Geocaching in Go Magazine
Whostops writes about his caching trip to Cape Town with Noddy in GO! Magazine
Issue No. 6 - December 2006
(Below was scanned and OCR'ed from the article.)
Dudley Stops and his brother Rodney, from Pinetown in KwaZulu-Natal, reckoned a
whirlwind four-day geocaching trip to the Western Cape would be a novel way to
see the sights and meet the locals. They braved the wet Cape winter, with wives
and a toddler in tow, to find 29 "treasures", and saw sights that many
Capetonians have not seen.
It's almost midnight on a chilly night in July in Sea Point. My wife, Desiree,
and I have just stumbled into a hotel suite after two-and-a-half hours on a
plane, with my jabbering two-year-old son, Jeremy, in full song.
All I want is a cold beer before crawling into bed, but my brother Rodney is
waving his GPS and notes on various Cape Town caches in front of my face. There
are two easy caches less than a kilometre from our hotel. And he wants to find
them. Right now.
This trip was Rodney's ideal. He and his wife, Amanda, recently did two
grouching trips in Gauteng, and they were keen to explore a new province. We
have until Monday afternoon to find as many caches as possible.
Desiree and Annanda wisely stay inside while we venture out to the gusty cold
Sea Point promenade. We find the caches easily. Now all we have to do is answer
the questions on the cache notes and e-mail them to the cache owner.
Friday
Due south
Jemmy wakes us at 6 am. After a quick breakfast we're off to Silvermine in the Table Mountain National Park, an old Batavian water mill Glencairn region, and then the historic part of Simon's Town. We do a bit I detective work and a fair amount of walking, and, thanks to our observant wives who spot valuable clues, we find the "treasures".
At Kommetjie we find a cache near the Slangkop Lighthouse and end up having a fascinating chat with the lighthouse keeper.
Chapman's Peak Drive take our breath away - we haven't been here for eight years and us amazed at all the work that's been done in the meantime - steel wire nets and a tunnel that hangs from the cliff to prevent rocks falling onto the road. We have no problem finding the two caches. One even contains a short history lesson. We're disappointed to discover that a lot of the roadside plaques and memorials have been defaced with graffiti, damaged at neglected.
We have a quick lunch and a cache find in Hout Bay, but I'm quite excited to get to our nest destination: Sandy Bay. That is, until I hear it's a stiff two-kilometer hike, so we just walk for 10 minutes till we find the cache. Once again we're greeted by stunning views. What I wouldn't give to live here.
After a drive up Signal Hill to find two more caches, we still want to find the Noon Gun, but it's getting dark and we're on the wrong road, so we end the day with frozen margaritas instead.
Saturday
A mountain in the city
We start our day like real tourists, taking a trip to the top of Table Mountain in the cable car. Tickets are R110 per person, but thankfully we don't have to pay for Jeremy. When we board the cable car, Rodney makes the same mistake I did a few years ago: climbing in quickly and staking a spot at a window so he can be in the perfect position to get some nice pictures. Then the floor starts to revolve, Tee-hee.
0n the mountain, our lack of local knowledge starts counting against us. Our first cache is only about 2 km from the cable station, but it takes us four hours to get there and back. The route involves a deep, steep ravine. In the end, Rodney and I tackle the last 300m alone. Fortunately, the weather is clear. I don’t fancy being a two-hour walk away from the cable car, when the cloud comes over.
After finding another cache, we admire the view, have a very expensive beer, gasp at the curio shop prices and head back down.
Again, we don't have enough time to see the Noon Gun, and instead go in search of a series of historic spots in the southern suburbs - two mills, Victorian fountains and a few other spots that offer clues to the actual location of the cache, rear the, Rhodes Memorial, where we'd wanted to go anyway.
Tonight we're due to meet a few other geocachers in the Waterfront - but not before unearthing two more treasures, one near the dolosse at the breakwater and another mw near the original harbour entrance.
Sunday
Rain in the Winelands
Sunday dawns wet and cold. I leave our warm jackets at the hotel, something I'd regret all day.
Our route takes us into the Paarl Mountain Nature Reserve, to the Taalmonument, where we slip and slide our way past the monument, first uphill and then downhill, the wind so violent that we don't even stop to admire the structure or the view. On our way to find our second cache in the reserve, near Paarl Rock, it starts to rain, so we all get wet while we we're searching for it.
This should have been a clear signal that we should stop and find a place to get warm, dry out and have a good meal. But instead we press on to find a cache on the Du Toitskloof Pass - one of the places where you have to park at a viewpoint and clamber up the mountain - not much fun in a howling wind and driving rain. We find the cache and the logbook, and, sheltering in the lee of a boulder, we take a few minutes to scribble down our details. Then we proceed to slide back down on our bums.
I am truly grateful to get back to the car in one piece.
Rodney seems unperturbed by the weather and insists on finding another cache on the Franschhoek Pass after lunch. As we're driving up the pass, the rain turns to sleet and the windshield starts to ice up, but we stop and scramble out of the car.
We know we're looking for a plaque or statue, and that it should be within 50m of the car. Luckily, I find the plaque, and the cache is quite close by. I grab the container, sign the logbook and dash back to the car, relieved that the day's work is over.
But then Rodney wants to find another one that is supposedly close by. I tell him he's mad and I don't think it's safe or wise to continue. But I can't dissuade my brother.
We spend the next 30 minutes in the car, waiting for him to return, growing increasingly worried. We drive up and down, hooting. We open the windows a crack to try trace him, but the pouring rain soon makes us close them again. Eventually he returns, drenched. We make him strip down to his undies before he's allowed to get back in the car. And he didn't find the cache! The cloud and rain must have interfered with the GPS signals.
Monday
Water and wine
Our plane only departs at 7.30 pm, which gives us plenty of time to visit a few more places. We first go to the Company's Gardens in the city centre and then up Signal Hill to the Noon Gun (where I leave my GPS behind, forcing us to return just in time for the cannon to go off at noon - now there's an experiencel).
Then we rush to Bloubergshand to see the famous view of Table Mountain from cross the bay - and find a cache that involves wading through the freezing water to get to a rocky outcrop.
Stellenbosch is next on our itinerary. At Delhemn winery, we enjoy soup, vetkoek and farm bread - at 1982 prices! We would love to stay longer, but it's time to leave for the airport.
On the plane, waiting for takeoff, Rodney and I tally our caches for the weekend: a grand total of 29 finds in only four days. Not bad going!