Back in April, the Orange County Arts and Cultural Affairs office held the Great Public Art Challenge in Downtown Orlando. For that event, participants followed clues to public art where they then performed artistic acts like singing, dancing and drawing. Clearly, it was an event made for the outgoing among us.

This summer, however, there’s an activity that even the most introverted person can enjoy.

The Public Art Treasure Cache hunt features 13 hidden “treasure caches” near public art around Orange County. With clues provided by the Arts and Cultural Affairs office, the caches can be found fairly easily by anyone that’s even vaguely familiar with the area. There’s even a “grand tour” guide that starts in downtown and travels around the city to find each of the caches in relatively short amount of time.

Each of the caches includes a log book, unique stamp, and ink pad with which you can leave your mark. The stamps are related to the public art in the area and are great for keeping a personal log of your journey. They’re no pot of gold, but they are equally enjoyable to uncover in spots that most people would never look.

This past weekend, my wife and I decided to seek out a handful of the hidden caches, starting with the one in the Winter Garden public library. After entering the library at 10 AM, we first registered for our library cards and then looked around for a while before heading to the spot mentioned in the clues to find the cache. Our quick search was rewarded and we stamped the log to mark the beginning of our day’s quest. We re-hid the cache, checked out a few DVDs and made our way to a downtown parking lot to continue our adventure.

Our “treasure walk” would take us by Lake Eola, the Orange County Regional History Center, Wall St., City Hall and the Orange County Administration building. Lasting nearly two hours (we stopped for lunch on Church St.), we got some good sun, but managed to avoid any burn as the caches were all in well shaded or indoor locations. Overall, we had a really good time.

For complete information on the Public Art Treasure Cache hunt, check out the Arts and Culture Affairs section of the Orange County Government site. You’ll find a list of the locations along with information about how to find each of the hidden caches. As far as I can tell, there is no immediate end date for this event, but it’s always more fun to be one of the first in such adventures. If you head out tomorrow, maybe you’ll be right behind paged stamped, “Living Orlando”.

A cache is hidden near birds that never take flight …

The caches were small, usually plastic, containers …

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