Caching Trip – Caching in Sherbrooke

I was going to call this one GETTING SCREWED IN SHERBROOKE but I thought it would be misunderstood.  But I will tell the story about that later in this post.

Sherbrooke QC is an ideal place to go caching. We headed there for the event for Opus Terra’s 15000 caches and we ended up caching 6 days in the area.  Before leaving home we requested a pocket query of caches within 7 kms of Beckett park in the northern part of the city.  The request was rejected because there were too many caches , so we had to settle for the 470 caches within 6 kms.  As a result, we had to  get a separate pocket query for Magog, south of the city and Windsor, north of the city.

We first headed to Magog where the event was held.  In addition to the event, we ended up driving the country lanes for two days (snow and rain and cold on day 2) picking up some nice caches and enjoying the beautiful mountainous scenery and the views of Memphremagog lake. On the first day we cached with our friends Taz30 from Riviere du Loup and Ambriere and Joce13,  before heading to the event and on day 2 we took our time enjoying the views and scenery.

On the second day we had an interesting encounter with a muggle. The gentleman was ahead of us walking his dog on a quiet country road when we stopped and went into the woods. He looked back at us. We then drove past him and stopped a little further on for another cache. He was friendly and was interested in what we were doing because he had seen many cars stopping  the previous day.  We explained about geocaching as we walked to a grassy spot with a large tree next to his property.  We were anxious to show him our skills and the cache but we couldn’t find it.  In desperation, I walked over to one of those yellow thingies next to a power pole, and TA-DA there it was. He was impressed.  I had to explain that it was a common hiding spot.

He was more impressed however at the next step. I unrolled the log sheet to sign it and he spotted the fancy stickers that some cachers use to log their finds.  This seemed to change his view of geocaching.  It no longer seemed a quirky hobby practiced by a few people.  In his eyes, the stickers gave some kind of legitimacy to the hobby.  A brief discsussion brought out the fact that he is a professor at the University.

Why is Sherbrooke a great place to cache?  Well there are many parks and wilderness areas, some of which have been left partly in their natural state with old trails or no trails.  Two of our favorite were Parc Beckett and Mont Bellevue, each of which would take more than a day to explore and find all the caches.  There are lots of green areas in and around Sherbrooke.

Another reason to cache in the area is the number of bike trails with caches. A look at a caching map will show the long strings of caches extending out of town.  There are also great caches placed in the wooded parks in the suburbs and down the country lanes near town.  If you like urban caches, there are lots here but be warned that the cachers here are very imaginative and some of the caches are quite challenging and innovative.

So you want to know about getting screwed in Sherbrooke?   Here is the story.

I had the impression while we were caching in Magog that one of our tires was low and it had me worried because we were caching far from town.  So Monday morning I decided to head to Canadian Tire to have it checked.  As I parked the car Ma checked the GPS and identified a cache 20 meters from the car.  She then noticed  the area was encircled with geocaches. Seemed like an ideal situation.

We went to the service desk who explained that there would be a certain charge if the problem was the wheel rim, but that it would be more expensive if the tire had to be fixed.  They also said that it might not be ready before noon. We said there was no problem as we had other things to do. So we left the car and headed out on foot. It was a wonderful morning of caching with a combination of Shopping centre caches, woods, fields, and bike paths.

When we got back, we had added another 15 caches to our total.  The clerk at the desk explained that the charge was higher as they had to repair the tire. He then showed us the screw that they had removed from the tire.  After we left, I wondered if the screw was kept in stock to show to all the customers with tire problems.

So how did we eat during our stay?

Breakfast in Sherbrooke (and most other places we stopped in QC was at a chain called Eggsquis.  They specialize in breakfast and have a 5 or 6 page menu with incredible inexpensive egg dishes, waffles, crepes, yogurt, furit cups, cereal, etc.. If you order one of the many waffle dishes, you get 3 gigantic waffles, covered with a mountain of fresh fruit and English cream, with rows of chocolate poured over it and with a container of maple syrup. Ma’s favorite was a large cup of yogurt and fruit and muesii. Every table gets a carafe of coffee to help themselves.  As you can tell, we liked the place and it gave us the energy for our day.  Our evening meals were often at SCORE, a Quebec BBQ chicken chain that included a salad bar (with soup and fruit) with every meal. It was a great choice after 8 hours or so of geocaching.

This was our second caching trip to Sherbrooke and we will be back. We had a great time and there are lots of caches still waiting for us.