Looking in Ladner

The complete set of photos can be found here on my Flickr site.
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Sunday was another great day to be caching, well, almost any day is a great day to be caching...

Ron Patrick, a long time buddy of mine, was in the Vancouver area visiting family for a few days and wanted to know if we could arrange a day of caching. That was an easy question to answer!

I picked out the Ladner-Delta-Tsawassen area as I hadn't been in that area for a while and there were many new caches for me to hit.

I picked Ron up nice and early, and we made a bee line for the Ladner area with the first cache already programmed in.
ABOVE: Harmony Park in Ladner

The first cache had us a lovely, tiny park situated between two houses in a subdivision. The cache backed onto a slough that gave the home owners a certain amount of privacy, and gave waterfowl a nice quiet back waters area to feed. We both agreed that the cache lived up to it's name of "Peace & Harmony".

The next two caches were located in adjoining parks on the shore of the South Arm of the Fraser River. One cache was called "The Flushed Lagoon", in reference to a sewage lagoon that has been reclaimed by allowing the tides to flush out the lagoon twice a day, taking out brackish water and bringing in fresh water from the river. This cache was located in the South Arm Marshes Wildlife Area, so named for the mud flats, tidal marshes and small creeks and rivers that empty into the South Arm of the Fraser River.
ABOVE: Bridge over backwater channel in South Arm Marshes Wildlife Management Area

A well worn path leads you over a bridge and along a small dike to the cache area, which was a great vantage area to spot 3 immature Bald Eagles sitting in an old Cottonwood tree.

ABOVE: Dedication plaque in Ladner Harbour Park

A short distance away in Ladner Harbour Park was the next cache on the list; this cache was called "Thief in the Park". The bad news is that the original cache container was muggled and an ordinary L&L was in its place. The original container was a fake crow, crows and ravens being natures original thiefs. ABOVE: Information about the first white settlers in the area

Next up: a history lesson! This time it was a dedication plaque in downtown Ladner on the site of the original townsite. This was a well done informative kiosk with the story of the town overlain with old pictures of the founding brothers and past scenes of the young town.
I love these type of hides as they bring you face to face with the history of the area, they bring to life the stories you read.

"Got Yanked"? conjures up a lot of different answers I could give, some not well suited to a family web site!

In this case it refers to a dentist office with the actual cache container being a plastic tooth, cute :)

ABOVE: One room school house look-alike

What was neat here is that the building next door looked like an original one room school house.
I don't know if it was or not, but it sure caught my eye.

Another trip to the recent past was a cache called "And they're off...." In this case it brings you to the grounds of the old harness race track that's all but disappeared from sight and people's memories. The oval clay race track is still there but all the buildings are gone; if I recall correctly I believe the name of the race track was Ladner Downs. I'll stand to be corrected on that by some of the "older" folks who read the story! :)

ABOVE: Kirkland Park nestled in a subdivision

"Kirkland Micro Cache" is another one of those "you can hide a cache anywhere" stories; in this case it is in a small neighbourhood park only as wide as a city lot. Near one of my former houses there was a small park just like this, and when my kids where little it was great to walk two doors down and be at a park that the little kids could play in for a short time before getting ready for bed. ABOVE: Seagull enjoying the view at Wellington Point"

"Wellington Point" conjures up images of Napoleon and Wellington duking it out in Europe; here it is the name of a park that juts out into the South Arm of the Fraser River. The park is well developed with a boat launch, grassy areas, lots of parking, and a huge wharf from which to survey a wide vista from the North Shore mountains way off in the distance, to the delta of the Fraser River where it meets the Pacific Ocean not far down stream. ABOVE: In the distance the South Arm meets the Straight of Georgia

ABOVE: Old John Deere tractor on Westham Island Herb Farm

"Sign Me Up" lets you write your name on a fake pumpkin located on the grounds of a farm that hosts annual pumpkin patches. During the summer it is selling more conventional vegetables and herbs. On the grounds of the farm around the "storefronts" is old farming equipment and an old farm truck. Nice to see the equipment being kept for other generations to see, even if it's the closest they'll ever get to harvesting their own crop. ABOVE: "Welcome to Delta" and find a cache on me!

A quick run down to the Victoria ferry causeway gave us a freebee; that is a park and grab cache. This one was for all the traffic just arriving from Vancouver Island; they could start off their visit by getting a smiley for finding a cache. Instant gratification and guaranteed to start every visit right. Next time you come to the Mainland stop "Down by the Ferries" and you'll be pleased you did.

We did find another 5 caches among which took us to several small city parks with good views to the north towards Vancouver. Another one took us down to Mud Bay to hunt for a cleverly disguised micro-cache. We did find it after looking for a short time, but by now the wind was picking up, and the chill from the wind meant we were now bundled up in our warm weather clothes, complete with gloves and hats. Somehow in this cooler environment I didn't have the same inclination to take pictures as I did just an hour ago.... :)

A couple of more quick caches on route home brought our total up to 15 caches found on the day, a new personal best for Ron!

By now we were starting to lose the light and the much promised rains had moved in, perfect timing as we had just finished for the day. All the way home the windshield wipers were clearing the heavy rain showers off the wind shield, and both Ron and I had smug looks on our faces as we had just finished a great day of caching with good company, and had beat the weatherman with the forescasted bad weather.