Irvine

I had an hour and a half to kill this morning so instead of vegging out in front of the TV or computer I grabbed the geoswag bag and headed out to find a couple of local caches that for one reason or another I've never done.

The first of these is a stones throw away from our house, View over Holehouse Farm. The instructions lead you into an area next to a housing estate which originally had a circular pathway around it and a raised viewing area with seating at the back. It's now totally over grown with little remaining of the path and you wouldn't know the seating area had been their unless you knew to look. Leading off from here is a small track which heads into a nice little woodland. The cache isn't very far along this track and as it's name suggests overlooks Holehouse Farm.

Once at the GZ finding the cache was easy but I had a bit of a fight trying to get it open. Once opened however the contents (log and pencil) were found in perfect condition despite it being well over a year since this cache was last found.

My second cache this morning was One Sunday Morning in Eglinton Woods. This is located in a strip of woodland next to the route of the old Long Drive into the Eglinton Estate. Long Drive still exists as a road within the area but this section is now a footpath. Robert Burns and his friend Richard Brown walked in these woods around 1781/82 having crossed the Drukken (Drunken) Steps over the nearby Red Burn. The old Toll Road from Irvine to Kilwinning ran via Higgins House the ruins of which are near to this cache and it was in this area that Burns first considered publishing his poems.

Upon reaching the GZ I found I had to venture off trail and down a short slope. I had expected this bit of the wood to be a bit wet and boggy especially considering the time of year but I was surprise to find it firm underfoot and dry. The area around the cache is amongst the trees and there were new shoots emerging everywhere with some clumps of snow drops already out. If it wasn't for the constant noise from the neighbouring dual carriageway this would be a really nice place. The cache details gave a very clear clue as to where abouts to look for the cache. After a quick look around I spotted where the cache would be hidden and soon had it.

This was a nice little morning out with the added bonus of adding another two caches to the total.

2 out of 2.