Sat, Jun 19 2010 - GeoFest! and Hike (View Original Event Details)
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When you belong to an Outdoors' Club, it's no surprise that you're often obsessed with the weather. Our adventure this weekend was no exception, but it turned out to be one of those sweet surprises. The rain and thunderstorms that were being predicted just never materialized, and the sun came out in the afternoon such that we were able to figure out the time using the sundial!
And to really sweeten the pot, the forecast did seem to prevent lots of people from showing up (not from our club, though, we had a full turn out!) But when you're geocaching, it's kind of more fun to not have as many people all out at the same time finding caches, as it's hard to get the opportunity to find them yourself. So we were all very pleased with how that all turned out.
We arrived at Kortright at about 10:15. We registered our group, and filled out ballots for a draw later in the day. Lots of different things were going on, but aside from geocaching, we only chose to get a tour of an 'eco' house near the end of the day.
I can't say how impressed I am with everyone's enthusiasm at this event. I was the only one with some real-life geocaching experience, so we rented a GPS from the organizers, and they even booted up their laptop to help us download the coordinates onto June's GPS. They were really a great bunch of guys helping us out, showing us how to read the GPS and move our way closer and closer to a cache.
In order to give everyone a good chance to really get a feel for locating caches, and enjoy the thrill of the hunt and find, I split us into 3 groups of 4. Bethany, June, Tim and Sabrina in group 1; John, Lynda, Barb and Kathy in group 2; and Chris, Michael, Marilyn and myself in the final group. Finally we all set off in different directions!
Most of us had never been to Kortright before, myself included. We meandered up and down trails, essentially letting the trail lead us along. My group kept a really relaxed pace, and we didn't hesitate to stop and investigate some very odd findings along the way. Every now and then I'd see that we were getting close to a cache, and that's when we'd become more focused on that. The first find was 'in' a tree. We all gleefully signed the log book, we threw a few extra trinkets into the box, and carefully hid it back away again. Just in time for a whole family to come along and 'let' the younger children find the secret spot. And once again we were off on the trails. Soon we ran into John's group. It was a race to find the cache! But we were on site first, and Chris managed to nab it seconds before Lynda arrived! We all signed the log again and replaced the cache. Soon we came to a very long wooden bridge. At the end we found two Muskoka chairs, so we stopped for a photo opp and just a look around. Then we made our way back to the picnic area, and stopped for lunch. I won't even tell you what Michael managed to have from the BBQ! ;) They didn't have veggie dogs so I went for the rice and curry chickpeas. It was pretty tasty! After a nice lunch and rest, we set off again in a different direction. We saw solar panels, wind turbines, an off-the-grid cottage, rhubarb, and eventually got closer to a third cache. And with some luck we found it, but I have to say I'm not really sure which one we even found! It wasn't a peanut butter jar like the description said - so what was it?
We made our way back again to the picnic area so that we could get our tour of the Sustainable houses. Once we had all our people back, Laura took us and a few others to tour - first the Lumpy and Effie tour. That was interesting! Then the sustainable houses. Laura was amazing and explained how the whole house works and what materials were used to build it. In fact, she helped build it!
Finally it was time to go. We all agreed that we had a terrific day and I think I converted a few more people into the wonderful secret world of geocaching! Thank you everyone for showing up, for being so open-minded and just having fun. It was a great pleasure for me, too, to share this hobby with you and to get to know you. :) Stacy
Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Erik Sonstenes at photos@torontooutdoorclub.com. Please note that we prefer to receive the photos in approximately 640x480 or 750x500 pixels - do NOT send original high-res photos. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to twenty of your favorites (only) for a day event, or up to forty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.