Saturday 2 August 2014

Madhouse Diaries : Geocaching in Brittany at the Pointe de Kerzanton


Today we arrived in Brittany to visit the French grandparents and, after spending so long stuck in the car, I thought it would be a good idea to get out and stretch our legs a bit. If there's one thing Brittany isn't lacking, it's pretty coves and beaches so we headed off to the Pointe de Kerzanton, about ten minutes from where they live.



This was the perfect opportunity to try out my snazzy new Garmin Dakota 10 GPS which I treated myself to earlier in the week. I'll write up a review for it when I've played about with it some more but so far I love it - it's so quick and simple compared to my old cheapie one, where you had to key in the coordinates by hand and could only store 5 locations.



After waiting in the car for a quick shower to stop (this is Brittany after all !), we headed over to the start of the coastal path.


The first cache was literally a few feet in and it was a bit sneaky. You had to climb up a steep bank and double back along the top next to a metal fence so you could get high up in a tree. This was left to Sophie who went springing up there like a mountain goat !


We were instantly impressed because this was a "micro" sized cache, which in our home town of Dunkirk means so tiny that there's just enough space for a curled up piece of paper for a log book. This one was big enough to contain a little treasure - a pottery "Plougastel strawberries" miniature which made a nice little souvenir of one of the local delicacies. We signed the log, exchanged treasures and popped it back in place.



Wandering along the top path gave us some lovely views across the bay. We may well end up geocaching in the area you can see in the photo tomorrow, if I'm lucky !



We could see lots of people collecting shells - mussels? periwinkles? whelks? - on the beach below.


A quick stroll of a few hundred yards through the pine glade was all it needed.


Then we managed to find the next one.


Supposedly a "small" one but this is what we would class as regular or even large size - packed full of exciting goodies for the kids again, including a little Breton flag. (Can I just point out that the fake syringe is a novelty pen !)


The third and final cache led us down a "staircase" (more of a bank really !) to beach level. I'd seen the warning on the geocaching website and checked the tide timetable and knew we'd be there at low tide with no risk of getting cut off.


The beach is an interesting mix of little rock pools, shells, broken rocks (Sophie was instantly on the lookout for fossils) and pretty stones.


We couldn't work out if this was a fossil or not.


There were loads of dead crabs too, much to the Madhouse kids' horrified delight !


Including some rather big spider crabs.


"Quick Mum, take the photo, I don't like it !"


The GPS had us climbing across a wall and heading into the undergrowth for our final cache.


I can see you but getting to you is another matter ! Madhouse Daddy came to the rescue with a big stick.


"Aaaaggghh Mum, there's a spider's nest !"


It was worth all our efforts though - look at the size of this one !


Full of exciting treasures again.


Including a travel bug which was rather cool. I love logging these on the website to see where they've travelled so far.


Some final playing with the crabs (no age limit on this one !).


Lots of collecting of pretty shells by Morgane the Madhouse cousin.


And it was time to head back home. 


I'll hopefully be sharing some more of our Breton adventures with you over the next few days.


Not a bad stash for three caches !


Not to mention the crabs and shells that had to come home with us too. At least we'll be able to leave them at the grandparents' house when we head home !


Other blogposts you may be interested in :

Madhouse Diaries : Too hot to stay at the beach !

13 comments:

  1. Hmm. I posted something on a game that was related to geocaching last night... Did you delete it as spam? (thought it might be interesting for you). Or did it just not get through?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Didn't see it go through so it may be in my spam comments, I need to have a sort through when I get the chance so I'll publish it then :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'll just try again... It's called ingress made by google... Based on GPS and googlemaps it involves capturing portals that have erupted in space time and begun spitting out exotic matter. You use that "XM" to power your scanner which you use to capture and control the portals, link them togerher and form control fields by linking 3 into a triangle. But there are 2 factions fighting over the portals and taking down each others fields.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4hY0UBAmlo

    Similar to geocaching with added strategy,combat and levelling up :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, if you do get it, join the enlightened :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love your posts about geocatching. I am not fit enough to do it with the grandchildren but have passed stuff on to thier mums and dads.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Let me know if they give it a go - I'd love to hear how they get on :)

      Delete
  6. The geocaching takes you to some interesting and picturesque locations - a great way to see new places! What nice cache's they were as well - I bet the children enjoyed looking through them. I'm sure the grandparents were thrilled to be left the dead crabs ;). Thanks for linking up and sharing with Country KIds.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Bonjour from just across the border in Normandy, You have reminded me that I said we would give geocaching ago this summer .... must get my act together then. It looks great fun!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I should have given you a call - we drove up from Brittany to Dunkirk today and somehow got off the motorway and couldn't get back on so spent over an hour going in a loop around St Saëns/Dieppe - turned a 7 or 8hr drive into a 9+1/2 hr one - grrr !

      Delete
  8. Geocaching can definitely get you out and about, doing and seeing different things. Always great to explore new places.
    Thanks for linking #LetKidsBeKids

    ReplyDelete
  9. yeeehhhh great to see you using your new machine, sadly they do have a habit of leading you by a straight line route when you actually need to walk round and back.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Found that out in a forest park the next day !! lol Got on the wrong path and didn't find any !

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...