Muff Glen is a small wood less than a mile from the nearby villlage of Eglinton. It comprises of 34 hectares of mixed woodland located on both sides of a valley through which flows the Muff River. The woods are home to a wide variety of wildlife and if you are lucky you can still see red squirrels running along the tree branches. Towards the southern end of the woods is a waterfall tucked amidst the trees and bushes which is especially spectacular to see after heavy rain or snowmelt.
The cache is located where a Little Bridge crossed the Muff River near the centre of the forest. It was the first cache I had set up to introduce the Little Bridges series to Northern Ireland. Having enjoyed them while on holiday in 2015 in England I was determined to bring them home. Unfortunately the original cache along with the bridge itself was swept away in the August floods of 2017. I hope one day the bridge will be replaced and the path connected up again but until then this cache has been put in to keep Northern Ireland's first Little Bridges cache alive. This approach has the full approval of the Little Bridges team for which I am very grateful.
There are two entrances to the woods both on the Edenreagh Road. Use the one furthest from Eglinton which has parking for about six cars and a gate that whilst allowing pedestrian access to the forest is not wide enough to allow a wheelchair through.
The cache is now a small tab lock box and can hold small trackables. The log is inside the main cache container in a small test tube with a blue cap, to help keep it dry. Be careful as the river is nearby. From GZ you can see the full damage to the bridge and the scars the flooding left along the river banks.
The Little Bridges series was started by Stanthews in 2009 to highlight small footbridges in remote parts of Wiltshire. Since then the series has been expanded by others all over the country and starting to spread fast, Damian from Winter Foxes has created and updates a list of cachers who has found 10 or more little bridges and can be found here, if you would like to add to the series, please contact Stan on stanthews@aol.com and he will give you a number for your bridge, to qualify, the bridge must be a foot bridge too small for vehicles, please make sure your title exactly matches “Little Bridges # xx then name” including spaces so it will get picked up and added to Damian’s list. There are souvenirs available for those who find and/or plant Little Bridges caches on Damiens site.