"...Just below them a dam had been built across this river, and when they saw it everyone suddenly remembered that of course beavers are always making dams and felt quite sure that Mr Beaver had made this one..."
"...Above the dam there was what ought to have been a deep pool but was now, of course, a level floor of dark green ice. And below the dam, much lower down, was more ice, but instead of being smooth this was all frozen into the foamy and wavy shapes in which the water had been ruching along at the very moment when the frost came. And where the water had been trickling over and spurting through the dam there was now a glittering wall of icicles, as if the side of the dam had been covered over with flowers and wreathes and festoons of purest sugar.
And out in the middle, and partly on top of the dam was a funny little house shaped almost like an enormous beehive and from a hole in the roof smoke was going up, so that when you saw it (especially if you were hungry) you at once thought of cooking and became hungrier than you were before..."
"..."Here we are," said Mr Beaver, "and it looks as if Mrs Beaver is expecting us. I'll lead the way. But be careful and don't slip."
The top of the dam was wide enough to walk on, though not (for humand) a very nice place to walk because it was covered with ice, and though the frozen pool was level with it on one side, there was a nasty drop to the lower river on the other. Along this route Mr Beaver led them in single file out to the middle where they could look a long way up the river and a long way down it. And when they had reached the middle they were at the door of the house.
"Here we are, Mrs Beaver," said Mr Beaver, "I've found them. Here are the Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve." - and they all went in.
The first thing Lucy noticed as she went in was a burring sound, and the first thing she saw was a kind-looking old she-beaver sitting in the corner with a thread in her mouth working busily at her sewing machine, and it was from it that the sound came. She stopped her work and got up as soon as the children came in.
"So you've come at last!" she said, holding out both her wrinkled old paws. "At last! To think that I should ever live to see this day! The potatoes are on boiling and the kettle's singing and I daresay, Mr Beaver, you'll get us some fish."
"That I will," said Mr Beaver, and he went out of the house (Peter went with him), and across the ice of the deep pool to where he had a little hole in the ice which he kept open every day with his hatchet..."
In real life Mr & Mrs Beaver's dam is part of a series of mill ponds. In the 1800s these were used to store water to drive the waterwheels of several of the 5 water-powered sawmills along the banks of the Shimna River during the summer or in periods when there was low rainfall.
There are now no buildings to be found at the mill ponds, other than a small shelter-hut below the lower pond, but the area is still very popular for picnics in the summer months.
To discover this cache - take the date written by T+H at the southern end of the wooden fencing and, through the following formula, work out the final location of the cache:
N = N 54° 13.'1st Number - 4', '3rd Number - 1', '2nd Number - 1'.
W = W 005° 55. '2nd Number', '3rd Number - 7', '1st Number'.
All caches placed with the kind permission of the Tollymore Forest Park Ranger Service