A short break in New York

We've just booked for a 4 night short break in New York City in February.

We'd already checked the caches there and there are not that many and with all the hustle and bustle that is NYC, we don't expect that many finds. The trip is about more than caching though, so not a problem.

It will be good to tick off two new US States for us though as we fly into Newark, so can get the cab driver to make a "small diversion" on the way to the hotel so we can get New Jersey as well as the New York state caches on Manhattan.

We don't have any Memory Map maps of the area so had a look on the internet to see if there was an easy way of getting Google Maps into Memory Map and using that. It turns out it's very easy to do and I had one up and running in minutes, thanks to the excellent tutorial at this link. A quick PQ of the nearby caches and I soon had all the nice geocache icons overlaid in my new map - perfect!

There are quite a few puzzle caches so we'll be working our way through the ones we are likely to encounter in the meantime.

Can't wait to go now as we've been waiting for the children to be a bit older for a return visit to NYC. Needless to say they are both REALLY excited!

New caches ... but where shall we hide them?

Myself and Freya have just put together three new ready to go caches. Now all we have to do is find somewhere interesting to hide them.

We've got a couple of ideas in mind and just need to develop them a bit before scouting out the area for good hiding places.

Watch this space...

Two new caches set

It was New Years Day and we were fed up of being in the house and fancied a walk. No local caches to find so we decided to set off and scout a few locations for a hide, armed with the three new caches we'd just made up.

The first area was a spot at the southernmost point in Cheshire. No public footpaths to use for a cache so we reluctantly made it a drive-by. It's hidden by a beautiful old bridge which is a consolation though.

Then we headed off to near Combermere Abbey, between Whitchurch and Audlem. We arrived at the start of the walk and the place looked stunning in all the frost. I bet we'll find a cracking place to set a cache here.

We set off through the woods, and soon arrived at a likely spot about 0.26 walk from the Jeep. Perfect for a cache and it's even near a nice little stream for added effect. Isaac soon had an ideal place for the cache so we hid an ammo box and took some co-ords.

Later on at home, we put the cache pages together and submitted them for approval. Deceangi was on form today and both caches were published within minutes.

Now to see who will be FTF...

New Years Eve Cache Maintenance

The Crisis Point cache on the hill at Lilleshall that we adopted from MarcB has been suspected as muggled for most of December, but with all the Christmas festivities, we've only just had chance to go over and check on it.

It used to be one of those big ammo boxes hidden in the undergrowth under some ivy. When we arrived today, we recognised the area from when we originally found the cache but the undergrowth had been totally cleared away. I'm surprised the cache lasted so long with no cover!

We had a good look round and found a nice hiding place not too far away so left a new cache in situ there. We did not think it was worth the cost of a new ammo box though as the cache does not get that many visitors now as all the locals have found it. We replaced it with a regular sized lock 'n' lock in a camo bag.

All is now ready for cachers to come and find it again.

Later on, we were in Newport and parked near the Off Yer Trolley cache at Waitrose. We'd seen the two DNF's on it so thought we'd have a quick check on the cache to save the cache owner a trip. Needless to say it was not where we found it and we could not spot it anywhere nearby.

We posted a Needs Maintenance log on it when we got home later in the day.

A clear-out of Mid Cheshire

After the last few days festivities, we fancied some longer walks and nice scenery. Lots of new caches to find in Mid-Cheshire, many of which we'd been past numerous times when visiting friends and family in Warrington.

On the way, we stopped for a quick drive-by near the old Calverley WW2 disused airfield. Nice and easy as it's a lot more exposed in Winter.

Next stop was the Cuddington area, where there were quite a few new caches to find.

As we were approaching the first one, we got stuck in a line of vintage tractors going very slowly up the A49. We thought we'd be ok as we were about to turn off, but as luck would have it (or not as the case may be), they all turned down the same lane as us! Finding the cache was tricky as we had to time it in between passing tractors on the track - apparently there were 130 of them in total!

The next cache was a HUGE ammo box that was very well hidden considering it's size. We then set off for a nice multi with a very original way of hiding the final co-ords at the first stage. I won't say any more here as I don't want to ruin it for future finders, but rest assured it's a good one.

A few caches later and we were parking up at the Vale Royal Golf Club, for a very nice walk in the woods alongside the River Weaver. An absolutely fabulous place for caches.

We then got to find Caravan Of Love near Bartington. This one has been bugging us as it beeps at us on TomTom every time we go past on the A49 but it would take too long to do if Mrs Bolas Heathens is waiting in the car for us. Today it was just Isaac and myself so no problems with a longer walk.

We were intending to head over to Chester but the lure of three new Pieman caches at Tabley Mere near Knutsford proved too much to resist. We'd missed the deadline for the prizes in the cache but that's ok as I always feel awkward about accepting FTF presents, let alone one worth potentially quite a bit.

The first of the three was a nice easy Traditional over the other side of the field from where we parked. When we opened this one up and saw the instructions for the start of the second cache we realised we'd be in for some fun on this one. What a great idea - wish we'd have thought of it.

After a bit of trickery and a stage or two later, we had the details we needed to actually find the final cache (it was a two part multi). Not as simple as just going to some stated co-ords, but not too bad after a bit of lateral thinking. This was our favourite of the three caches here.

We then had the last cache to do and this was more straightforward, but still great fun. A nice quick find of a bigger ammo box at the end too.

It was starting to go dark by now, so we thought we'd head down to Crewe to pick off a lone cache we needed to find there, before heading over to Alsager to clear up the newer caches there.

The Crewe one was nice and easy but we had fun and games in Alsager. One of the caches was themed around a local cacher's dog walk and we made a right mess of it as one of the clues was ambiguous and guess what, we took the wrong answer. After realising the cache could not be where we though it was, we had to PAF twice to pin down the area we needed to be in (it's trickier to see in the dark, that's our exucse). It was then an easy find.

On the way home from there, we stopped at one last cache which was on a bridge over the M6 and you had to take a photo of yourself in some dressing up gear that was in the cache. Luckily Isaac was keen so I did not need to make a fool of myself (although the passing motorists would not have seen us as it was dark).

19 finds in total, but lots of really good walking and some fab caches.

Christmas deliveries in Warrington

We've got a lot of family in the Warrington area (both my parents were from there) and so we had our annual trip to the area, delivering Christmas goodies yesterday. It would have been rude not to try and find some of the newer caches in the area while we were there ;-).

The first one we tried was in some woods and we were short on time as we had to meet my sister, so after an initial scout around, we had to give up for now. After that, it was a nice walk to an easy find of a puzzle cache, followed by two drive-by's.

After visiting my parents grave, we had to go to my cousin's in Birchwood so stopped to find the two remaining Warrington Sidetracked caches on the way (both easy finds).

We then returned to the Cheshire side of the Ship Canal and had some lunch in a nice pub. Just a few more quick caches and we were back at the woods for the cache we could not find on the way to Warrington. This time without time constraints it was a quick find and we were on the A49 going home.

Isn't it typical that when you are up against the clock trying to find a cache, you never find it. When you have more time, you can relax and the finding comes a lot more naturally.

Willington to Stenson series and lots of Puzzle Caches

On Saturday our destination for caching was the Derby area. The day was planned in two halves - first we'd try the caches along the Trent and Mersey canal from Willington to Stenson and then we'd go off and try and find the "A is for", "B is for" etc etc series from JustAlan.

On the way we stopped off to find the A38/A50 Services drive-by and then did a few of the canal caches that were on a nearby road. We parked up and set off along the towpath on our bikes. The hedge was hawthorn all along the canal and it had been recently cut so we were hoping not to get punctures.

After the first few caches, sure enough, Isaac got a puncture :-(. We set off back to the Jeep with me carrying Isaac's bike and Isaac pushing mine. All too soon I also had a puncture on my bike as well. Isaac insists it was my riding that got it but I'm not so sure ;-).

The rest of the caches were quick(ish) finds, with a little too much ivy involved for my liking on a few. One of the caches was a Large sized one, which is always good to see.

We then set off to find the Puzzle Caches...

All the puzzles were really easy to solve and all locations turned out to be drive-by's or cache and dashes. Not too bad - all I need do is find a good route round them in an area I've never been to before.

We did not have any problems with these caches except for one which was hidden on a Bridleway sign that had since fallen over. We could not spot the cache anywhere, but it turns out the owner subsequently found it in nearby ivy, where it had rolled off to.

We finished our planned caches early and had an hour to kill before needing to head home so we stopped in Burton on the way back to try and grab a few caches there. Two nice easy finds ensued so we thought we'd try one last cache - mistake!

The "last cache" turned out to be a nano in a busy area without a hint. What fun - not! Needless to say it had a string of DNF's on it and despite us having a very good look around for it, we could not find it. The item in the spoiler picture on the cache page is no longer there either.

35 finds for the day and some good fun along the way.