International Earth Cache Day

Did you know that today is International EarthCache Day?  Well I didn't know it was until this morning.  Here I was snuggled on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, munching on toast watching some trashy Sunday morning TV when mum declares that we NEEDED to go caching to celebrate.  Dad was still in bed, Milla was on the computer and I was really in no hurry to move so mum tweeted dad (yep, that's what you do when you are too lazy to go upstairs!) and convinced dad it was time to go on another adventure to find an Earth Cache or two!

"What is an Earth Cache?" I hear you say.  Well that is exactly what I said to mum when she was nagging convincing me to get off the couch and get dressed.  Google to the rescue and we found out that... an EarthCache is similar to a Virtual Cache in the way that there is no traditional cache container or a log book, but because of their purpose they differ greatly.

The purpose of an EarthCache is to share information about a particular geological feature of our planet Earth, and the object is to learn something about it. When you visit an EarthCache, you learn something interesting about the geology of the area. Usually the information is freely given but you have to do a bit of investigative work to answer proposed questions in order to claim the cache.

EarthCaches are created by Geocachers who have knowledge of geoscience and like to share it with the world. (from Geocaching Online)

It sounded pretty cool and I was almost convinced.  I have to say that I really do like to go caching but after such a crazy busy day yesterday, I was really tired and looking forward to a quiet day.  Well that was thrown out the window, a snack bag was packed, we were dressed and before we knew it we were out the door and on our way.  

Apparently there are plenty of Earth Caches around but we just haven't been looking for them.  There are even some close enough to home that we could have ridden our bikes there but we decided to go on a real adventure to Organ Pipes National Park.  There were three Earth Caches out there for us to find.

The first was the Rosette Stone.  It is hard to see in this picture but the columns of rock all start in the middle and then move outwards, kind of like the spokes on a bike wheel.  It is pretty easy to imagine that the huge rock formation is a giant flower!

The second was the actual Organ Pipes themselves.  Now I have never seen real organ pipes but I have seen pictures of them in movies and things, huge big pipes that stick out of the organ.  Well this rock formation on the other side of the creek was just like that.  It looked like huge pipes sticking out of the ground.  Each pipe was a hexagonal shape that happened when the lava began to cool and shrink.

The last Earth Cache was further down the path.  It was the sedimentary rock that has eroded away to be kind of bumpy.  It looked like a fun place to explore and climb but it was on the other side of the creek too so I couldn't get to it.


Can you believe that all of these crazy cool rock formations were caused by volcanoes erupting near here about a million years ago.  How awesome is that!  There was so much to learn about the geology of the area as we explored the park looking for the caches.  We really will have to remember to email the answers to the questions to the cache owner so that we can log them as finds.  Sure we could have done it from Organ Pipes but there was so much more to do.

Naturally there were puddles that just had to be jumped over, or should I say jumped in!

There were rock formations that looked like we could pull them apart.  We tried but it didn't work!

Best of all there were great places to just relax and enjoy being out in the sunshine.

So there you have it, an unexpected adventure and our first 3 Earth Caches found.  Not a bad way to spend a sunny Sunday morning.
Love AJ Pickle