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| Little Britain |
Little Britain Series
When planning our caching trips a few weeks ago for half term we came across this series and knew that it had to go on the to-do list. The words '!!!!! This Route Should Not Be Taken Lightly !!!!!'
on the listing sold it to us straight away and plans were made. We checked the weather for the week as we know that when it gets wet in the Peak District it gets VERY wet and decided to make the trip today.
We even managed to persuade our teenagers to come along, they're not into geocaching but they love a challenging walk.
We set our alarms for stupid o'clock and made the 100 mile trip to start the walk for 8.30 as we were keen to complete the walk in daylight.
We arrived at the parking and there was already a car parked up, we guessed it belonged to another cacher. After finding the first cache we decided the car more than likely belonged to Grandad John and we wondered if we might catch him up. When we got to #14 his name wasn't in the log book so we assumed he must've detoured to find another cache, we met him later on at an event and he confirmed this is what he'd done.
We set off from the car at 8.45 am and headed off towards #1 , quite a steep climb to start with and continued uphill until we got to #7 where we were quite glad of the rest and a chance to take in the fantastic views and scenery.
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| Great views and remember... NO SLEDGING! |
Nearly all the fields we passed through (and there were a lot) had cows in them but we had no trouble at all, most of them were docile and didn't take any notice of us and any that did look troublesome were behind fences but we didn't have our dogs with us today so it could've been a different story if we had. I'm getting a bit more used to cows now, it's a shame that our dogs can't come with us on the longer walks but it is far easier to negotiate stiles and cow fields without them.
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| Elevation Profile |
There was quite a lot of mud in parts too, nothing too serious but I would imagine that in the winter months it would get fairly bad in places, mainly due to the fact that the cows churn up the fields at the gate entrances.
The cache listings were extremely helpful in that they included a brief route description to refer to if it was unclear where the path went next.
We made really good time until we stopped for our lunch just before #18 then we started to slow down a bit as the going got quite tough with the mud and the route wasn't quite so well defined (although the route notes were a big help).
We were very relieved to reach the Bonus and it has to be the largest cache container we've ever found.
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| We made it to the end |
All together we walked 14 ¼ miles in 8 ¾ hours and we arrived back at the car just as the sun set.
All in all the walk was easier than we'd expected as we'd read all the previous logs on the bonus and were a bit worried whether we'd be able to manage the walk in one go but we must be fitter than we thought as it wasn't as hilly as we were expecting although the climb from #1 to #7 did have us wondering what we'd let ourselves in for with still quite a few miles to go. Also it was a much longer walk than we were expecting, I think it said 12.4 miles in the listing but we made it to be over 14. We did find the walk a challenge though and in places the route was very muddy but we were lucky with the weather, the sun shone most of the day and it didn't rain, if it had rained then it could've been a different story. A highly recommended walk if you are up for a challenge, all great co-ordinates and sensible hides with good hints so we weren't spending too long searching for each one. We found all 50 caches plus 10 more on route.
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| The Ship pub where the event is to be held later |
When planning a visit to the series we noticed by coincidence there was an event published for tonight that had been organised by Khoomfay , the cacher that set the Little Britain series. So we decided that if we finished in time we would pop along and say hi and thanks for the series. It was great to meet other cachers from outside the area but we could only stayed an hour or so for a quick chat and a drink as we had a long drive home and everyone was tired out after such a long day.
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