Geocaching!

Tues 22 May 2012 continued

Sheep outside of Vergons

After descending from the mountain, Bryce, David and I made a quick pit stop at the gite before continuing on to Notre-Dame-de-Valvert, a church on the outskirts of Vergons.  As we were leaving the village to head up the road, we saw one of the local farmers with his sheep across the road.  Bryce got a little excited - as his chapter for Dr. Wingerd's class was all about the animals of France and it talked about taking sheep from one part of the mountains to another.

Cemetery at Notre-Dame-de-Valvert

The church was all made of stone, with a stone wall surrounding the cemetery.  Right in front, surrounded by a wrought iron fence as the memorial to the war dead, Paul Simon included.

Interior Alter

The interior of the church was very dark - as the stone structure had few interior windows.  It was, after all, a medieval fortified church.  Originally the village of Vergons was much closer to this church, but it was destroyed by a landslide and those who survived relocated the village to its current location.

After talking about geocaching for a few days - annoying some and intriguing others - I finally had the opportunity to introduce Bryce and David to the game.  GC1WENW Vergones - Notre Dame de Valvert was located somewhere on the grounds.  I went and found the cache when the guys explored the cemetery.  Once I found it, I got them to ground zero and made them hunt for it themselves. 

The geocache is in this picture - can you find it?

Bryce has good geosence and walked straight to it. The pressure's off - I found one cache in France and any others are a wonderful bonus.  We each signed the log and put it back in its hiding place.  Too bad the container was too small for me to put my geocoin in.  Perhaps the next one will be better. 

Michel and me with our winning score

We walked back to the gite, worked on some homework for a while.  Bryce noticed that sometime in the next couple of days we were to have a Boule tournament, so I suggested that we go and practice.  It was a close game - Michel and I with a final score of 13 and Bryce and David with 11.  We're improving, but I know I still need more practice.

The rest of the evening consisted of dinner and more homework/hanging out at the gite.  For more pictures of the day go here.