“The Enchanted Forest” GC2P52E GEOCACHE OF THE WEEK – April 16, 2012

Cache page photo montage

This cache page reads, “You Must Believe in Magic” and then casts a spell on geocachers. The Multi-Cache “The Enchanted Forest” (GC2P52E) weaves an elaborate fairy tale for geocachers to unravel on Terceira island. The island is located 1500 kilometers (950 miles) off the coast of Portugal. Victor from  Team Recanto hid the geocache in 2010, after his 6-year-old daughter sparked his imagination.

He says, “The idea came to mind while visiting the park [where the cache is now placed] with my wife and my daughter. At the time my daughter… was talking about fairies and unicorns, and [said] that one of the larger trees reminded her of a magical tree. That tree is now the final stage for The Enchanted Forest.”

While the idea may have been instant, building the caching experience took weeks. “[Creating the cache]… took 45 days, and 12 site visits. My daughter asked if I could make things move on the cache page, that is why we have the animated dragons.”

Victor's daughter with the handmade cache container located at the final coordinates

Beyond animated dragons on the cache page and photo montages with fairies and dragons, Victor also wrote the cache description in Portuguese and in English. The four stage Multi-Cache challenges geocachers to solve puzzles to discover a handmade cache container.

On the cache hunt

A recent log reads, “WOW!!! totally worth the hike! Congratulations to Team Recanto for another magnificent cache. The amount of work that went in to this truly shows. Thank you for taking us on a grand adventure!”

Victor has advice for geocachers hoping to create an engaging caching experience. He says, “Take your time, visit the Groundspeak forums, do several site visits, make sure the story and containers combine well with the location, attention to detail is very important.”

Continue to explore some of the most engaging geocaches around the globe. Check out all the Geocaches of the Week on the Latitude 47 blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com.

Detail of cache container

If you’ d like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, send an email with your name, comments, the name of the geocache, and the GC code to pr@groundspeak.com.