Geocaches, waterfalls, caves and a castle… a busy day!

We’ve had an eventful weekend. Warren and Steph, who we haven’t see for a while, came to stay with their little girl, Daisy. It must have been a while because last time we saw Daisy she was a small cute 3-year old, climbing her first mountain, and now she’s a tall, pretty 6-year old who goes to my old school and is great at spelling… John can vouch for this having spent time helping her prepare for her spelling test tomorrow!

Warren and Steph have taking up geocaching, which they heard about through us many years ago. They’ve found it a good way to get Daisy out walking because it turns the walk into a treasure hunt and a bit of an adventure. John and I haven’t found any caches for ages… not since 2011… having got distracted by our many other hobbies. We do love it though. It’s a great way to discover new places and have a bit of fun too.

I had a look at the website and found a series of 21 caches around Llanasa, which were hidden by our friends Mike and Gail, Team Marzipan, who we met through caching. Mike and Gail have since introduced us to hashing, juggling, unicycling and many other fun things. Their caches are always good ones… a variety of containers, well maintained, with good descriptions and clues to help if you’re struggling to find them. In this series the caches were all placed only short distances apart, which is great when you’re with a small child who needs distracting on a long walk… particularly on a long walk in bitterly cold wind and snow flurries, which is what Daisy had to cope with yesterday.

Even when the sun came out, it was still very cold in the biting wind, especially at the top of the hills. The fields were full of little lambs and I was a bit worried about them, knowing that snow was forecast for today. Some of them looked newly born, and others had plastic bags wrapped around them to keep them warm.

We only had trouble finding one of the caches, and we got into a routine of letting Warren and John sign the logbook, while Steph, Daisy and I set off for the next cache, keeping Daisy moving to try and stop her getting cold and miserable. She did really well, once she was bundled up in extra hats and gloves, and had eaten some chocolate. Chocolate treats generally work for me too!

After a couple of hours, we arrived back in Llanasa, having found 21 caches… 20 out of 21 of the circular series plus 2 extra ones in the village. Fab! John and I have now found 972 caches altogether. We need to keep going to get to 1000 now! Maybe we’ll find some in Iceland.

We stopped at the New Inn in Dyserth for some lunch and to warm up. It was a lovely surprise when Warren and Steph treated us… thank you both! After this, we all felt quite drowsy, having had an early start, thanks to Daisy 🙂 , a good walk and a huge meal. We felt we couldn’t return home without seeing the waterfall though, so we pulled our coats, hats and gloves back on and went to find it.

We then climbed the steep steps at the side of the waterfall, passing where the river plunges over the cliff, and entering the woodland behind, carpeted with wild garlic. We then spent some time exploring the caves and tunnels, which we think are old lead mines. Then it was time to play pooh sticks in the river. I don’t know who had more fun… John or Daisy!

I was disappointed with my photos today. My camera got stuck in manual focus, which I found difficult when taking pictures of people in poor light or moving. I couldn’t find out what was wrong, checking all the buttons and settings to no avail. It wasn’t until I was home and did a web search that I found out that my lens has a ring on it that can be used to lock manual focus, which I must have pulled by accident, probably due to my thick gloves! Oh well… at least I know for next time. And this ring lock will be useful in some situations.

On the way home, we stopped at Rhuddlan castle. It’s closed at the moment but we sneaked over the walls and went to have look, climbing the stairs in the towers as far as we could. It’s been really good fun having Warren, Steph and Daisy staying! But tiring! After all these adventures, we were glad to get home and relax by the fire, with some drinks and nibbles 🙂

Today we should have been doing a 10k race, then going to a trail running event. Unfortunately, it snowed overnight and both were called off. After Warren, Steph and Daisy left, John and I started packing for our holiday… I’m so excited about Iceland. When I next write my blog, I’ll probably be there!