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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In our attempt to keep up to date with other Geocaching related blogs we have added a new Headlines aggregator. What it does is list the last 10 posts made by a variety of Geocaching blogs.

By clicking the headline you will go directly to the full post on the blog website and by clicking the website title you’ll go directly to the site’s main page. Hovering your mouse over the headline will show you an enticing snippet of the posted article.

At this time there is just nine of our favorite blogs listed, including ‘Northwoods Geocats’, ‘Team Hick@Heart’, ‘A Lil HooHaa’, ‘EMC of Northridge’, ‘Geocaching Journal’, ‘Electronic Breadcrumbs’, ‘I’m Not Obsessed’, ‘Two Ninjas And Mom’ and ‘Blazerfan’s Adventures’.

To minimize page load time the aggregator is updated roughly every hour and then cached (the saving kind, not the Geocaching kind :)).

You can access the Geocaching blog Headlines by the link on the top menu or you can click here.

Now, we’re not guaranteeing that this will keep us up to date (we still have to check it!) but hopefully it will help!

Feel free to bookmark the Headlines page so that you too can keep abreast of what’s happening in the sport of Geocaching!

Keep on cachin’!

There are planned upgrades for the Ragged Mountain Recreation Area in the
Camden, Maine area that include Geocaching. It’s certainly nice to see our sport mentioned along with hiking, mountain biking, golf, canoeing, tennis and swimming. You can read more here.

At the time of writing The ‘Eh’ Team have almost completed their 12 State 5 Day tour with last tally at 120 caches! They started on Aug. 27th and visited Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and they finish up today. You can follow their adventure here.

Apparently, Genesee County in Michigan charges a $10. fee for hiding Geocaches on their park property. The requirement for a permit came into being about three years ago to monitor off trail activities. The fee is also required for metal detecting. Geocachers Karin Tosh, John O’Brien and David Keith speak on the subject here.

Wow! There were also quite a few other Geocachers in the news this week!

The Standard Freeholder from Cornwall, Ontario has an article about John Van Baal, aka Dutchmaster, here.

Steve Hall and Dave Andrews from BC, Canada are featured in an article here.

David Rolan, Ed Schraut and the Scoggins family from the Phoenix, Arizona area are featured here.

And finally, Brian Penza from Riderwood, Maryland is feature in this article from The Observer.

And that’s the way we saw this week in Geocaching! Seriously, these were a few interesting Geocaching related news articles that we came across this week that we wanted to share.

Oh, btw, you can always find more weekly Geocaching news here and here.

Keep on cachin’!

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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What a weekend! It was one of the best we had all summer, and we’re not just talking about the weather. We spent it Geocaching and socializing at Atlantic Geofest 2008 that was held at the Blomidon Provincial Park. This was an event organized by local Geocachers and was designed to give an opportunity to camp, meet and have fun in this beautiful park located at the top of Cape Blomidon on Nova Scotia’s Fundy Coast. The 1875 acre Blomidon Provincial Park is renowned for its spectacular views and for the hiking trails that lead along the towering, 600 foot seacliffs of Cape Blomidon.

Cape Blomidon lies along the southeast shore of the Bay of Fundy at the mouth of the Minas Basin, the site of some of the world’s highest tides. The provincial park sits high on the red sandstone cape which was once the home (and perhaps it still is…) of the legendary Glooscap, the powerful man-god of the Míkmaq, First Nations People of Nova Scotia.

Since it can get quite windy up here the name ‘Blomidon’ is likely a contraction of the nautical phrase “blow me down.” However, there were no ‘blow me down’ winds this weekend! It was clear blue skies and sunny all the way through!

In addition to the great weather the weekend was filled with some hiking, lots of Geocaching, fun games, good food and great company. The organizers of this year’s Atlantic Geofest really outdid themselves!

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Do you feel a bit of Geocaching romance is in the air? Are you looking for a way to pop the big question? Well, maybe this article will help. It gives some great examples of creative cachers at work once again.

Wired.com brings Seero to our attention. Seero.com is a geo-broadcasting platform for users to broadcast and experience destinations around the world. If you are a citizen journalist, local tour guide, back road explorer, talented performer, or simply have a great destination to unveil, Seero is your platform to broadcast your world. Here’s the article.

Is Geocaching a boys game? This question generated a lot of comments from the Geocaching community this week. Follow along here.

The Zen of Geocaching? Blogger Nameless Me gives deeper meaning to the sport here.

PJ, over at the HooHaa blog, recounts his exciting trip to Watkins Glen State Park and then to the Sampson State Park for a picnic with the New York Geocaching Organization. Check out the great story and photos here!

And that’s the way we saw this week in Geocaching! Seriously, these were a few interesting Geocaching related news articles that we came across this week that we wanted to share.

Oh, btw, you can always find more weekly Geocaching news here.

Keep on cachin’!