Its been a while since we went for a hike and even longer since we went after some caches. This morning while we were sitting around being lazy we decided to get our asses off the couch and go for a little jaunt. After taking a peek at geocaching.com we decided to go for a few caches that we hadn't tried for on Isle Madame.
The first cache is in a Provincial picnic Park in Lennox Passage. We had driven past it a few times but had never stopped to see what the park was like. We parked the truck at the gate next to the road and walked in. We followed the road that you would normally drive in on in the summer months but it added to our walk. We came to the trailhead and followed it in. A narrow but well maintained trail very easy to walk on with little clearings along it with picnic tables. We came to the area where the cache should be and started looking around. Previous logs had mentioned about the signal being a little wonky in the area where the cache was and they were right. We searched in the general vicinity for about 25 minutes then called it a did not find (DNF) Martha gets pretty pissed when we can't find a cache and the owners are lucky they can't hear her when we can't find it :-) hehe We really enjoyed the walk even though it was a bit muddy and soggy and Caoimhe decided to be a brat most of the way, thats what we get for not getting her out of the house yesterday. I'll upload the track log for this hike but the other caches we went after were within a couple of hundred meters of the truck. The next geocache we went for was called Celtic Caching on Cap la Ronde. What a beautiful spot this was, going to come back when the weather is a little more pleasant to walk the beach.
The cache was only 50 meters from where we parked but on top of a little hill with a really great view. Its caches like this that keep us interested in the hobby, we may not have ever had a reason to stand on top of that little hill on Isle Madame, and thats the allure of geocaching for me. The next cache was less than a km from this one and we actually saw it from the truck as we pulled up, no view, no reason for it to be there other than another hide for someone to boost their numbers. Its caches like this that bug the hell out of me! hehe The next cache was on Pondville beach down the road about 5 kms. We had been there last spring and really noticed a lot of coastal erosion since then. The cache was in a pretty spot but was not where it was supposed to be, it was on the ground right out in the open and it was full of water which meant the logbook was soaked. Thank goodness my lovely wife got me a "space pen" for my birthday. hehe. It writes in zero gravity, underwater, on wet paper! I like gadgets! Right, back to geocaching. When you come across a geocache that needs a little tlc like this one, when you log on the website you add a needs maintenance log and the owner gets notified that they need to fix up their cache. The last cache we went to was at the head of the Cap Auget Eco Trail. We had hiked this trail not long after we first met. The cache was easily found and we are looking forward to coming back and hiking the trail and getting the 5 caches that are on it. Looking forward to a nice day long hike once the weather is more cooperative. Bye for now!
After the latest cold snap we thought that the Bras d'Or finally had enough ice for our "big loop" walk. We called Tara and she and the Beagles came up and we set off up the lake road to give it a hook for the first time this winter. It was a pretty warm day and when we got to Crawley Lake there was a bit of slush on top of the ice. The trail looked like it was used quite a bit over the past few days by ATV's and we met up with a couple of bikes as we made our way around the trails. We made it around the back loop and down to the Bras d'Or. We got out on the ice but soon realized that it didn't look very welcoming. There were a few brave souls out around there fishing hole but there was a pretty big skim of water on the ice in places and as we made it around the first bend of the shore the ice looked pretty black, not a good sign. Even thought there was a pretty good cold snap the ice was still pretty thin in places so we changed our minds, but instead of walking along the West Bay Highway we backtracked up the trail to Crawley Lake. The hill from West Bay Highway to the lake is a pretty steep climb and by the time we made it to the top our legs were burning pretty good :-) Caoimhe entertained us for a stretch by deciding to drag along a stick that was at least twice her length. Hopefully we will be able to make the full loop that we walked everyday almost last February.
The trail is very wide and seemed to be used quite often by ATV's. We soon discovered that there were quite a few offshoots to either side of the trail. I had taken the image of the map I found on Trails NS and overlayed it in Google earth and traced out the track and loaded into the gps. It seems that the map is pretty dated cause parts of the trail are not even slightly visible so we walked where we thought we might join up with the original. It was a nice walk, quite easy to walk lots of hills. We eventually met up with the trail on the map. We came to the end of the trail and somebody's personal dump, makes me angry and wonder, it takes more effort to haul garbage up in the woods than to put it at the roadside for collection, I really don't get it. Instead of walking out on the side of the road we decided to back track and try to find the right trail to make a kind of loop. We ended up at the other end of the lake and had to backtrack again. We made our way back along the same track and before we went out to the care we made a quick detour so we could get a view of Beauvais Lake.
After Caoimhe rolled and slid around on the ice for a bit we started back to the car. It was a beautiful way to spend a birthday!! The trail is easy to walk on, at least in the winter, looks like it might get pretty swampy and wet in the summer. Nothing really spectacular to rate a return visit. A few big hardwoods, lots of rabbit tracks and thats about it. We ticked another published trail off the list though. It makes me wonder how accurate some of the other maps I have found on the web are. The wonderful thing of the Oregon and the upgraded maps is that it makes it quite easy to keep track of our progress, where we are going and witch way to get back. Hopefully the weather keeps cooperating and we get lots more hikes in.
We have been looking at the sign leading to this newly upgraded walking trail for some time. Woke up this morning to a beautiful winter day, the last of January so wanted to take advantage of it. There is a parking area at the trail with a welcome sign and a map of the trail with a quick description. There were a few walking sticks leaning against the entrance to the trail, enjoyed seeing this as it speaks to the trail being used as well as a good hint that it is looked after, no "punks" wrecking the trail or the sticks would be long gone. There is a bit of a climb as you head up the trail with a few signs showing the different species of trees which there are lots of. Really enjoyed the stand of Hemlock at the top of the hill. Feels so comforting under the canopy of such large trees. Where the trail goes through swampy areas there are wooden boardwalks. There are also a few offshoots from the trail highlighting different features such as a stand of old growth birch and a brook meandering through a stand of Hemlock. Look forward to going back to the trail. The batteries kicked out on the camera so now pictures. Will update when we make it back.
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