Lichfield Area: Fradley Junction, March Mayhem and Bodymoor Heath series
After being in Lancashire doing the Witton Weavers Way caches for the last few weekends, we fancied a total change of scenery this weekend. The area around Lichfield caught my eye as quite a few new caches had come out there recently.
Our first target was the two short series along the canals near Fradley Junction: the first set along the Trent & Mersey canal and the second along the Coventry canal.
We parked to the north of the caches and set off on our bikes down the towpath. Lovely countryside round here and a beautiful day weather-wise too - perfect.
All the caches were easy finds as there are not that many places to hide caches along busy canals. The highlight of the ride for me was seeing the old hangars at the old Lichfield WW2 disused airfield on the other side of the Coventry canal. I've often used these as a visual waypoint when flying to the SE from Barton or Liverpool, so it was great to see them close-up.
Next, we popped over to find a puzzle cache, Film Preview. The hiding place was obvious but no cache was anywhere to be found. We even used a PAF, who confirmed the obvious place for the cache, but it looks like it might have been so obvious, it has been muggled.
Next, it was three quick caches near a business park, before setting off on the March Mayhem series. These are some more challenging caches that have sneaky hides and no hints on the cache page.
It started off well with an easy find of a regular sized cache box. The next one was going to be tricky as it was hidden in a holly bush and looked to be a hanging nano. Hmmm ... not our favourite type, but what the heck, it's a smiley. We eventually found the top part of a nano attached to a branch, but the bottom was nowhere to be seen. It's only when we got home that we saw others had had the same problem and that the cache was temp'd.
The rest of the series was uneventful apart from some very sneaky hides and both Isaac and myself picking up puncture on our bikes. In hindsight, we should have left them in the Jeep and gone to find the caches on foot.
After we'd completed the series, we fancied some shamelessly easy drive-by's so set off to do the nearby M42 caches. These are all small sized and hidden in the guard rail near the motorway. Caching does not get any easier than this: I did not even have to get out of the Jeep for some of them as Isaac was out and finding them immediately.
Just time for the Bodymoor Heath (what a great name for a place!) canal series before we head off home, so off we set. A beautiful section of canal that was quite busy with muggles as it was tea-time and everyone seemed to want a walk here.
Some more sneaky hides along here made this set good fun. Isaac then directed us onto the M6 Toll for the journey home. As we passed Brownhills, I remembered we had one M6 Toll cache left to find (it had been muggled last time I looked for it) so we exited the motorway and went off for another very easy find.
41 finds for the day.
