Adventures of a Bolas Heathen

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2009-12-01T12:06:00.004Z

We've moved our Blog over to Wordpress as it gives us a lot more control over it and should help us add more photos to our posts in future. The new link is:

http://thebolasheathens.com/

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Lark Rise to Candleford Green and Shelswell Loop Series

2009-11-29T14:41:00.002Z

We were going to leave our caching day out until Sunday this weekend so Isaac could come along as well, but looking at the weather forecast Saturday was looking good but Sunday a lot less so. I thus decided to go caching on Saturday on my own and maybe go out with Isaac on Sunday if it looked ok on Sunday morning.

As usual, we struggled to decide where to head for so decided to go a bit further than we normally do and head towards Bicester and the Lark Rise to Candleford Green and Shelswell Loop series. They had good logs and looked like a really nice walk.

I dropped Isaac off at school and headed for the motorways and the long drive to the caching area. I parked up by one of the Lark Rise caches called Round The Bend. This was roughly in the middle of the two series and meant I could do a figure of eight walk around both series.

It was very chilly so I added a warm fleece to my normal walking kit and set off on foot to do the Lark Rise series anti-clockwise.

The first stretch going over the fields to the hamlet of Juniper Hill (what a great name for a place!) was uneventful. Lots of easy finds with good co-ords and a really nice walk overall. I DNF'd one cache but was in good company with 3 other cacher's DNF'ing it in succession too. I suspect the cache has gone as it's not anywhere the hint says it should be in.

The next leg of the walk was my favourite of the day, going over the estate of Tusmore Park and in great countryside with a mixture of woodland and semi-open fields. Part way through it I was walking along in a world of my own, thoroughly enjoying myself when I heard a loud beep right behind me. I must have jumped at least a foot into the air, I was so startled! It was an estate worker in a 4x4 doing the rounds.

I had another DNF a bit later on by a lovely church. Again, several people had DNF'd it right before me and I suspect it's another one that has gone missing.

The next cache was about 100ft off the stated co-ords. I had heard that this series had some iffy co-ords, but this was the only one of the whole day I thought was out. After reading the previous logs, it was clear where to look and it was just a case of methodologically searching the various ivy bits (that means poking around the ivy with the end of my walking pole ;-)) until I heard a clunk of the cache box.

After that one, there was a massive stretch of walk with no caches on. I'm not quite sure why they had not put at least one or two caches on this part of the walk as there were tons of places you could hide a cache, but I'm sure there must be a reason.

I had another DNF on a nano I'm pretty sure is also missing, before arriving back near the Jeep. I was debating whether to carry on straight to the Shelswell Loop series or pop back to the Jeep for my sandwiches. In the end the walking won and off I went to start the next series.

By now I had about 2 hours (or slightly more) before it would be starting to go dark, so I got a wiggle on with my walking as all the torches were back in the Jeep. As I passed the pub by the first in the series, the landlady was outside talking to some smokers and shouted over to me "You look like you are on a mission". I was!

Next, I headed off down the PF's over the fields on the walk. I could hear the sound of shotguns in the distance and hoped they would not be near any of the caches. Unfortunately they were and I had to walk right past one of the caches as a guy with his shotgun cocked was stood right by GZ.

One more DNF followed a bit later on - a micro on the ground in a wooded area with dead leaves everywhere. Not my idea of fun, so I soon got bored and headed off to the next cache.

I nearly forgot about one cache and only spotted it on my GPSr at the last minute so had to do a 0.18 backtrack to get it - doh!

It was starting to go dark by now and I was only just over half way round the loop. Time to walk a little bit faster still. The rest of the series was easy enough with a few things to note:

Another long gap between two caches. This time there was absolutely nowhere to put a cache in between (it was open fields with no hedges).
Nearly tripping over the carcass of a dead sheep near a cache.
Waiting for a tractor pulling a trailer full of country folk with their shotguns to go past.

I just about managed to get back to the Jeep as it became fully dark. The last few caches were in the darkness but it was just about light enough to see to find the caches.

Just two left to do for both series and they were a short drive down the lane. I parked up and set off over the fields with a torch and soon had both caches found.

That's 37 finds so far. I wonder if I can find 3 quick and easy caches on the way back to the M40 junction on the way home. A quick study of the OS map on my GPSr and I spotted just the three caches I needed.

The first one was a short way down a closed off road and a nice quick find. The second was a bit more interesting as I was walking down the PF in the dark and could see a torch coming the other way. It turned out to be a man and his two dogs. I thought nothing of it until I turned round and he'd stopped a bit further down the track and was looking at me. Oh no, it's not one of those nocturnal canine type places is it?

Thankfully it turned out to be the gamekeeper from the estate and he was wondering what the heck I was up to in the dark on my own in some woods. I explained about caching to him and he was fine with this. Apparently they have some trouble with drug dealers and poachers on the estate so he was just being careful. After he went on his way I soon found the cache.

Last cache of the day turned out to be one of the Alphanumeric Northants series caches, set at the very southern end of Northamptonshire. I collected the clue for the next cache and have filed it away for when we're next in the area and want to carry on that series.

With 40 finds in the bag and a very satisfying day's walking, I stuck a great podcast on the iPhone and headed off to the M40 and northbound to home.

Sezincote Stroll, Cachewalker Kids Trail and some Swells & Wells caches

2009-11-22T10:33:00.003Z

We could not decide where to go caching this week (our usual conundrum) and the weather was not looking too great for Saturday either. It looked like it might be wetter the further north you went, so we opted to go south and a group of caches on what looked like a nice walk in the Cotswolds caught my eye.

We decided to head for Longborough (near Moreton in Marsh) and do the Sezincote Stroll series, followed by the Cachewalker Kids Trail. If we were left with any time, there were quite a few Swells and Wells series caches nearby and some quick ones in Evesham for the way home.

We drove down the M6, M5 and then the A-roads to Longborough and parked up in the centre of the lovely village for our figure of 8 walk around the caches. After getting kitted up with full waterproofs, off we set.

We decided to tackle the Sezincote Stroll in a clockwise direction to start off, as this was the longer of the two walks. A nice easy find at #3 started us off on the right track. A bit later on we passed the lovely Sezincote house and gardens - a wonderful yellow Cotswold stone building with a huge green onion dome on top of it!

Just as we were nearing the top of our walk, we spotted a group of about 30 walkers taking a rest by where we thought the next cache might be. As we got nearer it was clear they were stood right by GZ.

Nothing else for it but to strike up a conversation with them, mention geocaching and show them the cache. They looked a decent lot and not at all likely to endanger the cache. We did exactly this and quite a few of them were really interested in the idea of caching, with one lady even saying she'd look it up and take her grandchildren out caching :-).

The rest of the walk was uneventful, apart from passing quite a few pheasant beaters out checking the hedgerows. Luckily none of them were anywhere near any of the caches.

All too soon we were back near the Jeep and pondered stopping for our sandwiches or should we carry on for the next walk - the Cachewalker Kids Trail. We were enjoying our walk so much we decided to carry straight on to the next series.

The Cachewalker Kids Trail looks to have been set for an event and involves 6 easy puzzles, designed for children to solve, and then a bonus cache at the end. Nothing too taxing here with all the caches being really easy finds (some were out in the open for some reason - we hid them back where we thought they should go).

On the way round it started to rain properly and looked to be set in for the rest of the day. We were glad we had our waterproofs on and could just carry on caching as normal. We also picked up a couple of Swells and Wells series caches on the way round as we were walking past them anyway.

Once back at the Jeep, Isaac planned a few drive-by's and cache and dashes towards Stow in the Wold, before heading back towards Evesham on the way home.

The Stow caches were easy enough. We were puzzled at one as it was a Church Micro but we totally failed to spot a church anywhere near it. Either we're walking around with our eyes shut or the church must have been behind the buildings and out of sight. Either way, it was a bit odd.

On the way up to Evesham we passed a delta68 Earthcache at Fish Hill. We've not done an Earthcache for ages so stopped for a look. We started off in the old quarry for a photo, then up to a viewfinder on top of the hill to pick up some required details. Next, it was down to the car park information boards for the rest of the details. All good fun and it was interesting to read about the area on the noticeboards.

Just before we arrived in Evesham Isaac took us to a group of 6 easy looking caches around the village of Badsey. It was very dark by now but thankfully we were right and they were all indeed very easy finds.

Just time for a few more before we head home so we went for the three caches in the Evesham By Pass series. Not a very inspiring series name but the caches were ok and just what we needed at this stage - quick finds not far from where we'd parked (it was raining really hard by now and everywhere was very damp).

We thought that was it for the day and headed over to join the M5 just north of Worcester. On the way Isaac spotted two quick caches just off the main road in Pershore. How could we resist ;-).

Two more easy finds ensued - the last one was hidden as per the hint but had no covering on it and nothing nearby to hide it better with. We hope this one lasts as it's going to look even more exposed in the daylight.

We then headed home very satisfied with our day out caching. 37 finds for the day and some seriously nice walking. Just perfect and very close to our ideal day out caching.

Himbleton Hide and Finding Flyford Series + More...

2009-11-15T16:59:00.000Z

On Saturday I'd planned to start off with the new Saza36 caches between Bromsgrove and Redditch before heading off to the Finding Flyford series and then I'd play it by ear depending on the time.

We were out on Friday night but when I got home I spotted a newly published series of 18 caches just by the Flyford ones so a hasty rearrangement of my plans was called for.

I dropped Isaac off at school and then headed off for the motorway and the journey to the new Himbleton series. As I came off the M5 just to the north of Worcester I bagged a quick and easy Motorway Mayhem cache as I was driving past it anyway.

I then parked up by the first cache just outside the village of Himbleton, got kitted up and off I set for a circular walk around the caches. There was another car at the parking spot so I assumed another cacher was already part way round the series (they were!).

It's been raining very heavily overnight and all the streams are full to overflowing around here, which is going to make the walk interesting to say the least.

The first cache by the parking spot was an easy find. I then did a couple more easy ones before meeting the first obstacle of the day: the lane was totally flooded on the way to the next cache. It looked to be about a foot deep but there was a hint of grass along one edge so I gingerly made my way along this, using my walking pole to stop myself falling into the water.

Lots more easy finds followed with the main comment to note being a detour off the walk to bag another cache in a nearby woods. This took an age to find as the cache co-ords were pants and about 70ft off. Eventually I spotted a second set of co-ords on the cache page and some pacing instructions (more like a letterbox than a normal cache). This did the trick and I soon had the cache in hand.

Later in the walk I ended up wading through a flooded stream and getting wet socks as there was no other way round it and I needed to be on the other side to do the rest of the caches. I spotted some other cachers in the distance but never got to talk to them - they were sketr1, the owner of the car I had parked next to. Later on in the walk I also passed The five Keepers and said hello.

All too soon I arrived back at the Jeep and set off to make a start on the Flyford series. I did the first couple of them as cache and dashes before parking up for the walk round most of the remaining caches.

The highlight of the walk was bumping into Butttercup and stormystorm, who were doing the series in the opposite direction to me. We had a lovely geo-chat, swapping tips about the parts of the walk we'd each done, before heading on to the next cache.

I was soon back at the Jeep again, but not before a very long cacheless (is that a word?) stretch down the road from the last cache. I'm not sure why there are not caches on this part of the walk too as it seems a bit odd. Never mind, as I was thoroughly enjoying myself anyway :-).

Time was getting on by now and I needed to be home early tonight as we're hosting a bonfire party at home and we've got a ton of people coming. I could just about fit in a few more caches though...

I bagged a quick drive-by which was hidden on an old tank outside an army surplus shop. I'd have loved to go inside for a nosey but time was too tight by now.

A short drive later and I was in Saza36-land and pulling up for the first cache. Just as I was parking a 4x4 that looked strangely familiar pulled off in front of me. I suspected it was the Stag Ramblers and sure enough, when I found the cache, they had also found it today.

Just 4 caches to go to our 8000th find now. I was planning to leave the 8000th for when Isaac is with me next week but on the way to the dual carriageway that leads to the M5 and home, I spotted 4 easy drive-by's that were just saying "find me". I could not resist.

Four nice easy finds followed, with our 8000th cache being a really easy drive-by micro hidden behind a road sign. An ok cache, but one of these days we'll plan things properly and do a really special cache for our milestone.

38 caches found for the day and I managed to get home for just after 5pm so plenty of time to get things sorted for the party later.

UK Mega Series 2 Ring and Chiltern Hundred Bonus Cache

2009-11-08T11:03:00.002Z

I could not decide on where to go caching on Saturday. We loved the long walk round the Chiltern Hundred last weekend so thought something similar would be perfect as we could not see anywhere closer on the map jumping out saying "find me".

The UK Mega series was the obvious choice: we'd done the northern loop earlier in the year so had the choice of the southern loop or the new Mega Series 2 loop. We opted for the latter with the idea that we would pick off a few caches from the southern loop if we had time too.

I was also anxious to go and bag the Chiltern Hundred Bonus cache while I was down south. It's not exactly close to the UK Mega series, but it would be about as close as I'm planning to be for a while!

Isaac was doing things at school this weekend so it was just me on my own. I decided to stop overnight just outside Basingstoke on Friday night so I could get an early start on Saturday morning. This in turn would hopefully give me time to get up to Chesham for the Chiltern Hundred Bonus and then back home for a reasonable time on Saturday night.

The hotel was a bit of nightmare as the promised WiFi did not seem to be working and there was no 3G coverage so my 3G dongle refused to work. Luckily I was not there too long so just had to do without internet access for a while. I read a book instead!

Saturday morning dawned and it looked a promising day with clear skies and the sun shining. I drove to Bentworth to start the trail.

I'd read that the last cache of the series - #057 - was opposite a pub and a bit of a nightmare to look for later in the day when people were sat outside the pub. Luckily I found a handy parking spot right next to the cache so did that one first.

I then got my bike out of the Jeep and set off round the trail, doing them in the right order for a change. I was debating if the bike was a good idea but most of the series looked bikeable on Google Earth and another cacher who had done the series confirmed it should be ok.

As with the other Mega Series caches we've done, most of them were big containers with swaps and all were quick and easy finds. I won't go into detail on each cache as there were a lot of them, but will summarise a few highlights below:

A few stiles to navigate at the start of the trail, but not a problem as it was easy to lift my bike over them.
At around #012 I bumped into a guy from the local hunt, who was driving round the fields in his 4x4 checking for hazards in advance of the hunt on Sunday. I stopped chatting to him about the countryside and ancient Byway's for quite some time :-).
I bumped into a group of middle aged bikers on a Byway around cache #20. They stopped for a chat and were telling me about part of the Byway being downgraded to a Restricted Byway by the council. I guess this was the part that a cacher fell foul of the law on when he got his vehicle stuck in mud there.
Mud, mud and more glorious mud. I suspect it must have rained for the last week around here as the whole walk was seriously muddy. My feet were sliding all over the place but it all added to the fun.
I did not even bother trying cache #051 as it was in some roots on the side of an old quarry and very dangerous to get to. If I'd had a rope and someone with me I'd have given it a go, but on my own I did not want to risk it.

All too soon I was back at the Jeep and had made good time. The whole series took just under 6 hours to complete. I decided to do a few quick ones from the southern loop that were near the village before heading off to Chesham and the Chiltern Hundred Bonus cache.

After I'd done the quick caches in the village, I headed off towards the M3. On the way I did a couple of quick caches that I spotted on TomTom as I drove past: one called Panda Stone and a quick Motorway Mayhem at J5 of the M3.

After a long trip up the M3, round the M25 (surprisingly quiet today which was good) and then through Chorleywood, I arrived in Chesham just as it had gone dark.

I'd plotted the Bonus cache on my GPSr and noted a few ways to get to it. My favoured route went through a farmyard so I ruled that out as it was dark and I did not want to get arrested loitering around a farm with a torch in the dark.

Plan B was called for and involved parking up on a quiet lane, away from houses and then walking over the fields past some caches we did last week to the bonus cache. Off I set, accompanied by the sounds of fireworks going off in the distance.

As I entered the woods, my torch started a lot of birds who were settling in the upper branches for the night and they all took flight. The co-ords were bang on thankfully and lead me to an obvious cachers trail, which then took me in for an easy find. Boy am I glad to get this one ticked off after the disaster at the end of last weekend's trip!

I then got settled into the Jeep for the long drive northbound to home. I ended up back home just after 8pm which was not bad at all. 64 finds for the day which is also not too shabby :-).

Chiltern Hundred Trip

2009-11-01T16:04:00.005Z

We've been meaning to take the long trip down to Chesham to do the Chiltern Hundred series for ages now and as it was school holidays and we had a couple of days spare, we thought we'd finally get round to doing it.

The weather looked ok-ish on Saturday but not so good on Sunday so we decided to try and do as much of the series on Saturday as we could. Ideally we'd have liked to do the whole lot in one go but with the winter evenings we were not too keen on the possibility of walking through cattle fields in the dark.

We thus settled on a plan of driving down Friday night and then staying at the Premier Inn (Isaac liked the look of it from those Lenny Henry adverts on TV) at Hemel Hempstead West on Friday and Saturday nights.

The drive down was uneventful and we picked off a quick drive-by right outside the hotel, which was handy. On the way we went round this ridiculous roundabout in Hemel Hempstead that has smaller orbiting roundabouts around a main middle section. Very un-nerving if you are not expecting it as some traffic is effectively going the wrong way round the middle roundabout!

Saturday morning dawned to light rain so we had a hearty breakfast, put on our waterproofs and set off for Chesham town centre. The Chiltern Hundred is arranged in 3 separate loops - the Chesham, Chartridge and Asheridge rings. These all touch at various points so you can easily swap out to another ring as you see fit.

Our plan was to start on the Chesham ring doing them in sequence and then near the end, swap over to the Chartridge ring before returning to the Chesham ring going back to the start point. Then, if time and light were on our side, we'd drive to a handy spot by the Asheridge ring and do that as well.

After finding somewhere to park free for the day (not so easy in a town centre on a Saturday morning) we set off. The first cache (#049) was dead easy, but the next two were not...

Cache #001 had the GPSr's pointing to the back of some buildings in an area that was obviously private. We did not want to look there so had a scout around the rest of the car park in case the co-ords were dodgy but no cache was to be found anywhere. We decided to leave it and look again on the way back to the Jeep.

Cache #002 also had dodgy co-ords as they zero'd out at the back of some fences and we could not find it. In a last ditch attempt we spread the search out and had an easy find of the cache by a bridge. It was only then that we noticed the cache had the word 'bridge' in it's name - doh!

After that it was all plain sailing and we walked round the ring having really easy finds on just about every cache, with quite a few of them being on plain view as we walked up (I'm told by the cache owner that this is intentional as they rarely get noticed by muggles). A very different hiding style than we are used to, but fun nonetheless :-).

Part way round there was a cache by an ostrich farm which we really liked. We stood for a few moments watching the ostriches and chatting about what odd looking creatures they are.

A few caches later we did one with a really good hide. I won't say too much here as I don't want to spoil it for others but it's a very sneaky alternative to what is now quite a common hide. Really enjoyed finding that one.

We had a DNF on #033 - the clue said 'hexatrunk' and we much have searched every 6 trunked tree near to GZ (and there were quite a few!). Either the co-ords are even further off than we thought, we're rubbish cachers and missed something obvious or the cache is not there. We've got it on our watchlist to see which one is the correct answer (I suspect the middle one!).

Isaac managed to leave his walking pole at #040 but we did not realise until a few caches later and did not have time to go back for it. Luckily it was not an expensive one, so not a great problem. I've noted this in our log for the cache in case the next cacher to do that one finds it.

After #042 we spotted a quick way down onto the road, which meant we could swap over to the Chartridge loop and then pick up the Chesham ring later on.

The first half of the Chartridge loop took us along a quiet lane and none of the caches were any problem apart from the last one which was well and truly pushed into a hollow elderflower branch. Luckily there was a small hole the other end of the hollow bit so we used a thin stick to slide the cache out.

Then it was up onto the fields, round past the local school and back into some woods and another rural section. Nothing much to note here apart from just about every cache being up a tree. I wonder if the cache setter used to like climbing trees as a child ;-)?

All too soon we were re-joining the Chesham loop for the walk back into town and the Jeep. It was getting very dark by now and we were umm'ing and ahh'ing about doing the third loop in the dark. Two DNF's in quick succession (The first was almost certainly there but we spooked a lone female dog walker in the bushes so moved on. The second we think is missing as the hiding place was very public) sealed out fate and we decided to do the third ring in the morning and treat ourselves to a meal in a nice restaurant instead this evening.

The last couple of caches into town were easy enough. We looked for #001 on the way to the Jeep but drew a blank again.

Once back to the Jeep, Isaac took us back to the hotel to get washed and changed, via a couple of quick drive-by's. All very easy and no problem at all.

Sunday morning dawned as expected with really heavy rain, high winds and low clouds. We had no option but to don waterproofs and go out and get on with the caches as we had to be home early as Isaac needs to get ready for school tomorrow.

We started off back at Chesham Station and cache #001. I'd spoken to a previous finder overnight and knew the rough area the cache was in. As we walked up, it was literally sat there in plain view and not hidden at all. It definitely was not there yesterday so all we can assume is someone is interfering with the cache or perhaps it's slipped under the fence (which is right by it) and the house owner noticed it and pushed it back overnight. All very odd, but at least we found it!

Next we drove off to a handy place to park for the Asheridge loop, near to #062. We set of on foot anti-clockwise. Highlights and lowlights of this loop were:

A DNF at #059. The hint said it was up another tree but we could not spot it, despite having a good look. In the end we stopped having fun as the rain was awful and moved on to the next cache.
A tricky find at #050 right by the cache owner's house. I hope they were not watching us as it took us an age to find as the GPSr's were trying to tell us it was on the other side of the lane, where there was lots of ivy to search. In the end we had a re-think, checked a hiding place similar to one we did yesterday and there the cache was! A very nice hide.
A few more caches that were made really tricky by all the leaf litter that is around this time of year.
A DNF at #076. The weather was appalling at this one and the hint ambiguous. We had a brief look but gave up and headed for the relative shelter of the nearby woods and the next cache.
The rain finally stopping around cache #075 with the sun even threatening to come out soon afterwards.

We were soon back at the Jeep and that's where the fun really started. We'd taken photos of all the numbers from the caches as you need 100 numbers to get the co-ords to the bonus cache. Some of the photos were blurred by rain on the lens of the camera and not readable. We were gutted to see we were short of the 100 required numbers. Aaaarrrrrgggggghhhhh!

We tried a PAF who very thankfully had the co-ords for the bonus cache (phew!) and off we set. We soon arrived at GZ and despite a good look around could not spot a hint item anywhere within 300ft of GZ. We did find a blue string hanging from a branch at the co-ords and realised we must have been given the co-ords of where the cache was, before it was moved on 4th May this year.

We tried two more PAF's and one was at work without access to their notes of the co-ords, the other was out caching and obviously without access to their computer. The last PAF did provide a rough description of the area the final cache was in and after looking at Memory Map, we suspected it was in a certain area of woodland we could see.

Time was running short now as we'd already wasted tons of time looking for the bonus and did not have the time for a brute search of the woodland, even though we were confident we'd find the cache if it was there.

Reluctantly we left for home and decided we'd have to grab the bonus cache the next time we are in the area. We've not idea when this might be as it's a long way from home and there are not enough other caches round here to bring us back anytime soon.

All in all a really excellent weekend of caching though which we both loved. We found 108 caches and DNF'd 6, which is not bad at all. According to the other logs, we'd walked around 24.5 miles in total. The walks were in some great rolling countryside and there was a decent variety of hides to keep the caching interest up.

Time for something very different: Caching in the Cotswolds

2009-10-25T16:57:00.005Z

We could not decide on where to go caching on Saturday. The weather did not look too great all over the UK but seemed it might be better the further south you were.

We'd seen a new series of 40 or so caches on a nice looking circular walk in the Cotswold's come out a week or two ago so this sounded like it might be for us today. It's quite a bit further than we usually go, but after checking the approximate walking time with someone who had already done the caches it looked like it was eminently possible.

We did not arrive at the starting point until 11am as it did indeed take quite a while to get there, not helped being stuck behind a really slow car towing a caravan for most of the journey from the motorway. The road was too windy to get past them safely so we were stuck.

We parked up by the bonus cache dummy co-ords in the middle of the village and got our waterproofs on as it was raining lightly. The series is split into two loops, one to each end of the village. We decided to tackle the northern loop in the morning as it looked slightly longer, return to the Jeep for our sandwiches and then do the southern loop later on. Each cache has a clue in which then gives you the co-ords for the bonus cache.

As we approached the first cache, we realised it was the one you were supposed to do after you had finished the series and on the walk back to the car. Doh - looks like we'll be doing the series backwards, which we often seem to do.

After this cache, there was something like a 0.7 mile gap until the next cache (which was the last cache in the main series). We were chatting on the way and suspected the bonus cache was somewhere along this stretch as we could see no other reason not to have at least one other cache here. As we walked along, we spotted a really nice spot for a cache and Isaac saw a likely looking cache tree. A quick pop round the back of the said tree and we could see some camo bag sticking out of a hole :-). Bingo - we'd found the bonus cache!

We then carried on round the rest of the caches in the loop as intended. It was still drizzling but we had out waterproofs on and were nice and snug. All the caches were incredibly easy finds. We found this when we did the UK Mega series and wondered if all caches down south are this easy or just the ones on the bigger circular walks. Either way, we appreciated it as the last thing you want is a long search while on a long walk.

All too soon we arrived back at the Jeep for dinner. The rain had just about stopped and there were small glimpses of blue sky. We had our sandwiches, stocked up with more drinks for the next part of the walk and off we set.

The final loop had slightly more terrain to it as the bottom end of the walk was by some lovely woodland overlooking the whole area. When I say slightly more terrain, it was only a gentle slope and nothing much. Several more easy finds later and we were back at the Jeep.

It was about 4pm now so we decided to start heading home as it would take a few hours to get back, but not before a quick Sidetracked cache not far from where we parked.

Isaac then guided us back to Stow in the Wold and the main road north to the M40 by Warwick. He took us via a couple of quick drive-by's in Stow and then another Sidetracked in Moreton in the Marsh. We loved the towns in the area with their gorgeous yellow tinted stone buildings. Moreton was especially nice.

Just before we got to the M40, Isaac took us round the airfield at Wellesbourne to a quick cache. I was telling how I'd landed at Wellesbourne a few times now and that they had an old Vulcan bomber on the airfield which I think people are trying to restore. The road by the side of the airfield gave us a great view of the Vulcan, which we both enjoyed :-).

One final cache just by the M40 junction saw the total for the day at 47 finds. We'd have loved to find another 3 to get a round 50 finds for the day but we were too hungry and just wanted to get home now.

A very different than normal day out in an area we've never cached in before. We'll have to come this way more often as there are tons of caches to find.

A FTF I was not expecting

2009-10-22T16:55:00.007+01:00

I'll quote from our log on the cache, which says it all:

We'd just arrived at the Tibberton School Halloween Bingo and my iPhone pinged with a new cache notification. I could not believe it as it was only about a mile away. I left Mrs Bolas Heathens doing my bingo cards while I popped out to see if I could get FTF on the cache.

I only had my iPhone on me and getting a decent data signal was awful but eventually I managed to get the co-ords of the cache. The GPS on it was insisting I was in the middle of Warrington and would not budge so I was wondering how the heck I'd find the cache.

I pulled up around the area I thought the cache would be and had a rummage in the glove compartment. Luck was with me as our old 60CSx was at the bottom - the only problem was the rechargeable batteries in it were dead. I spotted some spare alkaline ones near to the GPS so soon had it up and running and getting a fix. I put the co-ords in and was delighted to find my guessing was right and I was 35ft from the cache :-).

At this point another car came down the lane and stopped short of me by about 100ft in the middle of the lane. They flashed their headlights in the way I've heard certain canine loving people do it ;-). Oh no, and there's me just wanting to find a tupperware box in peace. I've no idea what the signal for "go away" is so just turned off all my lights and hoped for the best. It must have worked as they moved on down the lane, but not before a very slow pass of the Jeep.

Once the coast was clear I jumped out, walked the short distance to GZ and had a very quick find of the nicely hidden cache.

Not long after I was back at the bingo in time for half time refreshments. No prizes were won, but I'd got a FTF on this cache so was happy enough. I decided the leave the other cache for the daytime as I was not exactly wearing boots fit for walking down a bridleway in the dark safely.

Caching A Plenty Around Redditch

2009-10-18T16:39:00.006+01:00

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.

A quick trip into Stafford and a quick cache!

2009-10-12T16:59:00.005+01:00

I had to pop into Stafford this afternoon to pay some cheques in at the bank and this cache was on the way into town - how handy.

I did the cheques first and then spotted the entrance to the church car park as I drove up the road on the way home. After parking up I crossed the road and walked up into the beautiful churchyard.

The co-ords were bang on and lead me straight to GZ for a very easy find. After I'd put the cache back, I had a mooch around the churchyard and took a few photos of the lovely church in the sun.

That's Stafford cleared of caches again, for now ;-).

Canal caching near home

2009-10-12T13:15:00.003+01:00

Over the last few weeks (and days!) several new caches have come out along the Shropshire Union Canal not too far from home. First there was the Wheaton Aston Extension series and then the Canal Walk series near Goldstone came out on Friday night.

I had a few hours spare on Sunday afternoon so set off armed with my bike to try and find them all.

I parked up by the canal bridge near Little Soudley and off I set. I wish I'd picked a different day than a Sunday for these caches though as the local angling club were holding a competition and there were fishermen every 20ft or so along the towpath. Trying to ride along it was like doing the hurdles, with all their long fishing poles blocking the path.

I could not spot the first cache quickly so decided to move on and look for it on the way back. The next cache was a nigthtmare as it was a micro in a random hedge. To make matters worse there was lots of ivy involved and a fisherman about 10ft from GZ. I soon gave up and moved on, muttering to myself about the cache.

Thankfully the third one was a nice easy find in a location I'd scouted out for our Mission Improbable - Cache Chase cache ages ago.

I returned to where I'd parked and quickly found the cache there. I'd initially discarded it as it was in a black plastic bag and looked like rubbish. It was only when I poked it with a stick that I heard the tell-tale thud sound of tupperware!

The last cache on this section was on a section of towpath that was officially closed as the bank had partially collapsed. It looked safe enough to me and nobody was around this part of the canal so I nipped in for a quick find.

A longish drive down lots of narrow country lanes later and I was parking up at the northern end of the Wheaton Aston canal series. I had decided to tackle these 7 caches in one go from here, even though some were very spread out and I could have saved a lot of time moving the Jeep along every so often. I'm glad I did as it was a lovely afternoon and I really enjoyed the bike ride :-).

The first one was a tricky find but I got there in the end. The remaining 6 were all easy enough but were fun hides with some hanging in trees etc etc.

After I'd ridden back to the Jeep I decided to go and pick off a new multi in Priorslee on the outskirts of Telford. A nice quick find of the urban nano here with some very unusual cannonballs along the edge of the road (the cache was called Magic 8 Ball - I bet you can guess where the cache was hidden).

By this time, I was due to pick Freya up from her friends house but I could not resist going back to look for the hedge micro as I was hoping all the fishermen had packed up and gone home by now. They had and the cache was a really quick find. Just goes to show how hard muggles make a cache to find.

That's all the new caches close to home found now so I'm off home for a lovely roast dinner :-).

Two Great Circular Walks Near Redditch

2009-10-11T12:54:00.002+01:00

Isaac was at school on Saturday so I decided to go out and do the kind of caching I really like - good walking in great countryside.

A series of puzzle caches near Redditch that form a circular walk, followed by another circular walk of traditional caches by the same cache owner looked perfect.

I headed down the M6 and M5 and was soon parking up by the first cache which was an easy drive-by. Next I moved the Jeep a bit further along the lane and set off on foot for the puzzle series.

I can't really say too much about these as I obviously don't want to give the cache locations away. Some of the more interesting parts of the walk were:

A good variety of cache container sizes, with quite a few of them being bigger boxes.
Varied terrain with only a few ploughed fields to cross.
A cache with some absolutely fabulous views over towards the Malvern hills.
A field of curious cows who thankfully kept their distance.
Nice quick finds with great hints if you need them.
Some lovely woodland on two of the caches.

All too soon I'd completed the series, so moved the Jeep round to the start of the next circular walk. This set were traditional caches, with three puzzle caches thrown in for good measure. One of the puzzles was easy, the other I needed Freya's help and the third is found by finding the first two puzzles.

I soon realised I was following graham1876 round the series but suspected he had done them a lot earlier in the day. I stopped for my sandwiches at a cache with another great view of the Malverns and then pressed on with the rest of the caches.

All of the series were nice and easy finds, lots of variety and beautiful countryside to walk through. This is exactly the kind of caching I enjoy.

After I'd finished the second series and found the three puzzle caches, I spotted a nearby drive-by Joy-Jar cache so off I went in the Jeep to find it. Another really quick find here.

Next, I aimed for a cache by a windmill we'd missed out ages ago when in the area doing Cakemaker's nearby canal series. Try as I might I could not spot the nano, even with the very precise hint. It's got to be missing. I logged a DNF on it and not long after the cache was archived as it's gone missing in the past too so time for it to be put to bed.

Time was getting on a bit by now but just enough time to go and find a group of 4 caches on the edge of Bromsgrove that we'd missed out on our last visit to the area. On the walk down to the first one, I passed what must be the biggest ariel I've ever seen. It was right by a small house and not official looking at all. I don't know what the person from the house needs such a huge ariel for (it was on top of a mobile crane!).

I managed to find 3 of the 4 caches in this group. I had to give up on the last one as two female dog walkers came over the nearby field towards where I was and spotted me. They stopped and started to look very uncomfortable at me loitering around. The last thing I want to do is scare dog-walkers so I moved on.

I really must be getting home now, but I could just squeeze in a couple more caches couldn't it? Of course it could! A quick one on a canal towpath was followed by another one on a towpath. Then I did a quick Sidetracked cache followed by the last cache of the day at the Services area on the M42.

41 finds for the day, some excellent walking and I've hardly seen a soul all day long. Great stuff :-).

Our Caching Stats As Of 9 October 2009

2009-10-09T09:52:00.004+01:00

We have not run any caching stats for ages so thought it might be fun to see the current status. It's a bit rough and ready as the milestones need adjusting as it seems to take them in the order you log them so some are not correct.

I see it also says we're one of the top finders of our own caches. That's because we adopted all MarcB's caches a while ago and had previously found them. We obviously don't log finds on caches we have hidden ourselves as that would be pointless.

A quick trip to Birmingham

2009-10-07T09:31:00.002+01:00

I had to pop to the Apple Store in the Bullring in Birmingham as one of our wireless routers in the house packed up suddenly last night. As I was driving down the M6 I was thinking there are no city centre caches left for us to do. I then realised that the Cole Challenge cache we could not find on Sunday was no more than 2 miles from the Bullring (or thereabouts) so took the 'scenic' route via the cache.

I parked up close to the cache and walked the 0.15 to GZ. I'd had a hint on the cache after our DNF so this narrowed down our search area. It still took an age to find the cache and when I finally did find it, I kicked myself as it was on the only tree in the whole wooded area we'd not already checked.

I was thinking I better get to the Apple Store and then back home as I'm supposed to be working today but could not resist bagging the other loose end from Sunday's caching - the Ward End Park Bonus cache.

A short drive later and I was parking up for the bonus cache. I did not have a GPSr with me but did have my iPhone. The only problem being I only have the co-ords for the bonus cache on a scrap of paper in my pocket and I don't know how you can input co-ords into the iPhone. I thus checked the approximate direction and distance of the cache off TomTom before I jumped out of the Jeep and set off for a quick bit of naked caching.

I need not have worried as it was a really easy find in the obvious place and I did not need the GPS at all.

Now, to try and work out how to get from here to the Bullring using minimal TomTom as it's more fun that way. I set off in what I imagined was the direction of the city centre and was not far wrong as I was soon parking up by the lovely Selfridges building and heading off on foot.

On a final note, I did not have a pen with me for either cache and as they did not have pens in themselves, I had to sign both logs with a smudge of mud and add photos of this to my logs to prove my find.

Cole Challenge Series, Ward End Park and Bescot

2009-10-05T10:12:00.003+01:00

We'd switched our normal day out caching to Sunday and were looking forward to trying the Cole Challenge, a new set of 16 caches along the banks of the River Cole in E/NE Birmingham. They looked to have lots of sneaky hides and something a bit more of a challenge - just the kind of thing we enjoy.

We set off and had intended to come off the M6 to the north of the caches near The Fort but as we drove along the M6 it was clear that the motorway exit we thought was here did not seem to exist. We ended up having to carry on to the M42 and then coming off by the NEC. Quite a bit of a detour but it was still early and the roads were quiet, so not a great problem.

We parked up not far from #4 in the series and got the bikes out of the Jeep. We had intended to do the series in sections, moving the Jeep round as we go and picking off caches near to where we park before moving on to the next section. As it turned out, it was easier to just do the whole series plus a few others in one go by bike.

The first cache was a quick find, although you'd struggle to get it if you were short. The next one we could not find so decided to have another look on the way back. We had just found the third cache when someone cycled up and said hello. It was Luke, who caches as m3vvb and whom I'd been chatting to on Facebook last night trying to work out the best way of tackling the series. We joined forces and did the rest of the caches with Luke, even though he'd already found some of them so just stood back to watch us search.

When we returned to the one we had just DNF'd, Isaac spotted it after a short search. A really nice hide which blends in perfectly. The rest of the series was uneventful apart from one DNF (at cache #8) and quite a few sneaky hides, which I won't go into detail about here as I don't want to spoil it for anyone who has not done the series.

At the end of the series, we did three other caches that were by the River and were on the way anyway. One, Bridge over the River Cole, we'd DNF'd the last time we were in the area (it had been muggled at the time I think) but was a quick find today.

We then made the long ride back to #8 for another look. After quite a long search (well, 10-15 minutes anyway) we still could not spot it. A micro in the woods with a hint that meant it could be anywhere is never going to be easy. It's a shame we could not get this one as it would have meant we'd finished the series, but never mind, that's life sometimes.

We said our goodbye's to Luke and headed off to the Jeep for our sandwiches. After this, we decided to go to the Ward End Park series - a set of 5 caches plus a bonus cache around a nice looking park not too far from the M6. We set off on our bikes and soon had all 5 caches bagged. We did a double take when we plotted the co-ords of the bonus cache as it was about a mile away and nowhere near the park. Hmmm, we're not going that way so that one will have to wait for a future visit.

We'd planned to finish the day with the new set of caches near Bescot - that's just by the RAC Building where the M6 and M5 meet, if you don't know the area. Isaac planned a route over to there, via a few quick and easy caches.

Two quick Sidetracked caches followed, then one called A Piece Of Cake, which was anything but the cache name and totally eluded us. We gave up after a short search as we did not like all the rubbish at GZ. We also had another DNF on a micro behind one of those horrible metal fences with bars everywhere. The cache could have been literally anywhere and as is usual with this kind of hide, we got bored and moved on. Not sure we'll be back to be honest as we don't like this kind of hide at all as it's not fun to look for.

Next on the list was one in the Grub Grab series. We'd seen this mentioned on one of the forums (or was it Facebook?) when the series came out and did not have high hopes for it but were pleasantly surprised. The cache was quite near a McDonalnds admittedly, but it was in a nice looking park just out of sight of McDonalnds and was a Regular sized box with some decent swaps in. Not bad at all for an urban cache and certainly much better than the usual nano you get in these situations.

We had yet another DNF at Sidetracked Tame Bridge - the cache was nowhere to be seen in the guard rail it was supposed to be in. It turns out someone must have muggled the cache and thrown it over a nearby fence as another cacher had spotted it there.

Finally it was time for the 4 caches along the wildlife area at the side of the Bescot railway depot. The first was a quick find, then we spotted a group of 20+lads racing motorbikes around the circular area where the remaining three caches were. There seemed to be quite a few bushes to hide the cache finding from them so we pressed on to see if it was possible to get the caches undetected. It was and all were nice quick finds.

Just time for a few more caches before we get back on the M6 northbound for home. A nano by a Kebab shop (why is there a cache here?), followed by another Grub Grab cache, this time outside a Pizza Hut. We then went off to find a quick drive-by near where one of the Walsall Cacher Meets had taken place.

We can squeeze one final cache in, just about, so headed off for an interesting one which was on top of what is probably the highest point in this part of Birmingham. The cache was clearly by the side of a church but all the church helpers were shutting up for the day and stood outside chatting before going some. Luckily there were some information boards nearby so we stopped to read these while we waited out the muggles. This made it worse as they then came over to tell us all about the history of the area and even popped into the church to get us some leaflets about it! All we wanted to do was find the cache, but we're glad they did stop to tell us about things as it was really interesting and really added to the cache and why we had been brought here.

38 finds for the day. We'd have loved to get 2 more to make it a round 40 but our Sunday Roast was going to be on the table by the time we got home and it was just too tempting.

Crewe and Nantwich Circular and a few other caches

2009-10-04T09:33:00.002+01:00

On Saturday, Isaac was at school so we'd planned our main day out caching for Sunday instead. It looked like it was going to be a nice day on Saturday so I decided to head off and try and complete the Crewe and Nantwich Circular series as some of it was on our closest to home Not Found page.

I dropped Isaac off at school and headed off towards the first cache, which was the southernmost one in the series. I parked up at the end of a dead end road and walked down the track and over the fields to GZ. A quick scout around soon revealed the cache in a nice spot by a small stream.

Next I headed off to clear up a DNF from a few weeks ago. It was a micro in ivy in an area covered in ivy. Thankfully I'd had a small pointer from the cache owner so was able to narrow down my search to a smaller area and soon spotted the cache. How the heck I'd missed it last time I don't know, but I seem to be in good company with the DNF as several other high finders have failed on it too.

The next few caches were up the west side of Nantwich and were all nice and easy with some decent length walks to get to them. The last of these was down as a multi cache but had a logbook in each stage. I could not decide if it should really be two separate Traditional caches, but I guess it does not really matter.

Another previous DNF was next on the list and sure enough I soon had the cache in hand. I'd been looking on the other side of the bridge last time as that was where the GPSr was trying to take me. I then set off over the fields for the next cache in this circular walk but the farmer had recently trimmed the hedge and the cache was nowhere to be seen. The wind was whipping a gale over the flat, open fields and I was not enjoying myself so decided to leave the rest of this walk for a nicer day and move on to a new area.

I could not resist popping up to Shakerley Mere, just north of Holmes Chapel as we'd totally missed two new caches there the last time we were in the area. We'd literally driven right past the woods they are in on the way to other caches, blissfully un-aware that they were there. Two nice quick finds were had - what a lovely spot for a cache too. I had a lovely walk around the Mere in between the two caches.

More DNF clearup's followed with a trip into Holmes Chapel for one we did not have time for last time and then the final three Cheshire Railings caches that we'd not done last time - or rather we'd DNF'd the first two and totally missed going for the third.

By this time I'd done a grand circle round the Holmes Chapel area and was back in Sandbach. Lots of new caches in this area so what a bit of fortuitous planning, even if I do say so myself ;-).

A quick one on the Wheelock Rail Trail (an old railway line that is now a lovely cycleway) was followed by a DNF at Sandbach Station. The cache was in a laurel bush at the side of some playing fields in a park. As I arrived, the coast was clear so off I went to look through the bushes. As I was searching some young lads arrived to play football right by the laurel bush I was behind. Hmmmm - only a matter of time before I start getting strange looks as a lone male in some bushes appearing to be watching young lads. Time for a hasty exit methinks... (I'm pretty sure the cache was not there anyway).

I opted to get out of the urban areas now and head off for the nearby Missing Pieces series. Not much to report here apart from lots of easy finds, a quick rainshower and then a DNF at the last one. The hint said "leave no stone unturned" and I didn't leave any stones unturned. I also did not find the cache and can't think where it is, unless it's missing.

Time was getting on by now and I still had the 5 Crewe and Nantwich Circular caches down the east side of Crewe to do so off I headed.

The first was a lovely walk through a field of HUGE maize which was great fun. I nearly missed the cache as I was expecting it to be magnetic given where it was hidden, but it was just lying on the ground under the item at GZ.

I then walked down the PF on the other side of the road from this cache and onward to the Little End and Big End caches. I think the cache owner had intended Little End to be the last one in the series but then decided to put out a bigger cache for the final cache. You have to find Little End to get the co-ords for Big End, which is then a short walk away. Highlight of the walk was catching a glimpse of the lovely Haslingden Hall - a fantastic timber framed building.

Just two more for the series now. The first was a longer walk along the edge of a railway line, first through woodland and then on a boardwalk over some lovely wetlands. The cache was a nano (not sure why it's not a much bigger container in such a rural location, but hey, it's a smiley).

The final cache of the day was a DNF from last time as the cache was missing (or was it - read on!). The hint mentioned a Beech tree so I'd swatted up on my leaves so I knew which trees to look at in the woods. Little did I know virtually every tree there was a beech - doh! A systematic search around GZ soon paid dividends though and I had the cache in hand. The odd thing was I think it must have been the original cache as the logbook was signed by all sorts of people. The cache owner had checked the old cache was missing and placed a temporary micro for now in it's place. The cache I found was a small and not a micro so I suspect there is now two caches in the woods.

That's the Crewe and Nantwich Circular series finished now and it's just about teatime so I'll head off home to get set up for the day out with Isaac tomorrow.

24 finds in total and some great walking.

Canal caching on the Warwickshire border

2009-09-27T10:12:00.000+01:00

Isaac had a day off Saturday school this weekend so we both were looking forward to a great day out caching together. The weather was looking good due to the high pressure system that is sat over the UK at the moment so we settled on a set of caches along the Oxford Canal right by the border of Warwickshire with Northampton.

We soon arrived at the first cache in the hamlet of Marston Doles. As we drove up, we spotted some handy parking right by the canal bridge - perfect! We got our bikes out of the Jeep and off we set.

The first cache was a nice easy one to get us started. There was only one place it could be and indeed that's where it was. We then headed off along the canal towpath picking up caches as we went. All nice easy finds and all nice sized boxes, just the way we like them.

We'd planned the first part of the day to be a circular bike ride, coming off the canal near Priors Hardwick and then up to the village and back to where we started via footpaths across the fields. We were not sure if we'd manage to get the bikes down the paths on the return leg but we need not have worried as most of it was hard pack tracks, with only a few fields to walk the bikes through along the way.

Once back at the Jeep, we got back on the towpath for the 4 caches to the north of where we'd parked. The first one was muggle central when we arrived so we decided to save it for the return leg. The other three were nice easy finds - the only thing of note was a collapsed towpath at one point, making the path only about 1ft wide. On the return leg, the first cache was deserted so we had a nice quick find.

Next, we drove round to the village of Priors Hardwick to grab a quick cache by the beautiful village church.

A short drive down the road and we were at our first of the Alphanumeric Northants series. This seems to be a mirror of Messe's excellent Alpha Quest in Oxfordshire, which we'd enjoyed finishing absolutely ages ago. We're trying very hard not to get drawn into this series as well as Messe's one had us doing stupid things like driving from Shropshire to Cambridge to Winchester to Oxford, all in a day and all just to pick up two essential TB's we needed for the series.

After a short drive down to the next canal stage at the start of the Spice series, we stopped to have our sandwiches. Suitably fortified we set off on our bikes along the towpath for more caches. Nothing much to report along here apart from a very thorny path with hawthorn bits and pieces all over the place. It was only a matter of time before we got a puncture and indeed just before the last cache of this stretch Isaac got a front tyre puncture.

We stopped to mend it and noticed his back tyre had gone too. Some time later I had them both fixed and off we set, a bit more carefefully this time. Not careful enough though as he had yet another puncture within a few minutes :-(. We walked the bikes up to the bridleway over the fields (which was the quickest route back to the Jeep) and stopped to fix the puncture. I then spotted that I'd got a front tyre one myself - hmmmm!

With about an hour wasted on punctures in total we were very glad to be off this section of towpath and were soon back at the Jeep.

Just time for a few more caches before heading home so we drove round to the next section of canal caches, hoping the towpath would be better here (it was!).

As we pulled up, the area looked familiar as we were sure we'd been here to do other caches absolutely ages ago. We walked down the path to the canal and sure enough, we'd been here to do a set of Oxford Canal caches by a cacher called theblack. We had five caches along this part of the canal to do and apart from the first one, all were nice and easy as I think whoever had set them had re-used some of theblack's locations. Everything was *very* familiar to us both.

Time was getting on by now so we headed back for the Jeep for the drive home. Isaac was navigating and took us via a final two caches along yet another canal towpath. This time we walked them as we could not be bothered getting the bikes out one more time and fancied stretching our legs before the drive home anyway.

The first was a quick find, the second took a bit longer but was a belter of a hide and easily the best hide of the day.

40 finds for the day, which is very satisfying. We've both had a cracking day out (despite the punctures).

A Sunday afternoon dog walk around Haughmond Hill, plus a new cache...

2009-09-21T13:02:00.004+01:00

We were child free this afternoon so we set off to visit the local dog's home to see about a new dog. Unfortunately they had nothing to suit so we'll have to try again another time.

As we had both the dogs with us in the car and the closest unfound to home was at Haughmond Hill, which is a perfect dog-walking area, we decided to kill two birds with one stone.

We parked up in the main car park and set off along the paths through the woods to the cache. It took me quite a while to grab the cache as the nearby path was busy with Sunday afternoon walkers and I kept having to stop searching while they went past. Pesky muggles!

I eventually found the cache in the really obvious place that I'd looked at first, but obviously not hard enough.

We then carried on our walk to make it circular. The dogs absolutely loved the walk in a place they have not been to many times.

After dropping the dogs off at home and having a cuppa, we set off for another walk near home to explore an area where they have just put in a new pedestrian bridge over the River Meese. We took a cache along just in case there was anywhere suitable for it.

We've wanted to put a cache out here ever since our other Meesechievous caches were set so we're glad the area has finally been smartened up and the cache is now in place.

I've submitted the cache this morning so let's see how long it takes to get published.

A clear-out of the new caches around Wolverhampton

2009-09-20T12:29:00.000+01:00

Isaac had his first Saturday at his new school today so as the weather was so nice I decided to pop out on my own and have a day out caching. Lots of new caches seem to have come out around Wolverhampton so it seemed like a logical place to aim for.

The first target for the day was a series of about 10 caches called Moseley Meander. On the way I picked up a quick drive-by by the M54 and then was soon in the Country Park car park getting ready for a nice walk around the Moseley caches. I recognised the area from a previous cache of snerdbe's which we did in the very early days of our caching.

The first cache was an easy find - I noted that the Soggy Campers had found it already today, so was wondering how far ahead of me as it was still quite early. I did not have to wait long as I spotted them as I walked up to the second cache. Great to meet you both.

They mentioned they could not find this one and returned to it with me to double check. Sure enough it's nowhere to be seen, so that's the first DNF of the day logged!

I walked on to the next cache with them, chatting away about caching as we went. Another easy find was had here before we both went on our respective ways. I then carried on along the loop of caches back to the car park with nothing much to report other than lots of very easy finds.

I then drove round to a closer place for the final two caches of the series and walked in for two more quick finds. Next, I had the new Essington Moat caches on the list and so off I set. I could not spot the first one at all despite a really good hunt round the area of GZ. That's another DNF to add to my logs!

Thankfully the next two caches were nice and easy with the final one being in some woods I'm sure we've been to for a snerdbe cache a long time ago. As I was walking back to the Jeep the familiar face of Andy from AndynElaine was coming down the field. Great to meet you again :-).

Next I had planned a few quick drive-by's before heading off into deepest Wolverhampton for more caches. One of these was at the end of a trail of 4 caches which seemed to not use any marked paths on my OS map. As I arrived I saw they were connected by a nice hard pack path and were along a lovely linear nature reserve. The sun had just come out and I could not resist a beautiful walk along the old canal to find them.

All nice quick finds. As I was walking back to the Jeep I could see a couple in some bushes by a cache I'd found earlier so crept up behind them and shouted "HAVE YOU FOUND IT YET?". After nearly jumping out of their skins (:-)) I was to meet Suebedz. Great to see you too! That's three caching teams bumped into today and it's not yet midday :-).

A quick and unremarkable Sidetracked cache followed before I headed off to Willenhall to try for a new series there. On the way I got a PAF call from some caching friends from Newcastle Under Lyme on a cache we did ages ago near Bolton. Thankfully I could remember where the cache was and had them with cache in hand in no time.

I struggled to find anywhere to park for the Willenhall caches and it was taking longer to park up than it was to find the cache. Double yellow lines, double red lines, one way systems, road works - they all conspired to make this a frustrating part of the day so I decided to knock it on the head after 3 finds and move on to somewhere quieter (and more rural).

On the way I could not resist a quick return to find the two DNF's we had a few months ago on snerdbe's canal series on the west side of Wolverhampton. Both were quick finds for me today and I managed to bag another cache at an old bridge on the way between the two.

I'd been looking forward to Scooby, Scrappy and MP's new cache series near Pattingham all day as they always have great hides and are always a good walk. I was not to be disappointed today either!

I started by parking up at the southern end of the caches and heading off up the Monarch's Way on a lovely circular walk round just over half of the series. Highlight of the walk was coming round the corner of some woods to be confronted with a lovely field of sunflowers, which looked absolutely fabulous. Lowlight of the walk was going base over bayonet in my enthusiasm to get closer to the sunflowers once I'd seen them. I'd glad no-one was around to see my attempt at unpowered flight ;-).

After I got back to the Jeep I drove round to the southern end of the top part of the series via a lane with a ford that was marked as "not suitable for cars". This is normally a good sign that the lane is *very* much suitable for 4x4's and indeed this one was. I loved driving along through the water in the ford, which extended down the road for quite some length.

After finding somewhere safe to park, I set off for the final 3 caches of the series, which were all easy finds. The last one was very close to somewhere we've been in the past for a Washers cache that is now archived (or at least I assume it is). Somewhere along the series I found the bonus cache, which was in a ready made spot for a cache.

I still had an hour or so spare so headed off to find the 4 remaining caches around Chillington and Brewood, near to the in-laws house. All nice quick finds, with the last one being my favourite as it was a nice long walk into the middle of nowhere in particular and was perfectly peaceful.

37 finds for the day and a lovely day out in some lovely countryside.

An impromptu trip to Stafford

2009-09-19T12:22:00.002+01:00

I had to pay some cheques in at the bank and the nearest branch is in Stafford, so I decided to find a few caches on the way home to make the trip a bit more interesting.

After I'd finished at the bank I headed off for the first two caches which were by the River Sow, near the town centre. I parked up at Morrisons and walked along the river to bag the two easy caches.

Next, I moved the Jeep round to park close to a canal in the suburbs and had a short walk to another cache. From there I went off to find another canal cache. There was no obvious place to park for this one as it was set by a narrowboater so I ended up at the end of a dead end lane and walking through a farmyard (which I later realised was not a Public Footpath!) to the canal. Thankfully the cache was a quick find and I was back at the Jeep really quickly.

A short drive up the M6 to the north side of Stafford saw me looking for a quick cache by a memorial to an American WW2 fighter pilot who crashed his plane here whilst attempting to avoid hitting the houses in the town.

It was now time to start heading home so off I set, but not before grabbing another 3 quick caches. All easy finds and a lovely longer walk for the last cache to a great little hidden location I'd not have known about otherwise.

Last Cache Finally Found on The Wrekin

2009-09-14T14:51:00.003+01:00

Every time we go up The Wrekin you can almost guarantee that a few days later, a new cache will be published up there. It's happened a few times in the past now, which is really uncanny and almost if someone is watching over us (which of course they are not).

Anyway, the last time this happened we decided to leave the cache as we knew as part of the first week at Isaac's new school the whole school goes on a walk up The Wrekin. Families are encouraged to come along too so I knew it would be a great time to bag the last cache we have to do up there.

We had a lovely walk up the hill, chatting away to lots of new parents. As we got to the summit, you could see the whole school gathered round the new Year 7 pupils cheering them and getting their photos taken. They then all set off down the hill to the waiting coaches and back to school, so myself and Mrs Bolas Heathens headed off the short distance to the cache.

I'd seen it was an unusual container and that the cache was set for someone's 30th birthday, so was expecting a fake cake or something like that. I thus nearly passed the cache over as it was in fact something very different. I won't say any more here as I don't want to spoil it for future finders.

We then headed off down the hill, chatting away to more parents and drove round to the school for refreshments. As we arrived, we realised we had forgotten there was a charity event on and quite a few celebrities were taking part. Off we went to see who we could spot, which should be interesting as I never usually take any notice as to who is who on TV.

We managed to spot Chris Tarrant, Nick Hancock and Robert Powell from Casualty. There were a few other faces that looked familiar but I've no idea who they were.

Cheshire Railings / Crewe & Nantwich Circular Walk

2009-09-13T14:32:00.002+01:00

Isaac has started secondary school this week and so we decided to go for an easier day out caching this weekend. Starting next week, he'll be doing Saturday activities at school so won't be able to come caching as often as we'd like. Hopefully this is not the end of an era and he'll still have enough energy (and time!) left to come out caching on Sunday's, even if it's every couple of weeks.

We've been watching all the new caches build up in the Sandbach, Congleton and Holmes Chapel areas for the last few months, so decided today was the day to go and find them as they often appear on our closest to home not found front page.

We were not sure what to expect as a series based on metal railings does not sound that inspiring. Needless to say our fears were right and they were all in very generic locations by road junctions. The downside was quite a few of them seemed to be in very thorny areas too - lots of hawthorn bushes and other prickly things near railings to scratch your hands and arms with.

Having said that, I know the cache owners have taken time and money to put these caches out so we don't want to sound unduly negative as we do appreciate the smileys.

There was not really much to report other than what I've said above. In between the railing caches, we did some Post Haste ones, which were even easier as they are all hide a key's on the back of red post boxes. Caching really does not get much easier as they were all instant finds :-).

On the way, we did do a really nice cache on the South Cheshire Way part way up the north side of Mow Cop and in a really nice spot with views over the whole of Cheshire. Easily the best cache of the morning.

By lunchtime we were getting a bit bored so stopped off for lunch and an ice cream at Brereton Country Park near Holmes Chapel. Suitably fortified, we headed off towards Sandbach to try some different caches (via one or two remaining railing caches - well, we can't just drive past them if we know they are there can we?).

We were soon starting on the Crewe & Nantwich (C&N) circular walk caches, which were much more our thing. Some decent walks, nice locations and generally caching as it should be. Our only grumble would be there are too many micros in places that could hold a larger cache, but that's not a great problem.

In between the C&N caches, we stopped to do a cache at a great location where the farmer builds a sculpture out of bales of straw every year. In the past they have done a rocket, Jodrell Bank and a windmill. This year it's a HUGE Big Ben, complete with working clocks. Very impressive indeed!

I'll shut up now as I'm beginning to sound like a right moaner and that's not my intention at all. Not the best day out caching we've had, but definitely not the worst either. At least most of the caches were really easy and thus quick finds.

On the upside, we did get 40 finds for the day and did clear quite a few caches off the closest to home not found list.

A walk around Buntingsdale Hall

2009-09-10T11:35:00.003+01:00

I was up early this morning and as it was such a glorious day I thought I'd go out and get our closest not found to home - BEE about Buntingsdale Hall, which is just by Market Drayton and set round a lovely old country house.

We'd actually scouted the location out for a possible hide ourselves ages ago but never quite got round to taking it further so it's great to see a cache here now. The cache was a multi, with a sneaky first stage leading to a nice big ammo box.

I parked the Jeep in the same place I'd used for the nearby Drayton Daytona cache and set off on foot. I was soon at stage 1 and had a very quick find of the sneaky nano as the co-ords were bang on.

A short walk later and I was at GZ for the final cache for an easy find. Loved the woods by the final cache and the interesting old buildings strewn round the fields - obviously part of the old Tern Hill WW2 airfield.

Granville Country Park series and some closest to home Not Founds

2009-09-08T14:27:00.003+01:00

Isaac does not start his new school until Wednesday so I thought I'd take his mind off it by going out to clear up some of our closest to home not founds today (Monday). We were going to start with the 14 new Granville Country Park caches and I'd arranged to meet up with the cache owners, Wild Goosey and Nozi Parkers, so we could all go round together.

We arrived at the parking spot to a call from the cache owners, who were going to be slightly delayed. We agreed myself and Isaac would make a start on the caches and then we could speak again when the cache owners arrived to arrange for somewhere to meet up.

Off we set along a very familiar path as I came down here to a FTF on a cache that got muggled after about 4 finds ages ago. The first cache was up a bank and a lovely big ammo box. This was to set the tone for the nice big caches we would find all the way round the old mining area that makes up the Country Park.

Several quick finds ensued before we got a call off the cache owners - they had just parked behind our Jeep. We arranged to meet up at the next cache and off we set. We got there first so I sent Isaac into the bushes to find the cache. We'd just put it back when everyone came round the corner - great to see you all again.

We're glad we had the cache owners with us for the next two caches as they were both deep in bushes (150ft or more) and pretty hard to get to. The easiest ways in were pointed out to us, which made for slightly easier going :-). On the way we also bumped into Allun from the Shropshire Seekers - great to see you again too.

A few more quick finds were had, whilst chatting away about caching as we went. We'd then finished the caches in this area so said our goodbye's to the cache owners and headed off in the Jeep for the final 4 caches in the series, which are easier to get to by driving a bit closer.

On the way to the last caches in the series we passed the local Naturist Camp so I had to explain to Isaac what went on there. He looked at me blankly as he could not understand why someone would want to wander round with no clothes on :-).

The final 4 caches were easy finds and with the series completed, we decided to head off for some sandwiches at Isaac's Grandparents who live in nearby Blymhill.

After dinner we picked up a quick drive-by in Bishops Wood (where Mrs Bolas Heathens went to primary school) and then headed off for a few more caches. Nothing too taxing here apart from one in Lilleshall which was almost certainly on private land, which made us feel very uncomfortable going for it (but not that uncomfortable we did not find it!).

Some time during the day (I won't say when as I don't want to give any clues as to the location), we also went for the final of the Big Farmer Giles series. We'd worked out the necessary co-ords surprisingly easily last night - again, I won't say how as that would ruin it for others. We arrived at the location and soon had the two sets of numbers we needed to get found. A handy bench was nearby so we stopped to try and work out the final twist in the cache.

After a while we had some co-ords which looked half plausible and were not too far away. We were not that confident they were the right ones but we thought we'd have a look anyway. As we arrived, plenty of hint items were there, so it looked promising. Indeed it was and we soon pulled the ammo box out of it's hidey hole :-).

A nice few hours out caching, some really nice caches and some of them done in great company too. Perfect!

More Big Cats Trail and Jeep Safari caches

2009-09-07T14:11:00.002+01:00

On Sunday it looked a nice day and I had a few hours to kill so I decided to head over and finish off the Big Farmer Giles caches so we then had all the details to work out where the final bonus cache was. We'd then have to tackle the bonus cache on another day.

I started off on another Puzzle cache, which was in essence a Multi as you had to find a micro which then lead you to an ammo box. The co-ords for the micro were in another cache in the series and hence the fact it's classified as Puzzle / Unknown cache type. The micro was an instant find as we used to have a stage of one of our multi's hidden exactly like this. The final cache then took a bit of finding as it was hidden in a very unusual way for an ammo box. I can't say any more here as it would spoil it for those who have not done the cache.

Next, it was off to find the final of another multi. We'd found the first two stages of this yesterday but run out of time to find the final cache. Today it was like doing a Traditional as I went straight to the final cache location. I saw a very obvious (but sneaky) place for a cache but discounted it as I did not think anyone would hide a cache in that sort of place. After exhausting all other possibilities, I thought I'd take a sneaky peek anyway and there the cache was! Great when you see a new hide as you don't get to see them that often once you've found a few caches.

Lastly, it was a quick multi along a quiet lane. We'd found stage 1 yesterday but I'd forgotten my notes today so could not remember the co-ords that were in stage 1. Not a problem as it was easy to start the cache from the beginning again and I was soon searching for the final cache. I'd seen a note about bees coming out of a hole in the hedge (the cache is in a hole in the hedge) so after a quick and nervous check of various places, I opted for the sensible route of calling the cache owner for more detailed instructions as I did not want to accidentally disturb the bees. A quick find then ensued.

Now back home in time for dinner and some pondering over what to do with the 64 individual clues we have collected in order to work out where the bonus cache is!

Big Cats Trail and Jeep Safari Series

2009-09-06T13:52:00.003+01:00

We only got back from holiday on Thursday afternoon so were still jet-lagged and did not fancy the usual Saturday caching trip. Whilst we'd been away, quite a few new caches had come out near to home so we decided to have an easier day and try and clear up some of the newest caches.

The nearest group was two interlinked series by Big Farmer Giles (BFG) stretching from Stanton upon Hine Heath to Lee Brockhurst. Knowing BFG the hides were going to be creative and sneaky as experience has taught us to expect anything when doing a BFG cache. We were not disappointed!

We started the caches off with the nearest to home, which was an easy drive-by ammo box with the words "Homeward Bound" in the cache name. Trust us to do the last cache as the first one!

Next, we started off on a 4 stage multi, whilst also looking out for the first stage on a Puzzle cache and the first stage on another multi. Our heads were spinning with all this as we're not quite on UK time yet. Needless to say we totally missed the first stage of the Puzzle cache (we were not sure what we were looking for anyway) and failed to find the first stage of the second multi. We did find all 4 stages of the first multi and located the final ammo box with no problems.

Next, we carried on to two relatively easy traditionals before backtracking with a better of idea of what we should be looking for on the Puzzle cache. The puzzle actually ended up with 3 solutions, all along the same lane and as is typical with these things, it was the third and last location that yielded the first stage of the multi! We plotted the final box location and realised we'd only just parked right next to it - doh! A quick find then ensued :-).

We then re-located to the top end of the series and set off on foot again for some more traditionals along the Shropshire Way. Two quick finds were then had, although it took us ages to bushwhack in to the second cache as it's well of a PF and I think we came in from a direction it was not intended for us to use. Not to worry as we got there in the end.

Next, we started on another multi, which was along Papermill Bank - the only Byway Open To All Traffic that now exists in North Shropshire. The micro was in the last place we looked (it would be wouldn't it ;-)). The final cache was then an easy find and was fun to get as we had to scale the sides of the sandstone canyon that the Byway goes through.

We moved the Jeep back to the start of the Byway and set off along another PF to do a Traditional and a Multi. The first stage of the multi was right by where we'd parked and a quick find. We then had a quick find of the Traditional before heading off to stage 2 of the multi. I can't really say much about the rest of the multi here as it would give it away but take it from us, it's a belter of a cache and a must do if you are in the area. A very sneaky container, a twist on the hide, a great hidden gem of a location further on in the multi and yet another twist in the plot all make this a fabulous cache.

A few quick traditionals finished us off for the day as time was getting on and we were starting to flag. There are another 4 caches to do in the series but they will have to wait for another day.

13 finds in total, which is well below our normal find rate but we don't normally do multi's and quite a few of the 13 were very involved multi's. We've really enjoyed a complete change to our normal caching day.

Stranded in the Mojave Desert and a broken GPSr

2009-08-30T17:39:00.007+01:00

I was not going to blog on holiday but just had to post the following story that happened to us yesterday (taken from our log on GCH97A):

Oh how we laughed on this one.

We were on our way from Vegas to LA and our minivan was having big problems going up the huge incline to the top of the pass. First I noticed the temperature gauge was showing a little hot, then the engine started rough running, then the temperature gauge swung to max and a few warning lights came on.

We pulled over to read the rental car manual to see what the lights on the dash meant. It looked like an electrical problem and said we would be ok to continue but that performance of the vehicle might be downgraded.

Off we set, but the car was being really slow and started marking a clanking sound. After a very short time the engine cut out totally and we had to stop at the side of the road and call Dollar for assistance. They said they would send a tow truck and replacement van out from Vegas but that it would be a 2 hour wait.

Hmmm... 2 hours in the desert at 113 degrees with no air-con. This is going to be fun. At least there is a nice breeze to make things seem not quite as hot as they were and we'd had the sense to bring tons of cold drinks for the journey.

Out of boredom I turned on my GPSr and could not believe it when I saw a cache 0.4 miles away. I did a double take when I saw the name of the cache - how very appropriate (the cache was called "Blown Engine Cache").

Off I set along the side of the road, up off the Freeway and along to the cache. I spotted the potential hide as I walked up and sure enough there the lovely big ammo box was.

As I was putting the cache back, my Oregon 550t swung unexpectedly on it's lanyard and made contact with one of the cache hiding rocks. I heard the horrible crack sound and knew the screen had gone. Sure enough it had. Luckily I know Garmin are really good at replacing them, but it will cost me about $120 for the privilege.

Could the day get any worse - stranded in the desert and a broken GPS. At least we found the cache though.

Just short of two hours after we stopped, a tow truck arrived with a replacement van and we were soon back on our way.

Our 7000th find: Where's Wallace and Fred Flintstone series

2009-08-15T22:04:00.003+01:00

With only 9 caches to go, we could not decide if we should leave getting out 7000th find until Sunday, when we are going on holiday, or get it in the UK before we go away.

Isaac was keen to get it on holiday but I was not quite as keen as I knew it would be on a less than inspiring urban micro as we'd still be getting over our jetlag for the first few days.

In the end I managed to persuade him that a trip out to Lancashire to tackle two new series that were getting great logs was what we needed to do. We planned to start off at the new Where's Wallace series before moving over to the Fred Flintstone series, via a few caches on the way.

It was quite a long trip up the M6 to the first cache of the day. We don't normally come this far up the M6 but are happy to make an exception for Phantom Camel Train caches as they are always really good.

We parked up at the main car park on Beacon Fell after doing a quick drive-by on the way. After getting kitted out for the walk, off we set. The first two caches are older caches that have been here for a while now. A nice quick find near the car park followed by a cache right on top of the fell, with fabby views all around.

Next, it was on to the Where's Wallace series. This is a set of 17 caches, each with a clue as to the whereabouts of the bonus cache. The first cache was not far away so off we set. We spotted

the hide as we walked up so had a nice quick find.

On the 6th cache into the series we had our 7000th find. We'd have ideally liked to have the milestone on the bonus cache but we got a bit carried away while at the Mega Event last weekend and found too many caches then. The 7000th find was a fab cache anyway with a really nice hide. I won't spoil it for people by saying any more here, but if you are in the area, go and do this cache - you won't regret it.

The rest of the series was uneventful apart from some sneaky hides and some very unusual cache containers. The walking was good and the scenery perfect. Along the way, Isaac was filling me in on the many highlights of Wallace and Gromit, which was good.

After we'd finished on the series, we headed off to the Fred Flintstone series, which is on the other side of the River Ribble. The main problem is the only places to cross the river are at Ribchester to the east and Preston to the west. We opted for Preston and did a few quick caches on the way to make it more worthwhile.

All too soon we were parking up for the Flintstone series. This series is very unusual as the walk is in the shape of Fred Flintstone's head and if you watch your GPSr tracklog as you walk, you'll see Fred's features appearing before your eyes. You also have to do some co-ordinate manipulation as all the caches are Puzzle caches, but we'd done that at home the day before we came.

The walk was another great one, with some trickier hides than the earlier series today. All the caches were in camo bags, which blend in perfectly pretty much anywhere you hide them. The only one we struggled with was #7, which had already had 3 DNF's on it. We checked every possible place and could not find it either. The owner has visited today and has confirmed the cache is missing.

After we got back to the Jeep, we decided to head off towards home but could not resist two last more caches near the M61.

We'd arranged to pick up a Large sized cache container kindly given to us by a Manchester area cacher from the NW Caching forums. He'd hidden it near Prestwich and let us have the co-ords and a clue. We thus headed off down the M61 to retrieve the cache.

We parked by a pub at the bottom of the track and had a short walk up to GZ and an easy find. Now, back onto the Motorway and the journey home.

45 finds for the day, some absolutely fabulous caching in great countryside and our 7000th find. What could be better :-).

A clear up of new caches

2009-08-11T17:43:00.002+01:00

While we'd been away at the Mega Event at the weekend, four new caches had come out in our FTF dash zone near(ish) to home. The weather was perfect today so I set off to do the closest one before work and the rest after work.

The first was only 4 miles from home so a very short drive. I was soon walking down the track to it, which ended up bush-whacking through head height ferns to get to GZ. I guess this path does not normally get much use! Thankfully the cache was a nice quick find once I'd got to GZ - a nice hide too.

After work, I set off for the rest of the new caches. The first was a really unusual ammo box hide and had me stumped for a short while. Great views over to the Wrekin from GZ.

Next, it was round the Telford ring road to Holmer Pool. I parked quite close to the cache and enjoyed the walk down to it, with glorious sunshine for a change. The cache was a quick find.

The last cache was a Staffordshire Church Gem and just off the road from Newport to Newcastle. I parked up but noted the a gardener looking after the church grounds not far from the cache. I had a quick poke around for the cache - it was in holly and ivy on the road side of the church hedge, so just out of sight of the gardening muggle.

I could not spot it and was worried about the gardener spotting me, so opted for a PAF to get the cache quickly found.

Mega Event Weekend Caching

2009-08-09T17:06:00.003+01:00

This Sunday was the long awaited date of the Mega Event in Weston Super Mare, so Isaac and myself decided to make a weekend of it. There were not many caches in the Weston area but a bit further north, in the Bristol area, there were tons.

We thus decided to overnight just north of Bristol, spending Saturday caching around that area before moving on to the SE of Bristol to cache on Sunday morning. We'd then head over to the Mega event on the Sunday afternoon, taking in the caches in Weston while we were there and a few more on the way back home on Sunday evening. Sounded like a perfect plan (and indeed it was)!

The drive down to the Thornbury area on Saturday morning was boring to say the least, with just mile after mile of Motorway. We'd planned to get off at J14 of the M5 but heard of bad traffic in the area on the radio, so came off at J13 as the traffic was already starting to slow down there. A short drive down the A38 and we were parking up for the first cache of the day - a TB Hotel right by J14.

Next cache was a name we'd become familiar with over the weekend - a Church Micro. Every church in this area seems to come with an associated cache. Even some churches that are no longer churches have a Church Micro! We failed to find this one - not a great start with a DNF on cache #2 of the day!

We then headed off for the lovely village of Rockhampton for a nice walk round the Rockhampton Round series. We parked up by the cricket pitch, got kitted up and off we set.

Not much to report on this series apart from it was a lovely circular walk with plenty of caching variety, beautiful weather and some great views over to the Severn Estuary, which we'd not realised would be so close.

Once we'd returned to the Jeep, we set off for another series, based around the village of Stone. Most of the series were drive-by's, but a couple involved some nice walks. We bagged our first Church Micro on the way round, which was a relief after the earlier DNF. All too soon we had the bonus cache co-ords and we realised we'd parked right by it earlier on. A quick back-track in the Jeep and we soon had the bonus in the bag.

A short drive later and we were at the Tortworth Round series. This is a nice circular walk around various caches, with a couple of un-related caches on the way. The terrain is a bit more varied than earlier, which we were looking forward to. Highlight of these ones was visiting a tree that was something like 800 years old and also being taken to a beautiful pool through a tunnel of maize in a field.

We realised we were pretty close to 40 finds for the day but also that it was also getting late and we needed to check in at the hotel for the night. Isaac thus came up with a few nearby drive-by's on Memory Map and off we set. Several easy finds ensued before we arrived at the hotel.

We were hungry by now and being close to the Severn Bridge, we set off over it to Chepstow to try and find a Chinese or Indian take-away. We also managed to bag our first South Wales cache on the way, which was handy ;-).

On Sunday morning, I had in mind a 7.5 mile circular walk in the SE of Bristol, but Isaac was concerned about arriving at the Mega too late so suggested he plan some quicker caches for the morning. His plan centered around the same area so off we set.

We started with some caches along the Monarch's Way. We've done quite a few caches on the Monarch's Way near Boscobel House in Shropshire and did not realise it came this far down the country! All were nice caches apart from one that we could not spot.

Next we picked off various drive-by's and cache and dashes before trying to work our way over to the M5 and the journey down to the Mega. We managed to bag quite a few more caches on the way and eventually arrived at a cache just before the M5. On checking the map, we were astounded to realise we were just on the outskirts of Weston and in fact we did not need to use the M5 at all! Talk about a fortuitous piece of (unexpected) planning!

We then took in a few quick caches on the way into Weston before joining the traffic heading for the beach. As we were approaching the beach, we opted for a different route via the backstreets to avoid the traffic. This route just happened to take us past yet more caches - how handy!

The next cache was the first of the main Mega caches as we could see several cachers at GZ as we pulled up. We did the biz with the cache and several more cachers appeared from various directions. This was to be the case with all the caches near the event for the rest of the day.

Next, we found somewhere to park up and set off on foot for the event. On the way we bagged a quick cache in a park, one on the prom and a really good one in a fountain with water everywhere. Thankfully we managed to talk a cacher's son who had already got soaked into getting the cache for us - phew!

Now it was on to the event itself. We went to the registration desk and were recognised before we'd even said our caching name, so were soon kitted up with name tags and a goodie bag :-). We bought some raffle tickets in the vain hope that we'd win something (we never usually win anything in raffles - we were true to form here and did not win a thing - not to worry though :-)).

The main room for the event had all manner of trade stands round the edge and a stage in the middle, with plenty of announcements etc etc going on. We spent a really enjoyable couple of hours wandering round checking out the stands and bumping into various cachers who we knew.

All too soon the closing speeches were made and the event handed over to the Scottish Mega Event organisers for next year. A fabulous event which must have taken a heck of a lot of organising. It certainly showed and everyone we met had a great time.

On the way back to the Jeep, we bagged the two remaining caches along the prom and then set off for home.

We'd been recommended to stop at the services at J19 of the M5 as there were a couple of new caches there. As we arrived at the first one, we bumped into some local cachers who told us about a third cache by the junction so off we set. We soon had all three bagged and were back on the M5 heading northwards.

To break the boring journey up a bit, we'd planned to stop for two quick cache and dashes just off the M5 SW of Birmingham. These were both quick find and we were soon headed home.

80 finds in total for the weekend and an absolutely perfect weekend away. We both had a ball.

2 FTF's near home

2009-08-07T16:00:00.002+01:00

I'd just finished for my lunch today when I spotted a couple of new cache notifications that had just arrived. Both of them were within a couple of miles of home so I just *had* to go and try to find them.

The location was familiar as there used to be a cache hidden in the woods just behind one of the new caches. I'd actually dashed out for FTF on that one in the dark ages ago, so it was really nice to come back here in the daytime and actually see what it's like.

As I parked up I spotted another car there and hoped it would not be another cacher. I did not recognise the car, but you never know...

As I walked down the track to the first cache, I could see a dog walker coming the other way. It looked a bit like Paul from Izzy and the Lizard King from a distance but it turned out to just be a guy walking his dog - phew!

I soon arrived at the first cache and had a nice quick find - I was FTF :-).

I carried on along the track to the next cache and had another easy find - another FTF too. Good stuff!

I was thinking away to myself on the way back to the Jeep that this area is ripe for a nice circular walk of caches as it's lovely countryside and the paths and well maintained and not the usual Shropshire non-existent Public Footpath. Maybe someone will put a series out here (nudge, nudge if you are local and reading this ;-)).

I returned home for some well deserved sandwiches.

Isaac's Birthday Caching

2009-08-06T10:48:00.002+01:00

Today was Isaac's birthday and he's not one for big parties, so asked if we could go and see the We Will Rock You show, based on the music of one of his favourite bands, Queen. All the family like Queen, so this was absolutely fine with us :-).

We set off a bit early with the intention of trying some caches in Birmingham city centre before the show. We'd almost cleared the city centre ages ago but quite a few new caches have sprung up since then.

The first cache was a Sidetracked one at Aston station, just off the M6. Finding somewhere to park was tricky as the cache was on a busy road with double red lines on both sides. We eventually spotted a handy side road, parked up and wandered over for an easy find.

The next cache was another Sidetracked one and a cache we had DNF'd in the past (it was missing at the time). This time it was a nice easy find. Now to head off right into the city center.

The next cache was on a very busy roundabout, by a statue dedicated to Tony Hancock. We were not sure we could do this as a drive-by as it's a VERY busy area, but we left Mrs Bolas Heathens circling the roundabout whilst myself and Isaac walked over for a quick find.

Next, we picked off another previous DNF in Barton Square before parking up near the Mailbox for a final two caches and then some dinner in a local restaurant before the show. The Broad Street Nano was tricky to find as we did not realise it was on the canal below the road.

The last cache of the quick trip was the best one - a nice big tupperware box hidden in plain view in a very muggle central area. Love this kind of thing.

Isaac was well satisfied with his birthday caching. We then went off for a lovely meal and the show, which was absolutely fabulous - loved it!

Shropshire Way Caching and 2 FTF's near to home

2009-08-03T10:42:00.002+01:00

On Sunday I was at a loose end as I normally spend some time logging Saturday's finds, but as we went caching on Friday this week, we'd already logged all our finds yesterday.

I was itching to go out caching so decided to head off and find the new(ish) Shropshire Way caches between Buildwas and Much Wenlock. I soon arrived at the parking spot and off I set.

A nice walk down a bridleway later and I had an easy find on the first cache. The next couple of caches were uneventful and all easy finds.

I then headed off to near Benthall Hall (a lovely National Trust property near Ironbridge) to do the cache down the hill overlooking Buildwas power station. A really nice hide here - I don't want to spoil it for future finders so won't say any more.

Time was getting on now, so just time for one final cache before going home. The nearest one to do was the 100th cache set by The Washers (the setters of the first cache we ever found).

This proved to be an easy find and on checking our finds, it was the 100th Washers cache we have found - nice to have a full set :-).

On the way home, I checked on my iPhone to see if any new caches were out near home as I knew Big Farmer Giles had submitted 19 new caches on Friday and so perhaps they had come out. Two of them had, so I decided to head off and find them, but not until I'd enjoyed a lovely roast dinner at home. Sunday's don't get much better than this :-).

BFG's caches looked like sneaky hides and Isaac loves that kind of thing so he came with me. We were soon at the first one and sure enough, it was so sneaky we could not spot it! We set about looking for anything that did not look quite right and soon settled on something. It would not budge so we started to think it was not the cache. Thankfully I persevered and managed to loosen the cache from it's elaborate attachment mechanism. What a belter of a cache it was too - this is the standard all micro's should aspire to - a really nice piece of engineering. FTF to us :-).

The next cache was not far away and was a quick 2 stage multi. We managed to drive all the way to GZ (not sure if you are supposed to, but there were no signs saying not and it was quiet) and had an easy find of the first stage. The second stage was just as easy and afforded some great views over towards the old Bury Walls Hill Fort. Another nice FTF too.

On the way home, we wondered if any other cachers would be chasing the FTF's so decided to head back past the first cache. No cachers there, but as we were going through the next village, we spotted Wild Goosey, Nozi Parkers and Choo Choo coming the other way. We drove back to the sneaky micro to have a chat and watch them search.

As we got out of the cars, they mentioned that Allun from the Shropshire Seekers was on his way too. Sure enough, he soon arrived at GZ. They found the sneaky cache disappointingly quickly (we'd left a bit of a cachers trail as it was un-avoidable, although we'd also left some false trails too, just to throw people off the scent ;-)).

We said our goodbye's and headed off home, while the rest of them went on to do the multi we'd done earlier.

Piratemania caching in the Peak District

2009-08-01T10:08:00.002+01:00

We normally go caching on a Saturday but the weather was looking abysmal so we opted to go a day earlier this week as it was looking much more promising. We'd decided to try for the caches that were put out for the Piratemania event in the Peak District last week.

There is no easy way to get to where they were in Dovedale from home, so Isaac guided us using Memory Map using the most obvious direct route, which involved quite a few narrow lanes. All too soon, we rounded the brow of a hill and saw Thorpe Cloud standing right in front of us. This was to be our starting point for the day.

We made our way to the official car park and got ready for our walk around the SOTL caches. As we set off, we noted the nice looking ice cream shop at the side of the car park and agreed that if we managed to find all the caches in the series, we'd treat ourselves at the end of the walk.

We set off down the path towards Dovedale and had intended to use the stepping stones to get to Thorpe Cloud but they were under water today and shut. We thus used the bridge nearer the car park and found a path heading along the south side of the Cloud.

This path then headed up and in the right direction for the top. The elevation gain was slow so we opted for the more direct route straight to the top. As we saw the rocks at the summit, Isaac was convinced it was a false summit but it was not and we were soon sat there admiring the absolutely fabulous views.

Next, we headed down the north side of the Cloud and then onto the main path along Dovedale to find the rest of the caches. It was muggle central around here today which made finding some of the early caches interesting to say the least.

The further we got along the path, the less muggles there were so the caching did get much easier :-).

The only other thing to note along this stretch of the walk was a tricky cache called Beefsalter, which had had a ton of DNF's. We were not confident of a find here but went to have a look anyway. GZ was in dense summer growth and there was no sign of a hint item anywhere, despite lots of evidence of other cachers searching the area.

I mentioned to Isaac that perhaps the cache was on the other side of the river as I bet getting accurate co-ords with the steep rock walls around here is not easy. All the rest of the caches on the walk were on the other side of the river and we'd just walked past the one and only bridge, so my theory made a lot of sense.

We backtracked to the bridge and walked along to opposite where the co-ords were pointing to and sure enough, there was a hint item with a cache behind it - result!

The path from here northwards was awful - part of it was underwater and we had to wade along it, the rest was very muddy and extremely slippery. We were glad to finally get onto the road at the far end and then start the walk back to the Jeep along the paths where the rest of the caches were.

The rest of the series was straightforward enough and very enjoyable, with some beautiful Peak District views all around. As we arrived back at the Jeep, we just had to pop and get one cache we could not do earlier due to the stepping stones being closed, before we treated ourselves to the ice creams we'd promised ourselves earlier :-).

Next stop was the GOTN series. Not much to report here as they were all pretty easy finds apart from the first one. All the caches in the series did not have any hints and the first one was nowhere to be found. There was a very obvious dry stone wall but caches are not allowed in these so we did not look there. On the point of giving up, we spotted something in a previous log that implied the cache was in the dry stone wall and indeed it was.

The rest of the GOTN series passed quickly, with more nice walking and views. We then decided to head over to Parwich and tackle the small series there.

We started off with a cache on a hillside with nice views over the village. As we walked up to GZ, we went past two separate metal detector guys busy at work. I wonder what they are expecting to find here?

All the caches were easy finds, but we had to leave #3 for another day as it had just started raining and it was a longer walk. We'd have been up for it earlier in the day, but it was nearly time to go home and we did not fancy getting wet now.

We thus started to head off home, but took in a Guess Who? cache at a ford in Tissington. We're more used to seeing Guess Who? caches near where they live in Oswestry so were surprised to see one here. A quick scout around so revealed the nicely hidden cache.

We opted for a different route home, via Ashbourne and then onwards to the A50 at Uttoxeter and took in a quick cache called Dad's 60th on the way past. A nice easy find once we'd found the right path. We laughed at the clue, which was something like "opposite a white shed". We found the cache but it's opposite a black shed. Either someone has painted the shed or the cache owner is having a laugh!

As we skirted Ashbourne, we spotted an unexpected drive-by cache by a roundabout as we were passing so it would have been rude not to stop and find it.

37 finds for the day today and some really satisfying walking in the lovely Peak District. We always say we'd love to do more caching in the Peak District, but there just is not enough caches to come and find.

A quick cache near home

2009-07-27T10:53:00.001+01:00

When we returned home from Lancashire on Saturday evening, we spotted a new cache not too far from home that had come out during the day. Knowing the FTF was bound to have gone by now, we left it until Sunday afternoon to find.

The cache was behind a telegraph pole on a country lane so could not have been easier to find. We're a little bemused why someone has put a cache here, but perhaps they live in the nearby house?

Wacky Races series, Mushroom Man series, various around Chorley and a FTF!

2009-07-26T10:20:00.004+01:00

On Saturday, we decided to go for last week's Plan A, which was a trip to the Chorley area to clear up the newer caches there. As Isaac was with me, we changed this slightly and opted to start on the Wacky Races series near Skelmersdale as they are in a great location and have been getting good logs.

The first cache of the day was a puzzle cache, which was nice and easy to solve. To find the box, you have to go to a location and then pace out distances until you get to GZ and then use your cacher's eye. All nice and easy and no problems at all.

Next, we started on the Wacky Races series. Try as I might, I could not work out a circular route round them all, so opted to pick some off from nearby roads individually and then to do the final half of them as a longer, circular walk. This ended up working out really well.

We've not been caching in this part of the country for ages, but remember it being lovely, with gentle hills and some great views over the surrounding areas. It was just as we remembered and we really enjoyed our walk around picking up the caches in the series.

Along the way we picked up an older cache, The Wood & The Wire, which we've nearly stopped for several times in the past, but never had quite enough time. Very satisfying to finally bag it on our walk around the other caches today.

The other highlight of the walk was a trip up to Ashurst Beacon, which is a lovely old monument on top of probably the highest hill in the area. The views from the top were panoramic and with the great weather today, we could see for absolutely miles. I pointed out all sorts of views to Isaac, including Blackpool Tower and the South Lake District hills.

Once the final of the series was found, we returned to the Jeep and headed off to the Mushroom Man series near Euxton. Isaac was using Memory Map to guide me as he loves the challenge, especially with lots of narrow country lanes like round here to deal with.

We soon arrived in Euxon and picked off a couple of easy drive-by's before relocating to the north end of the Mushroom Man series, for a nice circular walk. Not much to report here apart from lovely countryside and some nice easy finds (apart from the last one in the series which took us a bit longer to find).

After we'd finished the series, we decided to head off toward Chorley and then Horwich, with the ultimate intention of a try for a FTF just north of Bolton.

More quick cache and dashes here, with a one in a nice nature area by a hospital and a re-visit to a place we'd been to for a cache before, to bag the resurrected (and re-listed) cache. The cache owner had given up caching, but the cache was still in place, although it was archived for some reason. Another cacher had decided to create a new listing for it, so people could come back and find it.

Next, Isaac guided us down the A6 to Horwich for a few quick caches. The first one was by a field with Alpacas in - we could just about make out one in the distance at the top end of the field. We're assured they are usually much more friendly than this.

A quick find at the old Horwich Station, followed by another easy find at the war memorial in Horwich were then had.

Finally, it was a short drive over to the north of Bolton for a FTF attempt. This cache was set 3.5 months ago and published 1.5 months ago, but for some unbelievable reason, no-one has come to find it. We parked up by a garden center and set off down the path into a lovely wooded area with a stream flowing along to one side.

As we approached GZ, it was clear that the cache was up a very steep and slippery bank. We both scrambled up, with Isaac going the last bit on his own for an easy find of the cache. We were FTF too :-). A really nice spot for a cache and we enjoyed the challenge of the scramble to get the box.

It was now tea-time and we were getting hungry so we set off home. As we approached where we were due to get off the M6, I remembered two caches not far off route that had come out in the week. We did not have these on the GPSr's so we fired up the GC.com app on the iPhone and got the details that way.

We parked up and set off for two quick finds - the first of which was the better one as it was in a lovely wooded area and a nice sized box too.

Now, it really was time to go home so off we set. 37 finds for the day.

Two caches in Shrewsbury

2009-07-25T10:10:00.003+01:00

Myself and Mrs Bolas Heathens were child-free today so planned a nice wander round our lovely county town of Shrewsbury, followed by a lovely meal out later on.

Of course, I'd noted that there was still a town center multi I needed to finish so decided to pick the stages of this off as we wandered around town. We'd actually guessed where the final cache would be as we drove in to the car park (we were totally wrong, but based on the hint alone this place absolutely has to be the cache location).

The multi takes you on a tour around the town, taking in various locations related to Charles Darwin (who was born in Shrewsbury). Mrs Bolas Heathens had been on an organised walking tour of these a few weeks ago, complete with small plays and lots of actors along the way, acting out the various stories. Our walk round was thus livened up quite a bit with tales from the organised tour :-).

At the last stage, in the Quarry, we bumped into some friends from our local village so stopped for a chat before getting the final details, plotting the cache location, doing a double take as it was not where I was expecting it to be, then confirming that the cache really was there!

A short walk later and a hunt around likely spots, had the cache in hand. A fun cache. The final is in sight of a new piece of public art in memory of Charles Darwin (a photo of this being constructed is above).

On the way home, instead of heading NE out of Shrewsbury, we headed off South to get the new cache at Dobbies Services on the A5. I'd heard this was a sneaky hide in plain sight and indeed it was. A great bit of engineering and a nice hide for this cacher's first cache.

An impromptu day's caching around Stone and Stoke On Trent

2009-07-19T16:40:00.002+01:00

Issac was due to be away at scout camp this weekend, so it was just me caching on my own. I'd been watching the weather all week with the original intention of going caching around the Chorley area.

By Friday afternoon, the weather looked dismal and as I'm just about fed up of caching in the rain every week, I decided to not go caching on Saturday and instead, hope for good weather early in the week to go then instead.

Anyway, Saturday morning came and the weather at home looked ok - not fabulous, just ok. I decided to go off and try the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs series between Stone and Stafford as it's been sat on our nearest to home not founds for way too long now.

Off I set and soon parked up, before setting off on the walk. These caches are all nice big boxes, but the catch is there is a bigger distance between each one than you usually find - 0.6 miles would be typical of this. Not a problem though as it looked like a great walk (it was!).

Not a great deal to report with the caches: all were as advertised and all were easy enough to find. On the way I saw tons of wildlife, including two HUGE pigs in a field I had to cross and lots of inquisitive cows.

I arrived back at the Jeep shortly before dinnertime and decided as the weather was still holding, I'd head off to Stoke and see if I could do a bit of a clear-up there. The first one was by Stoke Rugby Club's ground and was a disaster as I could not find it. I'm pretty sure it's missing as the hint was very specific and the cache was not there.

Next, it was three easy micros in Longton Park, followed by another DNF. This time the cache was in an area of nettles that went above my head height and despite quite a bit of bush-whacking, I could not spot the stump the cache was supposed to be in. One for the winter methinks.

I then did a quick cache outside the Gladstone Pottery Museum (not a micro either, which was a shock, given the relatively exposed location), before setting off on foot for Mawgan's series of 6 caches along a greenway (cycleway) - I wish I'd brought my bike now.

More disasters here as I could not find the first two caches. The third was sopping and the fourth had fallen out of the tree it was in and was lying nearby. I decided to cut my losses and move on without doing the remaining two caches as micros in a place much bigger caches could easily be hidden is not really my idea of fun I'm afraid.

Things improved totally from here on in and I did not have any more DNF's :-).

The next cache was by the Fenton TV transmitter on top of a small hill overlooking the area. Next, it was an Earthcache in a park not too far from the road.

I then headed off into downtown Stoke to see if I could find the new cache set by the Stoke Museums people. It looked like the cache was actually in the museum and all the parking was pay and display, so I moved on elsewhere instead. We'll have to return to the museum some other time as it looks really interesting.

I then headed off to the NE reaches of the city for some more easy finds, including clearing up a DNF I'd had ages ago, on the way to Biddulph.

Next, I worked my way over to Apedale Country Park on the west side of Stoke, taking in a few easy caches on the way. Some quick caching round the park saw several more easy finds.

Not many caches to find in the area left now, so off I went to one right by the M6 in Bateswood Nature Reserve. TomTom beeps at us with this cache every time we go past on the Motorway so it will be good to find this one. The co-ords were bang on and the hide was the best of the day by far. I won't give anything away here, but it's a different variation on a pretty rare type of hide and very satisfying to find.

A couple more caches to finish off the day now. The next one was the best location of the day - a real hidden gem right in the middle of Keele University grounds. This is what caching is all about!

31 finds for the day and I was back home nice and early. Can't beat that as I'd only gone out to find the 8 Snow White caches :-).

A FTF near home at Colehurst Manor

2009-07-14T11:44:00.003+01:00

Late on Monday afternoon, a new multi a few miles from home came out. I had things to do for the rest of the day so no chance of going out to find it.

The next morning was a different story and I had time to dash out as the cache still had not been logged by anyone.

I parked up in a very familiar spot by the farm and headed off down the track to stage 1. I say familiar as we used to have a cache down the same track, but it's been archived for ages now (it was run over by a tractor and we could not find a decent alternative hiding place for it at the time).

After a nice walk, I was at stage 1. I checked out all the usual places before I spotted something not quite right and quickly had the details in hand (or rather GPS) for the final cache. We always enjoy this kind of hide, although you don't see them too often. A great idea.

A short walk later and I was at GZ for the final cache. The co-ords were once again bang on so I had an easy find. Great to see another big ammo box - well stocked too. Some fab views over towards Hodnet on the last stage of the walk.

Now, back home to get some work done!

Caching in between Coventry and Birmingham

2009-07-12T11:02:00.006+01:00

On Saturday we decided on a return visit to the area of countryside between Birmingham and Coventry. We've always enjoyed previous visits to the area so were looking forward to it.

The weather forecast was not too promising, with a band of rainy cloud coming over the UK from west to east. The nearest forecast to where we were headed was for Solihull, which showed early rain and then dry until about 4pm. This looked ok for us, so off we set.

Isaac guided us off the M42 and those ridiculous "active traffic management" gantries which keep slowing and then speeding the traffic up for no reason at all. We were soon parking up for the Webbie Wander series, which was a set of 12 caches on a circular walk in nice countryside.

We decided to do the series clockwise and were soon at the first cache, which was a nice quick find. The next cache was a dog tag, which is not exactly our favourite type of hide (why hide one of these in the countryside when a much bigger box will fit easily). Luckily we had an easy find as we picked the correct hint location to start with. Phew!

The rest of the series was easy enough, with the exception of a DNF at the Castle Hills cache. It turned out later that the cache was still there, but hidden very deep in long grass. Not to worry as we can go back and find it the next time we are in the area.

We soon arrived back at the Jeep and decided to head off for the Dexter series in countryside by Balsall Common. The first one here was the easiest find ever as the cache was sat on the verge at the side of the road - a muggle had obviously spotted it and assumed someone had lost it, so left it out so the owner could easily find it - doh!

The rest of the series was easy with one field early on in the walk looking strangely familiar. I'm sure we've done a cache here before, but it looks to be archived now as I cannot find it on GC.com.

We had a DNF about half way round the walk as we could not spot the cache in any of the obvious places, so gave up and moved on. The day after we visited, it was found out in the open a short distance from where it should be, so it looks like someone / something had found it and moved it a bit.

After we arrived back at the Jeep, we decided to pick off a few nearby drive-by and cache and dashes before heading off to a third series. Nothing much to report on these apart from:

I managed to lose my really nice caching pen off my lanyard somewhere between the first two of these caches.
We did a cache at the side of an old airfield, which is now a racetrack where you can spend the day zooming round in some seriously powerful cars. Isaac is really into cars and loved this one.

Next, it was on to the Max's Favourite Walk series, set around Packwood House, which is a beautiful National Trust property with a fabulous garden with a very nice Yew Garden.

On the first one, we'd just done the biz with the cache and were about to put it back when some walkers came past. We made our GPSr's obvious just in case they were cachers, but only spotted their Yellow eTrex as they were quite a way past us. They turned out to be cachers: maxskitz, fishdreams and mrgammonandmrspea.

We made quick work of the rest of the series and were soon heading back to where we parked by Packwood House.

Just time for a few quick caches before heading home, so we decided to head in the Solihull direction and see how many we could find. We had intended to park up and do the caches in Tudor Grange Park, but every road seemed to be a Red Route, so parking was impossible.

We headed off to do a couple of quick urban caches, which turned out to be easy, although we did have to re-visit the first one twice as there were some teenage muggles sat on a bench right by it the first time we stopped.

More quick finds followed and some nice planning by Isaac meant we ended up not too far from the M42 junction and the journey home.

38 finds for the day.

Granville Country Park series and a FTF

2009-07-07T10:08:00.002+01:00

We were having a new boiler put in at home today, which involved a lot of banging in the old airing cupboard by my office, so I decided I would be much better out and about going for the 19 new caches in Granville Country Park instead (tough decision that one - not!).

I parked up in the main car park and set off. The first cache was very close to the car park and was a really easy find as I could see a neat line of sticks at GZ as I walked up. I decided which one to go for next and off I set.

The paths seemed to go a different way than I was expecting so I ended up very close to another cache, so changed my planned route and went to that one instead. A quick find in a place I'd walked past ages ago when doing the older caches in the park.

On the way to the next cache, I had to hold on for a few moments as a lone female dog-walker was ahead and I did not want to spook her. After she'd gone on her way, I headed off and was soon at the next cache. Another quick find. Great to see all the caches in the series are nice big Regular sized boxes with decent swaps in.

The next few caches were all easy enough and nothing much to report on. The next cache had not yet been found - over the weekend lots of cachers had tried and failed, but there was a co-ords change of about 50ft last night, so I was hopeful of finding it. The new co-ords turned out to be bang on and I had an easy find. A nice bonus of being FTF too :-).

A few more caches and I was back at the Jeep. On the way, one of the caches took me to the top of an old slag head (the country park used to be a big mining area) with some great views over towards North Shropshire and Cheshire beyond.

I then moved the Jeep round to the next area of the park and dashed in from the road for a couple of quick cache and dashes. One was a nice BIG ammo box, which is always great to see.

Another move of the Jeep saw me at another area of the woods I'd been to before, and two more quick cache finds.

I then moved the Jeep around to the final location and set off into the woods on foot. I was a bit nervous about the first one as it's quite close to a primary school, but thankfully the woods were thick and I was able to look for the cache without attracting dodgy glances.

The next one was a quick find, then came the fun for the day. The last cache of the series was about 400ft from the bottom of the hill so off I set. As soon as I reached the bottom I realised the ground was VERY boggy. I ended up almost wading though the mud, sometimes knee deep, before getting to slightly dryer land the other side, near GZ. After that, the cache was an easy find.

A great series, with well placed caches and all a decent size. I've really enjoyed my walk around the area this morning. I checked the GPS and it was 3 hours and a minute from finding the first cache in the series, to finding the 19th one.

A few new caches near home

2009-07-06T09:54:00.001+01:00

Just after we got home from caching on Saturday, I logged on to GC.com to see there was a ton of new caches near home just out: 19 around a country park, 2 at a local church and 2 more along the old Wellington to Market Drayton railway line.

I was all cached-out for the day so decided to make a start on them on Sunday. I thought I'd leave the country park ones for another day, so just set off to find the other 4 new caches.

I soon arrived at the first cache and parked up opposite the Dairy Crest Creamery in Crudgington, to try and work out where the PF to the cache started. Just as I was doing this, a familiar car pulled up alongside. It was Mark and Annie from cannonedwards. Great to meet you both again.

We all set off to try and find the start of the PF and failed (we'd not gone far enough along the road and as is usual around here, there were absolutely no finger posts to make life easier). We returned to the cars to think what Plan B might be when another car drew up. It was Greygeeza and Tike - nice to meet you both again.

Plan B turned out to be to wander further down the road, so off we all set. The security guy on the Creamery gates was giving us quizzical looks by this point as I bet he's never seen so many people here before!

We spotted a gate that lines up with the start of the PF on Memory Map, so off we set. As I expected, the field was totally cropped, with no sign of the PF that was supposed to go through the middle of it. We skirted the edge of the field and Mark and Annie had found the cache before the rest of us natterers (is that a word?) had caught up.

Once back at the cars, we said our goodbye's as we were all headed off to different caches. I drove down to Wellington, where the old railway line used to join the Wellington to Shrewsbury line. This section is now part of the Silkin Way and a nice walking path.

The cache was a quick find, after initially looking at the wrong ivy covered tree.

Next stop was Edgmond Church and the new Greygeeza and Tike caches. I walked into the churchyard and was just getting the details needed to calculate the final cache co-ords (it's a multi cache) when the church door opened and the vicar lead the congregation out to form a rin round the church, all holding hands. They then proceeded to sing some hymns. I've no idea why they would do this, but it was really nice to stand and watch for a few minutes (I had to avoid a few gazes as I suspected I might be invited to join in and there was caching to do!).

Next, it was a nice walk down a bridleway to GZ and an easy find. In the distance I spotted someone else walking away, that looked suspiciously like Allun from the Shropshire Seekers (it turned out it was him).

A short walk later and I was at the bonus cache, which was another easy find. Now, just a short walk over the fields to the Jeep and onwards to home.

Didsbury, Gatley, Cheadle, Hazel Grove, Poynton and Holmes Chapel!

2009-07-05T09:32:00.001+01:00

On Saturday we decided on a return to the SE Manchester area to try and clear up the many, many new caches in the area.

We parked up by the Old Cock pub in Didsbury - an old haunt of mine from when I used to live in Altrincham and fancied a change from the Alty pubs. Out came the bikes and off we set for the series of caches around Fletcher's Moss.

The first cache was an easy find, then disaster struck - we had our first DNF of the day. The cache was in heavy woodland and the co-ords seemed good when you looked at the hint. Despite spreading out our search quite a bit we could not find the cache. The last cacher had had a DNF too and there was a tent that someone looks to be living in nearby (nice!). I wonder if they have found the cache?

Anyway, we gave up and moved on. A few more easy finds with great co-ords, then another DNF. The cache was called "The Undergrowth" and they were not wrong. It was very overgrown, with nettles and prickly hawthorn all over the place. We had a quick look around, but were not having a good time so moved on.

The rest of the caches in the area were easy enough, with the last one, which was in some beautiful ornamental gardens, our favourite.

Next, we did a quick one in a Didsbury park before relocating to the Gatley / Wythenshawe border for the next few. On the way we picked up two very odd caches, both full of sewing needles, each wrapped in a protective home made tape and with the cache name written on the back. This has to win the prize as the most bizarre swap we've ever seen and not something I'd really think should be in a cache.

The Hollyhedge Park ones were easy enough, before we moved on to Scholes Park in Gatley iteself. All of these were easy enough, apart from two that we gave up on:

A micro on one of those metal fences with vertical and horizontal bars everywhere. We hate this kind of hide with a passion as they are no fun and the cache could literally be anywhere. Despite the hint being reasonably specific, we could not spot it.
A camo'd 35mm container in an area with TONS of ivy, placed (according to the cache description) 2ft from people's back gardens. Not our thing at all, so after a quick look, we walked away.

Next, it was off to Torkington Park in Hazel Grove, via a cache in Cheadle we'd DNF'd twice in the past (it was missing both times). This time it was a really easy find and it was very satisfying to clear up the DNF's.

For the Hazel Grove ones, we got the bikes out of the Jeep and set off. All nice easy finds apart from the last one that was called Bowling Green. The previous logs mentioned bad co-ords and lots of hassle finding it. As suspected, we struggled too and ended up using a PAF, who directed us to somewhere you could not even see the bowling green from. It was then an easy find. We left some big hints of the area to look in our log to help future finders.

Next, we headed down into Poynton to clear up some DNF's from last time we were here and also find some of the newer caches. We stopped to eat our sandwiches before getting started and then set off for quite a few easy finds with no problems at all. All were micro's apart from one (a theme that was throughout the day, apart from the end of the day in Holmes Chapel).

Time was pressing on so we decided to start heading home, but to stop in Holmes Chapel, just before we got on the M6 to find a few caches.

The first was a Sidetracked at the station and we'd seen people were having trouble finding it. The GPSr's pointed to a bushy area around a tree, so Isaac took one side and me the other. As soon as I put my head in to look, a yellow cache box lid was literally right in front of my eyes - result!

The rest of the ones in the area were easy enough, with the only one of note on the Dane Valley way as the co-ords were obviously clearly quite a way out. Thankfully a previous finder had posted their reading, so we used these for an easy find.

41 finds for the day and a fun day out, despite most of the caches being boring 35mm film pots.

Another FTF near home

2009-07-01T21:58:00.002+01:00

I'd heard on Facebook that Wrekin Ranger had set a cache near the huge pile of horseshoes at Peplow, not too far from home. She'd given enough hints to give the location away but I waited until the cache was published before going to find it, as it's only fair.

I'd just returned home from a trip out when I spotted the publication email in my Inbox. Straight out of the door I went and arrived at GZ a few minutes later. As I pulled up I spotted the familiar face of Mark from cannonedwards. Great to meet you again - we'll have to stop meeting like this!

The cache was then an easy find as there was only one place it could be from the hint.

A circular walk around Eccleshall

2009-06-29T21:02:00.005+01:00

Last Friday, in addition to the new caches along the old Market Drayton railway line coming out, there was a 16 stage multi around the lovely (small) town of Eccleshall, not far from home.

On Sunday, after I'd finished logging Saturday's caches, myself and Freya set off for Eccleshall to try the new cache.

With so many stages, we'd opted for a printed version of the cache (rather than being strictly paperless, as we usually are). I'd glad we did as the 15 stages meant lots of writing things down and co-ord calculations for the next stage.

We were taken on a lovely circular walk, taking in some interesting spots we've driven past loads of times but not looked at in detail.

Eventually we got to the 16th stage and sat down to work out where the final cache was. We realised it would make sense to go back to the Jeep and move it round to nearer the final cache.

This we did and a short walk later we were approaching GZ. Freya found the nicely hidden cache.

We were getting hungry by now so headed off home for some well deserved refreshments and some food.

Sambourne and then caches along the River Arrow

2009-06-28T20:48:00.005+01:00

On Saturday we decided to head to Sambourne, which is between Redditch and Alcester. There was an event there last weekend (which we'd totally missed spotting - probably because I've never heard of Sambourne before!) and lots of new caches had been placed in the area.

Isaac guided us off the M5 and to the first cache of the day. We failed to find it after a shortish search so decided to move on and come back for a better look later in the day.

The next few caches were all nice quick drive-by's with co-ords that were absolutely bang on. My Oregon had us within 1ft of the cache at more than one of them - something I've never seen so good before.

After clearing up the drive-by's, we parked up to plan our circular walks around the rest of the caches in the area. We could do them in 3 groups so headed off for the first group.

These were just three caches and all placed along the one PF. All nice quick finds and good sized boxes.

Next stop was just the other side of the village. We parked up and set off for a circular walk around the caches. Some sneaky hides on this section, which we really enjoyed. Also quite a few fields of rape-seed with paths just about visible through them.

After we'd finished this loop, we sat to have our sandwiches before setting off for the final loop of caches in the village. On the way, we drove past a walker who had an Oregon attached to his backpack. Could it be a cacher? On looking at the logs on the caches for the day, it could well have been Wrighty - wish we'd have gone back to say hello now.

The last circular walk started off badly as we could not find the first cache. We decided to come back later and look again and carried on. The next one was a fun one which involved some special equipment to retrieve it. The rest of the caches on this loop were nice easy finds, with some great hides.

As we arrived back near the Jeep, we had yet another DNF. Hmmm - looks like we'll be busy clearing up our DNF's later on.

Now we'd pretty much cleared the village of new caches, we headed off to delta68's Follow The Arrow series, which are set along the banks of the River Arrow, in some great countryside.

Lots of great walking in nice areas followed, with no problems on the caches apart from one called Ditch which we could not find anywhere. A quick call to the cache owner on the PAF line revealed it must be missing.

After we'd finished the Follow The Arrow series, we headed off back to try and clear up our DNF's. It's always worth going back to a cache for a second time as we found all the DNF's, which was very satisfying indeed! A summary of our mistakes the first time round:

The co-ords were a bit off and we had not really had the patience to expand our search enough earlier.
We'd actually checked the cache location as it was the obvious place given the hint. We totally failed to feel the rat's tail on the sneaky hide as it was one of those caches you had to do by touch alone.
The cache had actually slipped almost out of sight so we had not spotted it earlier. Another cacher had spotted this in the meantime and moved the cache back to where it should be.

35 finds for the day and a fabulous day out in an area we'd not really explored before.

FTF opportunities close to home

2009-06-27T20:38:00.006+01:00

On Friday morning, I was just about to settle down to work for the day when I spotted 8 new caches very close to home, along the route of the old Wellington to Market Drayton railway line.

I was soon at the first one, which was the most southerly in the set. I'd missed FTF by about half an hour - greygeeza had beat me. I assumed he would be working his way up the series, so with him not being far ahead of me, I decided to head straight for the top of the series and work backwards in the hope of getting at least some FTF's.

The top cache was at the side of Morrisson's car park in Market Drayton, by the site of the old town station, which is now derelict ground. It took me quite a while to get the cache as there were shopping muggles everywhere, hindering my search.

Next stop was by the main road at Tern Hill. GZ was obvious and a quick scout around revealed nothing, so I checked the hint. I was just trying to make sense of the hint when Mark from cannonedwards pulled up. Great to see you again Mark. We combined our efforts but still could not spot the cache.

Then, we spotted Wild Goosey walking up. Great to meet you at last. We then re-searched all over before the penny dropped about the very tricky hint and so we concentrated our efforts where the hint said, but still could not spot the cache.

Eventually Mark and myself gave up, so left Joni searching on her own as she was determined to find it. As I was pulling off, she waved at me - little did I realise she had just found the cache and was trying to show me. Luckily she phoned me to let me know, so I returned from the next cache for a very easy find.

The rest of the caches were nice and easy and all done in the company of Wild Goosey. The last cache of the morning was a fun one involving a piece of special equipment and an extra sneaky hide.

4 FTF's for the morning. I said my goodbye's to Wild Goosey and drove the short journey home to get on with some work.

Wickers Hike, Scout Moor Windfarm and some blatant number crunchers

2009-06-21T12:44:00.003+01:00

Isaac was away all weekend at scout camp so I settled on a plan of a nice long circular walk on the moors, with a few caches to find along the way. Just the kind of caching I really enjoy when going solo.

On Saturday morning, the weather did not look too promising, but it was forecast to brighten up a bit later so I went for it anyway.

I parked up at the bottom of the hill, just down the road from Edenfield, near Ramsbottom and got myself kitted up with waterproofs and plenty of water to drink. The PF up to the first cache was REALLY steep and quite hard going, but at least it gets the main climb up to the moors out of the way quickly.

The first cache was a quick find and off I went to the next one, a bit further down the track. I had a really nice surprise when I opened the box as I was FTF. I'd totally forgotten that some of Hillgorilla's new caches up here had not been found yet.

Just after this one, I arrived at the top and was amongst the huge wind turbines. As I made my way over the grassy clumps to the next cache, I waved over at some workmen in a big truck, who were obviously on their way to maintain one of the turbines.

The next few caches were quick and easy, although I had to deal with bands of rain that kept coming in, lasting 10-15 minutes and then pass over. I'm so glad I came in full waterproofs as I'd be soaking by now otherwise.

Three more FTF's followed, including one at a fabulous spot in a cave at the base of a hidden waterfall. My favourite cache of the day as it's a fantastic location and a nice hide.

A short spell of DNF's then happened as I struggled to find a small cache under a rock at the bottom of a quarry that was absolutely full of rocks! Not really my idea of a fun hide. The hint was reasonably specific but after a 15 minute search I stopped enjoying it and walked away.

I found the next two, but then had another DNF at one that looks like it should be an easy find. The rain was belting down and I really was not enjoying the hunt, so walked away again.

On the way to the next cache, I came across the only walkers I saw all day: a group of young people trekking along the Rossendale Way.

I was starting to get hungry and was looking for a sheltered place to stop for lunch but ended up pressing on to the next cache. As I walked up, I realised it was the perfect place for lunch as someone had built a chair out of stones, with a U shaped wall around the sides and back. I sat down and had my sandwiches, before glancing at the hint and realising I could grab the cache without even having to stand up! What more could you ask for :-).

Next, it was on the homeward leg around the top of the moor, through a series of old quarry areas. A few more quick finds, including one at a fabulous natural spa. I had a taste of the water and very nice it was too.

The only caches left were the Dearden Brook ones, so off I set. The first one was tricky to get to as I had to traverse a steep bank with lots of bracken and reeds. Needless to say, with all the rain it was very slippy.

I started off to do the next few in the series, before realising time was pressing on and the rest of the series were on the other side of the valley up a very steep slope. I opted for the easy option and left them for another day.

I knew Isaac would like me to come home with a decent number of finds and the 16 I had got so far just was not enough. When I got back to the Jeep, I had a look at Memory Map and realised there were quite a few easy number crunchers in nearby Ramsbottom, which were too easy looking to ignore.

No problems from here on in, with nano's hidden under various benches being the order of the day. Not very inspiring caches, but after a trek round the moors, I was in the mood for something quick and not too taxing.

After I'd done all the quick ones in Ramsbottom, I still had an hour to kill before I needed to head home, so had another look at Memory Map and settled on a series of 4 nano's near Smithills Hall to the NW of Bolton. Not too far away and another few easy caches were then found.

I still had a couple of TB's with me and needed to think about dropping them somewhere. I did not want to put them in a cache on the moors earlier and was trying to find an easy to get to cache so they would be picked up quickly by another cacher. Two small caches were not too far away so off I set. The first one was big enough, so I dropped the TB's in there.

On the way this morning, I'd spotted an Earthcache right by the M60 motorway junction at Worsley, so stopped by on the way home to break the journey up. I'm glad I did as it was a really interesting spot when an old underground canal came into the open. This used to be used to transport coal from nearby pits underground to the Bridgewater Canal and from there onwards to wherever they usually take coal.

I was amused with the "Welcome to Salford" signs as they were bright pink, with white writing on them. Not the colours I'd associate with somewhere with such a tough reputation as Salford has had in the past, but there you go.

33 finds for the day, a fantastic walk around the moors, which I really enjoyed. A great day out!

A trip to Warrington and a few caches, plus a FTF near home

2009-06-20T12:31:00.003+01:00

On Friday, Mrs Bolas Heathens had booked us in for a health check at the Bupa hospital at Stretton, near Warrington. Naturally I had spotted a few easy to get caches for the way home - it would have been rude not to ;-).

Just as we arrived at the hospital, I did a quick check of emails and spotted a new cache had been published 1.9 miles from home. Typical - no chance of a FTF dash for me today!

After I'd finished my bit at the hospital, I dashed off into Warrington to get my hands on a new iPhone 3G(S). On the way back, I stopped at the Morrisons in Stockton Heath to walk down the cycle path by the side of the Manchester Ship Canal for a quick cache. A nice easy find and a really nice spot too (a lot better than I'm making it sound).

After I'd picked Mrs Bolas Heathens up at the hospital, we set off home, via a few drive-by's. Nothing much to report with the caches apart from all being nice easy finds. I did wonder at one on the outskirts of Northwich, which was hidden on a Post Box as it seemed a bit pointless, but hey, a smiley is a smiley :-).

When we arrived home, I dropped Mrs Bolas Heathens off and dashed off to the potential FTF as I saw it still had not had a find logged on it.

It was in a place we'd scouted out for a potential hide ages ago but never got round to doing anything about it. I parked up and was soon at GZ for stage 1. The hint did not mean anything to me, but I soon spotted the nicely hidden micro anyway.

I won't tell you what was in the micro, but the penny dropped quickly and off I set for the final cache. Another quick find and a nice big ammo box too. Better still, I was FTF :-).

A faulty Garmin Colorado and some cache maintenance

2009-06-15T16:29:00.002+01:00

The weekend before last, we'd cached in the pouring rain all day in South Birmingham. When we're out caching I use a Garmin Oregon 400T and Isaac has a Garmin Colorado 300.

During the day in the rain, Isaac's Colorado kept switching into Mass Storage Mode, as if it thought a USB cable was being plugged into it. I suspected rain had got into the USB socket (despite the unit being advertised as waterproof) and sure enough, after we left it drying out in the Jeep for an hour or so, it was working as intended again.

This week, Isaac had the Colorado on a lanyard round his neck on the way to caching and by the time we got there, there were quite a few visible droplets of water and general fogginess under the screen on the unit. Hmmm - the water must have worked it's way internally as well last week.

We relied on my Oregon for most of the day as the fog on Isaac's screen was making it hard to read.

Anyway, this morning I phoned Garmin Support, who were as puzzled as us as to why the water had got into the unit, but gave me a returns number and told me to send it in and they would send a new unit out to us. I tried to see if they would send us the equivalent Oregon unit (as we much prefer the ease of use and lightness of the Oregon over the Colorado) but they insisted it was like for like. At least it solved the problem though :-).

Just as I was about to pop out to post it to them, a DNF popped into my inbox for one of our caches that we adopted off MarcB in Gnosall. It was the 3rd consecutive DNF on the cache so I went out armed with a replacement cache just in case.

First stop was the Post Office in Gnosall. With the Colorado on it's way, I went over to check on the cache. Sure enough, it had gone as the pile of sticks it was under was still there, but no cache was anywhere to be seen.

I scouted around and found a much safer hiding place not far away so hid the new caches, took some revised co-ords and headed off home to update the cache page.

Cycle-caching on the old Gnosall to Stafford railway line

2009-06-15T16:20:00.004+01:00

On Sunday, I'd finished logging Saturday's caches and was at a loose end.

The weather was still beautiful so I thought I'd pop out and find the new series which is set along the old Gnosall to Stafford railway line. This was converted into a really nice cycle-way / walking route as part of the year 2000 celebrations.

I set off in the Jeep and parked up in Gnosall by the start of the path. I got my bike out of the back of the Jeep and off I set. The first cache was muggle-central so I thought I'd leave that one for the return journey, when hopefully it might be a bit quieter.

From there on in, I had a series of easy finds. All but two of the caches were fake rock micros which made me smile as Isaac's guitar teacher, who caches as XL5, set a few caches in the area using fake rocks and it seems the idea has caught on :-).

I was thoroughly enjoying the cycling and all too soon I was passing under the M6 and near the end of the trail. Once I'd found all the main trail caches, there were two other ones near to the Stafford end which I cycled up to for yet more easy finds.

On the return journey I cleared up one I could not spot earlier, then went non-stop back to the first cache in the series. Thankfully the area was deserted on my return so I had another quick find.

A really good fun hour and a half or so and 14 finds.

Grommit's Grand Day Out and Osbaldeston series

2009-06-14T15:33:00.002+01:00

Our Plan B for last week became our Plan A for this week...

The bad weather put paid to it last week as the plan involved parking up and then walking round 36 caches during the day, before ending up back at the Jeep. No fun in the rain, but fabulous fun in the lovely sunshine we had this weekend!

The caches are further up the M6 than we normally go (near Preston), but having cached in the area a few weeks ago, we knew it was a great place for a long walk and with so many new caches on nice circular walks, it was too good to resist.

We parked up by the church in Balderstone and got our back-packs loaded up with all we needed for the day. The first cache of the Grommit series was about 100ft away so off we set.

The first one was a nice hide and set the scene for the kind of hide we would be looking for most of the day. We then carried on down the lane and spotted a stile which lead over a field to the next cache. The field was full of knee high grass, which was pretty much what we had all day long, with none of the footpaths appearing to have much use (I bet they will for the next few weeks though!).

The next few were easy enough, including a cache at a lovely little dingle by a stream that feeds into the River Ribble a bit further north from GZ.

At the next cache, we'd just put the cache back and were working out the route to the next cache on Memory Map when we spotted some walkers coming along the path. It turned out to be Eurochamps - great to meet you both. We were stood chatting when another walker with his dog came along the path. It was duncscott - wow, this is turning into a mini cache event!

We all carried on to the next cache, where we said our goodbye's as they were all carrying on the Grommit series, whereas we were diverting off to do the OBS series by nandad.

The first of the OBS ones was a HUGE box, which was ideal for dropping off two big TB's we had with us. We'd promised a cacher near home that we'd drop them in Lancs, so as to start them off with some mileage.

The next cache was a really nicely engineered hide which was a quick find. There was a horse jumping event in the nearby field so we had to be stealthy with the cache, although to be honest the people there were far more interested in anything with 4 legs than us (that's if they could actually see us!).

We then lost the PF and ended up skirting up the edge of a field and having to jump a great big steeplechase water jump to get onto the next PF. Then it was a quick walk down into a dingle and up the other side to the cache.

This is where time started to slip away a bit as all the PF's had been diverted around the nearby Hall, but they had neglected to put up enough signs so you knew where you should be going. We managed reasonably well, but totally lost the path around the front of the Hall and ended up right outside it, where we thankfully found a friendly gardener who put us on the right tracks.

The rest of the series was straightforward from there. Lots of very nice containers, which made the caches really enjoyable. We stopped for our sandwiches in this beautiful meadow on the edge of some woods, before continuing on our way.

Not far from finishing the OBS series, we bumped into duncscott again. He had finished the Grommit series and was now starting on this one.

With the OBS series finished, we headed off over another really un-obvious PF to join up with the next cache in the Grommit series. From there, it was a nice easy walk around the rest of the caches in the series, with all the caches being really easy finds, except for #19, which we could not spot.

With the details collected for the bonus cache, we plotted it on Memory Map but then wondered how the heck you are supposed to get to it as (without giving anything away) it's not near any roads or marked PF's. We tried our best to find a decent route to it, but did have to walk over a private field and climb two very sharp barbed wire fences. Not recommended.

Once in the woods where the final cache was located, we were soon at GZ and had an easy find with great co-ords (which have been bang on for pretty much all the caches today).

We'd hoped to finish a bit earlier than we did and would have gone on to do a few more local caches, but time was not on our side so we headed back to the Jeep and onwards towards home.

On the way back, I remembered there were two quick caches we could easily do, both near M6 junctions. We stopped for the first one at J17 which was nice and easy and then carried on back down the M6 to J15, where we were to leave the motorway anyway.

The last cache of the day, at J15, was only about 150ft from where our old Not Motorway Mayhem cache was, so was an easy find as we knew where to look before we got there.

37 finds for the day and some stunning walking in beautiful landscape.

9 FTF's and 4 near misses

2009-06-12T16:26:00.002+01:00

I've been helping a new cacher who lives not too far from home out with advice on setting up a new cache series and how to make your cache page look nice, with images and different text. For the record, I had no idea where the caches were going to be set so did not have an advantage over anyone other cachers.

This morning, my Inbox pinged to the lovely sound of 13 new caches close(ish) to home. The sun was shining - how could I resist going out to have a try for them?

On the way to the caches, I spotted a familiar car coming the other way down the lane and was pleased to see it was Allun from the Shropshire Seekers. We had a quick chat and he told me he'd got 3 FTF's and 3 DNF's on the series at the crack of dawn. No problem, as that still leaves 10 FTF's to go after and it's a great walk anyway :-).

I parked up in a place we parked absolutely ages ago when we did an old cache in the woods called The Pig Rails. I've not checked, but this must have been amongst the very first few caches we found.

The first cache was at the entrance to the woods and I noticed Allun had already been to this one. I carried on and had a DNF at the second cache. The co-ords *must* be iffy as they took me into the middle of an area of waist high nettles with no clue item anywhere in sight. Hmmm.

Rather than waste any more time, I carried on to the next cache. Navigating was interesting as Memory Map only shows a handful of the many, many paths in the woods. I ended up sort of zig-zagging my way along, picking up caches as I went.

All was going swimmingly until cache #3 where I had another DNF. Another suspected case of iffy co-ords as the co-ords took me to a bench in an open grassed area, with no hint item anywhere near. I moved on and decided to come back for another look later on.

The rest of the caches were easy enough with the main point of note being when I bumped into a group of locals out for a walk for the third time and in the third different location. They nervously asked me what I was doing and when I replied I was on a high tech treasure hunt, they looked really relieved. It turns out they thought I was a property developer sizing up the woods for a new development and that I was using my GPS to measure out distances!

Just before I got back to the Jeep, I went off to try and clear up DNF #1. I eventually found the cache about 65-70ft off the co-ords, just over the top of a bank from where my GPSr was pointing (and hence why I could not spot the hint item earlier). Phew!

I got back to the Jeep and drove round to a closer point to DNF #2. I searched as per the hint for a while and could not spot the cache. I then moved back closer to the bench and where my GPSr was trying to take me and spotted a nice cachers path leading to a hint item. How on earth I'd not spotted this earlier is beyond me. The co-ords were about 45ft out, so not *that* bad.

Just as I was opening the box, snerdbe phoned to say they were part way round the series and had seen our name in the logbooks and was wondering where I was up to. I mentioned I was at #3 and was told they had beat me to FTF on it.

Ah well, 9 FTF's is not bad for a morning's work and I've had a great time in the area anyway. The caches themselves were really good too - nice big containers (not a micro in sight), loads of good quality swaps and some nice hides. Just the way caching is supposed to be :-).

A quick cache near the Wrekin and a problem with our Jeep Challenge 2 cache

2009-06-08T11:58:00.002+01:00

The rain continued on Sunday with it absolutely teeming down most of the day. Later in the day, we'd just had a lovely Sunday roast dinner when the rain started to clear up.

I didn't need an excuse to get out to walk my dinner off and more importantly, get some fresh air. The closest to home not found was near to The Wrekin in some lovely woods on The Wrekin's smaller cousin, The Ercall. Perfect!

I was soon parking up and off I set up into the woods. On the way I passed the site of an Earthcache in the old quarry on the hill. We'd done this one ages ago so stopped for a moment to admire the great views of the quarry anyway.

The fun then began as the paths to GZ were not at all obvious and were not ones marked on Memory Map. I headed off down one that looked to be going in the right direction, only to be presented with a very slippery bank to climb down. It was then a question of hopping though the undergrowth before I found a better path. After that it was plain sailing and I was soon at GZ.

The cache took a few moments to spot - I should have trusted my GPSr as the co-ords were spot on and I was reading about 3-4ft at the cache. You don't get better than that.

The biz done with the cache and I set off back to the Jeep. This time I tried to stick to the path and to my amazement, it joined back up with the main path near the old quarry. If only I'd known this earlier, although I would not have had as much fun getting to the cache.

Back home and settled down for the evening, I had a notification that a local cacher had had problems with our Jeep Challenge 2 cache and that part of the special equipment needed to retrieve the cache was stuck in the cache tunnel. Easily done by the sounds of it too.

We hope to have the cache back up and running with all special equipment back in place later today.

A very soggy day out caching south of Birmingham

2009-06-07T11:27:00.002+01:00

The weather for the weekend was forecast to be absolutely awful but we could not let the weekend pass without going out caching. I work from home during the week so getting out and about at the weekend is an absolute necessity for me, otherwise I'd slowly drive myself nuts.

During the week, we spotted a new series by The Strangler, just south of King's Norton in the countryside just outside the urban sprawl of Birmingham. The caches are based around the albums from the band The Stranglers, with most caches containing a clue needed for the Bonus cache to the series. There were also quite a few other caches we had not done in the area so it looked perfect.

We set off from home in heavy rain, armed with full waterproofs as it looked like we were going to need them. The first cache was a drive-by, not far from the M42 junction, so we donned our waterproofs and jumped out of the Jeep for an easy find.

Next, it was a short drive to the next one, which was just into a field near the road. We then headed 0.25 along the public footpath, up the hill to the next one. By this time we were thoroughly soaked and beginning to question our wisdom of coming caching in such awful weather.

Needless to say, we struggled with this one as it was in a very slippery place and you had to stand in what would normally be a shallow stream to get the cache. Today it was anything but shallow! We were not having fun at all so decided to give the cache up and return to the Jeep to decide what to do.

Back in the warmth of the Jeep, we had a good look at Memory Map and decided to hit drive-by's and cache and dashes in the vain hope the weather would improve and we could consider longer walks to caches.

A couple of M42 Motorway caches followed. We had a nightmare at the second one as it was one of those tiny dog-tag holder nanos. After a struggle, we got the logbook out and signed it, but could we get it back in the container? Of course not. The more we tried, the soggier and harder to get back in it became. We ended up having to take it with us and leave the cache in situ with no logbook in it.

Next up, were more of The Strangler's Studio 16 series, which were nice and easy, with some fab hides involving string, hooks etc etc. All good fun and very enjoyable.

The only other thing of note here was a major disaster at yet another dog tag nano. I was on the phone and Isaac was doing the biz with the cache. As he struggled to get the logbook back into the tiny container, the bottom of the container slipped out of his hand and rolled in slow-motion to the planks on a wooden bridge and down a gap between the planks. We had a good look under the bridge for it but it must have got washed away in the stream beneath. We PAF'd to the cache owner to apologise profusely and also let them know about the missing log in their M42 Motorway cache from earlier on.

The Studio 16 series was spread all around the area, with no clear route round the caches. We had worked out a rough plan to get round them and hopefully not miss any out but this changed on the fly as we went round.

Part way round, we were near the Hollywood Bypass series, so worked our way along the back roads picking these up, along with a couple of Studio 16 straggler caches.

Towards the top of the area for the series, we stopped for our sandwiches and plotted out the clues we'd collected for the Studio 16 Bonus cache. We realised we only needed one more clue for the Bonus, so worked out what the missing digit was likely to be and saw we were not too far away from it.

A short drive later (via an un-related cache) and we had an easy find of the bonus cache in the second of two co-ordinate possibilities we had. We then headed off to pick off a few more caches in the area, before we headed off into more urban areas for some fun urban caching (which we always enjoy in the suburbs of Brum).

First off, were four caches in Kings Norton. The first one was easy enough, but then we came a cropper at the next one as we had just started to look for it when some teenagers came to shelter from the rain under a nearby canal bridge. We had to abandon the search as GZ was in full view of the muggles. Hmmm!

Next was a really interesting spot a bit further down the canal where there was this really unusual guillotine style canal gate. The cache page had lots of interesting information on it that we really appreciated. We love this kind of thing.

The sister cache to the last cache foxed us though. We arrived at GZ on the edge of the canal by the site of an old swing bridge (no longer there). We searched for a while in a place that matched the hint, with co-ords down to 3ft but no cache was to be found. We gave up and have since noted that the cache is actually on the other side of the canal. No wonder we could not find it!

A few more urban caches around the southern suburbs of Brum followed, with nothing particularly special to note. All good fun though!

By this time, we were getting hungry so started to head for home, but not before picking off an inner Ring Road cache we'd had a DNF on last Christmas (it was missing last time we looked for it). We also tried for "one last cache" at a Sidetracked cache near Aston, but the cache seems to be missing as the hide was obvious, the co-ords were bang on, but no cache was there.

A great day out which we thoroughly enjoyed, despite the damp spirits at the start of the day. 31 finds too!

A third visit to Apley Woods and a New Cache Placed by Isaac

2009-06-04T17:22:00.004+01:00

I was wondering when the elusive #3 in the new 8 cache series around Apley Woods near Wellington would come out as all the rest had now been published. Mid-evening yesterday, along came the notification email so I dashed off out to try and get a FTF on it and also find the only other remaining one, #8 (we'd DNF's this yesterday with several other cachers).

I was soon parking up, just up the road from the new Hospice and wandered down the cycle-path and into the woods. GZ seemed to be just to the left of the path as I walked into the woods. I could hear some people in their back garden just the other side of the garden fence from where my GPSr was pointing so I knew I'd have to be stealthy.

A quick creep around the undergrowth there revealed nothing. The cache had no hint so all I knew was I was looking for a small box, probably the same cylindrical shape as the others in the series and almost certainly wrapped in a black plastic bag (like the others were).

I tried the other side of the path but still could not spot it, so I decided to head off to try and find #8 while I searched my mind for inspiration on where the new #3 cache could be.

Luckily #8 was a nice quick find with the new co-ordinates. We'd searched for this one yesterday but could not find it anywhere. It turns out the cache owner had a problem with the co-ordinates under the heavy tree cover and they were just under 200ft off where they should be.

Buoyed with my success, I returned to #3 and started to re-check all the places I'd already looked. No cache. I widened the search up to about 100ft into the woods but still no cache was to be found.

By this time, I was getting a bit frustrated as there were tons of places a small cache could be in such dense woods and I was wondering how good the co-ords on the cache page were (they turned out to be pretty good in the end).

I was literally about to give up when I thought I'd have one final check of a pile of sticks / small logs just by the path as I'd not looked properly there before. Still no cache, so I decided on one final sweep of trees coming back round to the path and low and behold, there the cache was, under leaf litter at the side of a tree I'm sure I'd already checked. I was FTF too. Phew!

I returned home very satisfied with myself as that was *so* nearly a DNF and a 4th trip to these lovely woods to finish off the series.

All in all, I've really enjoyed my 3 trips to the woods for the series. There have been a couple of frustrating moments, but this has been more than made up for with decent sized containers, well stocked caches and a lovely walk in a great place. Well done nozi parkers for placing them!

Meanwhile, Isaac has been wanting to place a new cache near his Grandparents in Blymhill for ages so as I knew he was off there after school yesterday, I sent him with a GPSr, camera and a well stocked ammo can.

As soon as he'd placed it, he phoned me with the co-ords so I could make a start on the cache page, while he was driven back home by his Grandpa. When he got back, we both finished off the cache page, double checked everything and hit the submit button. I wonder who will be FTF? ...

A second visit to Apley Castle Woods

2009-06-02T17:17:00.003+01:00

After the 3 caches from the new Apley Castle series being published last night, another 4 of them came out at lunchtime today. There is still 1 yet to be published so it looks like a third visit to the area is on the books sometime soon!

We were at Halfords in sunny Telford when I spotted the new caches on the iPhone so dashed round to the area and parked up in the same fisherman's lay-by as I did last night. Off Sarah and myself set down the path, making hard work of navigating as we'd been caught short with no proper GPSr with us - just Isaac's very old eTrex Yellow (useless under tree cover) and my iPhone (OK, but the maps look to be from OpenStreetMap, which is worse than useless round this area).

We eventually arrived at the first cache and luckily the clue made the hide very obvious and I found the cache in the first place I looked. A nice FTF too!

Next on the list was not too far away. As we approached, two people were taking pictures of each other by the very ornate gate into the woods. As they turned round we realised it was Paul and Izzy from Izzy and the Lizard King. They had just got FTF on the nearby cache, so I did the biz with the cache while everyone chatted away.

We all set off for the next cache in the woods, which Izzy and Paul (and cannonedwards) had already DNF'd. We searched a very wide area but nothing even coming close to the hint had a cache.

We gave up and moved on to the 4th new cache. This was a nice easy find thankfully and a Joint FTF with Paul and Izzy. We all then returned to the DNF again and had an even more extensive search but the cache is nowhere to be found. We wonder if the cache owner has transposed part of the co-ords or the cache has gone missing before FTF.

We then walked with Izzy and Paul to one of the caches I got a FTF on last night before continuing on to the Jeep and heading back home for some dinner.

2 FTF's, 1 STF and we finally meet Greygeeza

2009-06-02T09:40:00.003+01:00

I was just settling down to watch Corrie last night when quite a few caches came out not too far from home. There was #1, #6 and #7 of a series round Apley Castle near Wellington and a whole trail of caches along the old railway line between Stafford and Newport.

Decisions, decisions....

The Apley Castle ones are decent sized containers but numbers 2-5 are obviously still waiting to be published. The Stafford / Newport ones are virtually all micros (not our favourite cache size at all).

I went for the Apley Castle ones as we know the area from visiting for 4 old caches that are there (3 of these are now sadly archived) and it has a special place in our hearts as one of the first caches we ever found was there.

On the way, I had the WiFi network in the Jeep on and my iPhone constantly checking to see if numbers 2-5 had been published. By the time I arrived they still had not come out so I set off anyway.

After parking up on the A442 in the fisherman's lay-by, I vaulted the wall and waded through chest high nettles, only to find out that there was a gate with a perfectly good path not 20ft from where I'd vaulted the wall - doh!

The first cache was a quick find, after I initially checked the wrong mossy log. A nice FTF too!

I then headed off round the lake to the next cache. This one took me a good while to find as the co-ords were pointing to the edge of the lake but after wading through the nettles and not seeing a cacher's trail that the cache owner must have surely left when they set the cache, I spotted somewhere else on the other side of the path. A quick dive into the bushes there yielded the cache. Another FTF :-).

As I was walking off to the next cache, some muggles were coming towards me and the customary "are you geocaching" was said. It was Greygeeza - great to meet you all at last. We had a nice chat before continuing on our ways. They had got their first FTF on the remaining cache - nice one!

The last of the three caches was a really easy find. I then checked again and the missing 4 caches still had not been published. The cache pages for the ones I had found gave a few clues as to the route to follow to find the missing 4 caches, but there were just too many places to check to have a hope of finding them. If I had more time, I could probably have found one or two, but we'll just wait for them to get published and do them properly I think.

On the way back to the Jeep, I bumped into Greygeeza again so we stopped for a chat. We lost track of the time and it was soon going dark, so we both headed off to our respective homes - they had their first FTF and I had 2 FTF's - a good evening's caching for everyone :-).

A quick trip out to grab some new caches near home

2009-06-01T13:57:00.003+01:00

After I'd finished logging Saturday's caches, it was such a lovely day again, it would have been rude not to go out and try and tick off some of the closest to home not-founds.

We started off with a quick cache in a lovely park near Wellington. We've been past the park loads of times in the past but not realised just how nice it was in the park as you can't quite see in from the road. The cache was a quick find, although I had to send Isaac creeping in for it behind a tree as a muggle fisherman was fishing on the other side of the tree.

Next, we went for a multi-cache around Wellington town center. This was based on plaques that had been put up at various interesting locations around the town. We had a great time wandering round collecting the information needed before going for an easy find on the final cache.

Isaac then directed me over towards Trench for another new cache we had not done. One our Cache Dispenser offspring used to be on the side of the lake here but is now archived. We'd done that one in the dark and not seen the lake at all, so it was great to do this cache properly and see what a lovely hidden spot this is. On the way back to the Jeep, we had to wait for a huge group of ducks to cross the path.

We then headed off down the M54 to Shrewsbury and up the A49 to Clive and the brand new Shropshire Church Gem cache there. These caches are usually pretty quick ones so we did not expect the longer walk we were about to do on this one. Not a problem, but had we known, I'd have taken some water with us as we both got pretty thirsty part way round and would have loved a drink.

The walk started off by a lovely church, which we assumed was the Church Gem we'd been brought to see. By stage 3 of the multi, we were brought to another, much bigger, church on the other side of the hill. This was the Church Gem and very nice it was too! A short walk later and we had the final cache in the bag and were heading off towards home.

snerdbe's new canal / old railway series, Essington Moat series and numerous Walsall caches

2009-06-01T13:27:00.005+01:00

On Saturday we decided to go for snerdbe's new caches along the canal and old railway line to the west of Wolverhampton. We then planned to go onwards to the new Essington Moat series near the M6 and then if we still had time left, head over to the Brownhills area to clear up newer caches in that area.

I'd got everything loaded up by teatime on Friday but then 7 new snerdbe caches were released, neatly completing the circular walk around their caches. I re-loaded everything so we had the new cache details with us for the trip out.

Saturday turned out to be a fabulously hot day so we set off with the bikes in the back of the Jeep as we'd read that the snerdbe caches were perfect for bikes. They were indeed!

We parked up by the old station at Tettenhall and set off on our bikes. On the way out we went down the old railway line and then returned up the nearby canal, picking up caches along the way. None were too taxing apart from one called No Fishing Allowed which was missing.

After we'd finished the series, Isaac directed us over to Essington to start on the 6 new Essington Moat caches there. At the first one we bumped into another cacher - great to meet you Loony Phoenix. The rest were nice and easy with well chosen hides and good views all around. At the last one, we stopped for our sandwiches (no soup today - it's way too hot to be having soup!).

Next, we headed off into Bloxwich for what turned out to be a total disaster caching-wise. Litter, bad hides, thorns, nettles etc etc made for a couple of DNF's on the run. This is not what caching is about, so we gave up looking for any more caches in the area and moved on to a more rural location towards Brownhills (*much* better).

On the way we picked up our first Walsall Church Gem (we did a few more later in the day). We parked up for a nice circular walk over open fields, which turned out to be the perfect tonic for the frustrating last few DNF's.

One of the caches on the walk turned out to be very eventful as Isaac ended up shin deep in a brook and not too happy about it. He could see the funny side of it later and is still telling everyone about it now :-).

The next cache had been found by muggle children, who had signed the log and mentioned they were going to look up geocaching on the internet. Makes a refreshing change from taking the cache home or just trashing it in-situ.

On the way back to the Jeep we had yet another DNF. The hide was clear and we checked with a previous finder, before getting the Jeep alongside the sign the cache should have been hidden in so I could climb up a bit higher and fully check the bars on the back of the sign for the cache. It was not there.

We still had an hour or so spare, so Isaac suggested we head off to the center of Walsall for some fun urban caching now all the shoppers would be going home for their tea and the evenings drinkers would not yet have arrived.

We had great fun (not!) near the town center as Isaac was directing us using Memory Map, which does not show one-way roads. Needless to say the place was full of one-way roads and after going past the same spot 4 times, we gave up and parked in the nearest legal place and set off on foot.

We had a lovely hour or so wandering round the town picking up caches. Lots of them were pretty big containers for a town center hide, which we loved as it shows the cache hider has put a bit of thought into the cache instead of chucking the ubiquitous 35mm container out (yawn!).

By the time we'd done all the town center caches, we were getting hungry and it was heading towards tea time, so we headed for the M6 and the journey home. 35 finds for the day.

A quick caching session on the way home from Stoke

2009-05-29T16:56:00.002+01:00

We had to go to the Jeep dealership in Stoke this afternoon, so decided to pick off a few of the Newcastle-under-Lyme caches on the way home.

The first was one of the caches in a series about famous writers and the Potteries. The co-ords took us to a house on a very ordinary street, where H G Wells had lived for a year. We soon calculated the co-ords for the final cache and a short walk later, the cache was in hand.

Next, it was a quick nano on the back of a road-sign, put here in memory of the cache owner's Dad, who lived on that street.

A short drive later and we were at a super-sneaky hide at a Staffordshire Church Gem. We searched around for ages before giving in and phoning the cache owners, our friends cannonedwards. We were then given a good hint and soon had the cache in hand - a very unusual hide and in a place we'd not even thought to look - doh!

Last one of the trip was in Three Parks in Newcastle and not far from where one of our Cache Dispenser's offspring had been hidden. A nice easy find was had here, despite us hearing that it might be a tricky find. At least that makes up for our efforts at the previous cache ;-).

A new cache found and we finally meet the Shropshire Seekers

2009-05-29T08:56:00.003+01:00

I was just settling down for the evening after work when up popped some new caches in Baschurch. Hmmm - too hard to get to to go and find them now as it's narrow, windy country lanes virtually all the way.

Then two new ones popped up in Stafford. Tempting, but still a bit far so they will wait for another day.

Next, one pops up in the same quarry at Nivek's old cache and the new Telford Bookshelf cache. A nice spot, but not somewhere I really want to be wandering around in the dark.

Finally, a nice easy cache in Shawbirch pops up. That's more like it. I was still not convinced as the sofa was *very* comfy but was chatting to Allun (from the Shropshire Seekers) on Facebook and he said he was going, so I thought it would be a good chance to finally meet him.

Off I set, but suspected Allun had quite a head start over me (especially because I had to almost go past his house on my way!). I was soon parking up opposite the pool and had just got out of the Jeep when Allun pulled up behind me. He'd already got FTF and was on his way home when he spotted me arriving.

I went off to find the cache and made it harder than it needed to be as I wandered off into some brambles (ouch!) before spotting a much easier hide. Afterwards, myself and Allun stood chatting about caching until it was nearly dark and we both headed off home.

YAPITIDNKA - Yet Another Place In Telford I Did Not Know About.

Some caches near Grandpa's

2009-05-26T10:29:00.003+01:00

We were due to drop the children off at their Grandparents near Blymhill for the afternoon, but could not resist taking in the nearby new Wheaton Aston caches while we were there.

We stopped to pick Grandpa up on the way and were soon parking up by the lovely church in Wheaton Aston. The first cache was about 40ft from where we parked and I spotted the hide as I got out of the Jeep. I kept quiet so as the children could spot it themselves (which they soon did!).

Isaac had Memory Map on the PDA so guided us off down a nearby lane, which then turned into the farm track we needed to be on for the next few caches. The first bit was very muddy but just about passable at the sides. The caches were all easy finds, which Freya especially really enjoyed.

As we approached the end of the track, the walk bent to the left and headed towards the Shropshire Union canal for the return leg back to the Jeep. As we approached the canal, there was a puzzle cache that we'd solved during the week nearby, so we stopped to find that one first.

The GPSr's were pointing 400ft away from the canal and into some fields. Hmmm - something is not quite right here as that was not where the cache was on the map when I plotted the correct co-ords for it. Looks like I must have mis-typed a digit when I was putting the correct co-ords into GSAK - doh!

Thankfully the hint was clear and we knew we were looking for an ammo box, so a bit of searching in what I thought was roughly the area for the cache, soon uncovered the box.

The rest of the walk was up the towpath and all nice and easy caching wise. Grandpa was telling us of a swimming race he was in in the mid 1960's, along the stretch of canal here. I don't think I'd fancy having to swim in the murky water much.

We were soon walking down the road back to where we'd parked up, for the short drive back to the in-laws. 8 caches found and a lovely circular walk which we all enjoyed.

A circular walk around the Clent Hills and then a few more caches near Bromsgrove

2009-05-26T09:55:00.004+01:00

On Saturday we decided to have a return trip to the lovely Clent Hills to the South West of Birmingham.

A new series, themed on the old TV show, The Waltons, had come out on nearby Walton Hill (not quite Walton's Mountain, but it's a lovely location nonetheless) and the National Trust has put out a series of 5 caches on the Clent Hills too. It sounded like a lovely circular walk (and it was!).

We parked at the foot of Walton Hill and headed off on foot on what was looking to be a very promising day, weather wise.

The first cache was not too far from the road and a nice easy find. We then carried on down the road to the start of the path up the hill. The next few caches were quick finds and we were soon at the trigpoint at the top of the hill. I'd been here ages ago as the trigpoint is one that counts towards the Ye Olde Survey Monuments cache. That time it was in thick fog and I could hardly see in front of my nose, let alone see for miles like we could today.

The next one appeared to be down the other side of the hill, off the path, so off we set for some off-roading as there was no obvious route to it. We then met us with a path that was following the contours of the hill further down the bank. This lead us to GZ and then onwards to the rest of the caches, all of which were nice easy finds (apart from one, where we had to use a PAF and then kicked ourselves as we'd missed a very obvious hide - doh!).

After we'd finished the Waltons series, we headed round to the start of the climb up the Clent Hills and onwards to the new National Trust caches. On the way we bagged a couple of other caches, one of which was aptly named OUCH! as it was in the middle of a gorse bush!

The National Trust caches were all really big tupperware containers with tons of interesting things in them like cards helping you identify birds that you might see and cards showing you the different kinds of clouds and how to recognise each type. We spent quite a while enjoying the tasks that were in the caches before moving on.

The only problem we did have with the National Trust caches was on #2 which we could not find. All of the caches did not have any hints, although is not usually a big problem as there are usually only so many places you can hide a big box. Number 2 might be missing and without a hint it's really hard to know if you missed something obvious.

We also bumped into The Twilleys 2 at one of the caches. Great to meet you both.

After we'd completed our circular walk and arrived back at the Jeep, we set off to try the new Bromsgrove Feeder series. These are all situated around the main road between Kidderminster and Bromsgrove and while not exactly scenic, had fun challenges of their own - namely, how the heck to get to most of them without going on the main road (it's a dual carriageway with nowhere to stop).

At the second of the caches, we spotted some suspicious figures as we approached that just had to be cachers. They turned out to be monkeyhanger. We had a nice chat while we all searched for the cache.

We found all but about 3 of the series as those were on the west-bound carriageway and we did not want to double back on ourselves. The last one we did was at a lovely location by the side a sand quarry, with great views over the quarry itself. It was also an ammo box, so a very nice cache to finish the series on :-).

Next, we decided to head over to a cluster of un-founds on the far side of Bromsgrove and picked up a couple of drive-by's on the way.

As we approached one cache, we spotted some familiar faces but could not place them. It was Ailec Nor, who we'd last bumped into at the M1 J30 cache when we were on our way to the Mega Event in Harrogate last summer. Great to meet you both again.

The rest of the caches were uneventful apart from bumping into yet another cacher: acring.

Isaac was then soon guiding us to the nearest junction of the M5 (but not before we grabbed a final cache on the way) and the journey northwards to home.

36 finds for the day, 4 different caching teams met and wall to wall sunshine all day. A great day out!

A trip around the Wirral

2009-05-18T18:22:00.002+01:00

This weekend, we could not decide where to go caching. I was toying with the idea of a return visit to Poynton and then on to the new caches in Hazel Grove and Gatley but was not convinced as they were virtually all micros (not our favourite size cache).

Myself and Isaac were looking at un-founds on Memory Map on Thursday evening and he said "What about the Wirral?". I didn't think there were enough caches still to do there to make a day out worthwhile, but a quick count and there were about 50 odd ones we could try for. Also, there were two good looking circular walks - the Ben Ten series and some caches around Bidston Hill, near Birkenhead. Perfect!

With the decision made, I set about solving as many of the puzzle caches we had left to do in the area and by the middle of Friday had a good plan of where we would be hitting.

After an easy drive to the Wirral we were parking up for the first of the Ben Ten series. The series is triangular in shape, with caches along two sides of the triangle and the third side strangely devoid of caches. The parking place was familiar as we'd parked there ages ago to go and find the final stage of the now archived Wirral Challenge puzzle cache.

The series was nice and easy with pretty much all the caches being containers of similar size to the preform caches you see a lot of just south of Derby. Along the way we picked up a stand-alone cache and were soon at the end of the trail and making our way back to the Jeep.

We calculated the co-ords of the bonus cache and set off to drive to a nearby industrial estate, where there was quicker access to the bonus cache and also one other cache on the way.

Next, we headed off to park at Tam O'Shanter's Urban Farm for the walk around the Bidston Hill caches. On the way, we picked up another cache at this very old park that you could easily miss if you did not know it was there.

After our soup and sandwiches at a picnic table near the car park, we set off on foot. The first cache was a Christmas present related cache and a nice BIG ammo box. Just the size we like :-).

We then had a lovely walk around all the interesting spots on the hill, picking up the caches as we went. Most of the caches were short offset multi's as the cache owner wanted to take you to specific points of interest but there were not always good cache hiding places at these places. We visited the Windmill, Observatory, Viewpoint, Lighthouse and an ancient carving of a Sun Goddess in the rocks on the way. Great stuff!

Our luck then ran out and we had 3 DNF's on the trot. The first turns out to be still there but was hidden under a lot of leaf litter so we missed it. The second was missing and the third is apparently still there, although we checked the exact hiding place and did not see it (can't see how we missed it though).

Isaac was working Memory Map and doing the directions for the day, so he suggested we head over to the beach at Hoylake and two un-founds there. A short drive later and we had an easy (if not a bit nettly - is that a word?) find of the first one. The second was at an old Victorian drinking fountain right by the beach, with fab views over the sand. We spent a while admiring some people with one of those skateboards with a sail on (not sure what they are called) zooming back and forward along the beach. Looks like great fun.

Next, we re-located to a tricky little cache by a Mariner's column near West Kirkby. We'd done one of these hides in Derby a few weeks ago so had an instant find. It took a heck of a lot longer (and one paperclip) to get to the logbook though. All good fun :-).

Time was getting on by now, so just time for a quick puzzle cache (I won't say any more as I don't want to spoil the surprise) and a Traditional, before heading over to the cache in Hazels' front garden to pick up a TB that we needed for something else I cannot mention here ;-).

By this time, we really should have been heading home but there were 3 caches in Eastham Country Park around the corner and we could not resist. The first was by the side of the Mersey and we were treated to a boat going right past where we were stood.

Next, it was on to a Multi at the location of the original crossing point of the Mersey and then a fun Puzzle cache, which I cannot really say any more about as we don't want to spoil it for others.

A great day out in an area we always enjoy caching in and a great opportunity to clear up a few of the more tricky puzzle caches. 33 finds for the day too!

Burscough to Parbold Canal Trail and Wandering around Wigan

2009-05-11T16:35:00.002+01:00

This weekend, a caching visit to the North West was long overdue. We've been caching in other areas, so the NW caches build up again and there was now quite a few new ones to find.

We planned the day in two halves: the morning would be spent along the Leeds and Liverpool canal to the west of the M6 and then in the afternoon, we'd move over to Shevington and make a start on the Wandering around Wigan series.

We parked up not far from the canal in Parbold and got the bikes out of the Jeep for the stretch of canal to the east of Parbold as it's a long linear walk otherwise.

We could not find the first cache quickly so decided to leave it until later when we'd got a feel for the cache setters hides (we've not found any of their caches before). The second one in the series was an easy find, once we'd ignored the GPSr's as they were sending us to the wrong side of the bridge.

The third cache was an even easy find as we could see a group of cachers at GZ as we rode up. It was grufftymilo, bettyboo and the linedancers. Great to meet you all again. We were handed the cache for the 'Isaac with the cache' photo to be done.

The rest of the caches along this stretch were easy enough, with a nice variety of hides and containers. On the way back up the canal, we bumped into the funkey monkeys, so stopped for a nice chat as we'd not met them before.

Once we got back to the Jeep, we headed off for the western end of the series and started to work back along the canal from there to Parbold. Of note on this section were:

Two of the caches seemed to be missing so we logged DNF's.
We bumped into grufftymilo, bettyboo and the linedancers again.
We also bumped into Channelhopper and SammySandpiper at another cache.

With the canal series finished, we drove over to Shevington and picked the first two caches in the series off (they were not on an obvious circular walk) before moving the Jeep round to a more central location for the main walks. We stopped for some well needed soup and sandwiches before setting off.

We'd not been to this part of Wigan before and really enjoyed it as it's full of history from the old mines that used to be here, with lots to see on the walk, including tons of wildlife in the lovely wooded areas.

None of the caches were any problem apart from Bridge Over Copper Stream which we knew was a big box under the obvious bridge, but was nowhere to be seen. We PAF'd to the cache owner who confirmed we'd not missed anything obvious and that the cache must be missing :-(.

We set off over the main road for the 6 caches that side. The rain had been threatening all day but had not started until now. It came with a vengeance and had we not had our waterproofs on, we'd have got a right soaking! Ten minutes later and the rain had passed and the sun was back out :-).

After we'd finished this set of caches, we arrived back near the Jeep and relocated to near the Heinz factory by the M6 for the last circular walk of the day, taking in another 6 caches. Little did we know but this would be the most scenic walk of the whole day with great views over towards Winter Hill, a lovely dingle, tons of wild garlic and bluebells and even a nice stream thrown in for good measure! We did not see any factory or motorway the whole way round.

I was telling Isaac earlier in the day about a new Puzzle cache with dummy co-ords in the centre of Wigan, but where you have to go up a long(ish) stretch of road on the way to Standish, looking for an old fashioned and very ornate sign. It sounded like a lot of fun so we headed off to do this on the (scenic) way to the M6 and onwards to home.

On the way, Isaac announced that he knew exactly where the cache would be. I was wondering how he had worked this out without going there first until I saw him looking at something on the OS Maps on Memory Map. He turned out to be spot on too!

35 finds for the day and lots of new and really nice areas explored. Great to meet lots of cachers along the way too :-).

Atcham and Harmer Hill - Two FTF's

2009-05-07T11:14:00.003+01:00

I was just about to settle into work this morning when I spotted two caches published, both 16.8 miles from home and in great locations. The sun was shining and it would not take *that* long to go and find them...

I went for the one in Atcham first. This is a replacement of a now archived Shropshire Church Gem cache and is in a fabulous location, by the historic church on the banks of the River Severn.

I parked by the nearby pub and had a short walk into the churchyard and a quick find. A great cache container too - I now know why the cache is called what it is (Grabbed By The Ghoullies)!

Next, I drove round Shrewsbury and up the Ellesmere road to Harmer Hill. We'd done a cache at the north end of these woods ages ago but had not been to the part of the woods this cache was in.

I parked to the south and walked up a permissive footpath to the woods and then scrambled up the side of the hill to the top, taking a direct route as I could not see where the path going to the top was. Once at the top, I walked over to GZ for an easy find with spot on co-ords.

Absolutely loved this location as the views all round and great and the woods are very well kept with lots of paths to explore. I had quite a wander round exploring the woods before heading back to the Jeep and homewards to get some work done.

Two New Caches Set

2009-05-06T10:33:00.002+01:00

Our Jeep Challenge was unfortunately muggled a while ago so we were keen to put out a replacement.

We'd been in contact with some cachers in that area who work the land there and despite them asking around, no-one was admitting to taking the cache. They have their suspicions though!

Anyway, between us we developed an idea for a replacement cache in a place that should hopefully never get muggled, yet not too far from where the old cache was. Some special equipment needed to be made as this was part of the fun of getting the cache.

All was ready at the end of the weekend so I popped over with a replacement cache and set it all up, giving the special equipment a final run-through to make sure all was spot on. It was!

While I was in the area, I went off to explore another place just down the road called Hundred Steps. A great location for a cache too - after going down the ancient steps, there is a lovely bridge over the River Roden with lots of wild garlic and a small waterfall. I had a cache with me so hid the ammo box nearby.

When I got home later, I made the final adjustments to the Jeep Challenge 2 - The Rescue cache page (which I'd already set up over the last few days) and set up a cache page for the other new cache.

Both caches were submitted and Deceangi was on good form as they were both published within something like 10 minutes of being submitted.

Now to wait to see who will be FTF...

Bank Holiday: The Green Man Festival in Clun

2009-05-05T10:24:00.002+01:00

We fancied a day out on Bank Holiday Monday and whilst looking for things to do in South Shropshire, we spotted that the Green Man Festival was on in Clun all weekend. Clun is right in deepest South West Shropshire and not the easiest place to get to, but the countryside is absolutely beautiful in that area.

We drove down, thoroughly enjoying the drive and had a great time at the festival. Lots to see and do and the whole town had really made an effort to welcome all the visitors.

On the way home, we thought we'd take an even more scenic route home via the Stiperstones - and a couple of caches of course!

The first was on a hill just to the north of Clun. Try as I might I could not find it. There was a very obvious place it must have been but I just could not see it. I doubt it's been muggled as it's a remote spot but you never know.

Next on the list was two of thefortytwa's more remote caches, to the west of Bishops Castle. The lanes round here are really narrow and some are almost like farm tracks. Great fun in the Jeep though!

Both were easy finds with some stunning views as they were both on the top of hills overlooking the whole area. The first one was on Offa's Dyke - we never realised this extended into England but it does!

After stopping at the old Snailbeach Lead Mines near the Stiperstones so Freya could look for quartz crystals amongst the old mine debris, we did a quick nano on the way into Minsterley.

From there it was a quick trip to home along main roads.

Some Caches On A Trip To Saughall, Near Chester

2009-05-04T10:08:00.003+01:00

On Sunday afternoon, I was due to go over and meet my business partner who lives in Florida, but was on a flying visit to the UK, staying at his parents house in Saughall.

I set off a bit early to try and bag a few caches on the way as it's ages since we've cached in the Chester area and quite a few new caches have come out since.

My main aim was the Insy Winsy cache just south of Ellesmere Port as it's been recommended to us by several friends.

As I approached Chester on the A41, I was very close to Shroppie - Christleton, so I stopped for a nice quick find. I then carried on up the A41 round the side of Chester and stopped for another quick find at Backford Dipper on a towpath by a nice canal.

Next, was a quick micro down a disused road and then on to Insy Winsy. I knew it was a sneaky one where you had to do *something* to get the cache out but had no idea what to look for. I was thinking the cache would be high for some reason and whilst checking this theory out, I literally came face to face with the cache, much lower than I thought!

The log came out all too easily, but then the fun started as it was not the log at all - just a note telling you there was more work to do. I won't say what I did to get the cache itself as it would spoil the fun for others, but rest assured, if you have not already done this cache, it's great fun and something a little bit different.

Just time for two quick other caches before my meeting so a nice cache and dash by a pub near Cheshire Oaks, followed by a dive into some lovely woods for another cache were in order.

After my meeting, I set off to bag the two new caches in Saughall. I could not find the first one and spotted some DNF's on it. A PAF confirmed what I was looking for and where it should be. It was nowhere to be seen to I marked it as a DNF and set off for the next one.

I then had a lovely walk through some gorgeous bluebell filled woods to a cache called (appropriately enough) Bluebell Woods. I spotted Pieman had found this two days ago so wondered if he had managed to find the last one that I could not find. After eventually getting a data singal, I looked it up on my iPhone to see the cache was indeed missing but had been replaced yesterday.

A quick walk back over the field and I found the cache, thus saving me having to log a DNF.

I could not resist one final cache on the way home so returned to Stanney Woods for another cache by the people that had set Insy Winsy. This one has multiple cache containers hidden in the same area and your job is to find the one with the logbook in. A bit like our What The Heck ??? !!! cache but different. I actually found the correct one first time round but did not spot the logbook so carried on searching. After finding two more, I looked at the first one again and spotted the logbook - doh! I won't spoil it for others but will add that there is a fun surprise when doing this cache - you'll have to go and do the cache to find out what though ;-).

I was getting hungry by now so headed off home with a very respectable 9 finds for my trip out.

South of Derby: Etwall series and others...

2009-05-03T09:47:00.002+01:00

On Saturday we planned a return visit to the area just to the south of Derby.

This time we would be just a bit further north than we were last week, concentrating on the EBE series near the lovely village of Etwall. If we have time, we'll move onto the SS series on the outskirts of Derby itself and then maybe some of JustAlan's letter series if time permits.

First stop was the centre of Etwall to get the details from the cemetery that we needed to start the EBE series off. There was another cache nearby at the Leisure Centre so it would have been rude not to grab that one first.

Details all noted from the cemetery, we headed off in the Jeep to the first cache on the EBE series. This was a nice easy drive-by. We then headed down to the end of the lane to park up and head off on foot for the rest of the circular walk.

The first part of the walk took us along the back of the HUGE Toyota factory - it really is a lot more scenic than it sounds though as they have done a great job with landscaping. No hard finds and the co-ords were good at all of the caches.

Along the way we found what has to be the weirdest cache container yet - a shop dummy painted in camo colours and with a cache stuffed down it's neck. It goes to show, you can get *anything* used as a cache container in these parts, which all adds to the fun :-).

The rest of the walk was lovely, with some great views over the area from the higher points, lots of quick finds and one or two extra caches that were not in the series along the way. All too soon we were back at the Jeep and heading off for the next set of caches.

We re-positioned to just north of Etwall and headed off along a National Cycleway on our bikes for some more caches. The cycleway followed the route of an old railway line and made for some very easy cycling.

We started with a puzzle cache, then two Traditional's followed by The Web Rat's 4 new TRR sneaky hide series. This series has no cache size stated, no clues, no other details, nothing. It's all about very sneaky hides and testing your cacher's instinct. Just the kind of caching we really enjoy!

We found 3 out of the 4 and despite a look on the way out and the way back to the Jeep, we could not spot the fourth one. No problems as I bet the series will be extended so it's no hassle to come back for another look when we do the other new caches.

We then headed off to try the SS series which are around a park on the southern suburbs of Derby. The area for the first two was almost head high in nettles which did not look promising. We arrived at GZ for the first one to see it was a micro in ivy and there was loads of ivy. We hate these kind of un-inventive hides as they are no fun so gave it a miss and moved on to the next one. This was deep in nettles and really hard to get to. We gave it up without trying further as bush-wacking nettles for a cache that could be anywhere is no fun.

We did not want to risk spending any more time getting disappointed on the series (I'm sure it's a lot better than we thought - there are just too many nettles for these kind of hides this time of year) so made an executive decision between us to move to a totally different area and try some caches there. JustAlan had finished off his alphabet puzzle series (we'd done A-N on a previous trip) and they were in lovely countryside, so off we set.

We then spent a lovely couple of hours zooming round beautiful country lanes going from cache to cache. All were quick finds in nice locations and no nettles anywhere near them. We bagged a couple of other caches on the way round and ended up not far from the A50 and a handy route back home.

37 finds for the day and some great fun containers to boot. We managed the whole day in t-shirts for the first time this year as the sun was out all day - perfect!

A missed FTF opportunity

2009-04-29T12:46:00.003+01:00

A new cache came out close to home last night but Mrs Bolas Heathens was out for the evening so there was no chance of me dashing out for a FTF as I was looking after the children and they had just gone to bed.

I resigned myself to going to find it in the morning and was settling down for the evening when up popped a friend of ours on Facebook Chat. They live in the nearby village and had also seen the cache come out and dashed out to try and get FTF, which they did. Well done Shropshire Seekers on your first FTF :-).

This morning, I popped out to get the cache. The cache page mentions how quiet the country lane is that the cache is on. I'd had a quick look for the cache, when a Manitou (sort of like a tractor, but not quite) came down from the direction of the farm and stopped on the lane 200ft or so from GZ. No chance of searching now as I would be in direct view of them.

Then, a herd of cows appeared on the lane, coming from the direction of the farm. The farming muggle in the Manitou herded them into the field by where he was parked, before standing around (for what seemed like ages, but probably wasn't more than a couple of minutes) to chat to his colleagues.

Eventually they all went on their ways and I was free to search for the cache again. It still took a few moments to spot though as it's hidden at the base of quite a dense hawthorn hedge which is prickly and there are nettles starting to grow under it. I've emailed the cache hider to suggest they might move the cache a little as there are also two birds nests in the hedge not far from the cache.

A fun little trip out and a nice spot for a cache.

A quick cache near the Wrekin

2009-04-27T13:12:00.003+01:00

We had to drop the children off at Wrekin College in Wellington so Mrs Bolas Heathens and myself took the chance to carry on and go and do the new Telford Bookshelf cache near the Wrekin.

The cache is situated in an old quarry that we've been to before to find nivekpenrith's now archived Huntingdon, But Not In Cambridgeshire cache. This time we came from the opposite direction and parked at the bottom of the old quarry road to the north of GZ.

We enjoyed the walk up the track, through bluebell filled woods and then onwards along the floor of the old quarry to GZ. The cache must be very close to where the now archived cache was hidden as the whole area round GZ looked *very* familiar.

The cache was hidden under big boulders at the foot of the quarry wall and took a short while to find as there were quite a few places it could have been hidden.

A nice big ammo box in a great location with tons of interesting history.

Swadlincote and Burton On Trent

2009-04-26T12:49:00.002+01:00

On Saturday we decided to return to the Burton area and pick up the new caches that have come out in the area since our last visit.

It's a bit of an odd area from our experience as caches seem to get published and then get archived en-masse and you are never quite sure which caches are still there and which ones are not. Thankfully, we only fell foul of this on two caches during the day, but more on that later.

On the plus side, those caches that are there are usually great fun and you find all manner of things used for cache containers - not many lock and lock containers round here. There is even a full-sized dummy from a clothes shop used for a cache container somewhere in the area!

We'd seen on Facebook that delta68 had also planned to do the Waterside Wander series just south of Swadlincote and sure enough, as we pulled into the car park, we spotted their car. At the first find, they had thought to put the time they found it on their log - we were only 10 minutes behind them!

We dashed off to try and catch them up, having a quick find at cache number 2, before catching them all up at cache number 3. Great to meet you all again - we set off to do the rest of the series together. The rest of the series was nice and easy with the only real problems at the last cache (#14) where we had to search a few minutes before spotting the hide. Delta68 headed off to do other caches and we said our farewell's.

The weather was still not great with light rain but the forecast said this would pass and things would clear up in the afternoon (it did!), so off we set to grab a few other local caches.

The next one was by a Church and we could not find it. I checked the live GC.com site using my iPhone and the cache had been archived. Hmmmm. The next cache was the same. We were a bit frustrated with this and decided to choose caches wisely for the rest of the day and only pick ones we knew had definitely had recent logs. This worked a treat and all other caches for the day were there and found.

Next stop was the Clueless Cache series, which is a set of 6 caches on a circular walk around a lovely lake on great paths. We really enjoyed these ones as we love the challenge of this kind of caching and the location was just fabulous. The only problem was with #6 and a quick PAF soon put us on the right track.

We then headed off to the Washlands, which is a big parkland area along the banks of the River Trent, right in the middle of Burton On Trent. We knew where to park as we'd been for two previous caches in the same area. After parking up, we set off for a long circular walk around all the new caches, going down one side of the Trent on the way out and coming back the other side of the Trent.

Some fun hides and great cache containers on this section of the walk. We loved Burton Bridge with it's very impressive row of sandstone arches underneath. Near the end of the walk, we spotted an ice-cream shop so stopped for some very welcome refreshments.

Just time for a few more caches, so we set off towards the A38 and home, but instead of going onto the A38, we diverted to the Dunstall Circular series, just the other side of the main road.

This was another really nice walk around part of a very well kept estate. The last cache in particular was lovely with carpets of bluebells in the woods near the cache.

We were getting hungry by now so headed off down the A38 to the M6 Toll and northwards to home.

36 finds for the day.

2 FTF's today - one Earthcache and one Multi-Cache

2009-04-24T12:34:00.003+01:00

I saw an Earthcache come out last night at Colemere, near Ellesmere up in Shropshire's lake country. Mrs Bolas Heathens was out so I could not dash out to find it there and then as I was looking after the children and it was getting late.

This morning, it was still unfound so off I set. It's always a really tricky area to get to as it's in the middle of nowhere and most roads from home that way are single track lanes. TomTom took me on an 'interesting' route via Whitchurch (I was expecting it to take me via Wem) but I got there eventually.

A nice walk down a deserted towpath and I was at GZ. The noticeboard was soon spotted and I took the necessary photo and gathered the details I needed to log the cache. I then took a few minutes to admire the great views over the mere, with nothing apart from birdsong for company. Fabulous!

Next, I'd seen a new cache at Trench Lock in Telford come out this morning and was not confident on a FTF as surely a local would have been by now. Not only that, it was right the other side of the country from where I was now. Nothing ventured, nothing gained though, so off I set.

Some time later I was parking up by the Blue Pig pub. A short walk down an old lane and I had a quick find of the first stage. I noted the details and put them into my GPSr. It showed about 0.2 miles away and in an area I was not sure how to get to.

I think I made it hard work to get to as I had to inch up the ledge round a high culvert before carrying on down some quite overgrown woodland tracks to GZ. The cache was a quick find and I was delighted to see a clean logbook :-).

On the way back I realised the culvert was not very deep so waded over in my waterproof walking boots. Much easier! As I was driving off, I spotted a really easy way over some fields to the final cache. If only I'd spotted that earlier, but then again, I would not have had as much fun getting there!

Now back home to get some work done!

A FTF, but not before I had to do quite a bit of searching...

2009-04-20T15:03:00.003+01:00

This morning, I was in the office catching up with things from the weekend, when a new cache notification came up not too far from home. The sun is out and a FTF opportunity presents itself - hmmm, do I go out and find it or not? Tricky one - NOT!

I was soon at stage 1 and dismayed to see lots of trees that match the hint. The hint also implied the cache could be one of two possible sneaky hides. I think I'm going to have my work cut out for me here as I've no idea if this cache setters co-ords are generally good as this is their first hide.

I spent quite a while staring into and up the trees but could not spot it. Then a muggle with a dog came and sat on a bench overlooking GZ. No chance of further searching as he was watching me (and probably wondering what the heck I was up to by the trees) so I went off to scout the park for items matching the final cache hint. There was only one area but I could not find the cache there.

I then spotted the muggle had moved on so thought I'd go and expand my search for stage 1. I then found it after a further (quite long) search - it was 40ft off the stated co-ords. Once I'd got the very small piece of paper out of it, I saw the final co-ords were in a different GPS co-ord format than most caches so changed my GPSr settings so I could use them.

Off I went to the final cache, but the GPSr zero'd out 55ft from the nearest hint item (in an area I'd already searched earlier). Looks like the brute force approach of re-checking everywhere and trying to think of places I'd not looked is in order.

After quite a few scratches from hidden hawthorn I finally managed to spot the final cache and was pleased to say I was FTF. A really nice area for a cache and good fun to find, despite how it sounds above.

I've emailed the cache owner with my readings at both stages so they can hopefully update things and make it a bit clearer for future finders.

Whitchurch Whereigo - has it gone again?

2009-04-20T14:57:00.002+01:00

We'd had a DNF on our Whitchurch Whereigo on Friday. I only replaced the cache last week (or was it the week before?) and it's new hidey-hole is not the sort of place muggles would look. Or is it?

On Sunday morning, we had an hour or so spare so headed off to Whitchurch to check it out. We took a replacement cache just in case - Isaac had done a great job on the camo too :-).

We took the Oregon and Colorado, both loaded up with the Whereigo cartridge and so Isaac had one and Freya the other, and we set off to do the cache as if it was not ours. We all had great fun wandering around the town from stage to stage and were soon at the final cache.

I checked where the cache should be and sure enough, it was not there. I thought I'd check below, just in case it had fallen out of it's hole and there it was - phew! We put the cache back where it should be and have hopefully wedged it in better.

Now to head back home and get yesterday's finds logged.

Big Kids Challenge and March Mayhem series

2009-04-19T14:39:00.002+01:00

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 :-).

A FTF that was 0.19 miles off the stated co-ords

2009-04-17T10:49:00.004+01:00

We'd just had tea and I was checking emails again, when I spotted a new cache not too far from home.

I've had problems with bad co-ords on this cache hiders caches in the past (including two that were quickly archived by the Reviewer, but not before I wasted a whole morning trying to find one of them!) and so checked where the cache was on Google Maps. It showed the cache to be in the middle of a ploughed field and nowhere near a tree (the hint said base of tree). Hmmm....

Luckily the cache description had a few road names and said the cache was on one of them. A quick look at Streetmap gave me a short(ish) stretch of lane that the cache might be on and a double check on Google Maps showed 4 trees on that stretch of lane that might be hiding the cache.

Looks like it might be possible to find the cache after all so off I set before it started to get too dark. I was soon at what I thought would be GZ and my initial scan of the 4 trees came up with nothing. The cache hider usually hides well constructed, natural looking hides so I checked all hint items again and sure enough, soon had the nicely made cache in hand.

The co-ords were 0.19 miles off the stated one, so I've posted my reading at GZ on my log and emailed the cache owner to let them know they need to contact the Reviewer to ask for the cache co-ords to be changed (as they are more than 528ft from the original ones).

A clear-out of Mid Cheshire

2009-04-17T10:35:00.002+01:00

The new caches in South and Mid Cheshire have been sat right at the top of our closest to home not found page for way too long now, so we decided today was the day to sort that out.

First off, we started with our caching friends, cannonedwards' new caches just to the west of Newcastle under Lyme. The first one was in some woods we've been to before for a now archived cache. A nice quick find.

Then it was a short drive to their other two new caches, which were in some woods we'd not been to, not far from the M6. The woods were alive with snowdrops, bluebells and wild garlic and looked stunning. I picked some wild garlic to use in cooking later in the day - can't wait!

The next cache was very eventful but for all the wrong reasons. It was called Soggy Bottom UK and that's exactly what I got - a soggy bottom, as I slipped when crossing a brook and ended up in the brook up to my waist. I had to do the rest of the caches stinking and damp. It was a nice cache, made all the more 'fun' by my own stupidity.

A short drive around Nantwich (followed by Cheshire's Finest for a short way - thank goodness for cruise control so I did not get stopped for going too fast!) brought me to the Shropshire Union Canal ('Shroppie') and the majority of the other caches for the day. These were all set by the narrowboaters.

Not a lot to say about them apart from some nice locations and great views, especially the ones in the Beeston Castle area. I did the first two by foot, but then got my bike out for the 4 caches near Beeston. The last one was especially nice as there was an unexpected waterfall right by GZ!

Just time for one more quick cache in Tarporley before heading home and getting on with the work I'm supposed to be doing today. A short walk up a lovely green lane and a really fun cache that has a little extra twist when you open it :-).

12 finds for the short trip out.

An Impromptu Afternoon's Caching

2009-04-14T12:17:00.003+01:00

Yesterday, the family planned to go to the Transport Show at Weston Park with the children's Grandparents (who live close to it). It sounds a bit dull, but usually has loads of vintage cars on show and some very enthusiastic owners who will tell you all about them!

The number of exhibits was not great today - I suspect most would have been there over the weekend as the show runs for a few days over the Easter weekend. After a quick look round, I was given a pass to slope off and go to find some nearby caches.

I set off for The Washers new caches along the Shroppie by the M54 - a location we know well as we've been on at least two other caching sessions in the same area in the past.

As I got out of the Jeep, two people got out of the car in front of me - it was [monki] and his Mum, Wend. Great to meet you again - we had a nice chat about caching before they mentioned that our caching friends, cannonedwards from Newcastle under Lyme, had just set off on the same walk. I texted Mark and Annie to tell them I'd catch them up.

Off I dashed and soon found them near the first cache in the series. We had a great walk around the caches, chatting and laughing all the way. On the way round, they also found two other caches that we'd already found.

I checked back in with Mrs Bolas Heathens, who said they had gone back to the Grandparents and were starting on some dinner and not to worry about being back to give them a lift home later. Fab - that means I can go on to find a few more caches as the sun is blazing in the sky and I'm thoroughly enjoying myself so far :-).

Next stop was the 4 new Washers caches in the woods at Rindleford, just outside Bridgnorth. We'd been here before to do a cache that is now archived and loved the location as it's Shropshire at it's best - a bit of terrain, a lovely flowing river and totally unspoilt countryside.

I set off on foot and soon found all 4 caches - the last was the trickiest as it was hidden behind a rock. I spotted the right rock almost immediately but ruled it out as it did not look like it moved. I eventually came back to it, pulled a little harder and there the cache was!

I was still good for time, so set off for the last 2 new Washers caches - Ridgeway Walk and it's bonus cache. Another area we have been to before and some fab views from the top of the ridge. I thoroughly enjoyed both of these caches and bagged a Multi while I was there as it was hidden half way between the two Washers caches.

Still a bit of time left, so I headed over to Acton Burnell and Condover, south of Shrewsbury to do the new caches there. Not much to report here apart from they were all nice easy finds, although a very odd hiding style: they were all big boxes hidden inside random parts of hedgerow. Still, they all earn a smiley each so no problems there :-).

20 finds for the afternoon and a thoroughly enjoyable time in beautiful weather.

Two new (quite) local caches

2009-04-13T12:05:00.002+01:00

After we got back from our day out caching on Saturday, we'd spotted a new cache not for from home but had missed FTF as a cacher who was on his canal boat 0.5 miles from GZ got there first.

Overnight, another new cache had also been published near Woodseaves so I set off to find both this and the one that was published last night. The (mildly) annoying thing was we had been *really* close to both caches on our way home last night, but obviously not realised they were there.

Woodseaves was the first target and after parking up in the village, I headed off on foot down the PF, over a field and down to a bridge by the cache. The cache was a quick find as when there is a bridge is involved at GZ, the cache is inevitably hidden under it. The only tricky bit is working out which end of the bridge to look first (guess who always gets this wrong first time!).

Next, it was a cross-country route along some very narrow lanes to Goldstone and the second cache. I parked up by a bridge over the Shroppie and walked along the towpath past some fishing muggles to GZ.

The cache was very well hidden and I did not understand the hint, so it took me a few moments to spot it. My walking pole strikes again though as it's great at finding caches like this, without you having to root around by hand.

This was the first hide by a new local cacher and a really nice one too. As a child, we had many a happy holiday at the caravan site behind the Wharf Tavern, just to the north of the cache. It was our favourite place to go for a few days away and always a pleasure to come back to even now :-).

Linear and Circular Caching: Cannock, Stone and Swynnerton

2009-04-12T11:45:00.002+01:00

On Saturday, we decided to try and clear up newer caches in Staffordshire.

Isaac had been on a sleep-over at his Grandparents in Blymhill so it made sense to pick him up there and then start the day's caching on the 6 caches that make up the Hatherton Canal series, near J12 of the M6.

We parked up by the bridge near #1 and set off on our bikes. There were two very dodgy looking guys in combats nearby who were telling us about a sighting of a deer in the nearby field. They looked like they were out hunting rather than admiring the deer so we do hope the deer are still around to tell the tale.

The canal series was nice and straightforward with some fun hides and nice scenery. The canal is disused and has been kept in a great condition, meaning there is tons of wildlife making it their home now. We did manage to pick up two punctures on the way back to the Jeep though. What is it with canals and newly cut hawthorn hedges :-(.

Next, it was onto the M6 for the journey northwards just past Stafford and then cross-country to the Sandon Saunter series. This is a circular walk of 9 caches around the area at the back of the lovely Sandon Estate (home of two caches we adopted off MarcB - 'The Urn' and 'Revelations').

As we set off, a farmer with a flock of sheep and newly born lambs was coming up the lane. We stopped for a chat and when he realised we were going where he wanted the sheep to go, he asked if we could herd them up into the field. The gate was shut behind us so the sheep could only go up the green lane and into the field. Isaac really loved this and took great pride in his herding :-).

The series was nice and easy with quite a bit of terrain, which made for some excellent views over the area. On the way round we bumped into the Hide and Streets, some cachers from the Fenton area of Stoke-on-Trent. We stopped for a nice chat before going on our way as they were doing the series in the opposite direction to us. We bumped into them again later on in the walk and were able to help them with a cache they could not find, further round the loop.

Next, it was a short drive up to Swynnerton, not far from J15 M6 and the ring of 12 caches there. We parked up to the south and set off to do them clockwise. The sun was shining and it was an absolute pleasure to be out walking in such lovely countryside. The series was soon completed with plenty of straightforward hides and one stinker of a hide with co-ords that were slightly off.

Our only small grumble of the series is there were way too many micros in locations that could easily support *much* larger caches and there were some huge gaps between caches (half a mile on quite a few of them). Still, it's a lovely walk and we didn't mind too much.

After that, we were getting hungry so headed off home, via the Co-Op in Eccleshall for a top up on drinks as we were looking forward to something ice-cold.

A nice day out with lots of lovely walking and 30 finds in total.

Whitchurch Cache Maintenance: Whereigo and Behind Enemy Lines - Tilstock

2009-04-09T18:25:00.005+01:00

We've been meaning to get over to Whitchurch for a few weeks now so we can check on our two caches there. Today I had a free hour or two so off I set.

First on the list was our Behind Enemy Lines - Tilstock cache. The last finder had reported that the cache was ok but there were 3 muggle logs in since the last finder. Sure enough, I found various muggle logs, including a really racist joke :-(.

I removed the offending pages from the logbook and as the hide had been compromised, moved the cache to a new hiding place that teenage muggles will hopefully not spot. The hint on the cache page has been altered and all is good to go.

The only downside was that the muggles seem to have made off with the lovely geocoin which was in the cache. It's always a shame when this happens - we've emailed the coin owner to let them know :-(.

Next on the list was our Whitchurch Whereigo cache. I strongly suspect the cache is being cleared up with leaf litter by council workers so have changed the hide slightly so it won't happen again.

It's now a new preform cache (so we could get away with not having to hide a micro) and hidden in a slightly different place. I had to re-learn the Whereigo Cartridge authoring system so I could update the hint and upload a new version of the Cartridge to the Whereigo site.

Two caches, all sat ready and waiting for their next finders :-).

A quick FTF and some family history

2009-04-09T11:58:00.003+01:00

When I checked my emails this morning, I spotted a new cache had come out less than 10 miles from home. It was by a church that Mrs Bolas Heathens thinks some of her ancestors may be buried at, so we thought we'd combine a caching trip with a good look around the churchyard.

We soon arrived at the church but for some reason my Oregon said we were in a field when we were clearly stood in a lane. I think it's still trying to catch up after the shock of being darn sarf last weekend ;-).

It soon settled down and realised the error of it's ways. Isaac spotted a possible place for the cache, between two houses at what looked like some disused steps up to the churchyard. A quick furtle around revealed the cache - we were FTF!

After we'd put the cache back, we went off to find Mrs Bolas Heathens and Freya. They had been exploring the graveyard but had not found any names on the graves that they were looking for. There are a heck of a lot of people with the surname James buried here though!

She's going to do some more research on it and perhaps come back another time for a look as it's possible her relatives may be in another nearby graveyard.

Two Almost FTF's

2009-04-06T16:19:00.002+01:00

Last night we were relaxing at home when two new caches came out not too far from home, but far enough to have to think about dashing out for a FTF. We opted for the easy route and leave them for another time.

Today, the children were due round at their Grandparents and with a slight diversion on the way, we could take in the two new caches. Both were still up for FTF as no logs had come in on them overnight.

We parked up by the side of the main road for the first one and myself, Isaac and Freya set off for the short walk over the fields to the ex-railway line the caches are now on (it's part of a walking path called the Way For The Millennium now).

Freya spotted the hide right away and dashed over to check the logbook. Drat - we'd missed FTF by 15 minutes. Not a problem though as we had fun finding the cache and the location is nice.

The second one was do-able as a drive-by and as time was short we opted for doing it that way. A short drive round and Freya again found the cache. Another one we'd just missed FTF on.

Anyway, we enjoyed both of the caches and it's especially heartening to see they are both by new hiders and they are both well thought out and not micros. We look forward to trying to find more hides by these people.

UK Mega Series - Northern Ring

2009-04-05T15:57:00.001+01:00

Isaac has been asking about making a start on this epic series for a while now, so with the clocks going forward the other week and longer caching days, we thought it was about time to start.

We'd seen from other logs that people were taking between 9 and 12 hours (or more) on the northern leg, so set ourselves a target of 9 hours for the ring. As there was around 72 caches, this meant we had a handy yardstick of 2 caches every 15 minutes or 8 an hour to measure our progress by.

With such a long trail, we realised we needed an early start and as it's a 3.5 hour drive from home, we booked into a hotel on the other side of Basingstoke, not too far from the caches on Friday night.

We set off after tea on Friday night and had intended to grab a couple of caches on the way, but ended up going straight to the hotel.

The next morning, suitably fortified by breakfast, we headed off to the start point of the walk: the layby in between caches 005 and 006. We parked up and got kitted up for the walk.

There are too many caches to go into detail here, but some of the highlights of the walk were:

Getting very close to the approach lights at RAF Odiham (really close in fact, as one of the caches was hidden right next to them).
Seeing some deer in the distance across the field from one cache.
Odiham Castle and it's beautiful setting.
A swan on it's nest by the old Basingstoke canal.
Watching motorised gliders swoop and swirl overhead during most parts of the walk.
Seeing an unexpected thatched pagoda near to one of the caches.
The walking and scenery in general. The terrain is very easy and the cache finds in general were too - we've never seen so many really obvious tell tale piles of sticks! Is this common in the south? We don't know as this is the first time we've cached down here but it doesn't half make for easy caching (which is a good thing in our books as caching is more about the walk and the locations to us).
Stopping for lunch not far from Byway and siting in the lovely sun relaxing, before tackling the next section of the walk.
Not really a highlight, but worthy of note: Totally missing the PF sign about half way round the trail and doing a reasonable diversion the other side of a river through a Nature Reserve to get back on track. It cost us 2 caches in time (15 minutes) but was worth it as we got to see the Nature Reserve.
Another not really a highlight, but worthy of note: Running out of drinking water about 2/3 of the way round. It was really dull and dreary when we set off so only took one large bottle of water with us. The sun soon came out and remained so all day so we ended up drinking more water than we expected. Boy were we glad to get back to the Jeep for more cool water at the end of the walk.

All too soon the village we'd parked in was in sight and we were back at the Jeep. Just time for a couple more caches on the way home.

Isaac had a few in mind and directed me to one on the road from Basingstoke to Newbury. A nice quick find. We then continued on the main road and diverted off to another one by a lovely stream in a village. A very nicely engineered, unexpected hide was soon in hand - a great bonus at the end of the day.

Last cache was to be in a park in Newbury, just before we got on a fast road northbound. We were thwarted though as the cache was missing. Luckily Isaac had spotted there was a Sidetracked cache just round the corner so we went and found that instead (not before going to the totally wrong side of the station and seeing the GPSr's pointing over the other side of the tracks - doh!).

Many thanks to Lord Cacher (we think we know who you are ;-)) for all the time, trouble and money you have put into setting up the series. We hope to be back for the southern loop very soon.

72 finds for the day. Very satisfying!

Whitchurch Whereigo - should it stay or should it go?

2009-03-31T09:36:00.004+01:00

We've had a Whereigo cache live for quite a while now. It's a nice walk around the North Shropshire town of Whitchurch and takes a light-hearted look at the town's historic clock-making industry (it's more interesting than it sounds - honest!).

We have a self-imposed rule of not hiding micros, so in the case of this cache, we had our work cut out for us as there are not a lot of places that are:

Nice locations
Close to the town center
Able to take a small or better still, a regular size cache

In fact, we only found the one place that fits all the criteria and it's been getting some nice comments.

The original Regular sized cache was muggled after a few months so we replaced it by a Small sized cache in the same place, but pushed further in so it was less obvious to muggles. This has also been muggled recently, so it's obviously time to move the hide a bit.

Our dilemma now is if we do move it, we'll almost certainly have to make the cache a micro which we really do not want to do.

On the other hand, most if not all of the likely suspects have already done the cache so we're wondering if it's worth the effort to replace the cache. Maybe we should just archive it and chalk it up to experience?

Jeep Challenge cache muggled and a FTF

2009-03-31T09:19:00.003+01:00

A local cacher contacted us late last week as they could not find our Jeep Challenge cache. After checking they had correctly solved the puzzle I gave some more hints about how to find the cache.

They went back and still could not find the cache. Hmmm ... it *should* be an easy find. I feared the worst and popped over yesterday afternoon to find the cache had indeed gone :-(. There was a brand new fence on both sides of the green lane the cache was hidden on and I suspect a farm worker has discovered the cache and taken it with them.

I have a few contacts in that area so will ask around and see if I can find out what happened to the cache but at this stage it does not look promising. In the meantime we've had to archive the cache as it's not an easy one to replace as we need 4 Jeep TB's, one of each of the colours to put in it.

Feeling thoroughly deflated, I returned home to see a brand new cache had just been published quite close to home. Tea was just about ready, so after eating I popped over to look for the new cache.

The cache was a nice quick find in the obvious place and I was FTF :-). It was by a new cache setter too - always good to see new people start to hide caches.

A Sunday morning stroll round Castle Pools

2009-03-30T12:25:00.003+01:00

When we got back from a day caching around Manchester on Saturday evening, we spotted a new cache not too far from home which looked like a good one.

On Sunday morning, the children were settling down to watch a film, but it was a glorious day outside and they should not be indoors missing it. I know a nice easy way to sort that out - a quick trip out to find the new multi :-).

We parked up and set off for stage 1 along the side of one of the three big pools. A nice quick find by Isaac. Detailed noted, we set off for stage 2, which turned out to be sneakier than we were expecting but very good nonetheless.

The last stage was found by Isaac after eliminating other possibilities. It was then a short walk up a nearby hill to the final cache and another easy find.

A really well thought out and interesting multi in a great spot.

Alkington Nature Reserve and assorted South Manchester caches

2009-03-29T11:52:00.002+01:00

We decided to try the Alkington Nature Reserve caches near Middleton and then move on down the M60 towards the Romiley and Poynton areas today. Lots of potential caches to hit and areas we'd been to before so no problems finding our way around.

We parked up in the road opposite the Nature Reserve and set off on our bikes. We'd checked with the cache owner during the week just in case bikes were not allowed in the reserve - they were :-).

There were something like 20 caches hidden in the reserve, on a (sort of) circular route. Most were micros but some were smalls. All were very easy finds with absolutely no problems at all. The hardest part of the series was finding our way round the caches using the many paths and tracks within the reserve.

After we'd finished, we did a quick and easy drive-by on the way into Middleton. Next was the St Leonards cache not far from the center of town. We drove up the very old (and very rickety - is that a word?) road to the top of the hill where the church was. The cache was a quick find, right in the middle of the graveyard.

Isaac was joking that the church could easily be part of a Greater Manchester Church Gems series (a play on the Shropshire Church Gems series) as it was a really beautiful building. The views from GZ were fab too and pretty much panoramic. The light today was really good and we could literally see for miles.

Next, we re-positioned down the M60 to Romiley to tackle the Romiley Stroll series. We always like coming back to this area as it's so close to Stockport but yet a total world apart. Great scenery and tons of history - that's apart from the fact that there is the River Goyt nearby so there is wild garlic around everywhere this time of year!

A nice walk round the caches and no trouble with the finds. We also did the Grandma's House cache that was nearby and was one we'd been meaning to find for ages.

After we got back to the Jeep, we had our soup and sandwiches before heading off to Poynton to tackle some of the newer caches there. On the way we stopped at Pete Numbers' Scotland or England? caches, which was an easy one.

Poynton caused us quite a bit of trouble as the caches were all set by new(ish) cachers and the placement of some of them was not great:

One was a micro in an ivy covered post right by the roadside. To make matters worse, the traffic waiting for the traffic lights to change was sat night by GZ. Searching was near on impossible as we started to get some very funny looks.
One was in an ivy covered tree at the fenceline behind what looked like some elderly people's bungalows. Our searching could so easily have been interpreted as snooping on the old people so we knocked it on the head and moved on.

We've logged DNF's on the suspect ones with a few well meant comments about them. The cache owners have thankfully taken this as it was intended and the first one has been moved to a more suitable area and the second one now has a *much* better hint. Result!

We then re-positioned again to Hale Barns to do a new set of caches that had come out in areas I used to play as a child and later, go listening to loud rock music with my mates. Lots of nostalgia on these ones - I was keeping Isaac entertained with running tales of my exploits at each location.

Just time now to nip into the centre of Altrincham and clear up a DNF on what should be a very easy find outside a pub I used to drink in as a (late-ish) teenager.

39 finds so far so to make it up to 40, we drove out to Dunham to do a quick Sparrow Boys cache. Usually their caches are anything but quick as they have the sneakiest and best-crafted caches of any hider we know.

The first one was a small so we were confident in an easy find and sure enough Isaac spotted it immediately. What a fabulous hide too - I can't say any more here as I'd spoil it, but if you are in the area, make sure you try it - it's well worth it.

There was another one 0.35 along the old railway line, so we could not resist. A short walk later and we were struggling to find this one (a sneaky nano). We eventually got it though and what a great hide again.

Now, we really must get going home as we're both getting hungry. 41 finds for the day and a very satisfying day out once again.

2 FTF's today!

2009-03-24T16:39:00.003Z

Two new caches came out last night that were not too far from home.

This morning it was such a nice day I thought I'd pop out to go and look for them. We've all but given up chasing FTF's seriously but we thought we might be in with a chance.

On the way to the first one, I had a PAF call from a cacher stuck on the Charter's Moss cache on the Witton Weavers Way in Lancashire. I described where we'd found it and he still could not find it. I then realised I'd seen a co-ord change notification email for that cache this morning. I asked if they had mobile net access (they had not) so I offered to look it up and get back to them. This I did and they soon found it :-).

My good deed for the day done, I was just about arriving at the parking location for the first cache, at Cop Mere near Eccleshall. I had a lovely walk over the fields at the side of the mere to GZ and an easy find - FTF too. It was the first cache by this cacher and a nice one too!

A short drive southwards and I was parking up for the second cache. This cache is by a new cache setter who seems to always hide the caches on private land. This one was no exception and I had to sneak down a track I should not be on and into some woods I did not think I should be in, all in order to bag the cache. It was another FTF.

Just up the road was one final cache. We'd actually already found this one, but the cache owner thought it was missing and archived it. When they realised it was still there, they set it up as a new cache, so we had to go to the same place, find the same box to claim a new find.

Then, it was a short(ish) drive back home, via our Behind Enemy Lines - Hinstock cache, which had had a DNF on it. Sure enough, the cache was still in place and nicely hidden.

A quick lunchtime caching session

2009-03-23T16:50:00.003Z

The weather was beautiful all morning so by lunchtime I could not resist popping out to bag a few new caches.

The first was in Coalbrookdale, near Ironbridge and by our friends The Pirates Of Shropshire.

The most obvious place to park was a Pay & Display and as time was short, I paid my 50p so I could go the short distance to the cache and not waste any more time finding somewhere to park that was free. Always a pleasure to do caches in this area by the River Severn as you are virtually guaranteed great scenery and at this time of year, the lovely aroma of wild garlic.

Then it was off to a part of Telford we'd not been to before for the last two caches. One was a multi but the new cacher had given away too many details on the cache page, so we turned it into a quick drive-by Traditional.

Last of the quick trip out was a cache by the lovely (I'll leave you to decide if I'm being sarcastic here ;-)) Telford Shopping Centre. Another quick find.

Now to get back home and get some work done!

Our 6000th find: Jungle Book and Wallace & Gromit series

2009-03-22T16:57:00.004Z

We'd done a few caches during the week with the aim of making our 6000th find achievable this weekend. Only 22 caches to find to get the milestone today, so we picked what looked like a nice area and a set of caches that were getting good logs.

We don't usually go this far up the M6 caching, but we made an exception for these. Isaac was navigating using Memory Map and took me a way I was not expecting to the cache parking area: approaching from the west rather that the east.

We got kitted up and set off on our walk, with the aim of doing the Jungle Book series first. After about 0.3 of the 0.4 walk to the first cache, I glanced at my GPSr to see the distance to go going up rather than down. Hmmmm...

I then took a look at Memory Map and realised our mistake. Not a problem though as we'll just do the Wallace & Gromit series now and do the Jungle Book ones after lunch.

The walk was absolutely fabulous as most of it was alongside the River Brock and there was wild garlic everywhere. None of the caches were too taxing, but they were all nicely hidden and with a good mix of containers and hides.

All too soon we were at the bonus cache on the Wallace & Gromit series, which we found after a short search. We picked some wild garlic to take home as Isaac wanted to use some in the Sunday dinner he was planning to cook Mrs Bolas Heathens tomorrow on Mothers Day.

After some soup and sandwiches at the picnic area by the car park, we set off to do the Jungle Book series. This was a similar format to the earlier series, but in the opposite direction along the River Brock.

Lots of nice hides and locations with easy finds were the order of the day. Part way round, we veered off to the other side of the river to pick up a very sneakily hidden Traditional cache that was not part of the Jungle Book series.

With all the details we needed gathered, we headed off to find the bonus cache. Without giving too much away, we'd actually almost walked past it doing the Wallace & Gromit series earlier so knew where we needed to be. It was a steep and slippery climb up to the cache but well worth it as it was a nice hide and more importantly, it was our 6000th find :-).

With both series complete, we had time to go and find some more local caches. Isaac suggested picking off as many drive-by's as we could in the time, which sounded like an excellent plan.

He navigated us down lanes I've never been down before and to places I'd never even heard of, but we managed to bag lots more caches. Highlights of these included:

A visit to the remains of a Roman baths in the Roman town of Ribchester.
Seeing the Lightening and Camberra gate guardians at BAE Salmesbury.
Having to cross a very smelly field that had just had muck spread all over it.
A nice hide in a well crafted log, with an end that moved to one side.

We'd planned the Preston Geo-Post Office cache as the last one of the day as it was right by the M6 and a handy way of getting to home quickly.

A fantastic day out in beautiful countryside. 35 finds for the day and our 6000th find completed too.

A quick cache at the NEC

2009-03-19T16:07:00.002Z

We had some free tickets to the Homebuilding and Renovation Show at the NEC so stopped by for a quick cache on the way into the show.

Handily enough, the cache was literally half way on the walk from the car park to the show hall (I could not have planned it better myself!). The clue indicated it was a bench cache so we were hoping no-one was sat on it as it was a nice sunny day and it is a nice spot for a sit down.

Our luck was in and we managed to palm the cache in between passing muggles.

Newport By Numbers: Is it still there?

2009-03-18T12:41:00.003Z

We had an email from a new cache finder who has 19 finds yesterday. They had done all the legwork on our Newport By Numbers cache but could not find the cache.

What they described sounded like the right area to be looking but we know the cache can be quite a tricky one to find. This is deliberate as we suspect quite a few dog-walkers go past GZ and we don't want the cache being found accidentally.

Anyway, the conundrum was do we go and check on the cache, given it was a relative newbie and they could easily have missed it or do we wait for another DNF before checking on it.

As luck would have it, I needed to go into town for some petrol so made a diversion on the way to check on the cache. Sure enough, it was tucked up all snug in it's hiding place and waiting for someone to come and find it.

2 * FTF's, 1 * FTDNF and then 1 * FTF!

2009-03-17T14:55:00.003Z

This morning, as I was settling down to the day's work I spotted three caches within 10 miles of home that had just come out. I could not resist.

10 minutes later and I was at GZ for the first one, by the Shropshire Union canal in a field. I scanned all around the abandoned hut at the side of the field but could not find the cache. I gave up and went on to the second cache, which was not far away.

For the second cache, it was a 0.35 walk over some very flat fields. I was soon at GZ and had a quick find of the nicely hidden cache. Just when you think you have seen all variations on a hide, a new one comes along!

I then returned to the Jeep and went back to check again on cache 1, but still could not find it.

A short drive later and I was nearing the third cache. It was in some lovely woodland that we had eyed for a cache hide ourselves ages ago but never got round to taking it further. Anyway, the woodland turned out to be just as lovely as I was expecting and I soon had the cache in hand.

When I got back home, I emailed the cache owner of the one I could not find for any further clues they may have. An hour or so later they replied to apologise that they had had problems with the cache and had only actually hidden it an hour or so *after* I had been to look for it - doh!

I dashed out again, confident I knew all the places to look for it now and sure enough, found the cache in double-quick time.

That's now 3 FTF's for the day - very satisfying :-).

An impromptu caching session around Stone

2009-03-16T14:43:00.003Z

I was sat in the office working all day Monday, looking out of the window at the beautiful weather and wishing I was out walking instead.

It came to 4pm and with my Inbox zero'd, I could wait no longer. A nice set of 9 caches on a 5 mile round walk in the hills behind Stone came out a few days ago, which looked perfect!

I was soon at the first cache, which was a quick and easy drive-by. I then re-positioned for two more drive-by's and then set off on foot up the hill to the next cache. Another quick find after walking though a rather muddy farmyard.

I then back-tracked to the other side of the road and the next section of the trail. The first one here was in a beautiful little dingle, with the first signs of bluebells coming though all around. I have to say, dingle's at this time of year (or perhaps a few weeks later) are my absolute favourite location for a cache.

I then climbed up the path out of the dingle and up to the top of the hill half a mile away, where the next cache was. Another quick find with great views all around - Cannock Chase, The Wrekin, Welsh hills and most of North Shropshire and Cheshire were all in clear view. Fabulous!

After that, it was a quick find of the three final caches in the series: a micro, a nano and finally a small sized cache back up in the hills (but on the other side to where I was earlier).

It was not quite dark yet so I thought I'd pop the few miles up the road to try the new cache at Trentham Gardens and then reccie the 4/4.5 cache high above the Beech caves.

Trentham had shut for the day but I saw a group of joggers jump the gate and go off running so assumed access was ok on foot. I climbed up through the woods to the monument at the top of the hill, where the cache was. I found the cache after a short search and climbed back down to the Jeep.

A short drive later I was pulling up at Beech caves by the M6 in the dark. I did not think I'd be able to get the cache as you really need rope etc etc as the cache is at the top of a big cliff high above the caves. I set off with headtorch and a handheld portable lighthouse to check out what was required in anticipation of a return visit.

As I got to GZ the cache looked do-able from below so I climbed up to the top to see how it looked from up there. There appeared to be quite a few tree roots to use as handholds and a shelf by the cache, so I reckoned I could get it now.

Sure enough, with a bit of care, it was an easy grab. I took the cache back up to the top to do the business before returning it to it's hidey-hole.

A very satisfying few hours caching in some lovely countryside.

2 new local caches to find

2009-03-15T15:03:00.003Z

It was the middle of Sunday afternoon and I still had not got rid of the caching bug for the week, so had to go out and find a couple more caches.

Luckily, there were two new ones not far from home - one on the Shropshire Union canal between Adderley and Market Drayton and one just north of Audlem in Cheshire.

Freya was at a loose end, so we put our bikes into the Jeep and headed off for the first cache. We parked to the north and set off for the 0.67 ride down the towpath to GZ. A really nice spot for a cache with nothing but tranquil fields to look at.

We then drove over to the next one and walked down the PF. This cache is a bit naughty as you have to walk quite a way off the PF and then jump a barbed wire fence into an obviously private woods to get to the cache. Luckily it was a quick find and we were out of the area we should not be in very quickly.

Now, back home in time for tea.

Lichfield Area: Fradley Junction, March Mayhem and Bodymoor Heath series

2009-03-15T11:55:00.002Z

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.