Our caching trip – Fredericton

Our first stop on our 4 week caching trip was Fredericton. Here is a summary (finishing off with a couple of funny incidents).  Five events were scheduled for the April 10-11 weekend and we planned on being there.  We left home on Friday April 9 anticipating some great caching.

We were no strangers to Fredericton caches, having been there a number of times over the last few years. We had fond memories of hiking all over the area, including the Woodlot and Odell park, and Killarney Lake.  We were also looking forward to the events because we had had a wonderful time at the breakfast event in December and the winter events in January.  The Fredericton crowd are a friendly bunch and make us feel very welcome and they really make their events special and well attended.

We found quite a few caches on friday but didnt overdo it as we wanted to be rested for Saturday’s events. The first event was the CITO.  It was a big success. There must have been a hundred bags of garbage picked up. It seems however, that I had a negative effect on some of the workers

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 April 10 by Tetagoucher (1341 found)

I felt that CBN and I did well each collecting a bag of garbage to our selves and then sharing another. After reading many of the logs it would seen we weren’t as energetic as the rest. I’ll have to blame it on “pa” for telling so many stories that we lost focus of what we were doing… and then there was also an earth cache in the way… However, Ill give the unofficial “most cigarette butts” collected award to CuriousbyNature for nearly filling a Sobey’s bag full.

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We also attended the biggest flash mob that we have ever been to. It was amazing and lots of fun. That evening we went to the Pot Luck Supper event celebrating the Winter Bash. There was a ton of great food and about 90 cachers on site.  We had lots of great caching conversations.

The next day we attended the  Brunch at the ramada. Another big crowd and a wonderful event with great food.  We shared a table with Dadgeocacher and Zor who happenned to have Bernie the Travelling cache with him. We managed to acquire Bernie following a conversation between Ma and Zor.  We cached the rest of the day  and extended our stay at our hotel for another day.

The winter bash had meant a ton of new caches in the area so we were busy. We ended up staying in Fredericton until Wednesday morning  and found about 170 caches over the 5 days, including 4 events.  We did a lot of hiking in the woods and along power lines,( a lot of it in wet areas) and enjoyed ourselves.  We also hiked a few urban trails and managed to use our bikes for a few caches. The highlights were two caches that we had tried to get a number of times and which we finally got our hands on.  One was Sporty’s “take a walk” on the pedestrian bridge and the other was “Greenie” on the North end of that bridge.  I have to admit that we again tried unsuccessfully for the friggin cache on the tank in Oromocto. That cache is definitely more evil than a micro in the woods.

The nice weather allowed us to take our new folding bikes and do the caches along Thatch road. We had been warned by Team Bike Fast on the previous day  that a couple of the caches were surrounded by water, but that one of them could be easily obained. Glen had gotten one of them and said that the water was very very cold.  I tied my rubber boots to my bike in anticipation of the hunt for that cache.  It was a great day for a bike ride and we really enjoyed the caching, including the cache at the far end that required this old man to use some of his armstrength. On the return trip, we stopped for the water cache.  It was very close to the road but would require a few steps in the water to get it.  So I put on my rubber boots. This was likely the worst thing to do. I then stepped into the water.  I quickly realized that my boots were not high enough and the cold water poured into them. OMG that water was cold. I rushed to the cacche and brought it back to the road.  My boots were full of cold water and it was painful and the water created suction so that the boots would not come off. I lay on the ground as ma pulled them off.  After signing the log, I had to bring the cache back , so I stupidly repeated the same process and then lay screaming on the ground again, pleading with MA  to remove my boots again.

There  was a funny incident at our hotel on Tuesday night. We were staying at the HOJO on Prospect.  It is not the greatest hotel, but the rate was only $79 and included breakfast, a pool, a hot tub, the morning newspapers and wifi to do our logging.  None of the facilities were fantastic but the price was good.

On Tuesday night I was in the Hot Tub relaxing from a long caching day when two gentlemen arrived. They were from out west and were in town for the week selling golfing equipment in one of the meeting rooms at the hotel.  I struck up a conversation with one of the gentlemen. He told me what they were doing in town and then he asked about me. The rest of the conversation went  something like this.

HIM: So what about you?

PA: We are headed to Ottawa.

HIM: How far is that by road?

PA : About 1200 kms from here but we are taking our time. We left home 5 days ago and are not in a hurry.

HIM: You must be retired then, not rushing.  Where you from?

PA : Shediac.

GENTLEMAN #2:  YOU LIVE 2 HOURS FROM HERE AND YOU ARE ON YOUR WAY TO OTTAWA AND IT HAS TAKEN YOU 5 DAYS TO GET HERE???

PA: Yes

HIM: Well you most certainly are not in a hurry to get to Ottawa.

PA:  Nope.  We plan on arriving there in about 2weeks.

END OF CONVERSATION.