After a long exciting day driving along the backcountry roads in Northern Scotland, we finally arrived at the small town of Ballachulish and the Ballachulish Hotel. This extremely small town in northern Scotland felt like it had a population of 100 people. It was a beautiful, small, quiet town had that had nothing but a few hotels and restaurants; which we learned practically closed down at 8 pm! But it was the perfect place for a peaceful, scenic stopover.
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Geocaching Glencoe Region in Northern Scotland
The next day we thought how cool would it be to see if there was a geocache located in this town. So at the hotel, we used the free WiFi and pulled up our Geocaching App to see what caches might be close by. This was before we had our Garmin Oregon and replied solely on WiFi and our smartphone. After searching, we found that there was a cache 3 miles down the road, and off a bit into the countryside. It had several favorite points and well-written logs and descriptions of the cache. So we set out into the countryside in search of our first geocache in Scotland.
The Red Fox GC9BAB
As we start getting closer we notice that we are in a neighborhood and the GPS arrow was pointing into the direction of a trailhead. We didn’t know where it went, but everything was so beautiful and we were feeling adventurous, so we parked the car and decided to take a hike on this mystery trail. Soon the trail opened up and we noticed that we were walking high on a mountainside with a great view of the loch (lake) across the way.
Before long we see a huge rock that stood out on the trail. Boom – it’s geocaching time! We followed the clues and hints that we had downloaded; searching around the area and moving small rocks…and then success – we found our geocache. Afterward, we have signed the log and put everything back in place, then sit and enjoy the view of the Scottish loch.
We also notice a plaque nearby, and upon reading it learn that this it was the place where the first shots were fired in a historic war in the area. Very cool. It was a great quiet spot to watch the sunset over the loch. This is the perfect example of a geocaching adventure that took us off the beaten path. We don’t always know where we are going until a cache leads in that direction, and sometimes, it’s a very nice surprise.
