Plan, Pack, Travel, Repeat: wherigos

Saturday, 14 July 2018

Geonord 2018

We attended Geonord last year and we'd enjoyed it so much we decided that we'd definitely try and return this year to the Geonord Sunset event. We realised timing would be tricky though as we would be on holiday in Austria/Slovenia the week before and with limited holiday left from work we'd only be able to make a weekend of it. The plan was to drive down to Folkestone on Friday afternoon after work ready for an early crossing on Saturday morning on Le Shuttle.

What should have been a 4-5 hour journey took nearer to 8 hours as there were a number of lane closures on the motorway at different points.

We detoured to Dover first of all to do an Earthcache - we'd already done it on the way to Geonord last year but when we got home we couldn't find the answers or even the photo we'd taken. So we decided to return and do it again. It was a bit dark but we managed by torchlight.

We had 3 hours sleep then headed to the Eurotunnel terminal to wait for our crossing.

We arrived at the mega event at about 8am and there was loads of room to park, people were starting to arrive and the car park soon filled up.

After the most important business of the day - Cycling to the Boulangerie for cakes and pastries - we headed to the event venue. It was already in full swing when we got there about 10am.

Signing the 'log book'

Log book

Always nice to bump into good friends

Last year the event had been held at an aerodrome and all the lab caches had been outside, this year the venue was a sports hall and all the lab caches were indoors and with the number of people trying to do them meant that it was very tricky to get to them so they took quite some time to complete.

It was really hot and crowded in the hall so we ventured outside and enjoyed chatting to lots of caching friends from the UK.

After spending a couple of hours at the event we headed off on our bikes to find some caches around Dunkirk.

We were keen to find the new wherigos on the dunes but the sun was quite hot so we decided to wait until later in the afternoon before starting them because of the intense heat.

We set off about 3pm and took plenty of water. We bumped into quite a few cachers just finishing, most of them said how tough going it was walking in the dunes with the heat of the sun.

It was very hot but not as bad as we were expecting and we completed the 4.25 mile walk in 2 hours. Really enjoyed the series.

After hiking in sand with sun cream on we needed to have a shower so it was the perfect opportunity to test out our new camp shower. We've used a solar shower before but it wasn't the best, after a lot of research we invested in a USB shower and it's perfect!

En suite shower

Sunday

Up bright and early to an amazing view

After breakfast we enjoyed a walk along the beach before joining lots of other cachers for a CITO on the beach which gave us a chance to explore the WW2 bunkers and find a few caches along the dunes.

We found quite a bit of litter and our bag was soon full so we headed back to where we started.

It was lovely to bump into our caching friend Arnokovic, a cacher from Paris and also a Groundspeak volunteer. We met him in the US while doing Power Island GC35 in Captain Mike's boat, it was great to catch up with him again. Such a small world as we also bumped into DutchTrolls a couple of Dutch cachers we met while doing GC28 Beverly and Cache42bears - 2 German cachers we first met back in 2014 at the Catalunya Mega Event, they came to our event in Andorra and have since bumped into them a few times at various Megas and Gigas.... that's what I really love about this hobby, we've made some great friends over the years.

All too soon it was time to head to the Eurotunnel terminal and start the long drive back home.....

Stopping off for a couple of breaks on the way home to stretch our legs ....

A brilliant weekend, definitely want to venture further into France in our campervan next time... stay tuned 👧👨🚐

Wednesday, 15 November 2017

Castilla-La Mancha

Earlier in the year we noticed some Wherigo Geoart in the shape of a cat in North West Spain and while browsing what other caches there were we spotted another Geoart series in the shape of a goat near Madrid. We decided to opt for the cat series first and booked our flights to Porto for the Autumn as due to work/family/existing trip commitments we weren't going to be free until then. However, while we were away in the States we were notified that the airline we'd booked with had ceased trading and all flights had been cancelled..doh! We shopped around for more flights but found we could get much cheaper flights to Madrid instead but this meant we had to put our plans back a week which just happened to be my birthday weekend ..... so here we are.

While looking at possible places within easy reach of Madrid I noticed the beautiful area of Serranía de Cuenca and Ciudad Encantada (the enchanted city) so decided to make a start there.

Day 1

We made an early start before sunrise in sub-zero temperatures to explore this beautiful area.

The scenery and views were spectacular!

Ventano del Diablo viewpoint

Ciudad Encantrada

We were really looking forward to visiting the rock formations at Ciudad Encantada. We have seen quite a bit of this type of erosion before but these examples seemed particularly spectacular.

The 1982 movie Conan The Barbarian was filmed here

Also on our must-visit list was Cuenca.

The Hanging Houses

Days 2 and 3

La Marca de la Cabra

After a bit of research we realised that as we only had 2 days to do the series we would need to take our bikes with us to stand the best chance of finding all the caches, it would be too far to walk and we'd find it painfully tedious doing them all by car.

Although the weather forecast had said 15 degrees we hadn't reckoned on the subzero temperatures before sunrise and didn't think to pack our gloves so had to endure freezing cold hands until the sun rose and warmed us up and reached a gorgeous 25 degrees by mid-afternoon.

We thoroughly enjoyed the bike ride and managed to find over 140 caches before it got too dark.

Views of Madrid - 4 torres on the horizon

On Sunday morning we had about 45 caches left to finish the series. We set off to do one loop, once again in sub-zero temperatures when just near the end disaster struck and the derailleur which had been slightly damaged in transit finally gave up totally. So we went to Decathlon for a temporary repair which enabled us to finish the remaining caches. We were well impressed with Decathlon's customer service and despite the language barrier they understood what the problem was and did a temporary repair free of charge.

We cycled well over 30 miles on our bikes and has to be the best series we've done on our bikes. Some of the caches required a long search but most had good co-ords and hints.

In preparation for our trip we'd spotted some more geo-art with a variety of cache types and although this was about an hour's drive from where we were staying we decided to give it a go and we're really glad we did. A very enjoyable series in a lovely location. It was about a 5 mile bike ride in the glorious autumn sunshine which we completed just as the sun was setting.