I don’t think I’ve ever written on this blog about geocaching before? It’s a hobby that I picked up in 2005 and it was my main pastime for a good few years. It suited my lifestyle perfectly at the time as it was just before Owen was born, work was very busy and it was a hobby that I could fit in with family life very easily. It was also a great way to spend more time outdoors as I had let that slide quite a lot at the time.

What is Geocaching? Well essentially a geocacher hides a container (sometimes large, sometimes small, often tiny), records the GPS coordinates and shares the location on Geocaching.com along with some information on the location and maybe a hint to help find it. Other geocachers then use this information to go and find the container and log their find on the website and in the physical logbook in the container.

In 2007 I also became a geocaching reviewer which meant I checked listing submissions to make sure they were in suitable places and not contravening any of the placement guidelines. All checks were done virtually using digital maps and asking questions of the cache owner.

The geocaching community is incredibly diverse and mostly very friendly. Through my geocaching duties and attending social events I made many good friends and a lot of them I’m still in touch with today. However, as time moved on I retired as a reviewer (2017) and gradually geocached less and less as other hobbies (mostly cycling) took over. My last physical cache find was back in 2018 and since then I’ve only logged virtual caches on holidays in Prague and Venice to add them to my list of countries.

I have either removed or transferred ownership of most of my placed caches to other active geocachers but a small number still remain active under my account. One of these is at Beltany Stone Circle just outside Raphoe and a 10-15min drive from home.

Beltany is a place I really enjoy and being so close to home this is one I hadn’t really thought of giving up. It’s not one that gets a huge amount of visitors due to it’s category of Multi-Cache so it rarely gives me any issues. In the last couple of weeks though it seems to have gone missing and I have been communicating over and back with a number of people that have been trying to find it. The weather for Sunday was a bit iffy so I dug out a box of old containers and Geocaching.com branded items and soon had a new one ready to go.

I had a very enjoyable walk up to the stone circle, replaced the cache and had a mooch around the neighbouring small stand of trees. I have a notion of bivvy camping up here at the stone circle to get the sunset and sunrise some time, getting in touch with my pagan side! I also found a couple of great spots in the small forested area for a hammock or maybe even a tent camp.

All the discussions over the last week or so must have re-ignited some dormant spark of interest as I also downloaded the geocaching app and had a quick look to see what new cache placements have been published in the last 8 years. Unsurprisingly there are a few!

My nearest one is a 5min drive from my house, on the edge of my home village and a spot I drive past at least once every day. On my way home from Raphoe I came this way, found it and logged my first geocache for 8 years. Took way longer to find it than it should have (it’s a very small hide but in the logical place, it just took a while for the penny to drop) but I put that down to being rusty.

I wouldn’t say I’m fully back into the hobby but it’s definitely sparked something again. There’s a whole new category of geocaches called Adventure Labs that sound interesting and there are two locally that I’ve highlighted to have a closer look at.

The geocaching theme continued into Monday. The weather forecast looked promising and significantly, even where showers were forecast, the cloud base was predicted to stay high. That has been a real issue for me this year! I initially had a hike in the Sperrins earmarked but instead decided to head for the Derryveagh Mountains.

I have a series of caches on two summits beside Errigal and a third at Lough Altan that are designed to be a great hike if done together. I did have one on Errigal as well but someone agreed to adopt it a while ago. All three of these caches were in need of some TLC and coincidentally I had 3 more containers left and enough Geocaching.com stuff to stock them. So my new plan was to hike the route, skipping Errigal and replace them all. This turned out to be a great decision!

I started at the Errigal car park and followed the new path until I reached the cairn where the climb up Errigal proper starts. Here I diverted right and followed the faint track up the steep and rocky side of Mackoght (555m) which is also known as “little Errigal” or “Errigal’s little brother“.

Mackoght is a really enjoyable climb. In many ways I prefer this climb to Errigal. It’s a really satisfying mix of short grass, heather and broken rock. The summit itself is fantastically rocky with a really nice marker cairn and in my opinion the best view around of Errigal’s twin peaks.

I spent well over an hour on the summit of Mackoght replacing the cache container, having lunch, flying my drone and soaking in the views. The weather was perfect, lots of sunny spells and hardly any wind, a stark contrast to my last Irish mountain experience! Best of all I had it all to myself while there was a steady parade up to the summit of Errigal as the good weather drew people in. Sitting on Mackoght I could occasionally hear voices carrying across while I sat in splendid isolation.

The publication date of the cache on Mackoght is 2010 but it was part of the original multi stage cache placed in 2006. That box has been up there for 18 years! The logbook was the real surprise. It’s the 2010* logbook and was still in good shape, good enough to keep using. I guess the box did a good job all things considered!

*I made a new logbook in September 2009 but wasn’t able to get it in place until July 2010 thanks to some help from a group of geocaching friends.

Leaving Mackoght it was a steady drop to the damp col between Mackoght and Breaghy. This descent required careful route selection to avoid the many rocky outcrops on this side of the summit that make it so impressive looking from the top of Breaghy.

The col wasn’t as damp as it looked from above and I was soon picking my way back up towards the top of Breaghy (392m). Some confusion set in here as there are a number of rocky outcrops. The summit always felt like it should be closer and somehow even OSI have managed to mark the wrong one as the actual summit!

Anyway, after enjoying the brilliant views out over Lough Altan and towards the Aghlas I found the cache container (half full of water and contents thoroughly waterlogged) and replaced it with the brand new box and logbook.

The final descent from Breaghy to Lough Altan was “fun“! Instead of the longer and more gentle route I decided to take the steeper, direct route. Halfway down, scratched to bits by heather and with a bum wet from sliding numerous times, I realised it wasn’t a great idea and contoured around to a much more sensible and easier descent and was soon crossing the stones on the river just before the ruined tower.

Here I met the first people I’d seen since leaving the Errigal footpath. A Mum and Dad and 3 teenagers were just heading back to the road. They were friendly but not chatty and I did wonder if they were geocachers. I wouldn’t imagine that many people make the effort to walk out to here and they didn’t really look like hikers if that makes any sense? I haven’t had any logs on that cache yet so they probably weren’t.

As I was now alone I headed to the cache location, retrieved and replaced it. The original container was a large vitamin bottle in a hole between rocks. The issue here is that the hole is deeper than I originally thought. The first container from 2006 disappeared into the bowels of the earth as it was too small and this one replaced it in 2010. Even still this one required the full length of my arm to retrieve which wouldn’t be pleasant on a wet day! So, the replacement is much larger and is attached to a hidden external tent peg via a length of paracord that should make it simple to retrieve yet still unlikely to be discovered accidentally.

I took a while here on the edge of the lough to enjoy the view and take some photos but with time marching on I couldn’t sit too long and began the climb out along the boggy track. I was last here in August 22 and back then the track was horrible with large sections flooded with deep boggy holes. Thankfully it has dried out a lot since then and only one or two spots caused me any concerns.

I arrived back at the Errigal car park approximately 5.5 hours after starting with 9.8km hiked and 605m of climbing. It should have been quicker but I spent a lot of time enjoying the views and it was time well spent. This was the most enjoyable hike I’ve done for a long time and part of that was the good feeling from getting these caches back to the standard that the locations deserve.

I’m not sure how far my renewed geocaching interest will take me but it’s a start anyway and totally unexpected…