Geocachen in Houten

Friday, March 7, 2014

As I am more than a little behind with my blog updates I'll keep the update to the bare facts.  Near the end of my trip I spent my time with my brother Wim and his wife Gerrie.  I had been talking so much about geocaching and Gerrie had already come with me once in 's-Hertogenbosch, so that both Wim and Gerrie decided to join me on my last geocaching tour in Houten.  Wim particularly liked the idea that one of the caches was hidden near the old railway station, which had been moved to its final situation when Frank and I were there to witness the exercise.  Since everything is in walking distance and the weather not too bad, we went for our walk.

Het Oude Station

While we are searching near GZ a door across the street opens and a lady in a wheelchair beckons me.  I walk over and she says: "That lady is right in line of the cache from here, but I don't know if it's in the wall or on the ground."  I have a further brief chat with her and while I am walking back I see Gerrie holding up her find.  She couldn't have overheard us, so did a fine job of finding the container!  I logged and after we took a few more photos of the beautiful old building we walked back in search of the next cache, which was to be found at the other side of Wim en Gerrie's place.

Grenspaal Schonauwen

As you can see, a beautiful old boundary stone.  It belonged to a castle that once stood here.  Wim discovered GZ instantly (we didn't even need the GPS for this) and Gerrie discovered the cache container, which sort of matched the boundary stone.  Lucky for us it was still present to log my find, because the next cacher had to log a DNF as it had disappeared.  An unfortunate happening in The Netherlands, I discovered.  I think it's because most caches are in built-up areas and are easily spotted by muggles or otherwise, although we took great care to use stealth.

The cash owner spotted my log and noticed that I am living in Australia.  She contacted me to tell me she often travels to Aussie and would like to live here.  We are now regularly in touch.  It's this kind of social aspect of geocaching that I love too.

Het Bastion

Ruins of a Turkish Bath

Ruins of a Turkish Bath

A large rijnaak (type of boat) in the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal

The hint was: Look for GC ;-)

At GZ  looking down from the Bastion

GZ at the far end in the corner

Last but not least: Het Bastion.  A nice view across the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal in all its winter glory.  On the way to GZ we passed the ruins of a Turkish Bath of which I took some pictures.  The cache was easily spotted and then I signed my last log in The Netherlands.  At least, for the time being as I am hoping to come back again in the near future.