Once again the Cape Breton Geocachers here in Nova Scotia held an excellent event and once again we were unable to attend. However, once again, stagunner was so kind to send the following post along, telling us about the great time they had:

What a better way to celebrate the changing of the seasons than to have a Geocaching event and see the splendor of some beautiful islands. This year’s Cape Breton Celtic Caching Challenge event on October 18th was a great celebration!

We did some difficult thinking when selecting the date for this event, but this date proved to be the most suitable. It turned out to be a nice cool fall day with just enough sun to keep it warm while caching.

The event was held near St Peter’s on Cape Breton Islands, and was done in a few stages. First of all, the cachers had to do their part and participate in the Hiding challenge. It was planned this way to get more cachers out to hide some good caches. The next part was to have the event, a gathering of cachers near the St Peter’s Canal, a chance to load up waypoints and go explore some different parts of the area. As it turned out the technical difficulties were not at this end of the cache downloads. Everyone was worried that the caches would not get listed on time, But the back up plan worked out just as good, Down Home Girl and stagunner had the data available to the event participants, good thing as the caches did not get listed until later in the afternoon.

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The Chebucto Adventure and Dining Society (CADS) met again tonight for another great outing! This time we met at Pilot’s Pub, on Atlantic St. in Dartmouth.

Pilot’s Pub offers a menu of traditional pub fare. It is located overlooking Halifax Harbour and offered us a spectacular sunset with the city of Halifax in the forefront. This alone was worth the visit!

There were well over 20 local Geocachers, members of the ACGA, and their children in attendance and everyone had a great time chatting and eating. We can only say that the meals served looked good and from the smiles it appeared that everyone enjoyed them. Because of our schedule today we opted to just have dessert and tea, a habit that we could quickly get into!

Here are a couple of photos of the happy cachers:

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Last weekend, on Sunday August 31st, there was another local Geocaching event but unfortunately we were not able to attend it. We were thrilled when stagunner contacted us and sent in this great article and allowed us to post it here:

Recently, several cachers had the opportunity to explore Scaterie Island, Nova Scotia. This large island is located just off the coast of Cape Breton near the fishing village of Main A’Deiu. The island is now Scatarie Island Provincial Wildlife Management Area and hosts several species of animals and birds. It is about 10 kilometers long (6 miles), fairly level and has some spectacular scenery. The Island is also the largest island not connected to the mainland and has the most easterly point of the province at the far end.

It has lighthouses on each end and has several empty houses and other buildings. It was one inhabited by several families but now they only come over for camping and other special visits.

The event was hosted by Hershey1 and MineRP and involved a 30 minute crossing in the Kenny’s Pride, a local fisherman’s boat. The event was planned earlier in the summer as MineRP and hershey1 brainstormed the idea while caching one day. After researching the plan and getting together the boat and crew they managed to place 20 caches out on the Island. Now it was the cachers turn to gather on the day and get ready to grab the goodies.

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The alarm blared at 5:30am. It wasn’t that it was that all that loud, it just sounded loud because it shattered the early morning stillness surrounding the top of Cape Blomidon. It was time to get up and get ready for the Atlantic Geofest 2008 hike to Cape Split. We had to be at the trail head by 6:30. This gave us about a half hour to get dressed, eat, brush our teeth, comb our hair and head out. Or, we could just roll over… but NO! A hike to Cape Split has been on our list for years and this was the perfect day to do it.

And what a perfect day it was. We joined Finn and Spiritfury along with jai06, fergus pals and the kool 66 and hike4familyfun teams, 13 in all, for a 15 kilometer, 6 hour and 17 minute adventure!

Cape Split is a thin peninsula that juts out into the Bay of Fundy like a giant fishhook. It is about 7kms (4 miles) long and from a couple of kilometers (2 miles) to a couple of dozen meters (90 feet) in width. The headland ends abruptly in 100 meter (300 foot) cliffs that offers spectacular (here we go again! ) views. Across the Bay of Fundy and to the Northwest you can see Cape D’ Or and to the Northeast, the town of Parrsboro.

The trail has been here for years and it was recently acquired by the Nova Scotia Government with plans on turning it into a provincial park. The hike in is on an uphill incline, starting at sea level and up to the headland. The main trail is a combination of gnarled tree roots, mud holes and slippery rocks (it’s been described as “like 15 kilometers on a ‘Stairmaster’ ) that courses through an old growth forest of huge hardwood and softwood trees, opening to a small field at the headland.

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