Brecon Four Peaks and our 10,000th Geocache

Corn Du, Pen y Fan, Cribyn and Fan y Big

Caches - 2 Virtuals, 5 Traditionals, 1 Earthcache, 1 Multi
Length of Walk - 10 miles
Duration - 7 hours


We have been planning a trip to Pen y Fan for ages, the first time we attempted to visit was when there was an event being held here in November 2010 but the snow was so bad we could barely get the car out of our road, we made another attempt in July 2011 after the Welsh Mega event, we'd booked accommodation nearby and on the following morning we woke to heavy rain and low cloud so decided against the walk as we were really keen to have good views on a clear day.  Since then we've pencilled it in the diary for other days but each time plans have been scuppered by work commitments, illness or bad weather.  A couple of weekends ago the weather was great for the Midlands but 50mph winds for the Brecon Beacons area. No other commitments this weekend so all week we kept our eye on the mountain forecast and the only place in the country to have sun all day today was South Wales!!  So plans were made and today was the day.

Neuadd Reservoir

Parked in the car park near to Neuadd Reservoir and walked the ¾ mile up the road to the reservoir, then it was quite a slog up to the Twyn Mwyalchod trig point.  At this point I was wondering what we'd let ourselves in for as it was really tiring on the legs, the ground was quite boggy and nearer the top the stones were quite slippery underfoot and was more like walking up a stream.  Super-fit Beth managed to race to the top and sat and waited shouting words of encouragement like 'Hurry Up' and 'You're taking your time!'

Twyn Mwyalchod

Then once at the trig point the strong winds buffeted us and we were quite exposed all along Graig Fan Ddu until we reached the first peak - Corn Du.  Fabulous views from here and we could easily pick out the other peaks.

Path from Corn Du to Pen y Fan

This part of the walk was quite busy with other walkers and a fair amount of stealth was required for the physical caches.   The views from Pen y Fan did not disappoint and it was well worth waiting for a clear day.

Pen y Fan Summit

Then down the track and on towards Cribyn - once again quite hard going underfoot as the cobbles were quite hard to walk on.  When we got to the top we realised the cache was 400 feet North and yes at the bottom of the mountain   So Mark went off by himself to find that one whilst Beth and I waited at the top resting our tired legs. - so Mark ended up doing the climb up Cribyn twice!!

View of Cribyn from Pen y Fan

Then on to Fan y Big - It was possible to bypass this last peak and the path back towards the car looked really inviting but as we'd been wanting to visit the famous 'Diving Board' for years we ignored Beth's protests and pressed on up the fourth peak and this really was a slog for tired legs but a great feeling to reach the top.  We all posed for photos on the diving board, answered the questions for the multi and went off to find the cache which was to be our 10,000th find.

'The Diving Board' - Fan y Big

The picture below shows the elevation profile and the total ascent equalled that of Snowdon.

Elevation Profile - Total Ascent 3165 ft

A really great walk, tough going in places but well worth it and one of the best days out caching we've had.  The views were just stunning, the sun shone all day and averaging a mile between caches it was just perfect.

Brecon Four Peaks

Cyclo- caching again.

'Winged Seat' by Angus Ross

Geolympix Cyclerama

Our original plan for today involved climbing a mountain but the Met office forecast was for 50mph gale force winds so we had to shelve those plans and decided to stay on lower ground.  This series was recommended to us by Ginkgo, a cacher we met whilst out caching a few weeks ago, as soon as we heard about it we decided we'd put it to the top of the must-do list as we love caching by bike.


The Geolympix Cyclerama is a series of caches by Simply Paul set along the Phoenix Trail, a 7 mile footpath/cycleway.


The trail largely follows the route of a disused railway line, which connected Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire and Thame in South Oxfordshire with the city of Oxford. The line through Thame remained open until 1991 to serve an oil depot based in the town. It was subsequently purchased by Sustrans and converted into a cycle/pedestrian route.  The route is flat and mostly tarmac with just a short section  limestone dust.  The entire route is off-road apart from 2 places where you need to cross a road, one quite busy but has a toucan crossing and the other just a quiet lane.

These three copper figures were our favourite

As well as being an excellent cycle ride there were some really interesting pieces of artwork dotted along the route, this really added to the fun of the series.

Cute creature

One of the cache listings mentioned we'd pass Jay Kay from Jamiroquai's house so we looked out for it on the way, would've been nice if we could've popped in to look at his car collection but maybe another day

Jay Kay's House

The caches were all well hidden and a couple a little too well hidden   We stopped to find all the caches on the way which meant we could just cycle the whole way back, only stopping for the bonuses on the way back.

The Phoenix Trail

Whilst searching for the bonus cache we came across another cache that had been hidden nearby and were very surprised to be FTF on it, doesn't look like it will ever get published as it's very close to another cache but we signed the log just in case and moved the trackable on.  We went off to find the Bonus Bonus and met another cacher WarriorMonk105 who was already searching for the cache enjoyiing a chat before going our separate ways.

We thoroughly enjoyed the series and were very lucky with the weather as the sun shone all day.

Finding Old Caches

We are very keen on finding old caches and we're gradually working our way through the UK's oldest ones.  The next oldest we needed to find was Entology (Herts) GC164F the UK's 12th oldest active cache so while in the area we took the opportunity to find this one and two other caches set in 2001.

A really great day out, shame it had to come to an end, the sun shone all day, just hope we get a few more days like this over the summer.

Friday Night Caching

Vehicle Letterbox Series

Caches - 12
Length of Walk - 3.7 miles


A series of 11 caches plus a multi to complete on the way round.  Set on a 3.7 mile circular walk near the village of Shelfield in Warwickshire.

This series came up when I was at work today so as it was such a lovely evening we decided we'd go for a stroll after tea as it's only a couple of miles from home.

Parked up on the verge at the suggested parking just after 7pm and off we went.  On the way to #1 we could hear a stampede of sheep the other side of the hedge, they ran to the gap in the hedge and stood at the fence baaaa-ing away at us, then proceeded to follow us along the fence until we were out of sight.

The noisiest sheep we've ever heard!

On the way round we found the stages of the Round Trig multi, this reminded us a little of a couple of multis we did some years ago called Round the Old Mill and A Play on Words, at the time Round the Old Mill was a stand alone multi and extremely enjoyable completing all the puzzles along the route, we really like this sort of thing and appreciate the effort that has gone into setting it up.

Between #6 and #7 there were cows, they were very inquisitive and came running over when we entered the field, they were young bullocks so we weren't overly concerned, we just kept on walking and Mark did a brilliant job of shooing them away

Moogles

All the caches were easy to find with good hints and a really good variety of hides and sizes. Apart from the cows the walk seemed completely dog friendly and all the paths were well marked, some very muddy in places but nothing too serious.  The walk took us just over 1¾ hours but we took our time and it would probably be possible to do it much quicker.

Well marked path

The walk was extremely peaceful and a fantastic way to wind down at the end of a busy day, could do with this every evening

Chelmarsh

Mercian Way

Chelmarsh Reservoir

Caches - 18 + 2
Distance - 4.6 miles

A series of 18 caches plus 2 others en route around the Chelmarsh Reservoir.

This series has been on our to-do list since it was published a year ago, the forecast looked dry for today so we thought we'd have a drive out here to do it.

Parked near the church and did the Shropshire Church Gems cache first before continuing on to the series.

At the first cache we realised we were following another caching team, Pindemonium, and wondered if we'd catch up with them.  They weren't very far ahead and we caught up with them at #4.  Enjoyed a chat before continuing on the walk.

Chelmarsh Church

Really enjoyed the series with a good mix of hides and sizes which we completed in a little over 2½ hours which included a lunch stop

We noticed there was a trigpoint nearby so at the end of the series we went off to bag it.  The first field was quite muddy as it looks like there are normally cows in it, luckily they were safely in the cow shed .  The path into the field with the trigpoint was dry and as we approached it  we could see what we thought was a large bird sitting on top of it, but it didn't fly off and as we got closer we realised it was a statue of a GNOME.  Definitely a first for us, have never seen one like this before.  The gnome is mentioned on the trigpointingUK site as far back as 2006, would be interesting to know why it was put there and by whom.

Chelmarsh

On our way home we parked up and crossed the road to SVR Permissive Path and Field and there was a photographer waiting to film the steam train, so we stood about with our camera so he'd think we were doing the same thing , we were able to retrieve the cache whilst he was fiddling with his equipment, then as soon as the train had passed through we continued down to SVR Stand and Wave.  How lucky that we timed it just right to see the train!

Stand and Wave

Then it was time to head home, what a beautiful day it turned out to be.

Middleton Cheney

All Saints Parish Church

 TCR Series

Caches - 17
Length of walk - 3.5 miles

The series starts in Middleton Cheney, a village just East of Banbury and takes you on a circular walk along footpaths to Chacombe and back again.  A very pleasant walk with a variety of caches sizes to find.  All were straightforward finds with very useful hints.

 
A couple of the fields had cattle in them but this wasn't a problem for us, although some people had reported on previous logs that they'd had problems with bovine beasts at #10 but we were lucky here as they were all at the other end of the field and didn't seem to notice us so we just strode briskly across until we got to the other side of the field.  We didn't have our dogs with us today so can't really comment on the dog friendliness of the walk but there were a number of stiles to negotiate on the way round and as mentioned already, the cows!

We completed the walk in a little over 1½ hours.  Then it was back to the car for our lunch.

A few days ago Mark had noticed that there was a cache not too far from here that hadn't been found for over a year and had no DNFs or anything to suggest there might be a problem with it so we decided to go and resuscitate it in order to qualify for another Resuscitator challenge cache.  We parked in the pretty village of  Byfield and made the brisk walk to the cache, just under 3 miles in total there and back.  Then after finding a couple of Just Northamptonshire caches (we're gradually getting through them) we headed home.

Cache successfully resuscitated

Macmillan & Midshires Meander

Macmillan and Midshires Meander

Little Brington Spire

No. of Caches 35 + 8
Length of Walk - 7.2 miles

The Macmillan Way and Midshires Way are long distance footpaths that meet to form a cross in Northamptonshire.  This series makes a figure of eight walk using this cross.

Saw this series published earlier in the week so we added it to the to-do list as it looked like it would be a good walk.  We hadn't planned any caching today as we had other commitments later on but we were able to make an early start so decided to do the series this morning.

No problem crossing the puddle

We parked near St Brington Spire and were puzzled as to why there only seemed to be a tower when there was a church marked on the map, all was revealed when we read the interesting history on the cache page.

We'd left our dogs at home so weren't too worried about meeting cows but as we approached #5 we saw there was a field with cows of all sizes so calmly opened the gate and walked through the field sticking to the edge making sure not to get between a cow and her calves, all was going well, we found #5 and continued to #6, found that one keeping one eye on our exit points then as we walked across towards #7 and the gate to freedom we spotted a jogger coming towards us wearing a hi-viz jacket, the cows went absolutely berserk (gotta keep this family friendly ) and we had to leg it to the gate, the cows chased the jogger and he took evasive action and leapt over the fence into the adjoining field!........

Then the rest of the walk was much more relaxed.  When we got to #20 we met Gingko and continued to the end of the series together, enjoyed the company it's always good to meet other cachers out and about.

I was very pleased to bag a trigpoint en route!

Really enjoyed the walk, all caches were fairly easy to find but all were very well camoed so some were quite tricky to spot.

Uffmoor Wood

Uffmoor Amble

No. of caches - 10
Length of walk - 3 miles

A series of 10 caches set on a 3 mile circular walk around Uffmoor Wood.  The caches are all placed with the permission of The Woodland Trust.

We only had the morning free today so this walk looked ideal and just the right distance for our dogs too.  It was lovely to walk around this pretty wood again with the bluebells and wild garlic just starting to flower.  We last visited back in October 2007 to find GCYG1R - Uffmoor Wood by Rubery Blue.

A very enjoyable walk, the dogs loved it, all caches were fairly easy to find with a nice variety of hides and containers.

Whisper