Pretty Polly gets a gagging order

Out of all of the caches that were completed on our day out caching locally, this is the one that is the most memorable. Memorable for many reasons really. First of all the walk from the local industrial estate was quite a nice amble and fairly easy.It didn't take us long to get to the GZ at all.

Me, Alleghnee and Pretty Polly

When we arrived I spotted something that was a little out of the ordinary, more like a flash of colour which shouldn't really have been there, so hopping over all the bushes and bramble on the floor I went towards this odd sight. As you can see from the picture above, this is what we found, what a fabulous cache to find in the middle of the woods. Then shock horror, the parrot found its voice. Well what can I say, as well as the parrot being blue in colour, the same can certainly be said of what comes out of its beak. Certainly unrepeatable on here that's for sure. I would definitely recommend this cache as it was absolutely hilarious but certainly not for children. I had to cover Alleghnee's ears up. So whilst we messed around and looked for the logbook, we gagged the mouthy bird.

Pretty Polly gets gagged.

I won't even comment where we found the log book either!!! The Whacky Cachers certainly had a sense of humour with this one!!!

Lights, Camera and a Beer. Manchester Nocturnal Event Cache

Well I hadn't planned on attending this event cache but I'm certainly glad that I did.

Got a phone call of Mum in the morning to say that she was ill and would I go with Dad in her place, and even better, she would babysit the kids. Hmmmm that was about 11ish so I asked the question, so what time would we need to set off. Well about 4.30 was the response, mind racing, damn, I'm working till 4.30 and my kit isn't packed, and worst of all, didn't know where it all was either. Believe me, I'm not normally disorganised but these lastminute.com things send me in a bit of a tizz. So in my 1/2 hour lunch break I dashed around the house, dragging things out of cupboards, stuck the batteries on a quick charge and was sat back at the computer all organised with time to spare.

Although I enjoy taking photos, I've never been really that adventurous with the settings and haven't had the chance to play around with the manual settings, neither have I ever taken photos at night without the use of a flash. Hadn't a clue what to do so got Dad to give me a 5 minute whistle stop tour of the buttons on the camera before we set off.

Arrived in Manchester City Centre with time to spare and wandered over to meet the group. Well what do you look for...a group of people with camera's and tripod's...well yeah, that's exactly what it was like, all stood on the steps busy taking photos of the wheel. I thought I'd give it a try and test out the little bit of knowledge that I had of some of the settings on the camera. Actually I think I did a fairly good job for my first ever attempt.

The wheel at exchange square, Manchester

Got chatting to some of the group as we walked round, in particular Don "The Syllogiser" who had me in stitches for most of the evening...great hat as well!!!

Its amazing what you find out when chatting to people. We met a couple who were visiting from America and their hosts only come from the same village as I live in, it's such a small world. So to Mary of the Oz's, thank you for the lovely keyring, I think I'll be keeping that to myself rather than putting it into a cache.

So on we went, the town hall was next on the agenda and a bonus for the evening was to grab a local cache. Pretty much all of the group descended on the GZ and the log and pen was passed around for all to sign...a great group effort. We stayed around and took a few more pictures before moving on.

The group in front of the town hall

St Anne's Square

Next stop was Central station...I think. We spent quite a long time here taking a variety of shots. Also had to get my gloves out as it was getting incredibly cold :(

Central Station

Although I was getting quite comfortable with the settings, I was struggling a bit without the use of a tripod. The shutter opening for such a long time made it really difficult not to get camera shake and make the pictures blurred. Ahh well, you have to start from somewhere and learn from your mistakes (my excuse)

I'd always wondered how people got those great pics in the dark with the lights streaming from the back of cars...now I know...I tried it and Yippee...I got a photo. Now it may not be the greatest photo in the world but hey, with plenty more practice, I may get a picture that I could be really proud of.

Yay Car Lights!!!

At this point we decided that we had best be making tracks home, we were both starving hungry and had an hours journey to get home, so we bid goodbye to the group and made our way back to the car....detouring into Macdonalds for a large meal.

So a fantastic event cache was over with thanks to Kev AKA Scubaclogger for organising this very unique event. It was great and I hope that there will be many more to come.

Keele Kippa Series

Again, its been a while since I have posted anything on my blog, its also been a while since I cached as well. So with recent changes in my life I decided that it was high time to drag the GPSr out of its hidey hole, dust it off, upgrade GC.com back to being a premium member and get my backside out and do some caching. It's amazing, lay off the caching for a couple of months and how many local caches appear...absolutely hundreds. So many to do and so many places to visit.


Unfortunately, I had planned to go out on Saturday but looking out of the window in the morning, the rain was coming down in buckets so decided that the housework could get done and spent the rest of the day praying that Sunday would bring a nice clear day. I certainly wasn't disappointed. Sunday morning came, bright sunshine but very very cold.

So first on my list was to clear all of the Keele caches. I've been there a fair few times, mostly for caching so knew the area pretty well but its alway a pleasure to revisit, especially the walk around the lake. It also gave me a chance to play with a new app that I had found for the i-phone.

My new toy

Keele kippa series

EveryTrail - Find the best hikes in California and beyond

31 Caches completed in all and some more lovely walks local walks completed.

A trip down memory lane

Secret Scotland - Pitreavie

Apart from the Mega Event, this was the only cache on "my must do list" whilst up in sunny Scotland. Why....Well back in the early nineties in my first career I was based at Pitreavie Castle. I have many many good memories of the 18 months that I was posted in this area and wanted to see what they had done to the place. My friend lived in the area for many years and had told me that Sky had built its headquarters there and that they had turned the rest into a housing estate once the base closed in 1996.

The cache site gave me quite a bit of information that either I didn't actually know or had completely forgotten about. If my memory serves me right  the cache isn't  located where the "Pit head" used to be but at one of the other shafts. I remember the pit head being just to the side and behind the "Castle". In front of that was the mess hall where we used to go for our scran (as the matelots called it) after trooping up all the stairs from the depths below. Often I remember going down first thing in the morning to start a shift in the dark and not come up again until it was evening and dark again. In the winter we often felt like moles as it would be days on end before we had the chance to go into proper sunlight. Might explain why I'm still not much of a sun worshipper.

I am happy to say though that the "castle" is still there albeit in the form of flats now. I'll bet there are nice carpets on the stairs to the attic and the walls are painted other colours than magnolia and that really grotty light blue which seemed to adorn most of the walls in the RAF. Our admin bods were based right up in the attic so after climbing all the stairs to the pit head, it didnt stop there. Who needed extra PT when you had all those stairs to climb, it was enough to keep you in the peak of fitness.

Pitreavie Castle

It was also nice to see that they had left the base of the flag pole in place. You can find this if you cross the road from the front of the castle.

Although it was a bit sad to see what they had done to the place and wiped out pretty much anything that you could have recognised of the place, it was really nice to go back again.

Pithead Site

We were accommodated across the Forth at RAF Turnhouse so continuing with our journey south, I just had to take a drive to see what had happened to that place. I was so disappointed when I arrived as the accommodation area - which housed the barrack blocks, mess hall and NAAFI bar and shop, had been bulldozed with most of the rubble still in piles and a huge wire fence around it. It seems like its been earmarked for development of business premises, I suppose ideal as its located near to the cargo area for Edinburgh Airport.

Accommodation Site

Across the road however are still the main gates which now has a commemarative plaque to all who served at Turnhouse over the years. In place is the guardroom on the right and on the left is the Admin offices.

Commerative Plaque

All that has really gone has been the picket posts on both sides of the road. Now that does make me giggle at the memories of guard duties on nights. We had to leg it across the road when a car came to go into the accommodation site, now me only being a slight little thing couldn't just push the gate post down, I literally had to jump and lie on the thing to get the gate lifted. Many many people used to take the mickey out of me for that one. We also used to carry round broom handles...can you just imagine the guards shouting...."Stop, or I'll whack you round the head with my broom"...I dont think so, they were having a laugh!!!!!

The old guardroom

Many many a good night was spent in the NAAFI bar and bop and I really cannot imagine just how I managed to get up after a skin full the night before and get into work..I certainly couldnt do it now.

Snowdon Summit

Well folks, the time has come again to post another blog. After a very busy couple of weeks I have so much to blog about having been to some really amazing places.

On the spur of the moment we had decided to get the tent out of the loft and take all of the kids camping for a couple of days seeing it was the start of the school summer holidays. It was a mad dash around the house making sure we had got everything we would need for a couple of days before checking on the internet where to go. I had been wanting to walk up Snowdon again for what has seemed like ages and had been telling the girls that they needed to get themselves walking fit for the climb.

We arrived in Llanberis on a glorious sunny morning, pitched the tent, donned shorts and walking boots and went for an easy bimble into the village. The summit stayed out of sight until the early evening when the cloud finally lifted and the kids could all see how far they had to walk the next day. Rather than putting them off, they were more excited than ever....little did they know how tough it was going to be for them.

We set off the next day round about lunch time with rucksacks packed full of food, water and warm clothing. It always amazes me how many people go walking to places like this unprepared, and judging by the amount of times we saw the rescue helicopter flying above, there were people who still hadnt learnt their lessons.

The climb was fairly uneventful and very busy on the trail. The first half of the walk was fairly easy and all of the kids were still in good spirits until about a mile after Halfway House when the path became incredibly steep.

By this time we had been walking for around 3 hours and all of the kids really struggled at some time within this, but with plenty of words of encouragement they pushed on through it, determined to make the summit, after all thats what they were there to do.

We climbed through the cloud base and went higher and higher until finally I was able to say that we made it. Extra clothing was put on as it was absolutely freezing cold. I just couldnt believe that some people were up there in shorts but I supposed they had gone up on the train and thats exactly the way they were going to get back down.

We took the obligatory picture at the trig so that we could log the Virtual Cache there and took the details of the trig to log on trigpointing before grabbing the most expensive cup of coffee we had ever had from the local cafe. I couldnt believe that there were no cold water taps in the toilets so had to ask for some cold water for the dog (which they were loathe to give us).

Poor little Sprocket, even with all of his fur was shivering cold up there so lay on the rucksacks and had his Mummy's coat wrapped snugly around him (poor baby)

Return Journey - no easy way down for us...it was all by foot again except this time it was so much easier. It had been such a shame that the cloud was so low however on the way back the clouds briefly moved, brilliant sunshine shone down on us and gave us the most spectacular views. The kids were absolutely amazed and all 4 of them shouted "wow look at that" all at the same time. Just those few seconds made the whole experience worth it.

We finally made it back to the campsite after being on foot for nearly 9 hours. The kids were so proud of themselves for getting to the top and back, a feat that not many of their age can say that they have achieved. Yes they struggled at times, but rather than give up and turn back, they pushed through it and gave it their best shot. Even more amazing was the amount of energy they still had when they got back. Unbelievable.

So, what next.....we have warned them off that Scarfell Pike is next on the to do list and then Ben Nevis. Surprisingly, they were well up for it.....MAD!!!

How long????

It seems like ages since I have managed to put fingers to keyboard and write about my exploits. Not that there have been many in the past few months but I have got the bug back again :-)

This week has seen me get out in the beautiful sunshine and complete a 9 mile walk on Sunday around Bangor on Dee in North Wales and a couple of evenings out around the local area of Stoke with 46 caches found.

So another milestone passed......1700th. I hope to make it to 2000 before the year is out and with a lot of trips planned, I don't see this as being a problem at all.

With my motivation back again I hope to be writing more about my jaunts into the undergrowth once again...and boy..this doesn't half feel good. I might even find some time in the busy schedule to make a few tweaks to my blog again.

So there we have it...my first post in 5 months and the start of many more to come

Happy days xxx

Knocking off the locals!!!!

What do you do when you have a couple of hours to spare....knock of a few local caches.

It was a nice bright sunny winters afternoon so wanted to get the kids and the dog out in the fresh air for a few hours but not go to far as I have a longer day's caching planned for tomorrow.

I'd already got all the caches uploaded to memory map which had been printed off and laminated so it was just a case of get the kit on and drive the 5 miles to Trentham to pick 4 up that I had been meaning to do for some time.

We started with Sweet Nano as it was only a couple of hundred feet from where we had parked the car. Reading the logs before hand we thought that this one was going to take us ages to find so was pleasantly surprised when Alleghnee placed her little mitts on it almost immediately. I suppose the great thing about having kids around when you are caching, aside from the quality time thing, is that you can just about get away with anything citing childs play, so in high muggle areas they are an absolute asset.

Next on our list was Sweet 5. What a lovely albeit muddy walk to this one. Mind you, this cache will teach me to look where I am going as I got my feet wrapped around a bramble and literally went arse over tit and ended up face down in the roots of the tree. Another easy find on this cache for us, so on to the next one.

3rd cache of the day was Sweet 6. Again had read the logs before coming out on the walk and saw that there had been a few DNF's on this and was a cheeky hide. I must have had my caching goggles on today as I found it in the first place I looked. Bargain!!!! No problems here.

How muddy?

Another one that had been sat on the list for what seems like years is Suit of Caches - King. It was a bit of a slog up the hill to get to this one. Sprocket the dog was having a whale of a time running around and jumping in all of the leaves. Again this cache presented us with no problems at all and it was nice to find a good sized cache hidden in the woods. It always amazes me why people place micros in the woods when there are plenty of places to hide at least a small sized cache. I got the opportunity to place a couple of geocoins that I had had for a while.

Me and Sprocket with the Suit of Caches - Kings Cache

At last 4 caches complete in Trentham so a quick walk back to the car to move onto the next ones. We had to pass all the caches which we completed and as we approached the one closest to the car, we saw somone having a good rummage in the railings. On arrival we introduced ourselves and met Hampk again. The last time we met was at midnight when we had all been racing to get an FTF and got sprung by the police wondering what we were doing in the bushes with torches. After explaining to them what caching was all about they left us to it probably thinking that we were complete nut jobs...well they are probably right, I mean, which normal people go finding tupperware boxes in bushes at midnight!!!! (The Chumps #1)

It took us a little while to find the correct road for this next cache and ended up going down a rough track to get to the lane. We were absolutely amazed to find what we did as this is a place that is fairly close to home and we didn't know it existed.

Brother's Hump is a 4/4.5 rated cache and I now know why. Certainly not for the faint hearted but I was there and there was no way that I was going to go away empty handed. The cache is above a set of caves and with the weather being as it has been for the last few months (or so it seems) the ascent was really rather slippery. Now I'm not known for my bravery where heights are concerned and my legs do tend to go a little bit wobbly when faced with hanging over edges. I ended up crawling to the edge on my belly and hanging on to a tree with on hand and gingerly feeling around with the other. Luckily for me the cache was right where I put my hand pretty much first time. This is probably one of the only times that I have stayed in the same position to sign the log...there was no way that I was moving at all. In the cache I found a TB which had been sat there since 28 Dec 09 so I took the lovely little mole out of hibernation to move on to pastures new. (Matt the Mole TB). Thankfully I managed to replace the cache and descende without a hitch.

Beech Caves - an old World War 2 Ammunitions Storage Facility

Last cache of the day, Bluebells by the M6 was again another easy one. A lovely walk in a beautiful wood running alongside the M6. I drive this route daily and I must admit I have never noticed that there was a wood there. Again it was great to find another large sized cache with lots of swaps. The kids love these types of caches.

So all in all a quick couple of hours caching and a nice way to break up the day. I mean, it also gives me something to write about

Until the next time

Happy days

Claire x

Caching catastrophes...it could have been!!!

Ohhhh the funny things that happen whilst caching. The things that you can look back on and think actually that situation was really hilarious.

Yep one of those happened yesterday..it could have been worse I suppose.

It started ooooooo maybe the night before, or should I say morning of. I got myself really rather well organised for my caching trip, far more than usual I must admit. I had even predicted the rather murky weather and had prepared my maps by laminating them as I had got so sick of having soggy maps half way round the walk. Went to bed, tried to sleep but that just was not happening....5am came and there I was still bloody awake. hey ho I did finally manage to drop off until the alarm went off at 8am to get up....and ooooo the snooze button came in rather handy. Rather too handy as I ended up shouting the kids to get up and rushed around the place trying to be ready for the 10am start that I had given my Mum to be ready for. Yep you guessed it, we were late leaving and finally managed to make it out 40minutes late.

You know when you get that feeling that you have forgotten to do something or forgotten to take something, well I had that feeling but carried on regardless.

Drive down to South Staffordshire was event free and we managed to find a parking space in the local pub carpark close to the start of the intended series that we had planned to do. We set off and completed 21 of the series before sacking it as it had started to snow rather heavily. Always being prepared, I had a back up and decided that the rest of the afternoon we would complete driveby's, so the printed maps came in handy and the satnav got a bashing. Pretty good up till then until we stopped at one of the drivebys. It was at the end of a small lane with the junction onto the main road. So thinking I was being rather clever I spun the car round so that it was facing towards the main road, turned off the engine and we all jumped out to grab the cache. No problems...or so we thought. Getting back into the car, switching the ignition on and nothing.....lights...yes but no bloody response from the engine just that horrible click as you turn the key. Arghhhhhhhh

So here we are stuck in the middle of nowhere with my Mum and 2 kids sat in the car. Thinking yep I can push it, as it is only a little car, I asked my Mum to jump in the driving seat and bump it. But ohhhhh noooooo, she had no idea how to do it even after I explained it...how guilty did I feel making my Mum and the kids push the car backwards (not at all ha ha). The kids thought it highly amusing that we had managed to break down and they had to push. But it was all over and done with in minutes, the car started again immediately so we carried on caching. 36 caches later and finally reaching my 1400th milestone we decided to call it a day and head off home.

Ahh well I suppose that was all too easy, and as I pulled on to the M6 at Gailey it was flashing 40mph. Why I have no idea as at the end of the slip road the actual speed of the traffic was a big fat 0 mph. Why do they have to do that...can they just not put on the signs 0 mph and then I wouldn't have gone on it and found an alternative route. So there we are just sat there grrrrrrr!!! What should have been less than a 40 minute journey took us 2 hours.

And that thing I thought I had forgotten....oh yes, I forgot to lock the back door....Doh!!!!!!

A few from the Gallery

JACK Geokids at the start of the Lapley Loop

Greta (Mum) of The Bignall Boppers and the JACK Geokids

Me doing the honours with the cache (as usual)

Winter wanders

Gosh its so long since I blogged or cached for that matter that I thought I had better get back to doing both. Its been a bit of a busy time lately, Christmas, new relationship and all sorts of general life things that get in the way of the old writing. So here I am, fingers to keyboard about to write about our latest trip out in the great British weather.

Saturday morning was a bit of a rush job, off to Trentham to grab the latest waterproof kit that the place could offer. New coats, fleeces and gloves for the little JACKs were a must as they had grown so much over the last 6 months that nothing fit anymore. Then off to meet the ATA's to plan our shenanigans for the next day. We had planned to do the SMW walk around Leek and Tittesworth then go up the Roaches to grab the remaining 4 but as usual the snooze button on the alarm clock was bashed that much the stupid thing turned itself off. It was only when the geokids hammered on the door shouting are you gonna get up today that we launched into action and got our backsides out of the nice warm and cosy bed.

We had even been that organised the night before, all the packed lunches were ready to go in the fridge, so off we tootled to Leek deciding to bypass the SMW circular and head straight to the Roaches. Some must think we were mad to be venturing out in weather like it was, OK the snow had cleared so we could get there but on getting to the top the kids had a whale of a time jumping in and out of the drifts that were still hanging around. The weather was pretty shocking really, pouring with rain at the bottom turning into snow at the top, but that wasnt going to put us off and to be quite honest, we weren't the only mad ones venturing up there.

Leprechaun JACK and The Mad ATA's

at the start of the walk

1st on the list was Rockhall Cottage, and this one proved to be a very easy find. 1 up to the kids at this point whilst the adults stood around and reminisced at the memories of many a weekend spent climbing or exploring the area when we were teenagers. Not sure if the kids were too impressed at regailing them with the daft stories though.

Next on the agenda was Rocky Roachy and a steady climb between the rocks up to the top. I swear when I was a kid this place was massive and a hell of a climb but either my memory has served me incorrectly or it was because I was a hell of a lot smaller then than I am now but it was really easy climb. I'm sure the rest of the clan would disagree with me judging by the huffing and the puffing that was going on when we got to the top.

Geokids at the top and knackered!!!!

Next stop was Doxey Pool. Now this is a place that I certainly remember from being a kid. I've certainly seen it looking better thats for sure. The weather was so murky at the top and the pool was pretty much frozen over and I'm sure that the legendary mermaid that is supposed to live there would be better off having a holiday in the sun.  Another easy cache find clocked us up to 3 at this point. We were going to go onto the next one which was 1.3 miles away but decided that this one should be left for another day. The weather had really closed in and the rain had turned to snow and as experienced walkers we decided that it wasn't worth getting stuck up there so with the light fading it was time to make our way back down to the cars.

Snowy days!

Now which sane people would go walking in this I wonder?

By the time we had made it down the rock face, the cloud cover had lifted and for the first time that day we could see the beautiful views towards Leek with Tittesworth Reservoir in the distance. Were the kids put off by it.....never, in fact they have asked to go back in the summer to explore the place more, especially when told that wallaby's live there.

Back to the car and after more food and a steaming hot cuppa, we were on our merry way home smiling at another great day out caching.

HAPPY DAYS x