Loch Tay : 51 Caches in a day!

Since deciding to come to the Loch Tay area for our October holiday we'd been planning to spend a whole day geocaching in an attempt to collect 50 caches in a day. The day we chose however, was in hindsight not a very good choice, as it was cold, wet and windy. This isn't great weather to be clambering around on remote Scottish hills and in windy glens.

We'd started at out around 10am after having a look out of the window and deciding it looked okay out. It didn't look like the best of days but in October you run the risk that it'll be chucking it down for the rest of the week. So off we set along the twisty single track road on the south side of Loch Tay towards Killin.

After staying here last year, we'd already found the majority of the caches along this road, but there were still a few to grab and aside from one located up the hill at a cave where a scene in a Monty Python film was set we completed the lot. These are all fairly straight forward with a few requiring a little hunting around and head scratching. Half an hour later we'd found;

• Melting Mouths ~ Falls of Ardeonaig
• Melting Mouth ~ Meatloaf
• Melting Mouths ~ Fiddlers Bay
• Melting Mouth ~ Uni
• Melting Mouth ~ The Best Ben

Passing Killin we headed back towards Kenmore along the north side of Loch Tay. From this road we would turn off and head up past the Lochan na Lairidge dam to the Bridge of Balgie. Before this however there were three more park and grab caches to be found;

• Melting Mouth ~ Sittin' In Killin
• Melting Mouths ~ Pipein' Killin
• Melting Mouth ~ Killin View

Once onto the 9 mile road up past Ben Lawers, Meall Nan Tarmachan (which we'd climbed earlier in the week) and the dam, the caches started coming thick and fast. Along this road there's a cache every couple of hundred metres and with a plethora of passing places it's never difficult to stop. Before long we'd cleared this entire road of caches aside from two we couldn't find;

• Hunter Gatherer
• Hugely Goodly
• Hair Gel
• Highest Giant
• Hurdling Gazelle
• Hill Gazer
• High Ganglions
• Has Gusto
• Hypnotic Gleam
• Hilarious Gold
• Happy Gobbling
• Honest Guidance
• Hairbrained Genius
• Hacking Gardener
• Herbacious Groans
• Control The Flow

Has Gusto was interesting cache as it lies at the foot of the Lochan na Lairidge dam. This is an impressive structure from the road, but once you are right down beneath the dam wall itself it takes on a whole different scale. This is a seriously huge structure and the thought that the loch is just on the other side is more than slightly worrying. 

We'd visited the final two of these caches last year without success. Herbacious Groans had defeated us as our GPS was jumping all over the place and we had no phone signal to download maps. This time we were armed with two mobiles, a handheld GPS and print outs, however when we arrived at the GZ a white van man also pulled in and sat there making a stealthy hunt very difficult. After waiting a while for him to leave we decided to have a spot of lunch but with our lunch finished he still hadn't moved. I decided to go for a look anyway taking one of the kids with me for cover. As it turned the van had no rear windows so we were free to hunt and found the cache really quickly. Control The Flow was the other cache we'd DNF'd last year despite me taking off my socks and shoes and going for a wade in an icy cold stream in full flow. This year the stream wasn't quite as full but it wouldn't have mattered if it was because the cache was an easy find (although it took a while). This year I managed to keep my socks on!

From here we turned west and headed towards Loch Lyon collecting more caches along the way;

• Higher Geography
• Harmoniously Gregarious
• Healing Guru
• Hellish Guide

Upon reaching a turn off we followed a track up towards Loch an Daimh until we reached a large gate. I'm not sure if this was to keep animals in or us out but on the other side was a large a herd of highland cattle with the biggest scariest horns I've ever seen. After waiting for a short while for them to move off down the road I plucked up the courage to go through the gate on foot to find the How Gorgeous cache which was exactly where the clue suggested it wouldn't be. We decided to leave the final cache on this road (which is located right at the dam at the east end of the loch) for another day.

• Honourable Guy
• How Gorgeous

Back on the main road again and the caches kept coming; 

• Hurling Grains
• Hearty Guffaw
• Hullabaloo Generator
• Hazy Grasp
• Hastily Gambolling
• Hides Galore
• Handouts Guaranteed
• Herding Goats
• Lyon
• G.T.G. Lubreoch
• G.T.G. The Dam Road
• G.T.G. Meall a' Chall View
• G.T.G. Scratching Boulder 
• G.T.G. Lairig 
• G.T.G. Learg nan Lunn 
• G.T.G. Bunting Rocks 
• G.T.G. Pipe Dream 
• Its Good To Talk - Innisraineach 
• G.T.G. Kenknock view 
• Rumble in the Glen  
• A Drive In The Country - Boulders 

Of these only a couple were interesting although Hastily Gambolling was more fun than interesting as it involved crossing a very wobbly bridge which was strong enough to cross but which I wouldn't try jumping up and down on. Herding Goats was at the foot of another dam where a rather macabre rams skull watches over the cache.

By this time I was tired, soaked to the skin and freezing cold and Mrs SC, who had done an excellent job driving some incredibly badly pot holed roads, was exhausted. Meanwhile in the back of the car the kids were happily playing with all the new "treasure" they'd swapped along the way but had given up getting out at stops to help search. A quick count of the caches we'd found came to 46 so we decided to head for Killin to get some dinner and perhaps find the last 4 caches we'd need to reach 50 afterwards. However once we got to Killin another count came to 51 and we were all glad that there would be no more caching that day.

Dinner was excellent in the Capercallie in Killin which is really laid back and welcoming with a big open fire and large portions... an ideal end to the day!