Adventures In Geocaching… Riverwood Conservancy

Last Sunday we were at it again. Off trekking around beaten trails and bush whacking through tall weeds and wild flowers. This time our place of choice was just a little north of where we had been the week before. We headed up to the Riverwood Conservancy.

Ambyr had gone up there on a school trip a few weeks ago and had been dying to show us all around so when I realized just how many caches there were up in there it was an easy choice.

A lot of the trails and such that we took were through little ravines and across small creeks and up large hills that felt like mountains. It was a hot day but it was certainly nice walking through the forest with all the trees sheltering us from the heat.

One thing I will say for being in the middle of a small city Erindale Park and Riverwood conservancy are defiantly some of the most beautiful urban areas I could ask for. A lot of it is completely wild, and you can find many types of ecosystems there from forests to marshes to meadows. Each one of them holding loads of gems to behold.

We once again came face to face with the local wild life. This time however they were guarding one of the caches! Mr. Toad didnt actually move until I had put the cache back! Which of course made everyone laugh!

Since we have started this wonderful game with the kids many people have asked me what geocaching is, how it works and just what it is that we are after.

The easiest way to explain what geocaching is is to liken it to a world sized scavenger hunt, only instead of clues you are given GPS coordinates and a few hints as to either size or location of the cache. Now what a cache is exactly is an entirely different scenario. A cache is a container of sorts, generally is either made of rust proof metal or more commonly plastic. We have seen everything from tiny bison tubes, to ammo cases used (even a few flashlight shells have been used and we ourselves have used kinder surprise eggs.)

Inside, depending on size of course you will find in the cache at the very least a log sheet, sometimes there are tradeable items as well. There are also things called Travel Bugs and Geocoins. These are trackable items that get moved from cache to cache by Geocachers and their travels are documented.

Either way if you have kids it is certainly an almost free way to spend a day or even just an afternoon.

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