Geocaching

Daniel has been nagging us for awhile to get a GPS so he can go Geocaching. They did it at Cubs last term, so now Mum & Dad knew a bit more about what he was talking about. For those of you who do not know Geocaching is basically modern orienteering, however they use a hand held GPS instead of compass (not the type you have in your car, it has co-ordinates, minutes, degrees, altitude, distance to target, distance traveled, etc). So we got him one for Christmas (thanks Craig). Anyway there are Geocach points all over the world, so we found one we thought looked interesting to give a try last Tuesday. It was south of Kawakawa Bay at a beach you could only get to by foot at low tide by climbing around the rocks. I knew Scott would love the drive out there in his new car (RX-8), lots of windy roads. Low tide was at 2pm, so the 4 of us drove out to the end of the road for a picnic lunch, then off we trekked. Getting around the first set of rocks was easy enough. Nicola & I couldn't keep up with the boys, but they waited on the beach for us. The next bit was more tricky. It was getting very hot & sticky so Nicola & I took a break in a shady cave which had a rock pool in it. We spent ages watching the (at least) 13 starfish, they move remarkably fast, & some shrimp (can you see him in the bottom pic?).By this point the boys were miles ahead, we could no longer see them. It took ages to pluck up the courage for Nicola & I to climb the next bit (her legs are short & I was scared) I thought that the next beach was just over that next climb....but no! So we abandoned all hope of catching up with the boys & decided to go back to the beach & wait for them to come back. Of course that was easier said than done. The really tricky bit we had just climbed looked like a shear cliff when it was time to go back down. Nicola was happy enough, but I got major vertigo at the top. I couldn't watch her go down & she kept looking at me for reassurance (I thought I was gonna have to get rescued) I kept having visions of Nicola slipping, luckily there were allot of people fishing near us & some kayaks, but still.....Eventually I just had to have a go & it didn't look so bad when u were down there. So we made it back to the beach & found a set of stairs going up the hill....hmmmm I wonder......but the website says only access around rocks at low tide........So I sat in the shade & Nicola went paddling in the sea while we waited....and waited....Being a typical worry-wort my mind started going full speed at all the things that could have happened to them. It was an hour past low tide, but people were still fishing off the rocks. They had the cell phone, water, GPS & car keys (I had camera) So I was half expecting a Westpac helicopter to come swooping down with them on board any minute, but they came down the stairs behind me (the website obviously hasn't been updated), THANKGOODNESS!!!!! The boys were fine of course, but the ironic thing is the never found the actual cach, they got to the co-ordinates, but couldn't find it :( So off we all went back to the car & Kawakawa Bay for a well deserved ice-cream & drink, then home for a swim.