Geocaching diaries : Finally into the 200's !

I've been a big fan of geocaching for a couple of years now, but there aren't that many caches in my local area so I've been stuck in the 190's for far too long. When a few new caches were hidden over New Year, I decided to grab the kids and the GPS and go out for a geocaching adventure (or two !) to try to finally get into the 200's.

 The first cache was hidden by the lock on one of the many canals in and around Dunkirk. We come past here fairly regularly because there is a nice playpark just on the other side of the road, but unfortunately, it was too cold to stop and play today.

It was a nice simple find but was only a micro so there were no treasures to swap unfortunately.

Our next destination was a big water tower. Again, it was a simple find but was only a very small micro-cache in an old film tube.

Our next attempt would be our 200th cache if we managed to locate it and took us to the site of a new leisure pool that is being built not far from where we live.

Juliette found this one straight away but Pierre was in charge of the GPS so they were both happy.

It was only a small one again but we managed to shove a couple of loom bands in there for the next person to find.

Our next destination had a cute story behind it - it was laid to mark the 90th birthday of a local geocacher's grandmother and is next to her house !

I was convinced that this strategically placed hole would be the hiding place and assumed it had been vandalised, but Pierre found it in another nearby spot !

Walking to the next cache, we wandered past a field full of molehills. I said that they'd been busy and Juliette said that maybe it was all done by the same mole who was a bit hyperactive, which made me laugh !

I decided to call in to revisit a cache that we'd done before at Kruysbellaert chapel. It is supposedly the site of a healing spring and people still tie pieces of clothing or rags belonging to ailing loved ones around the railings so that, reputedly, as the fabric rots, their sickness disappears. Ever since we picked it up in Lanzarote all the way back in the summer, I've been trying to drop off this rather large travel bug. I remembered that this cache was fairly big but, sadly, it still wouldn't fit inside - I think I'll have to create my own geocache with a large enough container to hide it in, which is something I had on my New Year's Challenge list anyway.

We looped back round heading for home and decided to try to find a geocache that we'd failed to find last time.

This time we found it easily, because I'd looked at the photo hints in the logs before we headed out.

We contemplated wandering down to see the ducks in the park below but the weather was getting pretty grey and drizzly so we decided to head for home, with the promise of a hot chocolate to warm up. 

None of the caches were particularly inspiring on this trip and there weren't any treasures or travel bugs to pick up, but it DID take my number of finds up to 202. Into the 200's at last, woohoo !