If at first you don’t succeed! Traditional Cache
Professor Xavier: As the owner has not responded to my previous log requesting that they check this cache I am archiving it. Please note that as this cache has now been archived by a reviewer or HQ staff it will NOT be unarchived.
Regards
Ed
Professor Xavier - Volunteer UK Reviewer
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If at first you don’t succeed!
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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Can the next person who comes to this cache please look and see if the Danish geocoin is still there so I can inform my friend in Denmark that it is not missing? Hopefully!
Regards
Hirtag
A short walk cache in a lovely location with castles, bird hides, woods
and a loch view.
Lochmaben is an ancient town lying four miles west of Lockerbie on the main road between it and Dumfries. Its location is unusual as it is hemmed in by three separate lochs: Castle Loch to the south, Kirk Loch to the south west, and Mill Loch to the north west.
Today's Lochmaben is built around its High Street. This broad tree-lined road runs between the Parish Church, completed in 1820 at its southern end, and the attractive red stone Town Hall at its northern end. The Town Hall is by far Lochmaben's most impressive building.
There have been two castles in Lochmaben, the first was built in the 1160s by the Bruce family (his picture is on the front of the log book in the cache) the Lords of Annandale. It was sited on top of a motte on the neck of land separating Castle Loch, to the south of today's Lochmaben, and Kirk Loch, to its west. This castle originally had a wooden keep, which had probably been replaced by stone by the time the castle was captured by Edward I of England in 1298. Edward I set to work to build a second Lochmaben Castle in a much stronger defensive position on a promontory projecting north from the southern shore of Castle Loch, a mile to the south of today's town. The work on the new castle was sufficiently advanced by August 1299 to enable the English to withstand an attack on it by Robert the Bruce.
The second Lochmaben Castle was completed some time in the early 1300s, leaving Lochmaben Old Castle abandoned, and probably already stripped of much of its stone to help build its successor. Today only the motte of the old castle remains, as one of the greens of a golf course.
To get to the cache which is in the vicinity of the castle remains you have to go to the south of Lochmaben and turn off at the church down the B7020 for a short distance before turning to wards the signed castle on the left at castle wood. It’s a roughish track that ends at a small car park next to the castle with lots of explanation boards. It is well worth a look around as it’s of a quite unique design with a sort of internal motte!
There is a bird hide nearby and a small car park on the right for it as you drive in. The hide looks over the loch and a wooden walk way down to it and further on round the south end of the loch.
Although this cache will bring the cache hunter into the lovely area of Lochmaben Castle and the home of Robert the Bruce, the idea is that this is also a nature-themed cache as the log book is exactly that, a log book, and on the other side is a log of any nature finds or observations you come across when you visit. Any finds are acceptable from any line of the animal and plant kingdom.
Inside the cache there are swaps of insects, lizards, birds, marsupials, Yellow Stone National Park ranger and watch out for the snake! A disposable camera has been included so take a picture of anything interesting you see or yourself and when it’s used I will put the pics on the cache page.
Ginger the Red Squirrel travel bug also starts here and would like to travel to any where that nature can be seen.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
ybt raq!