Geocaching in North Wales
Saturday looked a little grey and as it was Anna’s birthday weekend a nice family day out (rather than one where I go off and do something and leave Anna with Morgan) was on the cards. A nice drive around some of the lakes of North Wales whilst stopping off to do some of the ‘Famous Five’ series of caches was the plan.
We left the house relatively early and were soon on our way up to Trawsfynydd. After a while Morgan fell asleep which gave us a break from tractor and digger spotting for a while and before we knew it we were on the shores of Lake Trawsfynydd.
All of thr Famous Five caches are multi-caches where the co-ordinates given on the website are those for a micro-cache. the micro-cache then contains the co-ordinates and a small clue for a larger cache. There are five larger caches in total and each one contains some of the co-ordinates for a 6th and final cache.
Once near to the first micro Morgan and I headed off to find it while Anna sat in the car. We found the micro nice and easily and then had a walk across the footbridge which spans this part of the lake. Then headed back to the car and drove a little closer to the main cache where all three of us went off to find it. Again we found it easily, filled in the log book, took in the views and then headed back to the car and off towards Llyn Celyn and the next multi-cache.
The drive along the Prysor Valley was nice and as usual the description of the geocache provided us a little history of the lake and its surroundings. The micro for this was a relatively easy find and then we had to retrace our steps slightly to find the main cache near to a memorial chapel for the village that was flooded to create the reservoir. Again this cache was easy to find and in a location that we wouldn’t have known existed and certainly wouldn’t have visited if it weren’t for the cache.
By now we were all hungry so headed into Bala and had lunch in a hotel there. After this we headed around to the other side of Lake Bala and the search was on for cache number three. The micro was close to a spot where Anna and I had been before for a little swim in the lake. Unfortunately Anna had been left to enter the co-ordinates for the cache into the GPSr and she had done it incorrectly so we were looking in the wrong place for ages! It wasn’t until we checked that we realised our error, corrected it and started looking on the correct side of the railway line. After this we soon found the micro and were off to find the final cache of the day.
This one took a bit of searching for and the area was a little smelly as I think people had been using it as a toilet but we found the box in the end, filled in the logbook, collected a travel bug and exchanged a few items before jumping back int he car and heading home after a long and exhausting day geocaching.
Of course Morgan slept for most of the journey home so by the time we got back he was fully revived meaning we had no rest until later on in the evening.
A good family day out and other than lunch and diesel an inexpensive way to keep us all entertained too.
