So, I had a busy geocaching weekend.

Saturday, I took part in SNCITO7, a Cache In-Trash Out (CITO) event in Spencerville. CITOs basically combine roadside cleanup-type activities with geocaching. The South Nation Conservation Authority identified a number of sites in their watershed that needed some TLC and organized an event for geocachers to help with the cleanup. Saturday morning, we converged on the Spencerville Mill where we formed into teams, got our assignments and headed out to spend a couple of hours picking up trash.

My team went to a dot called Totem, which was a late addition the municipality had asked the conservation authority to add to the list. For a couple of hours, we walked the ditches, picking up all sorts of garbage. The most commonly found item had to be cigarette butts.

Gordon’s PSA: Attention smokers: Cigarette butts do not biodegrade so STOP THROWING THEM ON THE GROUND! Not only do they look terrible, throwing burning items into a grass-filled ditch is a bad idea. Don’t do it!

After filling several giant garbage bags, we headed back to the mill to drop off our bags and eat lunch. Once things wrapped up, I headed out to do some geocaching with a few people before eventually meeting up in Johnstown for dinner.

Along the way, I bagged several different types of geocaches. Someone pointed out that including the dinner event cache (everything is an event in geocaching), I had found the following cache types:

• traditional cache
• multicache
• letterbox cache
• puzzle cache
• Whereigo cache
• CITO cache
• event cache

That left three “common” cache types (virtual, webcam and earthcache).

I searched the map of geocaches and found a virtual that was only 45km away, so I convinced one of the other people in the group to go with me to find it. We made our way towards the outskirts of Cornwall, where we found the N45 W75 confluence, with is an intersection of the major lines of longitude and latitude. After taking the obligatory photos of our GPS receivers showing a whole lot of zeros, we headed off to meet up with people for dinner.

So, I had 8 different types of caches in my logbook for the day. Not an easy thing to accomplish in geocaching.

And then the inevitable discussion about the remaining two cache types (webcam and earthcache) took place at dinner.

Webcam caches basically involve going to a webcam and having your picture taken by it. It’s a relatively rare type of cache and I think there’s only one in the Ottawa area (the Parliament Hill webcam). Interestingly for me, I hadn’t found it. Hmmm.

That left an earthcache, of which there are a number in Ottawa that I hadn’t found, such as an earthcache based on the rock outcrop in front of the Geological Survey of Canada building at 601 Booth Street. Hmmm.

Ten cache types found in a single day was within the realm of possibility for me, something that is increasingly difficult to do as there basically aren’t any new virtual caches being placed as they’ve been replaced by waymarks.

After dinner was done, I packed myself into my car and headed up the 416 straight to Parliament Hill where I went to the Centennial Flame, pulled up the webcam on my phone, turned on my ridiculously bright flashlight and captured a photo of me standing next to the flame. 9 cache types found.

From there I headed to 601 Booth Street where I hunted for two different types of fossils in the rocks, took photos of them (and one of myself in front of the rocks). 10 cache types found.

I headed home to log the day’s finds and toss everything in the washing machine.

On Sunday, I had a lazy morning and then headed across the river to Cantley, where I did a few more caches. All in all, I logged 4 finds, 2 DNFs (did not finds), and reported one as needing maintenance and one as needing to be archived because it was a) missing, and b) now on private property thanks to a new development. I followed this up with ice cream at Chocolats Favoris in Gatineau on my way home.

All in all, a good weekend. 🙂