stars for October all come from the Sydney area. If you ever take the ferry across to North Sydney, be sure to take a moment to check these out. These caches, as well as other, will also be featured in a couple of future blogposts.

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Ethel Goes To War

These bunkers are starting to be eaten away by wave erosion. (click to enlarge)

Since I love anything to do with the history of our Great wars, Ethel Goes To War (GCPDHW) is the winner of our first star for October. The cache was placed by MineRP and is located on a trail system in Edwardsville, a small suburb of Sydney. The earthen bunker was part of Fort Edward and was initially constructed in 1793 and used up until 1854. The entire fort was a four-bastioned earthwork fort, located southeast of the tip of the point. It was originally known as Point Edward Battery until it was rebuilt in 1813. The system of trails here contain other bunkers and barrack foundations. I will be featuring these caches in an upcoming blogpost. The bunkers are starting to give way because of wave erosion and are not safe to be climbing in. Therefore, I had to admire them from afar.

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St. Theresa

The statue is actually the tree. Notice the trunk at the bottom. (click to enlarge)

There is nothing overly special about the cache that is my second star for October. It is a simple micro containing a log and is located at a church. It has a higher degree of difficulty due to its high muggle area. It is where this cache is placed that makes this cache special and deserving of the second star. The cache is another one placed by MineRP and is called St. Theresa (GC3CCKA). The cache is located at St. Theresa’s Church and is placed near a special statue of St. Theresa. The statue is a wooden statue that is carved out of a tree. You might be saying that all wooden statues are carved from trees. True. This tree (statue), however, is still rooted in the ground. The statue was literally carved out of a living tree. I don’t know about you, but I found that pretty cool. If you are in Sydney, it is worth checking out.

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Sydney Boardwalk

Walking the Sydney Boardwalk at night. Beautiful! (click to enlarge)

There is no more beautiful a place to visit in Sydney, than strolling down the Sydney Boardwalk. Located on the southern shore of Sydney harbour, the boardwalk goes past many hotels and public buildings and leads down close to the Sydney Pier, where cruise ships often visit and you can get your picture taken next to a giant fiddle. There are many small boats and beautiful yachts tied up here as well. I have walked this boardwalk several times, but this time was extra special as I got to walk it at night. Again, this wasn’t planned. My purpose in coming here was to be a kind geocacher and pay it forward by replacing the container that had gone missing from Sydney Boardwalk (GCTQ9Y), a cache placed by The Dream Seekers. It was my last stop for the day and darkness had fallen upon me. This turned out to be a real treat. I must have stopped for about 30 minutes and sat on a bench listening to the water lapping against the pier. It was really peaceful and well deserving of our third star. This area will also be featured in an upcoming blogpost.

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Point Edward Cave

I was so looking forward to a bit of cave exploration. (click to enlarge)

I just had to give an honourable mention to Point Edward Cave (GC3RCNA), a cache placed by Pushkin. It gave me both the most anticipation and the most disappointment I have ever had while geocaching. When you read the cache description, you find out that there is a cave here that you can explore. Since it was a few hundred meters away from the Coast Guard College, I got prepared and headed out to it with great anticipation and excitement. I hadn’t explored a cave since my childhood. When I arrived at what I thought was ground zero, I had to check my GPSr. The dense tree cover was playing havoc with my unit so I broadened my search and came up with nothing. I went back to the original ground zero and quickly realized I was at the right spot. There had been a mudslide in the last year and the entrance to the cave was buried in sticks and mud. I found an opening but it was only large enough to fit a rat. That was a real bummer! It was a good thing that the cache was placed outside the cave as I was able to at least log a find on this cache and drop a trackable. For causing me great excitement, I think it deserves an honourable mention.

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Rest In Peace

A graveyard at night is creepy but cool! (click to enlarge)

When I first set out to finish getting some caches in downtown Sydney, it wasn’t my intention to retrieve one from a graveyard at night. It just happened that way. When I arrived at Rest In Peace (GC3NB1D), a cache placed by conohan007, I quickly realized where it was. Since graveyards don’t scare me, I headed in to retrieve the cache. It was hidden under rocks near what looked like a tomb. As I started to sign the log, I heard the sound of many car doors opening and closing. When I looked, many old couples were showing up to the church for evening Bible Study. To avoid detection, I had to hide behind a headstone for 10 minutes. Once the coast was clear, I put the log back and re-hid the cache. As I was leaving, I ran into a security guard for the apartment building across the street. He looked really puzzled at why I was coming out of a cemetery at night but didn’t seem to care. This cache was really fun and deserves an honourable mention. If you can, I suggest you do this one at night.

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Caching Three Stars – September

As with previous months, September didn’t result in any stand-out caches until towards the end of the month. The latter half of the month resulted in a cache with a great view, a cache that isn’t always easy to get to, and a great event cache, all making it into our caching Three Stars. If you haven’t found them yet, I encourage you to do so.

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View For The Gods

What a beautiful view! (click to enlarge)

Our winner of the first star for September was just featured in our last blog article entitled Milestone Marker 1500!. The cache is called View For The Gods (GC1YRJQ) and was placed by Ron 30207. Originally, we had no plans to go get this cache. In fact, we never even knew it existed. We had been in North River helping our friends put off a geocaching event (check the second star). The event occurred on Saturday and we never got the chance to go caching. Therefore, we decided to do some caching on Sunday. My son, tinyseeker, and I went around to get all of the event caches first. Then, our friend Dora (Diego and Dora) joined us to get all of the caches in the Clarke’s Beach area. It was then, that we decided to attempt this one. When we finally navigated the streets of Clarke’s Beach to find the entrance gate leading to the cache site, our GPSr indicated that we were only 650 meters away from the cache. We didn’t immediately realize that we would have to walk 2.4 km to reach ground zero. The long walk was well worth the trip. We were treated to a magnificant view of the Clarke’s Beach and surrounding area. It took us 40 minutes to make the trek in and 30 minutes to make the trek out. It would have been great if we could have stayed a little while, but we had to get back for an awesome cooked Sunday dinner, prepared by Diego.

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Cabin Fever — Caching Meet and Greet — 2012

A great turnout for the event. (click to enlarge)

Our second star is special to us for the simple fact that it was an event hosted by our friends with a small bit of assistance by us. We realize that, since we assisted with this cache, we might be accused of showing favoritism to this event. We hope you all realize that our assistance was in a logistics manner. Most of the layout and details of the event were done by Diego and Dora, the event hosts. The event was called Cabin Fever — Caching Meet and Greet — 2012 (GC3V1A6) and was held at Dora’s family cabin. For a detailed description of the event, please see our blog post devoted to the event called Cabin Fever: An Event To End The Summer!. This event struck the right balance of caching, food and fellowship. The event involved a couple of hours of meet and greet followed by a BBQ. After everyone had the chance to socialize a bit, they were sent on their way to find 20 caches. A few even came back for a bit more fellowship. It was truly a well organized event.

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Water Challenge

This little land strip is not always here. (click to enlarge)

Water Challenge (GCG2ET) , a cache placed by Alastair Allan, turned out to be a very interesting cache and gets the nod as our third star for September. The cache, itself, is just a regular cache with a logbook and trinkets inside. Its hiding place wasn’t too difficult either. In fact, getting to the cache was fairly easy too. It was easy, however, only because we attempted it at the right time. As the picture shows, there is a thin strip of rocks leading to the cache area. We attempted the cache during low tide. The rocks are exposed then. At high tide, you would have to use rubber boots and wade across to the other side. We thought this cache was ingenious and we raise our proverbial hats to the cache owner for this interesting hide.

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Favorite Places – St. Mark’s School

This sign seemed out of place until you read the cache description. (click to enlarge)

We love caches that are placed to provide some kind of memorial to what an area used to contain. It is for this reason that we had to award Favorite Places – St. Mark’s School (GC3QHWJ) an honourable mention. The cache was placed by wademercer and got our attention when we seen a sign, that read “Teachers Only,” standing in the middle of a completely overgrown area. There wasn’t much evidence that anything used to be here but whatever was here had to involve teachers. After completely reading the cache description, we found out that there used to be a school here but it was closed years ago and then destroyed by fire. The area had become overgrown with trees and shrubs. Obviously, this area was the teacher’s parking lot and, with a little imagination, you could picture how things used to be.

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