This cache lives 50 meters underground on Owey Island, just above a wee silt beach at the northern end of The Lake Under the Lake.
The Lake Under the Lake film
On Owey, there is one of the most unusual natural features in Ireland. Living at the furthest north-west tip of the island, there is a lake on the clifftops overlooking a huge zawn and the Atlantic Ocean below. This is a standard lake and is easily accessible by a short walk along the inland path running north out of the island's village. The lake provides the village's water supply, as it feeds the stream that runs the length of the island back through the centre of the village.
Directly below this lake lives another lake, this lower lake is 50 metres underground and is accessed by descending a narrow sinkhole hidden at the northern end of the upper lake. It's a bit of a squeeze and a crawl down the sinkhole, and in the last third of the way down, it is very, very muddy. This takes you to a deep silt beach at the northern end of the narrow underground lake. The lake is the flooded floor of this impressive 150 metres long and 40 metres high cavern, and it is fed by both the lake above and the trickle from the ocean at the collapsed cave entrance to the sea. The descent walls into the cavern are covered in very nice bioluminescence, and this makes the cave walls glow under your torchlight beam.
There is no regular ferry service to the island by far the best way out is by short sea kayak passage from the small pubic pier at the north end of Cruit Island.
The logistics of a visit to The Underground Cave
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The cave lives on a summer-only inhabited island; there are no rescue facilities nearby.
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The descent into the lower chamber is greasy, wet and covered in a thick silt, you will get a bit damp and messy.
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The natural light runs out about 20 metres down the descent.
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Take as much light as you can carry.
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Take even more light with you. I use a 500-lumen lamp, and the cave's darkness still absorbs its beam.
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Do not attempt to paddle across the lake unless you know exactly what you are doing. There are countless reasons why this is a terrible idea, and there are several very real dangers in the water.
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The temperature underground is approximately 5 degrees centigrade year-round, feeling warm in winter and freezing cold in summer.
These are just a few thoughts on visiting this excellent cavern; it is not really a place to visit if you are not prepared for a muddy, greasy, dark visit underground. :-)
To find the cache: stand on the silt beach with your back to the underground lake. You are now facing back toward the way you descended from the outside to the beach. The beam of light of the descent is on the left. On the right, about 5 meters up, look for a wee cairn on top of a huge boulder, the cache is behind this cairn.
DO NOT SCRAMBLE ABOUT THE BOULDERS LOOKING FOR THE CACHE