Now for the geocaching

Now, geocaching is really just a cheats way of making exercise and nature seem like something completely different. Having said that, we usually only manage to persuade the boys to come with us. The girls even stay in the car when we do a drive-by cache, there’s no fooling them, although Ciara will join us occasionally.

We discovered there was a short walk that neatly included three tourist bits and a couple of caches, so off we went.

The Standing Stones of Stenness

This was the start of the walk, then on to Barnhouse

Barnhouse

The first cache was by the road, near a single standing stone

Aedan’s first find

There were views of Hoy and wildflower meadows set aside for corncrakes en route for the Ring of Brodgar

  The hills of Hoy in the clouds

Lots of wildflowers

The Ring of Brodgar

If you’ve ever seen Billy Connolly’s World Tour of Scotland, this is where he danced in and out of the standing stones. Naked.

David and Aedan, doing a poor impression

Moments of arty farty stuff

I apparently forgot to photograph the second cache

Third cache

This one was so close to the house we just walked down the road a mile to find it. It was also the day I took the dreadful photographs of the owl.

  Fourth cache

This one was a tricky drive-by after a ‘short’ walk at Mull Head.

I managed to forget to photograph the next two caches. I’d had a hard day.

Seventh cache

I’ll come back to this one. It was the first of a group of three on a short walk along the coast which included a little archeology too.

The Orkneyinga Saga Heritage Centre

Earl’s Bu and church

  Eighth cache

Ninth and final cache, phew!

Geocaching seemed like such a good idea, to give the younger members of our group something to do to keep them interested whilst we get to do a bit of walking. It also gives them some experience using the GPS, which might come in useful one day. However, I find it incredibly frustrating, the seventh cache in particular.

The GPS gets you within a few metres of the hidden cache, just as you’d expect. You are given clues or hints to help you find the exact spot. The clue for this one, ‘under stone’. Very useful when the entire area is covered in grass and weeds over two feet tall! Ha blooming ha. It took us half_an_hour and I would have given up if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew I’d be furious with myself if we did. When we got home and I logged in to record our finds, I read the comments for this cache. We were not the only ones to have had difficulty, it turned out, so I left a rather pithy comment myself.

Still, keeps them occupied.