Secret Passage to Hogsmeade

Another crazytacular cache from The DAK Girls, the brilliantly twisted minds behind caches such as Tomb Raider, Mad-Eye Moody, and Black Beard’s Grotto (click the links to see my blog posts for those caches).

It was a beautiful spring morning as we approached the coordinates specified on the cache page.

Then we saw the starting point for our adventure.

Fortunately, having done our research, we were prepared. We donned our waders and old shoes and made entry.

Note the delightful example of the haberdasher’s art, replete with stylish neck covering. This becomes important later.

What you are unable to appreciate is the olfactory assault waged by the muck we were walking through. I believe it was a combination of decomposing vegetation and the guano of ducks and bats (yes, bats). There was also a dead rat just up the way, and that couldn’t have helped.

Rick has training and work experience with storm drains, and he told me OSHA considers an area like this a ‘hazardous environment’. By law, workers can only spend a limited time in an enclosed space with noxious fumes. Of course, he told me this after we had come out. Thanks, Rick.

The storm drain was on a slight incline, so after a few hundred feet, the muck was replaced by a small amount of clear running water, so we were spared the stench from that point on.

Turns out we traded the muck under our feet for these little fellers hanging a foot above our heads.

Most of them were resting quietly, but a couple decided to show off their flying prowess and disappear into the darkness.

A few thousand feet later, we had reached our goal: a message from the cache owner, with a code word that we had to email as proof that we had found the “secret passage”.

On the way out, things became a little more interesting.

I walked under a bat just as he decided it was time to drop off the ceiling and go for a little trip. Needless to say, I was a bit startled. By ’startled’, of course, I mean ducking and jerking like a victim of St Vitus Dance being electrocuted.

We came to the next bat, and I specifically said, “Now don’t be dropping down like that last guy did.” Did he listen? No. Again with the dancing.

The last couple of hundred feet consisted of six bats flying around between us and the exit, taking turns playing chicken. They would fly straight at us, turning at the last minute to rejoin their mates. There were probably some sort of bat ‘high-fives’ occuring, but I coudn’t see them.

The last 40 or so feet, I was crouched down to the point where my knees were touching my chest as I walked, watching the bats in the reflection of the water as they continued to buzz us. This is where I was grateful I had worn my hat with the neck covering. Not that I thought they were vampires or anything, but, you know.

Finally, the bats flew over us and back into their home. I stood up, five feet from the entrance, relieved to have survived the onslaught. Only to have one last bat fly in from outside the storm drain to give my formerly manly ego one last twist.

Then we were out, and all that was left was to take off our ruined shoes and waders, put them in garbage bags for later disposal, and make the short hike back to the Jeep.

Chalk up another wild adventure to Geocaching.