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Best Caches: Scotland/Ireland/Northern Orelan


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Hello all!

 

I'm very familiar with the 'Favourites' tab and search options for helping me to plan my trip through Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland from September 8th to 26th, but I'm hoping for a few more personal recommendations.

 

We will be travelling through almost ALL of Scotland and Northern Ireland, and the northern half of the country of Ireland during our visit. We would take any recommendations as to caches that you may have. We're especially fond of secluded/lesser known views and of any particularly unique caches/locations that people feel inclined to suggest.

 

This is a no pressure thread - any responses people give are totally appreciated, whether it's one cache in one city or many! Whatever you can contribute is appreciated.

 

Cheers;

CCC

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Hi,

 

It sounds like you have a good trip planned, although as with all places, there is never enough time to do all the caches you'd want to do!

 

Living in Scotland and having just completed the series, you might be interested in doing one or two of the Scotland the Quest Series. Have a look at the mysteries in my profile and you'll find the Bonus (26th July 2015) from which you can work back to all the other 32. It might be frustrating to try and start a series you're unlikely to finish, but as I've mentioned in a few of the logs, many of the caches stand as excellent caches in their own right; certainly the scenery is super in most of them. That said, they are rather spread out by their very nature, so see what you think. Not as spread out as BC, however!

 

If you like mysteries, there is a great series North East of Perth in Scotland, the Strelitz series. There are over 40 puzzles in a smiley face (I did the series on 5/8/12) and they will give you a good walk partially through forest and partially farmland. Then there is the Cateran Trail which is north of that in the Blairgowrie area. Each of those will take most of a day. The Haggis Highway series is extensive around the country and consists mainly of drive-bys, if that's your thing.

 

I was in Ireland in May/June and spent a night at Bray in Co. Wicklow. There's lots of lovely caches there and the scenery is beautiful. A must-do is "Europe's First" (GC41) which is on a scenic walk along the coastal path). Again, my profile will show you a few good caches (around 30/31st May I think) and whilst those caches were fun, I wasn't there for very long, so there are masses of others which I didn't have time to find.

 

I hope that's a start. There will no doubt be lots of other suggestions from different people and the favourite points are certainly a good indicator of what is popular and probably therefore worth aiming for too.

 

Enjoy your trip.

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I would not consider myself an expert in the best caches of this area, but we visited Scotland a couple of years ago and are now planning a trip to Ireland, about the same time that the OP will be leaving. When we travel, there are other priorities than caches -- so virtuals, earthcaches,and caches that take us to interesting locations are our priority. I generally find the location first and then check to see if there are any caches there, so I do not use favorites and have never found them particularly helpful in planning a trip.

 

In Scotland, there were caches in many of the locations we wanted to visit. We found caches at standing stones, stone circles, castle ruins, old abbeys, Loch Ness, Arthur's Seat, old cemeteries and churches, ancient carved rocks (including a LBH at the pict carvings of Aberlemno), Robert the Bruce's tree, the place where Thomas the Rhymer met the queen of elfland and returned years later with the gift of prophecy. My noncaching spouse graciously let me stop at the closest cache to Dunnottar Castle because it was among my favorites and its nice to use this site as a kind of travelogue.

 

Between In Search of Ancient Scotland, a few good internet sites, and the cache locations that marked certain locations better than the book, we were able to find our way around. The caching app I use directly links to the Navigation app I use. It was a good combination.

 

A few places stand out. There was an unassuming cache at one of the Callanish sites. Our guidebook took us to all of the major sites there, but the cache was part of Callanish so it did not need to do anything more than it did. (I ended up liking the sites there even better than Stonehenge's inner circle.) We enjoyed walking (slogging) around peat fields to a remote temple near Stornoway and visiting northern light at a lighthouse in the north of the isle of Lewis. Beautiful rocky cliffs. My wife enjoyed touring Parliament as part of a virtual multi. We also stopped at a puzzle that even I could solve towards the back of Craigmillar Castle (Edinburgh) - it was an easy bus ride, our first castle ruins, and a place my wife visited when she was a student there.

 

We would have found our way to most of the cache locations we visited even without this game. The remote temple mentioned above was one great exception. But the place that best met the way that caching can bring you to unique places that might otherwise be missed was Fairy Glen and Castle Ewen on Skye. There was an earthcache and traditional there. A fun, beautiful, and magical place to visit - its still on my profile as my favorite cache in the INWHVTPBFC category.

 

When we were there, I really wanted to go to Orkney to do a virtual at the site of an old norse settlement in a location that can only be reached at low tide. But by the time we would have made it to that part of the country, it was past October 1 and the site was closed for public access. So that remains on our plans for a future trip - not doing that gave us more time for Lewis and Harris, which was a good trade off.

 

We are now making the same kind of plans for Ireland, since we will be looping around both parts of Ireland before the World Grand Prix of darts begins in Dublin. Once again, there are caches near fairy forts, megalithic cairns, standing stones, ruined castles and abbeys -- places that were on our "to do" list. We worked in enough time in our itinerary to take a side trip to the island of Clare to pay our respects at the castle of the Pirate Queen.

 

A friend of mine has an earthcache at Downpatrick Head so that is perhaps the one part of the trip where caching became a priority, but it looks like an amazing area in any event. And I actually noticed Fuair Cnocs on this site before I read a guide to ancient Ireland. A lot of cachers visit europes first cache near Bray. We may be traveling very near there so I might stop, but it is not the kind of thing that I would go out of my way to do.

 

It really helps with navigation to have identified cache locations that work seamlessly with voice routing, so I finally realized that I should add waypoints of locations without caches into the caching app I use. It gives an overview of the places we are planning to visit and with a single click or two, the nice person inside the routing app is directing us so that I can concentrate on driving on the other side of narrow roads rather than wondering what roundabout exit to take.

 

So we are hoping for the best with the weather (we were really lucky in Scotland), but figure Ireland is what rain gear is made for.

Edited by geodarts
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I'd definitely second the Arthur's Seat earth cache recommendation - it's a wee hike out from the centre of Edinburgh up a proper sort of hill but always not so far away. Jut try and choose a clear old day - http://coord.info/GCNTAB

 

You'll certainly want to be spending some time in Edinburgh anyway I imagine.You might be interested in GC10 as well - right by the castle in a round about sort of way - http://coord.info/GC25XQP

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Simply Paul has an interesting series in Scotland, based on the film The Wicker Man.

The Wicker Man - Corn Rigs and Barley Rigs

 

Geocache Description:

A small series of caches at locations used for the filming of one of my favourite movies; The Wicker Man (once called 'The Citizen Kane of Horror films'). This classic of British Horror used many stunning locations through Dumfries and Galloway, as well as Plockton and Skye further north.

 

I did them as a milestone for my 500th cache, way back in 2007!

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Just looking through my list of favourites

 

North Scotland (on A99 to Wick) Whaligoe Steps http://coord.info/GC143F7

 

Southern Scotland (On A708 between Moffat & Selkirk). Kirk of the Lowes http://coord.info/GC13E0R (fantastic views on a clear day)

 

Co. Sligo, Ireland I enjoyed the walk/views 'Under Bare Benbulben's Head'. http://coord.info/GC2E183 (Photos of the area in issue 10 of GAGB Seeker magazine)

 

(Isle of Skye is also mentioned/photos in the same issue of Seeker.)

 

Northern Ireland (Giant's Causeway area). We parked at the park & ride at Bushmills (April 2012 - this was before they built the new centre, so not sure if they still offer this) and took a one way bus to the causeway. Then walked/cached our way back along the coast to the car. Nice walk with great views.

 

Enjoy your trip

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