Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Geocachers came from far and wide this weekend to take part in the tenth annual Discover L&A County Mega Event.
Festivities kicked off Friday morning with a canoe cache event, with over 80 paddlers hitting the Napanee River in search of caches hidden along the shore of the river. The main event continued Saturday with over 1,000 participants scouring the county, all using GPS to locate containers hidden at specific coordinates.
“The event went very well,” said Rob Plumley, economic development officer with L&A County. “We had great participation in all our satellite events, including about 80 canoes and kayaks on the Napanee River for our paddle event on Friday morning. Our volunteers placed some great hides all over Lennox & Addington, and our geocaching visitors really enjoyed exploring our communities.”
After a two-year layoff due to the pandemic, the event didn’t miss a beat, once again proving to be a boon for local tourism.
“We had visitors from five provinces, six states as well as Australia and Ukraine,” said Plumley. “This year we were competing with a very large geocaching event in Seattle, Washington to celebrate Geocaching’s 20th anniversary. To still get 1,000 visitors, says something about the quality of our geocaching experience here in Lennox & Addington. We’ve heard a lot of positive feedback from participants. They love the quality of the caches and the welcoming communities that they visited along the way.”
As has become tradition following the mega event, several participants stuck around Sunday morning for what’s known as a CITO- Cache In, Trash Out. As a way of giving back to the county they performed a giant community clean up, collecting and loose trash found in fields or next to roadways.
Another successful event in the book, it won’t be long before planning gets underway for next summer’s event.
“We’re always looking to improve and make the event better for our visitors,” said Plumley. “We have a few ideas up our sleeve that we will incorporate into next year’s event, scheduled for Aug. 19, 2023.”