Monday, November 10, 2008

Rainy Day of Caching

It has rained all day today, but that hasn't stopped my son and me from enjoying a great day of Geocaching.

We headed east toward White Beach, and made our first stop at Katsuren Jo, or Katsuren Castle. This castle was the home of Amawari, a feudal warlord who was one of the last to hold out against the unification of the Ryukyu Kingdom. It's a neat castle, with a great view of Uruma, and the surounding areas. We found the cache in a few minutes, and then went to the top and enjoyed the view.

Next, we headed to what the locals call an "opservatory," or a simple lookout point near a bridge. The bridge leads to an uninhabited island, where we explored the Mujin Tou Cave, and headed out onto a rocky point after hiking through some dense jungle.

When we made it to the cave, there was an old homeless person rolling up his tatami from the night before. He gave us a guided tour of the cave, pointing out the rock formations that resembled various animals. He sort of put a damper on searching for the cache.

After the tour, we headed off into the jungle in search of the "rocky point" cache. For some reason, and I'm not making this up, there were two large chickens leading the way through the jungle. If we stopped, they would stop and wait for us. It was eerie. Once again, I felt like Indiana Jones, dodging large spiders, busting through dense jungle growth, and relying on my trusty sidekick, The Boy. After about 20 minutes, we came out of the jungle and followed a cliffside trail to the point. The Boy messed around and threw rocks over the edge, and I found the ammo can stashed in the sawgrass.

We had a great time, and stopped at the White Beach Naval Facility on the way home to grab a bite to eat.

The Castle


View from the castle


Not-So-Uninhabited Island


Rocky point

4 comments:

Paul Myers said...

Always love those little oddities in life. Chickens leading you to a cache site. Can't say that's ever happened to me, but there's always a first time.

Electronic Breadcrumbs

Just John said...

It certainly was an oddity. My son found it pretty amusing though.

Anonymous said...

Where's the photos of the chickens?? :)

Anonymous said...

White Beach was 'home' for a while.

Tied up one ship, landed a Sea Stallion and mowed some grass before being reassigned to the CFAO Quarterdeck as JOOD.

:)