Halloween Hides and Creepy Caches

Halloween Hides and Creepy Caches plus others

We’d obviously decided long ago that we would be attending the Halloween Hides and Creepy Caches event having enjoyed last year’s ghoulish mayhem.  We started off the day by returning to the area east of Corby where we were last weekend to do some more izaakwilson’s ‘and Back’ caches.  We’d planned to do ‘Bulwick and Back’ followed by ’Glapthorn and Back’. We parked next to Bulwick #1 as suggested where there was another car already parked. The log in #1 confirmed that it was indeed another cacher – 37251. Our plan to do ‘Bulwick’ came to an abrupt halt here though as there were (once again) a group of pheasant shooters up ahead, so to avoid confrontation over which route we wanted to take we decided to backtrack a short way to do the Glapthorn series followed by the Bulwick loop in reverse in the hope that by the time we got round to the end of the walk the shoot would have finished or moved elsewhere.  We wondered if we'd bump into 37251 and we did by Bulwick#21 which was somewhat later than we’d expected but he told us he’d detoured for the Blatherwycke loop which we had done last week, we stopped for a good chat before continuing on the walk.  Always good to meet other cachers out and about.

Bamboozled

A couple of places on the route involved walking through cows, they weren't any bother but it probably would've been a different story if we'd had our dogs with us.  They were very inquisitive but luckily we managed to shoo them away.  At one point we had to walk through a farmyard packed with cows that were being fed, a bit scary but luckily we could see a farmer nearby so we weren't overly concerned, they were a bit frisky with us being so close but we made it through unscathed.

Although very windy today it was mostly dry and sunny apart from one short sharp hail shower towards the end of the walk.

Oh dear trouble ahead

We completed the two loops in  a little under 5 hours and walked 11.4 miles.  This included stopping for a chat with fellow cacher 37251 and stopping for our lunch part the way round.

Now for the event!
We arrived at about 4 o’clock signed in and started on the ‘daytime’ caches. Really great fun bumping into all the other spooks and ghouls.  One particularly amusing moment was when we returned to the path after finding 'Twin Peaks' and scared the sweet b'jesus out of a Muggle dog walker as we were wearing our masks - she said 'I've seen some sights along this path but this just about takes the biscuit'

We completed the caches just as it was getting too dark to see (we’d left our torches in the car Doh!)

Then it was back to the visitor centre to catch up with other cachers and wait for the night caches to be handed out.

Ghoulish Gathering

It made us laugh when when we were greeted by fellow caching friend 'Stevo185' - he said 'Oh you are here then' - I think he was secretly hoping we wouldn't turn up as so far we are both on the very short list of cachers who have attended all UK Mega events.

Ready for Action

We teamed up with other cachers for these and enjoyed meeting lots of other cachers along the way.  We were even FTF on the Multi which was a nice surprise as we'd assumed it would have already been found!!

The amount of effort gone into setting up the event and all the caches must have been phenomenal a big thanks to everyone involved.

Brigstock and others

Horny Beast!

Brigstock and Back and others

I’d spotted this cluster of caches near Corby in Northamptonshire during the week and told Mark that that’s where we were going to go today .

Mark had cobbled together a route starting at GC3Y16T #15 Brigstock and Back continuing round to #34, taking a detour for the 'Causin to the Wind' and 'Benefield Gallivant' loops before finishing 'Brigstock and Back'. Well, that was the plan anyway.

The walk started at a storming rate averaging 3.1 mph with all great hints making easy finds – just how we like it. Our plan spluttered to a halt at #34 though when we happened upon a group of people out shooting. When asked, we told them which way we wanted to go and they 'advised' us to take an alternative route.  If it had just been a case of walking in our planned direction we would have stood our ground but it would have been very tricky to stop and look for caches en route.  Anyway, we decided we would complete the Brigstock and Back series and then park elsewhere for another walk as there are quite a few to choose from in the area.

When we reached the B-road we spotted a couple of cars we recognised - Stag Ramblers and Bates Brigade. They are relatively local cachers to us and it’s amazing how often we bump into them when we are miles from home! We caught up with them at #3 and accompanied them until #6 when we decided to press on ahead as we needed to be back home in time to take Beth and her friend to the O2 Academy in Birmingham this evening.

A really great series which we made to be 6.6 miles and took us just over 2 hours 45 minutes.

After having our lunch we repositioned the car in Bulwick to tackle the Blatherwycke and Back series. Despite parking right next to #1, we went to #25 next and clockwise. Why? This would give us the option of a detour to the ‘Bulwick and Back’ loop after #8 with only a few to do afterwards - (if this makes sense). In the end we didn’t take the detour as we didn't have enough time (apart from the trigpoint ) and got back to the car by 15:00 and we were back home by 16:30 - Wheesh!

Another great series which was a little under 5 miles and we completed in 2 hours 35 minutes.  

Another fab day out, great caches, lovely scenery and amazing weather for October!

Wyre Forest

UPPER ARLEY AND ARLEY VILLAGE LOOP

Enjoyed a day out doing the Arley Loop and other caches today, great weather and fabulous scenery.  It's an area we're familiar with as we've walked here on a few occasions and also mountain-biked in the area in our pre-caching days.

Steam Train

The walk started in the village of Upper Arley near Kidderminster in the Wyre Forest District and takes you through the Arley Estate and past Arley Arboretum.  The return stretch of the walk takes you along the River Severn and we were treated to views of a steam train going up and down a short stretch of track, not sure if they were filming or doing some sort of maintenance/testing on the track/train.

It wouldn't be caching without a few cows thrown in

It really is a beautiful time of year to be out caching, some of the autumn colours are just stunning.

Beautiful autumn colours

Altogether we walked just under 9 miles, we'd have stayed longer and done more in the area but I had to be back to collect my car from the garage for 5.30 but luckily we've left enough caches to make another trip to the area again soon.

Up in the tree

International Earthcache Day 2012

International Earthcache Day 2012

Woke up to the cars frosted over this morning but once again the forecast was good so we decided we'd celebrate International Earthcache Day by finding an EarthCache.  Our closest to home was at Dovers Hill in the Cotswolds, just a short drive away from home.

This is the 6th annual International EarthCache Day and there are now more than 23,000 EarthCaches around the globe and a staggering 3,300,000 people have logged those caches to date.  You can find out more about EarthCaches by going to www.earthcache.org

Poppy

Whisper

As the walk was going to be only a couple of miles we decided to take Poppy and Whisper with us, they can't manage the longer walks any more and sadly Poppy has now gone deaf and can no longer hear us when we call her back so she has to stay on the lead.  It was great to take them with us and they really enjoyed the walk as did we.  A really enjoyable walk this morning in a beautiful area.

 

Geolympix Marathon Series - A, C & B

Shaggy Ink Caps

Geolympix Marathon Series - Rings A, C and B

After starting this series a few weeks ago in September we were really keen to come back and finish it.  We'd pencilled today on the calendar and hoped we'd be lucky with the weather again.  We'd kept our eye on the Met office website all week (we spend a lot of time doing this ) and after a wet week the forecast was good for Saturday.  We've been really lucky with weekends for a few weeks now, just hope the good run of weekend weather lasts a bit longer.

We set our alarms for 5am and arrived in Skirmett just after 7.30am, after putting on our boots and having a quick cuppa we were ready to set off by 7.45am.

Brrrrr

A bit of a chilly start as we set off but we trusted the forecast and didn't bother with too many layers.

I know I probably say this a lot but I can't believe what a brilliant hobby caching is, I think it every time we go out, it's the perfect way to relax at the end of a hectic week, I absolutely love it and look forward to our trips all week ...... anyway I digress, back to the walk.........

Sorry no room for them

We completed ring A then repositioned the car in Turville to do Rings C and B.

The name of the village Fingest really made us laugh, not sure why but Mark decided that it was derived from the superative of  'Fing' (whatever that is) as in Fing, Finger, Fingest - on our return home I looked it up and the name actually comes from the Anglo Saxon name 'Thinghurst' which means wooded hill where assemblies are made

By about 13:30 the sky went very dark and the heavens opened, luckily only a short sharp shower and we didn't get too wet, then there was another short shower later on but we were mostly under the trees at this point.  Most of the day the sun shone and the skies were clear.

Beautiful start to the day

The series really is excellent, extremely well thought out with great scenery along the way.  Most of the containers are small turtle containers apart from a few micros .  The caches were all really straightforward to find with sensible hints but well hidden so not easy to spot by the passer-by.

Des escargots

All together we walked 16 miles, this included a break for lunch in Turville between the 2 loops and it
took us 8 hours, we went at a steady pace stopping along the way to admire the views, look at the scenery and watch wildlife.  In fact I think we saw a record number of deer today!  We saw many birds of prey, at one point a red kite flew out just above our heads, an amazing sight to see. We walked past a dead owl too which was sad to see  There was also lots of interesting fungi to spot.

There were 3 fields with cows and calves in but luckily they weren't any problem at all, as is the norm on long walks these days we didn't have our dogs with us so this would've helped of course as the dogs are cow magnets

We'd recommend this series of caches to anyone, you can either do them as one long 26 mile walk or break them off into shorter more manageable walks.

Then it was time to head home (via Maccy Ds of course) - Another top day out! 

Geolympix Marathon series - Ring A, C, B

Lighthorne

'Rod Stewart' Series by Marrow Bone


Caches - 20
Length of Walk - 6 miles

We had time constraints today so chose this series not too far from home.  The walk starts in the pretty little village of Lighthorne which is about 6 miles south of Leamington Spa.

The village phone box was bought from BT by the Parish Council as it had only been used twice in 3 years!  The phone box is now used as a very useful little wildlife information kiosk with lots of info packed inside about bird and bat watching, it's really interesting finding these rejuvenated decommissioned phone boxes.

There was a deluge of rain overnight so the walk was quite wet underfoot.  Some of the fields had been recently ploughed so we chose to walk around the edge, probably adding a good half a mile or so onto the walk but we were keen to preserve our new boots.  It was not possible to go around the edge of one of the fields so we took the direct route across so this bit was quite muddy.

All of the caches were quite well hidden and some of them very tricky to spot.  Really enjoyed the walk on a lovely sunny day which we completed in about 3 hours.  Sadly that was all we had time for today, hope to be back again very soon to complete some more caches in the area.

Rod Stewart Series