Irish Geocaching

On our Ireland trip, we forgot to bring our GPS to go geocaching. The SatNav in the car has worked in a pinch before, so we tried that a couple of times so we could add Ireland to our list of countries in which we have cached.

The first attempt was in Ennis near the river. The cache we were going for is Cappucino, not named after a coffee shop or Cappuchin monks, but after the murky water in the neighborhood. The water didn't seem so murky to us, just overgrown.

Water not so muddy here, though the grass/weeds may be hiding it!

We searched to no avail around the mill wheel that still stands by the river.

The mill-less wheel

The wheel seems like it could be put back in use at some point, as a small wooden dam was all that prevented it from getting the water it needed to move. Of course, it is attached to nothing, so it wouldn't produce power for anything. Still, it might impress visitors. I know J and L would have stared in fascination.

Waiting for water

After looking more closely at the SatNav, we realized the cache was across the street and slightly up river from where we were. Also across the street was Public Works who may have been weeding the river on the other side of the bridge. We assumed the cache was inaccessible and hung our heads in defeat as we left Ennis.

We did find the Shannon River geocache in Athlone. It is, as one might imagine, along the river. We had a fine walk down the river from our hotel and found the rail road bridge under which the cache was hidden.

Approaching the cache

While I was checking among the trees, Mommy, J, and L were hanging around on the path. L asked when we would find the geocache. Two ladies were walking by and one of them immediately whipped around and said, "Are you geocaching?" Turns out her husband has been an avid cacher for ten years and she was delighted to run into another one of us in the wild. He hadn't come on the trip (she was with her sister), so she took a picture of us with the cache before saying goodbye. We did not return the photographic favor, however, so I can't show them to you.

J was ready for his close-up!

After carefully returning the cache, we headed back for more adventures, thankful that we could complete another of our 50 things to do before you're 11 3/4.

The train bridge and nearby tower