Madhouse diaries : Helping a travel bug on his way !

Our last proper geocaching adventure (apart from a very quick one when we were visiting the Madhouse grandparents in Hastings for New Year) was way back at the end of October. We have done a few urban caches since then but they are rarely big enough for dropping off treasures so we've been keeping this cute travel bug warm all through the winter.

He's called Xiefehl's CITO (that's Cache In Trash Out) Monster and we found him at what I enthused at the time (and still believe, at least in our experience so far) was the Best Geocache Ever. It was in some woods near Dunkerque and you had to locate the first part of the cache which was a doorbell that made birdsong sounds. You pressed the button and had to listen and follow the sound to the other part of the doorbell unit which was attached to a tree. Great fun !

Well, yesterday, we had blue skies and no rain for the first time in ages so I bundled up the kids, grabbed the GPS unit and we headed out for a geocaching adventure. We managed to drop the travel bug off at Dunkirk lighthouse (le Phare de Dunkerque) and I can't wait to see where he ends up next.

The lighthouse is also known as the Phare du Risban because it is built on the ruins of the Risban fort, which was built by Vauban way back in 1681. The original lighthouse was constructed here in 1683 but it was destroyed in a storm in 1825. The current lighthouse was built in 1842, it's the northernmost lighthouse in France and was declared a historic monument in 2011. Juliette will be visiting it with her school in a few weeks so we didn't bother climbing the 63m and 276 steps to the top !

I always love seeing where the travel bugs that we find have been. This one started out in The Netherlands before coming to France in the Rhone-Alpes region (near Lyon and the Swiss border) then coming north to Cassel then Dunkirk. I wonder where it will go next? Hopefully a tourist might pick it up and take it to a new country. Happy travels, little monster !