This month:

• Looking for the castle
• Canadian Organization Giving Away $50,000

Again, sitting in my garden with a cool glass of wine, contemplating the meaning of life, I make a decision. Tomorrow I would travel far afield to find a cache, after all I had just bought a French car and I needed a long run, (I’ve run out of caches to cycle to.) The buttons, switches, and knobs on the car are all somewhat confusing and somehow I must find out how stop the wipers from being on full time- after all it is mid-summer.

Tomorrow arrived; a beautifully sunny, warm day- ideal for what I had in mind. I had decided to do the cache at the stunning Chateau of Usse, about 100 miles away. I would travel to the cache along the south bank of the river Loire and return by way of the north bank. It shouldn’t be difficult to find the south bank after all, if I keep the sun on my right hand side I should be okay, unless of course the sky clouds over; then I might have trouble- but that’s a risk I’m prepared to take.

Packing my “French” geocaching equipment, which includes an out of date road map, a compass with a mind of it’s own, a printout of the cache page, enough knowledge of the French language to order a coffee and a cheese sandwich, and last but not least, my trusty GPS, which never lies. All information has been entered into the GPS and double-checked so I’m ready to go.

Departure time arrived, the wipers were now only intermittent, and I made my way across the river Loire to the south bank. The compass was not quite sure I was on the south bank but the sun was in the right place. The drive was fantastic; winding through the vineyards of the Loire where the vines were laden with beautiful bunches of grapes, ripening for the September harvest, which would eventually produce next year’s magnificent wines of the Loire. I had slight traffic problems with a couple of tractors stopping to chat, and a cycling club in their brightly coloured jerseys filling half the road. Tractors and cyclists appear to have priority on the French roads, totally oblivious of the usual rules of the road. Traffic lights and indicators are a hindrance, so are totally ignored- still this is France, so what’s the hurry?

I checked my trusty GPS which indicated that I was almost there. At last I was reliably informed, “Arrived at your destination”, and it’s lunchtime.

Parking by the only cafe in the village I decide to have a coffee and a cheese sandwich before starting the search. I entered the café to be met by the customary indecipherable grunt and shrug of the shoulders. I had the feeling that I had stumbled across an ancient mystical French ritual, it went very quiet and a dozen pair of eyes scanned me up and down. Plucking up courage, I placed my order and waited.

At the pavement table, in the quietness of the deserted village enjoying my sandwich, the adrenalin started to flow and I had a feeling of great excitement. But, there was one major problem- no chateau. The chateau, according to the printout, is quite large and has connections with the story of Sleeping Beauty. The photographs indicate that it is not unlike the castle at Disney, so where is it? All I could see were a few houses, a shop, (closed,) and miles of empty space.

Being a logical thinker, I decide there were two solutions to this problem- either I’m lost, or the chateau has been demolished. Ignoring the second since it would take years to demolish due to the 2 hr lunch breaks etc., and the cache has only been there a few months. That left only one answer- I was lost- but my trusty GPS says I’m here, wherever here is.

Now I know how Columbus felt when he landed on the shores of America, where the hell am I?

This was now a serious situation and it called for drastic measures. I ordered 2 beers since this saved the café owner having to leave his lunch twice and was less labor intensive. I returned to my pavement table and sat quietly in a shade temperature of over a 100. Panic had started to set in. How could I, an experienced Geocacher, register a DNF? Not only a DNF for the cache, but also a DNF for the chateau, and worst of all a DNF for the village containing all these DNF’s. What an embarrassment.

It was back to basics. I referred to my out-of-date road map and could not find where I was; the village was not marked. Maybe I was on the wrong bank of the river. If so, I should be a few kilometers out in the Atlantic. The café owner was now sleeping, so advice was out of the question. I checked for North using my compass with a mind of its own, not that this was of any use at all, but in a state of panic any technology is better than none. I re-read the cache printout, and checked the co-ordinates for the umpteenth time. I reflected on the words I had read many times on the Geocaching Forum: “You are never lost with a GPS, you just don’t know where you are” There are many true words spoken in jest.

Then shouting the words used by the ancient Geocacher Archimedes- "Eureka", all was revealed. The coordinates were spot on, but since all my previous caching has been N---, W--- I now realized I was sitting on the wrong side of the Meridian I should have been on the other side I should have entered E---, not W---. I was still a few miles away from the cache. There are no prizes for my reaction.

Eventually, with the use of my out of date road map, my compass with a mind of its own, and my trusty GPS, which now only lies occasionally, I was reliably informed for a second time: “arrived at your destination.” It was a magnificent chateau, and a great cache, well worth the effort.

I returned by way of the opposite bank before the sun set. North and South can become confusing when the sun is directly in front.

When I arrived home I was somewhat pleased with myself. I now understood the car with its entire array of buttons and knobs, and the wipers have remained off. I had enjoyed a pleasant day out and I had learnt a valuable lesson in stupidity.

Meanwhile it’s another glass of wine in the peace and tranquility of this wonderful, albeit sometimes infuriating, country. What other geocaching excitement can be lurking out there? Well, what the hell, refill the wine glass and reflect on the meaning of life.