Is Autumn finally here??

After we had attended the Derbyshire Crafty Cachers meet at Hartington in Derbyshire, we trotted off to complete a few of the local caches. Some were still awaiting publication but others had been on our to do list for quite sometime. A couple of the caches were in Beresford Dale. We had walked this a few years previously and I recognised the area immediately, more than likely because the river had burst its banks and we had to wade through a field which was under water to continue our walk along to Milldale. I really love this area and although it gets so busy in the summer months, the autumn days seem to be strictly for serious walkers only and is really peaceful. I think I was more interested in taking photos today rather than the caching as I was trying out new settings on the DSLR. The colours are so striking in Autumn, I was hoping to recapture this in picture and I think I finally succeeded today.

Beresford Dale in the Peak District

So with masses of images taken on the camera and a few caches bagged today turned out to be a really successful day for me. Certainly for me its not all about the numbers anymore, although having a few high number days really does make you feel good, but this is what caching is all about. I love it

Graffiti Art

GC1FPRV - Banksy woz 'ere

This was the second cache that we had completed in London after getting off the train at Waterloo. As we had come from the sidetracked cache we had to walk through this tunnel to the GZ. I must admit, I didn't know what to expect apart from a horrible dingy tunnel under the tracks. Imagine our surprise when we went through the most colourful place ever imagined. The art on the wall was absolutely amazing and obvious that a lot of time and effort had gone into creating it. I must admit that I would much rather have art adorning walls than the usual spray painted names scrawled everywhere and I'm pleased that there is a specific place for graffiti artists to show off their art. Maybe all towns and cities should adopt this principle although I'm sure that many wouldn't share this view and would say that it cost the tax payer millions to get rid of the rubbish. Maybe take a look at the photos below and you decide. I wish I had taken more photos of it as this is only a tiny part of the tunnel.

Spray Paint city

The cache itself was out of the tunnel and was quite an easy find. Whilst we were signing the log, Kyla shouts that there was a mouse, we all jumped and looked and within 10 feet there was the cutest little field mouse ever. What a strange sight though, A field mouse in a city surrounded by concrete rather than grass and hedges. Poor little devil.

Galavanting in Gawsworth

GC1Y8ZD - The Dark Lady's Cache by Dillon the Dog

What a glorious day to go galavanting. After picking up a few of the local caches we ended up in Gawsworth, Cheshire to complete a multi cache that had recently been published. I have to admit that I have never been to Gawsworth before and didn't know what to expect but was really pleased when I arrived. We pulled up by the first stage, the Lych Gate by St James' Church and within minutes another car pulled up...cachers I wondered but no they weren't. Obviously just a very pleasant place to pull up for a natter.

Lych Gate

Our mission was to find the gravestones and gather information to find the final cache. The Church yard was pretty big with 100's of headstones and we just wandered around reading everything. We even found a couple of headstones with my surname and wonder if we are related in anyway at all. Actually this stage took us ages as we were so interested in some of the headstones and one of the kids piped up that we had been looking for 35 minutes. Now even they were interested in it all and were quite happy trying to help us. One of the interesting ones that we had to find was Tatiana who was the daughter of a Count and Countess and when we found it we were pleasantly surprised that she had been born in St Petersburg and the top part of the headstone was in Russian.

We eventually found all of the information and calculated the final which turned out to be only about 500ft away. The cache was a fairly easy find although I found myself monkeying around again. I sometimes wish I was taller so that I could reach the caches a bit more easily but then that wouldn't be half as much fun would it.

Whilst we were at the church we found a cut bench mark located to the right of the front entrance so as I'm also interested in waymarking I decided to mark the co-ordinates so that I could research this when I got home and maybe post a waymark.

Cut Bench Mark

When I got around to researching the church it was amazing how much it was steeped in History. There was once a Norman Church built in the 13th Century located on the site of the newer church. The church is Medieval and the oldest part of the church dates from 1430. It is also a Grade 1 listed building. Apparantly it is also haunted and the ghost of Mary often wanders around the road ways near to the church. She was one of the daughters of of Sir Edward Fitton, 1st baronet, and his wife Anne who died in 1619 and 1644 respectively whose tomb is situated in the Church. It is said that Mary, a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth I and was a candidate for the "Dark Lady" of Shakespeare's sonnets.

                                     

St James' Church, Gawsworth

I also found out that the cross in the grounds of the church is also listed and dates to the same age as the original church. The Cross has carvings of animals which represents the expulsion of evil spirits. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of this for which I'm kicking myself for so I feel another trip coming on to the church. The Gate posts in the photo above date from the 18th Century and are Grade 2 listed. The posts have engravings of Skull and Cross Bones on them.

We decided to complete another cache within the area so hopped back in the car and drove to the parking spot. Whilst passing through the centre of the village I saw a triangular lawn with a cross and memorial on it. So as usual when I see unusual things, I stopped the car and got out for a closer look. I was really interested to see a World War I Monument on the green, also behind this was some sort of stone plinth and across from it was an old water pump. I didn't pay much attention to either the stone plinth of the water pump but did take some pictures as I was more interested in the monument. However when I went to research this momument, the one thing that did take me by surprise was the history behind the plinth. I found out that it was a Medieval Preaching Cross and is not only listed as a scheduled monument, its also a National Monument with English Heritage.

Medieval Preaching Cross

Standing Crosses are usually of stone and date from the medieval period, mid 10th to mid 16th centuries AD. They served a variety of purposes from places of prayer and pilgrimage to places of public proclamation. At one time, there were over 12,000 of these crosses throughout Britain but many were destroyed during the reformation. There are now less than 2000 crosses remaining, many incomplete.

World War I Monument

So for me today has not only been about grabbing those caches. Its also been a day of research and learning about the local history. It's funny, when I was at school, I hated everything about History and its only now that I'm really beginning to appreciate what came before. I honestly wish I had payed more attention as actually it really is interesting.

A Great TB Hotel

A50 Temporary Respite Home for Travel Bugs

GC15P7A

Well I have to say that I'm probably very very biased on this one as 2 years ago when I was part of the Bignall Boppers team, I was involved in placing this one.

But it is still very much worth a mention as this is a cache that is found on a regular basis due to where it is situated. To date it has had 183 visits and 42 notes posted as it is used time and time again to drop off bugs by repeat visitors.

The cache is situated just off one of the major roundabouts in Uttoxeter and has parking within 50 metres of the cache. It is accessible for both East and Westbound traffic giving TB's a good place to hide before a longer journey. The cache is a large ammunition box and is full of goodies. After my visit this morning it now has 9 extra Geocoins and 2 extra Travel Bugs in it. I hope they get picked up and moved on soon.

Caching in Rudyard, Staffordshire

Caches around Rudyard Lake

We had really wanted our day trip out as being on our mountain bikes doing some trails however we never got round to doing the planning for it. I had a night out last night with the girls in Stafford and in the early hours of the morning, the last thing that I wanted to be doing was running pocket queries and getting myself ready for what wasn't even the next day. So it ended up as a day clearing the local caches with my parents of The Bignall Boppers. I was feeling rather groggy the whole of the day through lack of sleep and anyone who knows me knows of my love of sleep. I can sleep for England!!!!

Rudyard Lake Station

Now we all are very familiar with this particular area as we have spent a lot of time here and my parents lived here for a while so when we discovered that one of the caches was disabled as it had the wrong co-ords published we thought we would go looking for it. Named the Kissing Gate, we knew pretty much where it would be and we weren't disappointed. We had a really easy find on this one which allowed us to complete the rest of the caches with ease. Only until we returned home did we find that another one had been published after the pocket query had been run the night before. Doh..that means another trip back to a place that we have cleared of caches.

The Canal Feeder

The walk to the other caches was a nice peaceful one especially the Canal Feeder cache. Along a small footpath with a stream running by the side of it. This one was a regular cache and was a lovely quick find. I sat myself on the bridge when the log was handed to me and ended up nettling my back. Every countryside cache I go to, I always get stung!!. Horrid things these nettles and I'm sure, the cachers worst nightmare.

Steam Train

The station is right by the parking co-ords given and runs every weekend and holidays up the lake and back. Its so lovely to see and hear the steam train chugging by. They even do special gala events such as Santa's Steam, Easter Egg specials and Halloween events. Trips generally cost about £3.50 for adults and £2 for children for a 3 mile return journey. Not bad!!!

At our trip to Rudyard we found the 3 caches that we had planned on completing and found a further 7 throughout the afternoon.

Caching Curtailed...but only slightly!!!!

Well today see's me back in work for my second day after having 8 weeks off work. I'm not going to go into details of the reason why I have been off for that long but needless to say, I wasn't on Annual Leave.

The last 8 weeks have been pretty tough but one of the thing's that has got me back on track has been the trips out caching. I have to say, I don't feel at all guilty for all the caching that I have done lately (around 500) especially when I can put it down to .... "Doctor's orders".  She did tell me that exercise is good for me and that I must do the things that I enjoy doing. So that's caching. I have been out on long walks but they have all been arranged around the amount of caches in a particular area. I've also got back into cycling and have done trails with caches on....all good for your health.

But now what am I going to do without being able to cache all week. Well one thing I have learnt is the importance of a really good work/life balance. I've made lots of changes so if I want to cache after work, then the washing up can wait and there is still the weekends. The kids have also got a new found interest in caching after I got them their own swap bags, so now its no longer...."do we have to mummy?" to .."Yeah OK...now where did I put my swap bag"? But then theres always every other weekend when they are with their Dad. So I get to do "Long haul caching" and stay up late!!!

So, would you say that I was obsessed with caching....well so what if I am!!! I'm fit, I'm healthy and I'm happy, and if thats what caching does to you, then who am I to argue!

Wicked Cache

Well this one has to be one of my all time favourites. I'm not going to give away any details of its location or what you need to do to log the cache as all will become clear (or maybe not) if and when, you ever find this cache.

I just had to write about it as it's ingenius and certainly wasn't what we were expecting when we arrived. We were expecting just a normal traditional cache as in keeping with the rest of the series that had been published over the last month or so. We arrived at the GZ and found the container almost immediately however logging the cache wasn't that simple as there was no log.....or was there? After a few minutes of scratching our heads we had a brain wave and bingo...log found. So all signed and replaced again we were still chuckling over what a different and strange cache this was.

These are the types of caches that I love finding and over the last 4 days we have seen some pretty good ones. Glad to see that these caches are filtering in to our local area.

Special thanks to the team that thought of this....won't name you as it will give the cache away but if you read this, you know who you are. Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant.

Caching in Lancashire

Ahhh Bank Holiday weekends, I love them. An extra day of caching. The kids wanted to go to the beach so as usual we planned our day around the caches that we could do around that area. I hadn't found a single cache in Lancashire before so this was an ideal opportunity to take the girls to Southport and Formby.

1st on the list of caches do to was the Earth Cache at Formby point. As with National Trust parks there's always an extortionate parking fee so after paying our £4 to get in, we duly parked the car and got cracking with the first cache. The weather was beautiful albeit a bit windy. We gained the relevant information, took the photos and then took the kids and the dogs to the beach. We let the pups off the lead for a change and they had a wonderful time running in and out of the pools on the beach getting completely soaked. As with our luck the weather changed in an instant and the rain came bucketing it down. Because it had been so nice we had left our waterproofs in the car so by the time we had made a run for the car, we were absolutely soaked through.

Caching after that was a bit soggy but we still managed to complete 29 caches on the Saturday and 170 miles later we returned home tired.

Sunny Formby Point
Soaking wet through

Sunday we decided to return to the area and try to complete the caches that we didn't get round to doing so after a little bit of a lie in we set off from Stoke at about 10am. I drove yesterday and today I was in the back seat with the kids and the dogs. We immediately drove to Leyland to start our days caching and after only a couple of finds, we managed to clock up some DNF's as well. A little disheartened we continued getting the caches slowly when the rain hit again. Actually caching in the rain is incredibly dull and as a team we don't particularly like completing drive by's but in the recent weather, needs must I suppose. By the time we managed to get home we had completed 35 caches, some of them in the dark.

Alleghnee (Cheeky Bopper)

Cheeky Bopper & Fairy Bopper in Southport

Middlewich Favourite

GC1KXRP - Big Lock Pound - Croxton aqueduct and Flash by Bargee

This one was our favourite cache of the day for many reasons. We parked on the layby alongside the main road and had a very short walk to the canal. Kyla my eldest is always reluctant to do caches by canals as for some reason she is fearful of falling in, so we had to coax her a little.

The walk along the canal started just like any other canal but a short wander around the bend and it opened up into Croxton Flash. It was such a surprise and made even more lovely by the fading light. The Canadian Geese were all marching in a group out of the water and up the field, there looked like there were hundreds of them, all on a mission.

At this time of evening it was relatively quiet with only the odd dog walker around. Within no time we were at the GZ and a short search later we had the cache in hand. The girls were extremely pleased to see a big container so grabbed the cache to see what they could swap. This is what keeps them interested in caching and both have their own swap bags full of goodies. The adults in the group all like the larger caches as it gives us a chance to move the TB's and Geocoins around and all too often we are finding micro's just plonked at the side of roads with no thought at all.

The return walk was very quick and all in all it was about a mile round walk. A great cache, recommended to all.


Information Board


Croxton Flash


Kyla and Alleghnee at the GZ with the Cache

Killing 2 birds with 1 stone. Geocaching and Trigpointing

Moor Top Staffordshire Moorlands





Its funny, the more you get into the websites, the more you find. It's absolutely amazing what you can find out there and what we drive past everyday without even noticing.

On this occasion I had been looking at the trigpointing site and as we were heading towards Dovedale we decided to pay this site a visit. Not only could I log my visit on Trigpointing but also the trig had been featured on the YOSM on Geocaching. So we were able to log a virtual cache as well. Unfortunately as we pulled up at the location, it started to rain. Just typical really as on a good day I would expect the view to be stunning, overlooking the Roaches and Leek. But today, all we got was low cloud.

Looking into the other site waymarking. I managed to find one that I had visited whilst completing an Earth Cache back in July. So my planning for a day trip out has gone from looking for geocaches, to looking for Geocaches, Waymarks and Trigpoints. How much more time do you think I'll spend planning eh....OMG loads!!!!

Biking the Forgotten Track

GC1T3VD Forgotten Track Series - Start

What a great series to do on a Mountain Bike. A nice flat track which we clocked as being 5.4 miles long having the added bonus of having 12 caches along the way. For the beer enthusiasts there is even a pub half way along. We decided that we were going to go straight past this today though even though the weather was lovely enough to sit in the beer garden and have a nice long glass of the cold stuff.

All of the caches were easy finds for us, most being rock micros although there were some small caches for swaps along the way. The track runs from the edge of Stafford near the castle all the way to Gnosall in South Staffs. Lucky for us today it was nice and quiet and we were able to search undisturbed by muggles.

We completed the series in under 2 hours and made our way back along the track to the car. The return 5.4 miles was completed in just 20 minutes, all of us having a nice steady speed of 16 mph. We even rumbled a couple of cachers from Essex trying to look discreet with their GPS but any cacher can spot another cacher a mile off. It was great to spend 10 minutes chatting about the joys of caching before continuing to the car.

A nice couple of hours out finished off by another 3 caches in the centre of Stafford.



The Forgotten Track



Me and My Bike



Logging one of the finds

Another day out in Dovedale

GC1VKFY - SOTL Thorpe Cloud




What can I say...Awesome Awesome Awesome Earth Cache. After completing a few of the SOTL series this was next on the list to do. The view of Thorpe Cloud as you approach is spectacular! The area was crawling with walkers and families just enjoying a day out in the sunshine with many kids splashing around in the river. Looking up at the cloud, there were a lot of people already on top and attempting the climb the hard way.

Looking at the map we decided to follow the public footpath round the back of the cloud hoping for an easier ascent on account of having the 3 puppies with us. Most of the walk was a fairly easy up hill climb until the last 500 metres or so where it really started to tell on our legs. We made it to the top quite quickly and was amazed at the views we got. The wind was extremely strong at the summit making my hair stick right up and looking like I was wearing a wig!!!

We made our calculation of the questions that were required and took a few minutes to look around at the great views taking the opportunity for a few pics as well.

Again it was decided that rather than attempt to go scree surfing on the way down, we made our way back the safer way. The noise from a nearby field where all the sheep were being herded into a neighbouring field was quite loud especially with the farmer beeping his horn ruining the nice peaceful sounds of the countryside.

All in all, it was one hell of a climb, an amazing view and certainly well worth the effort. One that I would recommend to all.

Many Thanks to PopupPirate for making this Earth Cache.

Keele Caches

GC1QR5N Dead Roman's Society
This was my second cache of the day. I parked in the Students Union carpark, a place that I've been to many times. Got out the trusty GPSr and followed the arrow. Well this is where I made my first mistake, as I had come into the woods in the wrong place and made a right old hash of it. I looked at the clue as where I was the co-ords seemed to be right out. Yep I'd gone through a tunnel and to a clearing but no cache. So I phoned a friend who had completed the cache and it all turns out that I was through the wrong tunnel. It seems bizaare that there would be tunnels in a wood like this but hey, there was a few. So after a few instructions I found where I was supposed to be and to be honest, I really should have trusted my GPS as the co-ords were pretty spot on. What a wonderful place to visit, it was amazing. There was a bridge with 4 little archways on it and up above was the tunnel that I had gone through. I so wish I had taken my camera for this one but I really wasnt expecting anything so spectacular especially on a university campus. This cache comes highly recommended from me.


GC14P9Y Keele Woods and Mud
This was my next on the list after Dead Roman's Society and thankfully I found the right track immediately. Another surprise for me, I hadn't realised there was a really impressive hall on the campus. The walk took us right past the hall and into the grounds passing a really lovely lake. I was fully expecting to get into the woods and as the title said....so get caked in mud. I found that the path had recently been done properly with a hardcore surface so was able to walk there with nice clean shoes. Got to the GZ and started looking at the likely places but nothing so resorted to the clue. I'm glad I did as my GPSr was showing 120ft out when I finally located the cache. The woods were really quiet so searching wasn't an issue.
Again the walk back was even more impressive as you got the full view of the hall with its lake and little weir with stepping stones going across it. What an ace place. Caches that I would certainly recommend.

In total I completed 10 local caches today, ones which had been on my closest to home for such a long time. There are many more to get around the area, but I keep being pulled to other areas.

Tomorrow is another caching day, I'm all prepped and have planned a couple of Earth Caches, about 18 traditionals and 5 Virtuals. We shall see if we get round to them all...especially with all the pups in tow. And this time I won't be forgetting my camera.

Travelling Geocaches

GC45CC - Ye Ole Survey Monuments

Mmmmmm a travelling geocache...different...well yeah, it is!!

Ye Ole Survey Monuments is a travelling geocache that is owned by outforthehunt. The cache moves around the country and you could be looking for a specific survey monument, pillar, surface block, rivet or bolt. Unlike conventional geocaches with this cache you need to record the co-ordinates you find and make a note of them on your log. (Explanation taken from http://www.yosm.co.uk/)

I completed the cache over the Mega weekend whilst the cache was located at Brean Down in Somerset. As with a lot of pillars and trigpoints, the view was absolutely breathtaking however getting there wasn't particularly easy. It was one hell of a climb up the side of the hill.

So unlike the usual fixed caches, this one can be logged many times as long as you visit each location and take the required details.


Overlooking Brean Sands


Overlooking Weston Super Mare

So.....where is my next YOSM...actually not far up the road from my house so I think a caching visit is in order to log some more.

Fun Caching

GC1VK8N - Splish, Splash Cache & Dash






This has to be my favourite cache of the whole weekend. It definately begs the question "What would you do to get a cache"?. Luckily for a few, it was completed when the fountain was switched off, but for the rest of us great fun was had, not only grabbing the cache ourselves, but watching the fun of others doing it as well.

Drive by's - Worth it for not????

Do I like drive-by's......No not at all, in fact they drive me up the wall!!!!!

So why do I do them? Personally they're number boosting caches, plain and simple. There's nothing challenging about them in the slightest. Stick the co-ords into the Garmin Nuvi....follow the directions.....park up....get the GPSr and find the cache. Bingo and if you're lucky you get to walk more than 100ft.

But how can you write an interesting log as there's nothing worse than getting a TFTC on the log page. Well its really really hard...unless of course you cause an accident by shameless driving or caching exploits and then at least you have something to write about.

After completing 22 caches today.....the majority being drive-by's, I came home still full of energy but also fed up because all I can write is Easy Find, TFTC., and I didnt take a single photo.

And I don't like it one bit!!!!

Etruria Industrial Museum

Yay managed to get out and do a geocache even though the rain has struck us again.

With the girls at their Grandparents I went off to a morning appointment and on getting back I just managed to be in time for them to be going off to get a cache. So in the car I jumped...will we get first to find I wonder....I doubted it as the cache had been published a while before.

We arrived at the location and luckily the car park was quiet. Thats the problem with urban caches, there's always a chance that you won't be able to hunt for the container as doing so would put it at risk.

Surprisingly the gps was pointing us away from the museum and out onto the main road which was a shame as I've never visited it before despite being on my doorstep. Maybe thats a trip for another day. The cache find was quite an easy one really, hidden on a metal archway and unless you actually know what you are looking for, it would never be found by accident. Generally I'm not a fan of these hides, little magnetic nano containers that are the size of your fingernail and only containing a tiny log, just big enough to put the date and your initials. I much prefer a nice long hike across the moors or in the open countryside with nice big containers to find...but hey you can't have it all ways and these are good for the numbers.

But as a walker.....its not all about the numbers!!!!!! Or is it?????

Burbage Edge, Derbyshire - 27/07/09

Milestone Cache - 1000th Find

After managing to complete 42 finds on Saturday with the Bignall Boppers I was up to 999 finds and I wanted to find a really good cache to mark my milestone. We had planned to attend the Piratemania cache event on the Sunday but on waking the Great British weather had struck again. It was pouring with rain so a rethink was in order. After checking the met office weather forecast it was decided that Monday was probably the best day this week to go cache hunting so up came the thought of a cache that I have been wanting to complete for ages and had been sat on my to-do bookmark list - GCJA3V Jonah's Journey on Froggatt Edge in the Peak District.

Monday morning arrived and as usual it was pouring with rain but by lunchtime it had eased off and the sun was beginning to shine through. We packed the waterproofs in the rucksack, got the geokids, the geodog and the Bignall Boppers in the car (Bit of a squeeze for a Ford Focus) and off we set. By the time we reached the parking area for the cache, the sun was glorious and it was warm enough for t-shirts.

We set off with about 2 miles of walking before we reached Ground Zero, the dogs were having a whale of a time jumping up and down on the rocks and even the girls were happy with the scenery and the not to difficult walk. They were excited as we had told them about the cache beforehand and they wanted to be fully involved.

At the GZ - The co-ords on the GPS took us straight to this one no messing, but theres always a bit of apprehension....is this the right spot....especially for a cache that is rated 5/5 - the most difficult there is. But here it was, a not so big hole between the rocks that we were going to have to go down. First of all John of the Boppers went down the hole first, closely followed by myself. Maybe it would have been a better idea to have bought some climbing type shoes along with me as walking boots maybe aren't the best things to go rock climbing in. But in for a penny in for a pound..it just had to be done.

Actually the find was relatively easy, John got to the cache first and passed it up to me and I climbed back out of the hole to show the kids the cache. The cache was a good one, a nice sturdy old ammunition box holding quite a lot of trinkets for swaps. This is the bit the kids always like, having a good rummage through and seeing if there is anything they want to swap and take home with them.


The girls were really excited now so it was time to rope them up and teach them some new skills (always comes in handy later in life). They had a great time and both enjoyed the experience, just as we all did. All in all it was a fantastic cache in a really beautiful location and the other bonus for us was that there were other caches for us to complete on the way back to the car.

8 caches were completed in total that day as the Garmin Nuvi located a few drive by's as we were going past.



Fab day,
Claire
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