Aradena gorge Traditional Geocache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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A cache in the Aradena gorge.
The gorge
The gorge of Aradena is located in the region of Sfakia. It runs from the southern slopes of the White Mountains to the small beach of Marmara (a little to the west of Loutro). Walking the gorge of Aradena is not for people without any walking experience: many passages require a good deal of surefootedness, especially if you are walking downwards. To walk safely in this gorge you will need walking shoes with a reasonable grip. Do not ever walk in the gorge of Aradena when it is raining or has rained recently: the risk of stones falling is very real. On the subject of stones, there are a fair amount of goats in the gorge (no, they are not wild!) and these have a tendency to dislodge stones. Do not pass right under where there are goats. If you have no alternative way, wait till the goats have moved away and if necessary chase them away (by throwing stones at them, of course!).
At the second steep place, in the middle of large oleander bushes there is a small spring, a little hidden from the path. This is the only water place in the gorge. This spring is really easy to miss (there are two paths that are marked with red dots and one of them does not pass near the spring) so do not rely on it for water and make sure that you carry enough for the whole walk.
Half hour after the middle of the gorge you will arrive to a kind of fence across the gorge and have to turn left and start climbing a new path which was built to avoid the famous (or infamous) ladder which was used until then. It passes well above it, in the side of the cliff and descends again into the gorge. The path is well built and reasonably wide but you still need a little head for heights as it goes into the side of the cliff.
If you want to go the old way, pass under the fence and you will arrive to the metal ladder, in fact two of them within a couple of minutes. The higher one moves a little when you are on it but don't worry, it is really solid. After the ladder keep climbing up (it is a little tricky for a bit) until you reach the river bed again and soon you can see the bridge which leads from Anopolis to Aradena high above you. You need to pass under the bridge (where you will often encounter rubbish and assorted nasties) and keep walking for another 10 minutes up the river bed.
You then get to the very good path leading out of the gorge. If you go to your left it takes you to the village of Aradena, if you take the one leading up to the right (it starts about 40m further up the river bed) it takes you out on the other side of the gorge towards the village of Anopolis.
The cache location.
The cache is located in the middle of the gorge. There is also a walk from the main road from Agios Ioannis to Aradena village which is lead you to the gorge via water bed. This is a well marked path with some difficulties at the end. When we placed the cache we did a round hike from the main road, through the gorge, up to Aradena village and finally back to the car from the asphalt road. You can check our trail to everytrail.com.
The cache.
The cache is a box under some stones in a rock about 4 meters high. The accuracy of the gps is not very good in the gorge so check the spoiler photos.
You can always read our blog for more information about geocaching in Crete.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Haqre fgbarf va n ebpx.