Latta is a great place and anyone visiting the area should look into it. There is a nature center, a raptor center, an equestrian place, and the historical plantation. There are also several different hiking trails of varying difficulty and some fishing spots.
So we decided to go for the hardest cache first. This one was called Hill Trail and was rated 4 for difficulty. We parked at the nature center and took the short hike to the location. We looked for this one for a while. In the middle of our search, some folks on horseback rode past us. After a while of searching we decided to look at the logs to see if we could come up with some possible hints. We found a couple and started conducting our search a little more appropriately. I noticed that the GPS was fluctuating a little so I decided to start searching in another location not too far away. Melissa decided to follow me. Minutes later, she made the find.
After we made the find and signed the log, we decided to have our lunch so we went back to the nature center.
We then drove down the road a little bit to get to the parking that was nearest the next cache, which was called Horse Trailer Lot or something like that. After parking the cars and getting out, we saw that we were only like 100 feet from the cache. We made the quick walk and Melissa found the cache. It was an easy find as it had been misplaced and was laying on the ground. We signed the log and tried to place it where we thought it was probably supposed to be.
We then walked the trails a little and our next attempt was "Catawba Cache". After a little walking, we got to the spot where the GPS indicated it should be. We began our search in one area and we were not having much luck. Again, I decided to move to another likely spot as the GPS was being a little erratic due to tree coverage. As I was walking away, Melissa saw me and shouted "Did you intentionally bring us to the wrong spot so you could sneak off and make the find?" Then she followed me over. Once again she made the find pretty quickly after that. Once it was spotted, one of the young ones almost reached in and grabbed it but we reminded them of the importance of poking around holes and crevices with sticks first to make sure there are no surprise critters in the spot. The cache was safe and we retrieved it, signed the log, and let the kids trade goodies.
Then the hike to the next cache. Most of this last hike was clear walking but there were some spots that were a little more dense. It was not long before we saw the area we needed to be at....on the other side of the water. We followed some more turns and twists around the trail and soon we were at the final spot. Supposedly this final cache of the day was only a difficulty of 1 and a half. As much as we searched, we found nothing. At this time the kids were getting tired so we decided to call it a day.
3 Finds to one DNF is not such a bad day.
Surprisingly, we did not see a lot of animals. We saw a bunch of horses, one lizard (I think it was a skink but it was very fast), one frog and the tail end of a snake which Rhonda (Little Miss Muffet) saw and said looked like a harmless black or brown snake. Copperheads (very venomous as you know) are extremely common in the area and there have been sightings at Latta.
Below are some videos taken from the day. I will post again next week. If we cache at all Easter weekend, I will share some adventures. If not, I was thinking of doing a post on how non-cachers can get started on geocaching.
Happy caching until then!
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