An epic adventure , but not by canoe

When I found out that Ev had this last Friday/Saturday off I arranged for the same days off and we planed on getting the old canoe out of the garage where it has lived untouched for the last three years and heading up to Algonquin Park , after all the long term forecast was for two warm sunny days in a row . 

Ahh , rain and thunderstorms instead : (

So plan B was hatched thursday night , Ev had grown up in the Forks of the Credit area so we took a drive down memory lane driving the back roads while she would reminisce as we would pass by all her old haunts, a very pleasant drive ! 

Our destination was the Silver Creek Conservation Area,  the largest of the 10 Conservation Areas managed by the CVC ( Credit Valley Conservation ) , I had researched the Geocache map and saw there was a group of 8 caches with descriptions like " getting to the cache is very tricky " or "dare to retrieve it from it's belly " , needless to say I was hooked . 

The Bruce Trail is the main trail that runs along the Conservation Area with a five other side trail , we without a map took one quick look at the signage and headed out on the Irwin Quarry side trail , after all a cache with the name Irwin Quarry Cache just had to be on that trail and from there we would wing it . 

Very soon it became apparent that once again we were just a little ill prepared for the hike as about 5 minutes in we were savagely assaulted by a horde of ravenous black flies that stayed with us for the entire day !! and us with no repellent . 

The cache as the name implies is on the site of an old abandoned quarry and the instructions were for 60 meters of up hill bushwhacking , up hill in an old quarry would have been challenging enough but add to that an amazing amount of downed trees and branches left over from this winters ice storm and you have some stimulating bushwhacking ! especially considering the weather was warming and we forgot to bring water or snacks , although we did have a small Gatorade bottle . We had planned to stop and get water but got lost in the reminiscing and just forgot and the snacks were left in the truck. 

The find made up for it all !!!!

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Crawling under huge rocks into caves looking for the elusive cache

Finally !!! 

Enjoying sitting and signing the log book , the GPS was bouncing around a bit because of the rock face so it took a while before we figured out it's location and by then I was sweating like a pig which attracted even more black flies 

So very pleased we went on in search for more , the trail itself proving to be a challenge of it's own at times 

The Trillium were every where but a bit past there prime already, but this one was perfect ! 

 The trails weren't always rugged at times they were quite civilized especially when hiking up high .

The forest would then have a high canopy 

And pretty wildflower could be found along the way 

And some interesting greenery

But it wouldn't last long and down we go again

This being part of the Bruce Trail the oldest marked hiking trail in Canada  

To the next find 

Or in this case a "did not find" even after an extensive 45 minute search  

But not to be discouraged on we went , more bushwhacking 

Down into nocks and crevasses 

Along the way remnants from a time long gone by 

Again down the side of a slippery cliff we go , under and over downed trees 

To find this fellow who caught me off guard scaring the life out of me and almost sending me down the hill , 

one of the best caches I have come across !!! 

Part of the reason for the fright is that we had actually come across this friendly Garter snake not to long before .

After a rewarding find there was the long crawl up the hill 

On we went discovering  little gems like this along the way

One of the creatures of the forest , a very well camouflaged toad 

The most visible wildlife were the chipmunks , their chirps driving the dogs mad 

All in all we found 6 of the 8 caches I had marked down , one was a DNF and the other somehow we neglected to search for , probably being distracted by the black flies that made stopping and organizing oneself an unattainable  luxury 

Big boulder on the hill was our last one 

And finally we were done and heading down and out , altogether we spent nearly five hours climbing up and down cliffs , crawling under and over boulders , slipping and sliding bushwalking around many many fallen trees , and got bitten by a million hungry black flies , collected 6 caches and did not find one and had one hell of a great time !!!

And then we topped off the day with a most amazing dinner at the Terra Cotta Inn