Caching Tales

Still sunning ourselves on the Caribbean isle of St Lucia, we had two days left with the hire car. Keen to grab every opportunity to get out and about and see as much of the Island as possible, we grabbed our caching bag, car keys and headed South. Our destination was the key reason I had chosen St Lucia as our holiday destination - the drive-in Volcano! In fact the world’s only drive-in Volcano!  The distance to it hadn’t looked that far on the map, just 28km as the crow flies. However, it actually took nearly an hour and a half to drive as the roads in the south west twist and turn through the mountains. Numerous steep hills and hairpin bends elongated the journey, as the little white automatic hire car struggled along, barely getting beyond first gear most of the time. We stopped a couple of times on the way to snap some photos of the stunning Pitons. They really are quite something, and a big part of what is left of the island’s volcanic origins. ...

When choosing where to go on holiday these days (since we discovered geocaching) it’s always a bit of a toss up between going somewhere with lots of geocaches and somewhere with lots of interesting things to see. And by that I usually mean volcanoes - my other passion in life aside from geocaching. This year I went with the volcano and a location we hadn’t been to before, the Caribbean isle of St Lucia. With almost every square inch of its volcanic landscape covered in lush vegetation and rainforests, it’s the greenest place I’ve ever been that consistently has temperatures soaring well above 30 degrees. Where many other volcanic island’s have black sandy beaches, St Lucia doesn’t. It’s beaches are covered in soft white sand, turning the shallow sea water around them a stunning turquoise blue. It really is an amazing place and the people are fantastic.             However, caching wise, there are very few on the island...just 14!...

This month really was about the innovative cache and the sneaky hide! But we also achieved two key goals. First we became official adrenaline junkies, earning the first of Geocaching HQ’s new monthly souvenirs. And then we finally achieved a thousand of RYO62’s finds - we are very excited about getting a ‘Congratulations’ cache dedicated to us.  We also travelled further afield than ever before picking up caches on the beautiful rainforest covered, Caribbean Isle of St Lucia.  It took us a few days to actually get out caching though, due to some unforeseen incidents. A diversion on the way out, to the Azores, somewhat lengthened the journey and cut short our first day. Then came tropical storm Kirk, which left us battling our way over fallen trees just to get to and from dinner. Then the earthquake hit...fortunately not devastating.  Once the roads had been cleared of the fallen debris, we hired a car. It was the perfect way for us to get arou...

This week’s tales saw us grab over 70 caches in Hertfordshire and explore a brand new linear trail in the heart of Suffolk. We kick off with our goal to get 28 RYO62 caches in order to finally hit a thousand of his finds. And I’m pleased to say we finally did it! It was a sunny Sunday morning as I set off down the dual carriageway in the trusty little red beetle to Guilden Morden.  Last time I was here was for the birthday party of the other half’s uncle.  Parking up at No.1 in the Guilden Morden Gallop series I set off across the track towards  Steeple Morden. Grabbing some nice quick finds along the way, including a couple of friendly bugs, I was soon at GZ for the church micro.   It took me a minute or two to spot the sneaky hide, but when I did I just couldn’t encourage it from its little hole. 20 minutes of trying the two magnets I had on me and even the car keys and still it wouldn’t pop out. In the end, rather than damage the cache trying ...