Chebsey and Eccleshall, Staffordshire

Chebsey Circular

A circular walk of  4.5 miles
20 caches

Managed to get the whole family together for a caching trip today, doesn't happen very often now so it was great to all go out together.  Parked up at the church in Chebsey at 9:20, not many mince pies left now so thought we'd bring the remaining ones left to finish off before the walk.

Mmmince Pie

We found #1 easily then carried on through the churchyard and nature reserve then out into the fields, luckily the ground was completely frozen, looks like it could be very muddy after wet weather.

Large field of stubble turnips.

 As we searched for #6 we realised we were being watched by some sheep then we spotted the tiny lamb, quite surprised to see a lamb in such bitter conditions.

You don't often see lambs in December.

We had to leave out #9 as there was a shoot in full swing in the field, it was easy enough to make a detour along the lane around it.  Hopefully we'll be able to pop back later on.

Near #11

 The section between #11 and #14 takes you alongside the busy Stafford-Crewe railway line, quite a few Virgin trains went by as we walked along.

Virgin Train

 Wonder what the history behind this unusual street name is?

Unusual street name.

The section between #16 and #20 was down a very icy lane, so we had to take it very carefully, well I did, the rest of the family didn't seem too bothered :)

Icy Road

 A really enjoyable walk completed in 2hrs 25 mins.  Quite a lot of road walking but this is preferable to fields of cows any day!

The End

Drove round to #9 after and parked in a nearby lane for the short walk to GZ, luckily the shoot had moved on elsewhere and we were able to find the cache easily.

After lunch we headed off to Eccleshall to find Gandalf: so we could ask him 'Where is Bilbo?'
but to find Gandalf we needed to first visit all 13 dwarves on the Eccleshall ring.

14 caches on a 2.75 mile circular walk.

We set off at 13:10 and the the fog was starting to get quite thick but this really added to the atmosphere of the cache theme, we all love anything to do with Hobbits and Lord of the Rings so this was great fun, a lot of thought and hard work has gone into setting this series.  We found all the dwarves apart from Fili, we looked everywhere for him but he wasn't anywhere to be found.

Is this Mirkwood?

Where is my precious?

Looking for Dori

Waiting for Mark to find Nori

Mud mud mud

Johnson Hall through the fog

Poppy is very tired

and so is Whisper :)

Milepost

We were a little concerned that we might not be able to find Gandalf after all.  We had an incomplete set of co-ords as we'd been unable to get a number from Fili but we relied on cachers instinct and found him without too much trouble.  We really enjoyed this series which we completed in 2 hours and appreciate the work that went into setting it up.

Now I wonder if we can find Bilbo.  Having picked up the north co-ords from Gandalf we were on our way to do the pre-requisite caches for the West co-ords when we decided we'd have a quick look with just the information we had and luckily we found the cache easily.  That was the last cache of the day, a great day out, now off to McDs for tea on the way home.