Caching A Plenty Around Redditch

On Saturday we fancied a return visit to the Redditch area just south of Birmingham as there seems to be an explosion of new caches around there at the moment. I thought I'd found a lot in the area last weekend but a quick check of Memory Map revealed a ton more to do.

Isaac has finished school for half term so was free on Saturday, the weather was looking perfect and there were tons of caches to find. Perfect!

We aimed to start off with the Hagley Loop series, a set of 9 new caches along with a stand alone cache along the way, forming a nice circular walk. We parked up by the first one and off we set. We kept bumping into dog walkers on every part of the walk so had to wait them out before diving in for each cache. Nothing too taxing here and we were soon back at the Jeep and ready so set off for the short drive to the next caches for the day.

We parked up by the lovely church in the village of Belbroughton for the Belbroughton Bimble series. This is another circular walk of 10 caches, with an extra stand alone cache on the way round. This turned into another excellent walk in great countryside with a nice variety of hides and cache sizes to keep things interesting.

The only matter of note was a slight mishap we had on #10 in the series. We could not decide which side of the hedge this one would be on so as usual, when faced with a choice of two things, we picked the wrong one - doh!

Isaac then crawled under the hedge to the other side for an easy find. He then had the brainwave of throwing the cache over the hedge to me on the other side. A nice idea but he threw too low and the cache popped into the top of the hedge. We peered into the hedge for ages, shaking it with my walking pole and could not spot the cache anywhere.

We logged a Needs Maintenance log on the iPhone immediately just in case any other cacher's were doing the series and have email you about the mishap. We're gutted about losing the cacge and can only offer our sincere apologies as the cache will almost certainly need replacing. The cache owner has been very nice about it and is hoping to go out and replace the cache in the next few days - phew!

After we got back to the Jeep, it was a short drive to the three new caches in Catshill near Bromsgrove. All nice easy ones and we were soon on the M42 heading east to the new Morton Meander series to the east of Redditch.

We parked up by #1 and ate our sandwiches before setting off for the circuit of the 16 caches in the series. Another fabby walk with lots to see and do on the way. Things of note were:

• a sneaky hide on #6 that thankfully we'd seen before otherwise we might have missed it.
• loads of friendly cows right by #11. They must have thought we were the farmer as they all trotted over as we approached the field they were in. Not a bother though and we soon had the cache found and were on our way.
• a cache hung on a fence that Isaac initially thought was a padlock for some reason (I'm not giving anything away by saying this). He mentioned it and I said "why would someone hang a padlock on a random fence". He then twigged and had the logbook in hand in seconds.

With this series finished, we were on 40 finds for the day and we still had a bit of time left. A quick look at the caches on Memory Map and we decided to head for Redditch itself and some urban caching to see how we go. This would also leave us with a quick exit to the M42 and northwards to home.

We grabbed a quick one by a bus-stop on the way into town and then another quick one not too far from the road in some woods. The third cache has the most bizarre swap we've ever seen in it: a cast of someone's teeth. Why the heck would anyone leave this as a swap as I can't imagine who would want to swap anything for it.

The rest of the caches were all near supermarkets and near railway stations and nothing much to report on. Just as it had gone dark we bagged out 50th find of the day, so decided to call it a day and head home for some tea.

Another fab day out with some great walks in lovely areas. Can't beat this kind of caching.