Geocache Find #300!
On Friday June 16, we descended into the Niagara Gorge to make our 300th geocache find! Find #299 had come a week earlier and we held off looking for any more caches that weekend. Instead, we were waiting for our weekend trip to Niagara Falls where we knew some very special caches would be waiting.
The cache is called "Down The Canadian Gorge" (by dex4), and we were not disappointed! To claim the find, we had to descend into the gorge at the site of the whirlpool, following a winding trail through a dark forest.
After arriving at the Falls slightly late (partly due to an 18km long traffic jam between Oakville and Hamilton), we checked into our hotel rooms, then went for a big feast. After that it was a nice drive down river to the trailhead. Unlike some other geocaches, this one is not suitable for bushwhacking. If you don't find a trail down, then you aren't going in unless you can fly.
The trail contained a lot of stone steps, and wound back and forth in the steep-sided gully. We were not too far down before we doused ourselves with bug spray. Once at the bottom, we stopped for pictures on the helicopter landing pad, then continued around the shore of the whirlpool to the cache location. It took only a few minutes to find the cache in its hiding spot in the woods and rocks.
By the time we finished, the sun was setting and the mood back up the gorge was a little spooky. It was a long way up, and hearts were certainly beating faster when we got back to the top.
Thanks to Geocacher dex4 for placing and maintaining geocaches in the most amazing place. On Sunday, we would have the pleasure of finding another dex4 cache a little further down river.
Daniel (aka "Danoshimano") began geocaching on January 1, 2004 after receiving a GPS receiver for Christmas. The first find was just over 2,000 metres away in Sunnidale Park. In the first full year of geocaching, 86 caches were found, many with the whole family. The 100th find came after 464 days on April 9, 2005.
After that, things began to pick up speed, and the 200th find came 266 days later on December 31, 2005 on Captiva Island in Florida, just as the sun was setting. The next 100 caches would be found in just 167 days, between January 1 and June 16, 2006. While this may seem like a lot to some "non-cachers", consider that dex4 who placed this cache has found over 1,800 geocaches, and only started caching less than four months before us!
