Little Quest complete!

Little Quest Challenge

Whoo hoo! So pleased to finally log a find on this cache 😎 Wow what an amazing adventure it's been. 

The Challenge: We had been caching for only 5 months when we saw the GC forum post by PopUpPirate about this series (those were the days). 

A real rollercoaster of emotions as we went back through our old photos from the last 12 years as we looked for all the details for this final. Back then we cached as a family of 4 and our two Labradors... now it's just the two of us and our 7 mth old Labrador Charlie.

The first one to be published close to home was LQ Worcestershire so we went straight out to find that one, a really neat hide. We found two more that year and just one in 2008 & 2009.

By 2011 we'd found a cache in every UK mainland county so we put the Little Quest challenge on a back-burner to concentrate on other challenges such as completing our Jasmer grid twice and the DT grid several times, amongst other challenges.....by September 2014 there was an active Facebook group which renewed our interest in the series. 

In 2015 we clocked up another 15 LQs. In 2016 we moved house to the North West and managed to bag another 8, 2017 rolled round and we bagged another 4. 

In 2018 we decided that this had been going on for too long and managed to bag another 8 which left 5 more to find. A weekend caching trip to Northampton area during which we somehow ended up in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Greater London! before heading back home to Lancashire. 

With just two left we decided to complete it once and for all. 

So, it’s taken us 4344 days, driven countless miles and had numerous different GPS devices from our first find to finally finding the final.

It's very hard to pick a favourite and it wouldn't be fair to, but ones that stand out in our memories are: Herefordshire (fantastic panoramic view), Worcestershire (great hide), Cornwall (great hide and unique location), Shropshire (beautiful area), Bristol (we saw peregrines), Derbyshire (fab location and view), Merseyside (great location) ... in fact we can think of good things to say about most of them really either for location or just a fun day out.

This cache: We live just a short drive away from Rivington now and this area has become a favourite dog walk for Charlie so once we had the final co-ords we wasted no time in popping out for an evening walk to find it.

We arrived at GZ and recognised the area from previous walks but managed to pin down the exact location by looking at gallery photos.

A shame this challenge has now come to an end........... what next?

A day out in the Peak District

Monsal Dale

One of our favourite areas of the country to visit is the Peak District but we don't visit anywhere near as often as we'd like to.  Our daughter is at Uni right on the edge of the Peak District and has enjoyed many walks with the uni walking club and is always showing us photos of the fantastic places she's been - when we go there it's usually just to pick her up or drop her off, or most recently to move her belongings from her flat to her house so there's usually very little time to go on any decent walks.

We were only free on the Saturday this weekend so decided to visit Piratemania just for the day and at the same time take the opportunity while in the area to find some must-do caches.

Harry's Place

This was a virtual at Monsal Dale.  The car park at Monsal Head wasn't free so we managed to find free roadside parking further down the road.  The view from Monsal Head is breathtaking, we have driven this way before but have never found time to stop so it was great to finally be able to explore the area.  The walk down into Monsal Dale was simply beautiful and we thoroughly enjoyed the walk.  We made a circular walk of it which took us back along Headstone Viaduct and into Headstsone Tunnel which is part of the Monsal Trail. 

The Monsal Trail runs along the former Midland Railway line for 8.5 miles between Blackwell Mill, in Chee Dale and Coombs Road, at Bakewell.  The route was opened to the public in 1981 but four of the six railway tunnels remained closed due to safety reasons and reopened again in 2011.  We walked through the tunnel and back again before heading back up to Monsal Head.

The Tunnel is one of six on the Monsal Trail.  We will definitely be back another day to cycle the full Monsal Trail as it looks amazing.

Then it was off to Froggatt Edge to do Jonah's Journey.  This has been on our to-do list for many years, in fact we originally had the plan to come here when we were at the first Piratemania back in 2008 but ran out of time, since then it's been pushed down the to-do list but finally, today was the day - and also it meant that it would tick off the Geocaching Road Trip Let's Get Extreme Souvenir rather nicely.

Then it was back to the mega event to finish finding the lab caches and to play the Wherigo, Pegleg's Treasure (which we'd finally been able to download after driving around to find network coverage for our phones).  This took quite some time as we were stopping to chat to lots of other pirates along the way so by the time we'd finished it was time to set sail and head back home.  Stopping on the way to find LQ: Derbyshire.

Little Quest

We're making quite good progress on this series - the last few months we've been combining trips to National Trust properties (another of my many interests) with ticking off more LQ caches.  It's been so much fun and has taken us to some great locations.   Our latest find, LQ: Derbyshire, was in a great spot next to Riber Castle which overlooks Matlock - a great location with fantastic views.  Incidentally, Riber Castle was used as one of the filming location for the 2004 film 'Dead Man's Shoes', I remember watching it back then recognising the location from a previous visit to the area in 2001 so I was really pleased to see this cache was near to it.  Unfortunately the area is fenced off so we couldn't explore.

We had such a fantastic day and we are definitely going to make the effort to explore this area more often in the future as our visit has left me craving for more.

Easter in Cornwall

Truro Cathedral

Since our last visit to Cornwall in June 2014, a number of new Wherigos had been published so we decided it was time for another visit.

As I mentioned in the last blog, we are making a concerted effort to find more Little Quest caches this year, we found a few when the series was first published back in 2008 but over the years we’d been focussing on other things instead.

We set off on Friday morning and detoured off the M5 at Taunton in order to find the LQ: Somerset.  No problems here, it was in a nice location with a great smell of wild garlic in the air. 

Then onto LQ: Cornwall.  We parked the car in torrential rain and pondered over the best route to the cache and whether we were in the best parking location.  After about 15-20 minutes the rain eased from torrential to just ‘really bad’ and we decided to go for it.  Not only was it raining, it was also extremely windy and thankfully once at the top the cache was a quick find.  The cache was in a great spot and on a clear day I'd imagine the views were fabulous.

We stayed at the Travelodge in Roche again. It is the third time we’ve stayed there as it’s nice and central for the surrounding areas. Over the years we’ve seen the area change from the newly improved A30 not even being on the sat nav on our first visit, to a fully functioning service station materialising

After checking in, we headed into St Austell to do the Heart of St Austell Town Trail Wherigo and a couple of Earthcaches. This was a really pleasant walk around the town although it was bitterly cold.

SATURDAY

A dry start although it was still very cold when we ventured off to ‘Build a snowman’.  This Wherigo was purpose made for the location and was great fun to play.

Meet Bert and Ernie

Tres Skoren Porthtreth a'n Hens Horn series next which follows the route of the old tramway from Pool down to Portreath.  A thoroughly enjoyable series during which we’d worked up quite an appetite. Time for pasties!!!  No trip to Cornwall would be complete without having at least one proper Cornish pasty so we headed into Hayle to Philps famous pasty shop, where we have sampled pasties a few times.

Next stop Truro and the Pub Quiz Mastermind Wherigo.  This Wherigo is a slightly unusual format in that it just involves correctly answering a series of quiz questions in order to be rewarded with the co-ordinates for the final location.  Mark had completed this several weeks earlier in preparation for the trip and the cache itself was nice quick find at GZ. We rounded off the day with a leisurely walk around Truro and then chips for tea.

SUNDAY

We started off with the Reverse Wherigo Where's 'Um To?.  We’ve found quite a few of these now so the mechanics of finding the final location is not a problem, but the spoiler picture on the cache page was cause for concern.  It was obvious that the cache was quite a way up a tree!  Although we’ve found many caches involving a tree climb which claim to be 5* terrain, we’d never attempted any which definitely required ropes and were, therefore, truly 5* terrain.

We completed a climbing-wall course last year so knew the basics of how to do things safely but this is somewhat different to a straightforward rope climb.  Mark had done quite a bit of tree work with ropes in his younger years as a tree surgeon but had all but forgotten how to set it up. After a bit of research we discovered what the bare minimum equipment was that we'd need and bought the necessary bits and bobs, including harness, rope and prusiks in preparation for our trip.  This was quite an expensive outlay but we intend doing a lot more of the extreme caches and will be adding to the kit in the future.

Anyway, after a few (quite a few) throws Mark had the throw line in a suitable location and the climbing rope was hoisted into place. The youtube videos showing a double drop rope and single prusik make it look really easy. It’s not. But before long the log was signed and Mark was back on the ground again. Beth was keen to have a go as well (she’d done quite a bit of this sort of thing with Scouts over the years) and soon made her way up the rope using two prusiks.  Unfortunately as this had taken quite some time there wasn't time for me to go up the tree as we had other plans on our to-do list for the day.  Hopefully I will get a turn next time.

Then it was off to do the Heligan Hike.  This was a fabulous circular walk around the valley near the lost Gardens of Heligan, by this time the sun was shining and we were walking in our T-shirts.

Grampound Wherigo next. We thought this one was going to be all on pavement so didn’t bother putting our walking boots on but about halfway through it takes you to ‘the woods’ so we soon regretted out inappropriate choice of footwear.  Never mind, it was still a lovely walk and included a multi and a few trads en-route

We rounded off the day with Quentin's Quest. A series of 17 caches around the village of Bugle.  A lovely walk that we managed to complete just before dark.

MONDAY

We’d planned to do the Tamar Treasure Trail on the way home but knew it was going to take quite a long time so checked out of our accommodation very early.  This Wherigo is actually more of a classic treasure hunt but it is listed as a Wherigo because one of the stages is a Wherigo cache.

I can’t really say too much about this Wherigo as to do so would spoil it for others but safe to say it’s frustratingly tough at times but it did take us to many beautiful locations, which we really would never have found.  Although it’s listed as 5/5, the terrain is really only about 2 or 2.5 but the difficulty level of 5 seems low!

Sunrise

We set off before sunrise and it took us about 12 hours to complete and that was even with PAF help from a very kind and helpful previous finder as one of the early stages was missing and another one was damaged.  Would we recommend it? Yes, definitely … it’s got some really imaginative and ingenious stages, some we have never come across before.

If we had to offer constructive criticism it would be that the lack of hints or any clues of what we were looking for at a couple of the stages tainted the overall experience.  But on balance we had a fantastic memorable day, in a beautiful area of the country, discovering many new places that we had never been to before on a glorious, hot, sunny day.  Once we got to the final stage it was all worth the effort we'd put in, once again no spoilers - JUST GO AND DO IT!

That was the end of our trip, we arrived home about midnight, luckily missing all the bank holiday traffic.