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Highlands County - Prairie Cache Traditional Cache

Hidden : 2/23/2002
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
2.5 out of 5

Size: Size:   regular (regular)

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Geocache Description:

Located in a remote section of Highlands county, Florida south of the small community of Venus.

This area is a dairy cattle ranch area just off of US Highway 27. The cache is hidden in a little visited wildlife management area. Drive a mile down the entrance road through the unlocked gate until you reach the cache area, note that the road at times may require a truck for the high grass in the center. On some trips we have taken along mountain bikes to ride down the road, although bikes are not supposed to be ridden in the main section of the park, it appears you are allowed to ride up to the main trail section.

The hiking is nice and you might want to extend your hike while there, as there is a loop trail going around the perimeter of the main park area.

For a hiking challenge or just to rest on a hot day, look for two benches under the oak trees one at N27 02.746 W81 23.358 and the second at N27 03.006 W81 23.750

There is a small shelter with info about the park at the end of the vehicle road, with notes that they have scheduled "burns" to manage the excess vegetation to prevent future wildfires. After two and one-half years, we finally removed the plastic container cache because of the burns and hostile heat and put in a canister at a different location. The old location is at N27° 02.738 W081° 22.702 where you will find a conch shell as described below.

Ironically, this nature park entrance roadway is lined with shells that probably are coming from a distant area as we found some very large ones on the hike in. We placed a very large conch shell at the location of the original cache container if you want to have a secondary location to find something if you are going to hike the trail since it's just off the trail.

The trail continues on around the park and circles two wetland habitats with observation decks. Very interesting hike if you have an hour or so more. I would recommend it.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Vs lbh ner frira sbbg gnyy lbh jvyy rnfvyl frr guvf, ohg bgurejvfr lbh arrq gb pyvzo be ernpu hc nobhg n sbbg, be vs lbh ner haqre 4 srrg gnyy unir fbzrbar yvsg lbh.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)