Monthly Archives: March 2012

East Coast Trail – Top 12 Best Adventure Destinations

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For those of you have been geocaching in Newfoundland, you’re likely familiar with the East Coast Trail. I’d venture to guess there must 200+ caches hidden along the more than 500km of hiking trails that make up this amazing hiking experience.  Hiking the trail you’ll encounter towering cliffs and headlands, sea stacks, waterfalls, and deep fjords.  There’s a even a natural wave-driven geyser called the Spout and these are only the natural elements.  There’s also lighthouses, seabirds,  a suspension bridge, whales and icebergs stretching between the 32 communities that are directly linked to the trail. In 2011 the Association recorded over 100,000 hiker visits along the East Coast Trail.

The trail is managed and maintained by the East Coast Trail Association which a member driven, volunteer based, registered charity formed in 1994 with the mission to develop, maintain and operate the East Coast Trail.

In Februaryh 2012, the East Coast Trail has been named one of the world’s Top 12 Adventure Destinations by the National Geographic Society. Click here for a press release by the East Coast Trail Association.

We realize its still a little on the chilly side, but if you’ve never been on this trail we strongly suggest you get out there and explore it.  There are plenty of sections suited to beginners, and some more difficult treks for the experience hiking enthusiasts.

Here at Treasure Island Caching, it is our intention to write our own “reviews” of each section of trail as we hike and geocache along the various sections.  In the mean time, we’ll leave you with some of the trail signs we’ve found over the past number of years.

This is not the only accolade that Newfoundland has received from the National Geographic Society.  In 2010 the  Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula was listed  as the Top Rated Coastal Destination by the magazine.  To those of this living here, this is no surprise as the entire Island, not just the Avalon Peninsula, is a nature enthusiasts paradise.  But it’s nice to get the recognition to confirm our own (no longer biased) opinions.

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Have you hiked the East Coast Trail? Do you have a favorite portion of the trail? A favorite cache that’s located somewhere along the way? Let us know!

Geocache of the Month: March

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This month’s “winner” is Holyrood Series #7 (GC394W2) hidden by Scrunchions.

This cache, as the name suggests, is located in Holyrood.  It’s part of a new series put out the area that is comprised of interesting containers, with this cache being our favorite of the lot!

To get to this particular cache you’ll need to take a short walk down the old rail bed, about 200m or so, and it is there that your search will begin.  The search will not be overly difficult, especially given the hint.  But we think the cache will bring a smile to your face, or if nothing else add a smiley to your geocaching.com account.

Kayla approves of this cache!

At the time of this blog post the cache was just 9 days old, it had 10 find and was favorited by 4 different cachers.  The excellent weather last weekend ceretainly helped the find count, but the number of favorite votes speak to the quality of this hide (and are not effected by weather).  Some of the comments from the logs:

“Really appreciate the extra effort that goes in creating these.”   -Eveleye5

“Great job on the hide. It looks like it should all be part of the structure.” – MagicDog

“This was our favourite of the series!!” – Pip ‘n’ Tif

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We recently wrote a full blog post about Holyrood, go check it out for more information on the area and some other cache suggestions.  As a starting point there are twelve more caches in the series, and they are all good quality hides, so don’t stop here go and cache them all!

Have you done a cache recently that you really enjoyed, why not leave us a comment below and share its story?

Holyrood

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The town of Holyrood is located in Conception Bay and is just a half hour drive from St. John’s along the Trans Canada Highway (TCH).  If you’re looking for a more scenic and winding drive, we strongly suggest you take the Conception Bay Highway, making the trip 45 km from St. John’s.

The town itself is a small picturesque community, with a population of approximately 2100 people.  The town was first settled in 1689 when it was originally known as Holyrode, which historians have interpreted to mean “Holy Cross”.

As with most communities in Newfoundland, Holyrood was originally settled as a fishing community.  The catch of choice were caplin and squid, which were often sold as bait to larger fishing vessels headed to the Grand Banks.

Holyrood is also the birth place of Sir Albert Walsh who became Newfoundland’s first Lieutenant Governor in 1949.  In 1954 Joey Smallwood, Newfoundland’s first Premier,  opened a rubber factory in the town, as part of his attempt to industrialize Newfoundland and grow business enterprises.

The geocaching in Holyrood is also of a high quality.  Just recently, a local caching couple who go by the name Scrunchions placed a series of caches entitled Holyrood Series.  There are thirteen caches in the series, and they are all good quality hides, but if you’ve got time for just one then we’d suggest doing Holyrood Series #7.  We recently completed the entire series and can say that we enjoyed it very much.

Forest near Holyrood Series #2

View from Holyrood Series #10

Mural near Holyrood Series #11

Kayla near Holyrood Series #7

River near Holyrood Series #8

While in the area we stopped into The Pantry for lunch and had an excellent meal.  It’s got an exceptional view of the harbour and is an excellent spot to grab a nice light lunch after leaving the trails.  The menu consisted of sandwiches, soup, salad, and a whole lot more! We both had the pulled pork sandwich and some cookies for dessert.  Very yummy!

The other caches in the area that we would highly recommend is The Rock (GCJFZQ).  Finding this cache will require a hike up a mountain, but we guarantee the view is worth the exercise.  There is a good path going up, with stairs (the cache owner notes in the cache description that there are only 250 of them… no big deal!).  The area is known locally as George Cove Mountain.  At the top you’ll find a large metal cross, which is visible from the community below.

View from the Top of George Cove Mountain, near The Rock

Have you been geocaching in Holyrood? Tell us about your experience, what caches you liked, interesting things you might of seen, etc.  We’d really like to hear from you!

In the mean time, Happy Caching!

Shave for the Brave: The Final Frontier

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What started out as a quest to simply support a friend who had been diagnosed with cancer and was going through chemotherapy treatment has turned into much much more!  The clippers fly tomorrow, as does my hair, but here are the positives I see thus far from my participation in this event:

  1. Support for a close friend – This has been the goal from day one and I think I’ve achieved that ten fold.
  2. Fundraising goal of $500 smashed! – I really thought that the amount of $500 was realistic, a few people would chip in $5 or $10 dollars, no biggie!  Turns out, it was no big deal and with 24 hours to go I am looking at eclipsing the $3,000 mark!
  3. Raising awareness about Cancer, its effect on Young Adults, and the tremendous work of Young Adult Cancer Canada – I’ve had discussion with friends, co-workers, strangers even, about the work of this organization and my desire/want to help out a friend.
  4. Published a story/article on CBC.ca – Not everyday this opportunity comes along, but here it is: http://www.cbc.ca/nl/theword/2012/03/07/post/
  5. Shot a video with Young Adult Cancer Canada – Yet to be released but myself and Steve headed down to YACC HQ a couple weeks back to talk about Cancer, Young Adults, and the Shave for the Brave.  Pretty excited to see how it turned out! Also, working with Angie and her crew of Duncan and Ian was pretty sweet!
  6. Steve got interviewed by The Herald! – Also yet to be released, the article focuses on his story and the difficulties of being a young adult battling this disease.
  7. Witnessing the Generosity of People – Related to number 2, it’s pretty neat to have 80+ people, some of whom I don’t even know, contribute money on your behalf to a cause you feel strongly about.  And this doesn’t even touch on the support experienced from my wife, Kayla and Steve, my friend who I am shaving for!  Getting to this point has been a team effort! We’ve all spread (and plenty of others too) far and wide.  I’m very pleased with what we’ve accomplished in the past month! Thanks guys, and a big thank you to everyone who has donated so far!

To those of you who have not yet donated, or are only hearing/reading about this for the first time, don’t worry you can still donate! Just follow this link: http://yacc.convio.net/site/TR?px=1002143&fr_id=1052&pg=personal

Thanks once again to everyone who’s been a part of this experience! I’ll post a picture or two online at some point over the weekend for all to see!

Geocache of the Month: February

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Just like the month of February, this post will be short and to the point.  We only managed to find eight caches this month, tied up with other things, and battling a vicious flu for the last week.  But in keeping with tradition, we’re still naming our geocache of the month…

This month’s “winner” is Fish Out of Water (GC394W2) hidden by Eveleye5.

To find this cache, you’ll need to head out to Deermarsh Road in Flatrock.  The cache is part of a trio of caches all with interesting shapes and sizes.  We thought this one was the cutest, and perhaps most difficult, of the bunch.

When we found the cache on February 18, 2012 there was some snow in the area, and we probably could have benefited from snowshoes but the journey safely without them.  Trails in the area can be misleading, with several geocachers indicating they came close to bog territory on this particular cache.  However, this is not a necessary result, there is a trail, it just takes a little while to find it!  Isn’t that always the way? Once you get to ground zero, the hints are all there to lead you to the container… It’s not an overly difficult hide, but it’s unique and interesting! We enjoyed the cache and we hope you will too!

Until next time!