Geocaching at a Game of Thrones Location

It's the Bank Holiday & the weather is lovely, so Smix & I tried our hand at geocaching for the first time.  

We downloaded the official app, which uses your phone's GPS to show you how close you are to the hidden log. These can be little containers like those you used to send your camera films away in to be processed, with paper inside to log your find. 

We picked the walk that leads up to Helen's Tower, near Clandeboye Estate, where Game of Thrones films every year. 

Photo from winteriscoming.net

Helen's Tower is the pinnacle of this walk. It was a bit far for us today, as my M.E. is playing up right now, but we got past the lake, so that was an achievement. 

The tower was built for the same Helen who the nearby village of Helen's Bay is named after. She was Scottish and her husband built the tower so she could gaze out across the sea at her home.

So, geocaching. When we parked on the road we found we were right on top of one already. It was located at the entrance to the saw mill and the clue was to do with seeing the light. We looked for a street light, or a source of light, but even after checking the comments from previous finders, we still couldn't work out where it was. 

As we walked on through our trail there were several other geocaches, but they were more advanced ones, and I didn't want to upgrade to the paid app when we struggled and failed to find an easy one! 

We did find some really cool freak of nature sights though, like this tree above. I thought it was fungi, but when Smix dared me to touch it it was rock hard. We concluded it must be some sort of sap from the tree. 

There are lots of old stone walls boardering the farms around. I liked this secret hidey hole- even if it was a cider hidey hole (as not seen in Game of Thrones).

Smix found 20p on that big tree stump! 

When we got back to the car we noticed another 'easy' geocache on the road that is opposite the Clandeboye Hotel, the road that leads as a shortcut to the Craigantlet Road.

The clue was that the geocache was inside a container that looked like a hedgehog. We were right on top of it, rummaging in the bushes, shining the phone torch down into the hibernation holes under the tree, but we just couldn't find it. 

So disappointing. There's meant to be a cache up on the dual carriageway bridge close to our house, so we might give it one last go later tonight. Does anyone know of any REALLY easy to find local ones? Let me know on Twitter @rudedoodle

Have a lovely half term break from Smix and me!