Dan Q
It’s been a long day of driving around Ireland, scrambling through forests, navigating to a hashpoint, exploring a medieval castle, dodging the rain, finding a series of geocaches, getting lost up a hill in the dark, and generally having a kickass time with one of my very favourite people on this earth: my mum.
And now it’s time for a long soak in a hot bath with a pint of the black stuff and my RSS reader for company. A perfect finish.
This checkin to GC6VYP1 Congratulations reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
We really wanted to attempt this one, but it wasn’t to be. We added up all the numbers we’d collected on our journey but got a number three out from the requisite checksum. We attempted to guess what we’d recorded incorrectly and had a couple of reasonable guesses, but the growing darkness was making it increasingly difficult (and a little dangerous) to be out exploring without torches, so we had to give up (we’d probably not have found it in the dark anyway).
The whole series was delightful and we loved finding them. It was a shame not to get the bonus (which was our own fault really: setting off too late and having to rush made us make a mistake, clearly!), but we had so much fun with the ones we did find that it was all worthwhile anyway. Big kudos to the CO; thanks!
This checkin to GC6VYKX The Twist reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Struggling in the dark, I slipped onto my bottom as I attempted to get around to the far side of the twisted host, and while I picked myself up and beat off my muddy jeans my mother quickly found the cache. Hurrah!
This checkin to GC6VYKF Reach For The Stars reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
We had to try a couple of candidates in the growing dark before we found the right host, and even then needed to stretch quite a long way to open and close this cache container. But eventually we’d managed.
This checkin to GC6VYK0 Riverdance reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
We were slightly concerned about this one, given the cache description. Wading across a river didn’t sound fun given recent floods: it could be deeper and faster than expected. Fortunately there turns out to be a bridge here now, and doubly-fortunately we were able to find the cache without too much difficulty.
The sun was beginning to set over the horizon; we didn’t have long left to complete the loop…
This checkin to GC6VYJC Love Shack reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Some muggles were sitting on the nearby barrier so some stealth was required for us to carefully retrieve and return this one. TFTC.
This checkin to GC6VYJ1 Pump Up The Volume reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Sent my mother in to to a variety of holes in boulders to try to find this one before we picked it up and had the cache – and its bonus number – in-hand!
This checkin to GC6VYHH Under The Boardwalk reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Power-walking on around the trail we quickly found the clue object. I figured it was worth braving the (high) water and getting below the bridge, so I scrambled down and soon found the cache. Good location!
This checkin to GC6VYHC California Dreamin' reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
We quickly circled this tree before spotting the right location. Good colour for this cache container. Making a note of the number, we pressed on…
This checkin to GC6VYGY Absolute Beginners reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
My mother and I are visiting Ireland (from Lancashire, UK and Oxfordshire, UK, respectively) on a mission to find geohashpoints in previously-unexplored graticules, and find a few carefully-selected geocaches along the way. Today we were our near Kilsheelan, down the Suir Valley, making a successful expedition for the 2024-11-24 52 -7 geohashpoint which turned out to be deep within a forest on the hills over the River Suir. Flushed with success, we had our lunch, visited Cahir Castle (and found its nearest geocache), and then made our way over here to attempt this circuit of caches.
We knew we were starting late and were risking the mercy of the setting sun, but we figured that powerwalking and quick finds might see us through. We parked right next to this first cache, found it (it doesn’t have a logbook, by the way!), retrieved the first number, and marched on. Could we do it? Time would tell!
(FP awarded on behalf of the series, which was excellent)
This checkin to GC6QJDW Cahir Castle reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
QEF for my mum and I on our way from this graticule’s hashpoint (after a successful geohashing expedition) to visit the castle. Logbook very full, will soon need replacing. TFTC.
Gorgeous view of Slievenamon towering over Kilsheelan, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, as seen from Gurteen Wood, where my mother and I are just on our way back from our successful expedition to the 2024-11-24 52 -7 geohashpoint.
This checkin to geohash 2024-11-24 52 -7 reflects a geohashing expedition. See more of Dan's hash logs.
Forest in the Suir Valley, South of Kilsheelan, Ireland.
Day three of our geohashing-focussed holiday in Ireland, and the other hashpoints near us look likely to be inaccessible to owing to flooding, but this one’s in a hillside forest. Should be easy, right?
It took us around an hour and a half to drive from our accomodation out to Kilsheelan, from which we’d planned to cross the bridge and ascend the hill into the forest where the hashpoint could be found.
We’d originally anticipated that we’d tackle the trail of geocaches alongside the River Suir afterwards, but looking down from the bridge made it clear that this was not going to be possible: the riverside path was completely underwater where the river had broken its banks.
We pressed on up and into the forest. It’s mostly a managed pine forest, surrounded by pockets of native deciduous trees. The trails are, for the most part, wide enough for the forestry vehicles to traverse, and – apart from the points at which streams has escaped their culverts and flooded the path – it was mostly dry and easy walking.
The maps indicated the the fastest route to where the hashpoint could be found would have been along a road, but we opted to climb to an altitude of about 150m to take a forest trail parallel to the road, instead, and it was certainly a more-welcome view.
Getting closer to the cache, we found a trail leading down and began to approach it. We seemed to be endlessly stuck at around 370 metres away as our track wound back and forth with the contours of the hill, but eventually we began to approach it. I was momentarily panicked when we disovered an area of new plantation, surrounded by a 3-metre tall wire fence, because it looked as though the hashpoint might turn out to be inside it and therefore inaccessible, but as we continued to walk we discovered to our delight that it would, instead, be in one of the mature parts of the managed forest instead.
We broke off the track with around 50 metres to go and began to hack our way through the slippery mud and tangled undergrowth.
Before long, we came across a stream, converted into a torrent by the floodwater and the mountaintop’s melting snow!
After scouting for the narrowest point (and giving up on attempting to construct a bridge) I leapt across, and then reached back to help my mother do the same.
Now we were able to pick our way around decaying wood and slippery leaves to finally get to the hashpoint. We arrived at 11:20.
Retracing our steps to the path and continuing our descent, we returned via the road to the bridge we’d crossed at. We enjoyed a spectacular view of Slievenamon to the North, a mountain that towers over the valley. Returning to Kilsheelan, we had a great lunch at Nagle’s Bar, then continued on our day’s adventures: taking in some history at Cahir Castle (and finding a nearby geocache), dodging the rain at coffee shop Keep Coffee, and then taking on a challenging series of caches on the Millennium Loop of Glengarra Woods, where we almost found ourselves stranded by the setting sun, short on batteries for either GPS, phone, or torch use, and having to carefully pick our way back to the car before a long dark drive over the winding Kilmallock road to get back to home, beer, and baths.
A wonderful adventure that’s left me heavy of foot and light of spirit.
(includes the driving sections and our other expeditions, including some lunch, touring a castle, and geocaching a valley)
Download full journey tracklog.
(just the bit from where we parked up into the forest, to the hashpoint, and down again; minus a bit at the start where I forgot to turn my backup GPSr on)
Download walking segment tracklog.
With Storm Bert raining off our plans for geohashing in Co. Limerick, my mother and I are off into a forest in Co. Tipperary in search of a hashpoint over this way. It’s still pretty wet though.
Step 2: brave the fierce weather surrounding Storm Bert and head out into rural Ireland in search of a geohashpoint.
But first, the crucial step 1: a big ol’ bacon and egg sarnie for breakfast.
