.
A long weekend and lots of time on our hands... time for friends and family! Gryph and I decided to go look for a nearby geocache we have not found yet - The Island - Memories and Sacrifices.
This cache is located at the Great Brak river mouth and it has an interesting story to it - it's in memory of a person called Johannes Dawson Theron who saved 6 people from drowning. They got caught in a strong current. Six times Theron went into the sea and six times he got one person back on land. On his seventh attempt and totally exhausted he disappeared under the waves and he drowned.
A plaque was erected in his honour, but unfortunately it has been stolen since.
So Gryph, Cassie, Asterix, Kermit and I headed out to find this cache. The nearest parking spot is situated on a island near the river mouth and you have to cross a very narrow wooden bridge to get there.
Heading out towards the river...
The cache is over there somewhere:
Luckily we came during low tide so we can walk around the water.
And he search begins!
We could not find it anywhere and we soon realized that we'd have to climb higher. There's surely a lot of climbing involved in his geocaching hobby.
Up here the hints and descriptions started to make sense and soon the cache was found!
This being a cache dedicated to a hero I decided to drop Lou's Traveling Canadian Forces Geocoin in this cache. It's a beautiful coin and the first trackable I carried. I promised to find it a beautiful and deserving spot and this was it. 
Gryph also found a Racer in this cache called Zander Racer. As it turns out it's the twin of a racer he's already carrying called Vian Racer. As far as we can make out these belong to two brothers of the same family and they are in a race to see which does the most traveling. Amazingly Gryph is the first person to carry both of these racers.
The view of the island from the top:
Making our way back down:
With the mission accomplished and some time on our hands we decided to go to the next cache called Sun, Sand and C. This is a simple roadside cache that I have found before but Gryph has not and Cassie was really getting into this Geocaching thing so off we went:
Quick cache next to the road. Easy find.
Having done a few caches by now I am starting to form an opinion and I have to say that I prefer the caches with some adventure attached. These roadside caches I don't "get". Next!
"Next" turned out to be Horcrux: Tom Riddle's Diary. I have been here before too, but Gryph not so we stopped.
This cache is at the start of a hiking trail:
And I mean literally at the start. You stop like 2 meters from it. Just another roadside cache.
At least the view is nice:
By now we were well and truly into "Geocashing mode", hunting for the next cool cache. Gryph knew of one in Mossel Bay I have not yet found so we decided to head to that cache next, but on our way we'd make a quick stop at the Klein-Brak Station cache:
Another easy one.
The restaurant seems nice. We'll come and give it a try sometime.
Next up a much better cache on St Blaize Trail.
Look at this!
Amazing that in all my years in this area I never knew this trail existed.
You have to be careful not to fall over the side.
The view West:
The view East:
And Kermit with the cache:
In this cache I found the geocoin Il Sole. This geocoin was released Friday 16 May 2008 in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Beautiful coin:
It has travelled 15485.1km so far. See map here. The other half of the coin is called la luna and it is currently in Liberecky kraj, Czech Republic.
What a cool cache.
I have always had an interest in Lighthouses and as it turns out there's another cache near the St. Blaize Lighthouse.
What are we waiting for!? 
The Lighthouse up close:
This cache involved more climbing. One of the reasons I started geocaching was to walk more, but I have to admit the climbing is what I find the most tiring. It's a challenge I am not going to shy away from though!
The hill: Look closely - Cassie in the foreground with me up top in the middle of the picture just below the skyline.
A very tired me!
Curiously in this cache we found this:
After climbing all the way up here I decided to claim it.
Thanks Frik and Elsie! 
Great views from up here. You literally look into the lighthouse light.
We had to start heading home, but after these two cool caches Gryph brought me to I had to show him the cache at Glentana Cave first.
It's Autumn here now but we still have some great beach days with the water temperature around 18 degrees Celsius.
The cave entrance:
From inside looking out:
Gryph a happy man with 5 new finds today.
And of course he found another racer. He's like a racer magnet!
This is Bod-51's Travel Racer. It was released on Wednesday, 27 October 2010 in South East England, United Kingdom. It has travelled 9822.2km in only 3 caches! See map here.
So with 3 racers in his possession now, two of which is racing each other, he decided to leave the Vian Racer in my care.
Vian and Zander Racers started their race on 28 March 2011. This racer has only done 116.2km (all Gryph's kilometers - Map here) and has a good head start on the Zander Racer still in Gryph's care.
What a lovely way to spend the day.
And the present from Frik and Elsie you might ask? Well, it seems that very few people thought themselves worthy of taking it. The paper inside it was wrapped in was dated March 19, 2010. So it's been there for over a year!
Inside was this beautiful shell:
It is now part of the shell collection in our beach house. Thanks again Frik and Elsie! We'll take good care of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment