Mourning the loss of a dear friend

Well I know accidents do happen but this one really upset me. Yes I know you think I must be absolutely mad but I am gutted. My wonderful caching companion, my pentax camera was fatally wounded in action in Southport after being dropped by my youngest daughter. It happened whilst she was taking a picture of the team by a sundial in one of the parks. I suppose I will have to replace it very very soon as I feel like my arm has been cut off as it went everywhere with me.

This is the last picture that was taken with my pride and joy.



Goodbye my friend xx

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

Some more random cache containers

Personally I really like something that is really different from the norm. The following pictures are some of the different micro caches which we found whilst caching in Lancashire. I won't put which caches they are just in case you come across them on your travels.

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

Silly Caching Pics

How is it I try to get some nice pictures whilst out caching, get back, upload them to the computer and what do I get......pics where nobody is ready or where all are pulling funny faces. Well that was another evenings caching photos and only a couple are half decent. Here's the rest................

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