Peopleton Ponders

Peopleton Ponders -
  
A series of 8 caches and a bonus on a 4.6 mile walk. No dog proof stiles, no cattle on the day we did the walk and only 1 field with horses which were no problem at all.

We had a free morning so decided to head off with Poppy and Whisper to do the new series around Peopleton. Parked up near #6 and off we went. We met cachers Cagney37 and Waterford Wander on our way round, always good to meet cachers out and about.

The Westbrook and Chittoe Ring

The Westbrook and Chittoe Ring - A 21 cache series on a 4.5 mile circular walk (approx. 5.5 if you include the bonus).

Arrived at the Premier Inn Swindon on Friday evening for an early start the next day in the hope of completing 'The Westbrook and Chittoe Ring' and 'Count Katie's Quavers' in time to pop into A Wiltshire Event on our way home on Saturday night.

A very enjoyable walk although a couple of scary encounters with the dreaded bovine beasts. About half way into the walk the heavens opened and it rained until midday.


Lots of interesting
fungus to see and more
pheasants than we've ever seen in one place before.

Always nice to come across a well stocked cache.

COLD WAR CACHE

Into the bunker

We saw this cache when browsing through the 'photo of the month' photos on the Groundspeak Forum and decided it had to be worth a look.  Our teenagers were keen to come along too so we had to wait a while until a date that we could all make it and today was the day.

Entrance

The cache is placed in a Royal Observation Corp (ROC) underground observation post.  Over 1000 of these posts were built to enable the ROC to observe the effects of nuclear weapons being detonated over the country and to measure radioactivity in the event of air attacks in a future war.  Towards the end of the 1960s the bunkers were all decommissioned.  You can find details of other observation posts in your area here.

We parked down the road so as not to draw attention to our activities and then it was a short walk to the entrance of the bunker.  On arrival I took one look at the hatch and the ladder that disappeared down into the dark and I said 'no chance, I'll stay above ground and keep watch' .  The rest of the family were keen and soon disappeared down into the dark with their head torches.  They were very quick to shout up that it was fine and that I should join them.  I decided that this might be the only chance I get to see one of these places so not wanting to miss out on all the fun I was soon down the ladder and really glad that I did.  It was much smaller than I was expecting but really interesting.  Well worth a visit and like it says on the cache listing........... all you need is a torch and a sense of adventure!

Pegz & Mr D signing the log book