Our 100th Geocache at Beacon Hill

We celebrated our 100th Geocache find this weekend on a lovely sunny day at Beacon Hill. We had saved the Beacon Hill cache especially for the occasion since we have always enjoyed visiting the park. Our GPS signal pointed us in the direction of the Old Man of Beacon Hill, a rock formation in the shape of a man’s face that can be seen below.

The Old Man of Beacon Hill

The cache itself was located at the base of this rock formation and we initially thought it would be difficult to find since there were rocks everywhere! I got close to where the GPS was pointing to and noticed this which caught my eye because it looked a little unnatural.

Beacon Hill Geocache hide

I removed the loose rocks and there was the Geocache container peeking out from underneath the larger boulder.

Beacon Hill Geocache revealed

Here is Angela proudly displaying our 100th Geocache whilst my son climbs to the summit of Beacon Hill in the distance.

Our 100th Geocache at Beacon Hill

Once we had returned the Geocache to its location and managed to persuade our son down from the rocks we had a good walk around the park and had a winter picnic on one of the benches. I then noticed that there was an unusual cache located in the park. It was called an Earthcache, something I had heard of before but not something that I had ever looked into or tried to find.

EarthCache at Beacon Hill

Unlike traditional caches where you search for a physical container, the Earthcaches are special places where people can learn something about the geology of the Earth. The rocks of Beacon Hill were formed 600 million years ago during a period of violent volcanic activity – The rocks are some of the oldest anywhere on earth.

Our EarthCache task was to identify some of the rocks in the area and more specifically laminated tuffaceous rocks that were formed from layers of solidified volcanic ash.

Beacon Hill Tuffaceous rocks

I had never really paid much attention to the rocks before and spent quite some time looking and feeling them, I think passers’ by must have thought we were really strange! The colours and textures were beautiful and it is amazing to think they were formed so many years ago from a volcano!

A close up view of the Tuffaceous rocks

We had such a nice day at Beacon Hill, we always do however this was special because it was our 100th Geocache and first EarthCache. I will certainly be looking out for some more EarthCahes in the area; they are a great way of exploring and learning something new.

Mick