GEOCACHING IN BARMOUTH

It isn't very often that I stray "abroad" but on Sat 22nd of September I slipped across the rickety bridge at Penrhyndeudraeth into what used to be called Eifionydd (please check all spellings as I can't see what I am typing) and took the A496 down past Harlech to the great seaside town of Barmouth to help out at the Walking Festival.

Strictly speaking this is not in North Wales but I was so impressed by the determination of Lesley Amison and all her volunteer helpers in getting this Festival established that I offered to lay on a couple of Geocaching sessions. And very popular they were.

We had some 22 people all told on a sunny day and we managed to find the micro cache by the brass dolphin statue overlooking the sea.

The picture shows the morning group at the scene of their triumph. We moved on with our pre-programmed GPS units and found the Long Haul cache, another micro hidden on a bench by the slab of marble which had been on a ship that sank in the harbour over a hundred years ago.

Recently dragged to the surface it has been made into a statue of a group of sailors hauling a great weight-a reminder that working at sea long ago was not all a matter of jolly tars and sea shanties, but unrelenting hard work. We moved on to other caches and a great day was had by all-especially the children.