Seamill

It was the last day of the Christmas holiday for Mrs SC and the kids so we decided to get out of the house and go do something. I'd planned to visit the West Kilbride area yesterday but ended up in Largs so I had a number of caches scoped out ready to visit. Of these we decided to tackle four which are spaced along the coast at Seamill.

The village of Seamill (now part of West Kilbride) is named after the "Sea Mill", one of its oldest buildings. This was a grain mill driven by water flowing down to the sea. Today Seamill is most famous for the Seamill Hydro. This hotel was opened in 1880 as a Hydropathic Establishment where people (probably rich ones)  could "enjoy" hydropathic treatment - the Victorian equivalent of todays Health Spas (but much less pleasant).

Our first cache wasn't on the beach but was in a rather in uninspiring spot on the way into Seamill. R.U. Coming or Going (Seamill) is located at the gates of a yard and buildings owned by the Water Board. Me and Mrs SC were a bit lazy for this one and sent the kids out in the cold to find it whilst we stayed in nice warm the car. It took about 30 seconds and they were back with a very soggy little nano.

Next up we headed down to the beach car park. There are (were) three caches along the beach. The first we went looking for was FFB's Revenge .....In Plain View which is located to the South of the car park. Following the beach we reached a river flowing out to the sea blocking our path. At first we thought that we'd have to find a different way down to the beach further along but then we spotted a small bridge which we used to cross to the other side. Once at the GZ the kids raced off and before we'd even got there they had it. The cache was a little damp but we managed to sign the log and left some treasure.

Returning to the car park we continued along the beach Northwards. At the far end of the car park a wall comes down to the beach and is met by a fence. It is here that the coordinates of our next cache took us, Wee Wicked Hide. We knew this was supposed to be tricky (as it's name suggests) but we found nothing around the location. Mrs SC then came back from a wander along the wall with a lump of foamy polystyrene stuff. In one side a hole had been cut and it had the remains of grey paint in some places. We suspected this was the remains of the cache. When a man appeared in the garden behind the fence with his dog we moved on.

We've since had confirmation that this was indeed the cache. The cache owner now intends to archive it.

The final cache, The Seamill Seals was a bit further along the beach next to a golf course. This stretch of beach has an embankment of huge rocks along it providing protection from errosion by the sea. The area is well known for its seal population (thus the name of this cache) and we managed to spot a few popping their heads out of the water just offshore.

It was here that the third cache was meant to be hidden but after much scrambling over rocks, looking under bricks and into nooks and crannies we couldn't find the it and went to get some lunch.

3 out of 4.