East Antrim Newbie

[cerbera147]

Hi all,

I've discovered the wonderful pastime of using multi million dollar satellites to find tupperware in the wood; yep geocaching

I also collect multitools; well I have a few lol.

I've got most of the gear for camping but for one reason or another I have yet to get out. Main reason being the weather   

Ideally I'd prefer to go wildish camping with my 11 year old son. Carnfunnock is quite close to us but always appears to be booked up and is a bit tame. We'd like to get a small but responsible fire going

Any recommendations of a spot out of the way but still reasonably accessible?

Cheers,

Dan

[Celt_Ginger]

Hi Dan.
The Northern Ireland Bushcraft Association has just spend today at Carnfunnock teaching Kids how to build Natural shelters and doing some fire making skills. We are in Carnfunnock on a regular basis. Our next event is in September.
www.bushcraftni.com

[RedLeader]

As a a general rule organised campsites don't allow fires. The only exception I know of is Bloody Bridge where they have some designated fire circles.
Best bet is a non-organised campsite in the woods somewhere like Donard or Annalong. We're up quite regularly with the kids if you want to come along.

[ChuckMcB]

Welcome Dan.

What been your favorite cache find so far? What kinda GPS are you using? Does it have good NI mapping off-road coverage?

[cerbera147]

Thanks for the welcome

Best bet is a non-organised campsite in the woods somewhere like Donard or Annalong. We're up quite regularly with the kids if you want to come along.

Thanks J, it's a shame I missed your camp this weekend  A bit far from me but still worth it. I'll certainly keep an eye out for your next together 
Your Antrim Hills trek looked great. How was it camping in Capanagh Wood?

What been your favorite cache find so far? What kinda GPS are you using? Does it have good NI mapping off-road coverage?

Favourite so far, hmm. My second cache was a 'proper' cache with swaps. I took the kids and it was a lot of fun so that would be up there.
After much thought I went for the Garmin Dakota 10. It has everything I need for geocaching and general hill walking. The paperless caching is the bees knees  One of my biggest concerns was NI mapping as we appear to be neglected as usual. I trialled a Satmap Active 10 Plus at Cotswolds. It had full OSNI mapping installed; it was truly amazing. However maps included you'd be looking at £500ish 

Apparently Garmin are finally getting their finger out with proper mapping for NI. I have added the Talkytoaster maps which include contour mapping. So far so good. It also includes road mapping so the Dakota can be used as a car satnav with turn by turn directions. It's no Tomtom but it works.

http://talkytoaster.info/ukmaps.htm

Do you geocache Chuck? What GPS are you using?

[RedLeader]

Capanagh was spot on. The spot we were at was tight with the trees very close together with loads of moss underfoot. So it probably wouldn't be suitable for large groups or a fire. That said, we arrived at 1130pm and left again at 9am so there could have  been other spots that would have been better.

Thanks J, it's a shame I missed your camp this weekend  A bit far from me but still worth it. I'll certainly keep an eye out for your next together 
Your Antrim Hills trek looked great. How was it camping in Capanagh Wood?

[cerbera147]

Will you be organising a similiar Donard style camp in the near future? 

[RedLeader]

We would be up there quite a bit. Basically as often as people want to go. The only thing keeps us away is it's not much of a hike up and after a while people start to want something with more of a walk.

Will you be organising a similiar Donard style camp in the near future? 

[cerbera147]

Up here would be ideal but I'm more than happy to travel 

[ChuckMcB]

One of my biggest concerns was NI mapping as we appear to be neglected as usual.

Yup, that's what I was hit with when my dad gave me his brand-new-from-amazon GPS to make it work offroad in NI. Ended up using talkytoaster's maps as well.

Apparently Garmin are finally getting their finger out with proper mapping for NI.

Yup, heard that as well...but only for selected new GPSs

Do you geocache Chuck? What GPS are you using?

Not really, only when I was setting up my Dad's...you gotta test new toys I do use a GPS logger to plot the route I take to make route maps as records of the walks I do but stick to paper maps while on the hill (or Mapyx when in front of the computer).

[suspectmonkey]

Hi Dan, welcome to the forum!

[cerbera147]

Well we're hitting Carnfunnock tonight

Every weekend is fully booked until September but they had space tonight. So me and my son are camping out tonight.

It was raining this morning but has stopped, hopefully it will stay off.

There's a few geocaches in the park we have yet to find so we'll give them ago under the cover of darkness

Full report coming if we don't get eaten by crazed bears 

[LennyJ1]

Welcome to the forum Dan