Big Kids Challenge and March Mayhem series
We were going to go to Bicester today as there is a ton of new caches there and we know it's a great area for caching from previous visits. It's right at the far end of the area we will travel to go caching in a day and to be honest, I did not fancy such a long drive.
While I was wondering where else to go caching, I was reminded of the Big Kids Challenge near Brownhills on Memory Map. We'd left doing these caches as they attract a heck of a lot of DNF's and we like to find caches, not DNF them. I put a quick question about them out on Facebook and had some very positive comments back so we thought we'd go for it.
We parked up near the first one in the series and set off for our circular walk. The series is a mixture of Traditional's, Multi's and one Puzzle cache. I'd done the legwork for the puzzle cache before we came - very interesting working out the answers to the area's history it was too - made us appreciate our walk all the more. The Multi's were all virtual stages but were liberally scattered along the walk, so I brought some notes on what to do where, just in case we missed something out in passing.
We really enjoyed the walk, with some easy finds, but mostly some quite challenging hides. Number 4 had been muggled, but the muggler's had left the magnet and attaching mechanism behind. Number 11 had also been muggled but it was obvious to a cacher where it should be.
On the way round we also stopped for two andyandelaine caches in some woods at the top of the walk. Both were fab and made us laugh. The first because of the very appropriate container (the area was criss-crossed with 4x4 tracks - I won't say what the container was but I bet you can guess!) and the second because I had to give Isaac a piggy-back to reach the cache, which was about 7-8ft up a slanting tree.
After that, we were going to do the other nearby series but the new March Mayhem caches were not too far away and they are really good fun - sneaky hides, no clues, no cache size mentioned etc etc and they really test your geo-skills. We opted to go and try the March Mayhem ones as we love that kind of caching.
On the way we stopped to find two urban caches in the middle of Brownhills. The first was by a HUGE statue of a miner on a roundabout (HUGE = 50ft or more in height and *very* impressive) and the second was an Off Yer Trolley just opposite a Tesco's. As Isaac was ferreting under a bridge for the second one, a familiar voice shouted over "Hello John and Isaac". It was Ron and Diane from The Washers. Great to meet you both again. We had a nice chat before they went off to their next cache and we headed off to the next series.
The March Mayhem caches lived up to our expectations and more - some really sneaky hides, including one we just don't know how the cache owner though of. I won't say more as I don't want to spoil the fun for anyone that has not done them, but rest assured, if you are in the Lichfield area, get over there and try them. You won't be disappointed!
Next, we headed up to Whittington to do the group of caches round the outskirts of the village. Lots of nice quick and easy finds with no problems at all for us. Nice to get a tour of the highlights of the village by a local cacher.
The last cache of the day was just south of Lichfield at some locks that are being restored into a new park. A great spot with tons of history and some really interesting information boards.
35 finds for the day and another fabby day out. The weather was wall to wall sunshine all day too - it does not get much better than this :-).
