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

GOTN - Ghost of the Navigator Series

Today we completed 11 caches, 8 of them belonging to the GOTN series on and around the Tissington Trail. In each of the 8 caches are clues for a bonus cache to be collected. We will find out what they are on the way round.

The weather was as usual murky, typical of the Great British Summer. We had all our kit with us and were actually wearing our waterproofs when we started the walk for a change. The dogs were wet within about 5 minutes of starting.

First cache was only around 360ft from where we parked the car on the side of the road in a layby (why pay for parking to walk 200ft less). The series was one with no clues so you have to trust the GPSr and hope that the co-ords are pretty spot on and trust your instincts as to where someone would hide a cache. This one was fairly easy and located just over a drystone wall.

Next was a fairly easy walk through open fields onto the road. There has been so much rain over the last few days that the lane was flooded. we had a short walk to the next cache however the GPS was pointing us through a church yard which really is a big no-no. So a quick rethink took us back to the road. Sometimes it just helps to stand back and take a look around and this was the case with this one. I spotted a lot of footprints in the mud by the wall and on closer inspection, there was the cache.

Next one was a bit of a nightmare, just a huge hill and with the cloud being very low you couldnt see much of the lovely countryside that I know thats around. We continued over the fields picking up the next few caches before we turned back onto the road and onwards back to the trail. By this time we were pretty wet, the dogs were soggy but happy prancing around.

We took a bit of a detour to pick up another cache along the way before heading back for the last few of the series. Most of the caches were fairly easy finds apart from 1. Not that it was a hard cache but the terrain was most challenging. The banks were really slippery and Mum came a right cropper on it really hurting her shoulder. Sometimes you really do risk life and limb if you're not careful or sensible.

The last caches in the series were uneventful and to be honest, we were glad they were finished as we were all soaking wet.

We now have the SOTN series to complete before picking up the bonus cache and knowing the terrain of the area....this is one to be left for a sunnier day.