Fun in Leicestershire

Spent a long day caching in Leicestershire with caching buddy Julia of the Bedfords. I set alarm for 5.20am and after getting ready and eating porridge I picked Julia up at 6.30am.

Chiburde Round by Lansdown

http://coord.info/GC2MM8B

We arrived at the suggested parking and were suited, booted and ready for the off around 8am. It was a very pleasant walk of just over 6.5 miles, taking 3 hours 15 minutes
There were 27 smilies in the series (1 of which was a bonus where you need to collect info from caches) plus 3 on the route providing you solve a puzzle before going.
The terrain was mostly flat and very easy going, it was pretty cold so the floor was nice and firm for us.

The walk takes in Kibworth Harcourt, Kibworth Beauchamp and a section of the Grand Union Canal (Leicester section).
The route follows footpaths, bridle paths and pavements. It is suitable for children and dogs.
Julia and myself had a success rate of 30/30 :) and she gained her 500th en route.Congrats buddy :)



Julia's 500th cache.....Woohoo!



Chiburde Round workout info

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puzzling by stevens family


http://coord.info/GC38MB4

After we completed Chiburde Round we got back to the car and moved on to do 4 puzzle caches - Puzzling 1, 2,4 & 5...not sure why there was no number 3. puzzling 1 gave me a d/t of 4.5-2.5 for my grid.
None of the puzzles were too difficult but good fun.
They consisted of 3 trads and 1 multi and could have easily been walked as a diversion to the Chiburde Round, they took us under a hour to complete.

Puzzling 5 - score 100

We did enjoy these puzzles and they broke the day up nicely.

Julia achieved 100 first

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After completing puzzles we walked back to car and did 1 drive by and then parked up in a liitle village called Foxton, where the main attraction for myself anyway was the puzzle:

   ''Swinging down the lane'' 2.0

http://coord.info/GCZE89

The puzzle itself I worked out but with a big chunk of help off a kind American lady, the cache was an easy find but was my 5000th (and familys of course). Being a true Basketcase I forgot to have photo taken here due to the distraction of passers by I guess. So pic below is 2 caches later on:

Number 5000

We did one more cache in the village before returning to the car for one more trail before returning home.

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Parish Ramble by Lansdown

http://coord.info/GC3ADGP

We did number 30 as a drive by on the way to suggested parking. It was a then a pleasant walk to 1st cache where I had my milestone photo taken. The walk was again just over 6.5 miles.
There were 30 smilies in the series (1 of which was a letterbox hybrid) which took us 3 hours 20 mins to complete.
The terrain was mostly flat and very easy going, it had warmed up a bit so was pretty muddy in places but that always adds to the fun.

The walk takes in the villages of Arnesby, Shearsby, Bruntingthorpe and Peatling Magna.
The route follows footpaths, bridle paths and pavements with just a short section of road. There are a total of four churches, four pubs and a restaurant on the route. It is suitable for children and dogs.
Julia and myself had a success rate of 30/30 :)

Total caches bagged = 68.

She's up to something!

Some friends we made.

Parish Ramble workout info

Sedgley Stroll

Sedgley Stroll - A Good Stiff one ;)

http://coord.info/GC3BC6M

Caches are all placed next to public footpaths

I had arranged to meet up with caching buddies Shan (Griswalds 'n' dogs), Andy (Citrus-Lizard), Louise (thehorde), Helen (Queen of Tartz) and Allun (Shropshire Seekers) for a spot of caching. Fortunately before we got there we received notifications of this new series by Dave & Kaye (Dibboid & Mrs.Dibboid).

I only had so much time as I had an hospital appointment but I managed to get 6 Joint FTFs with the team and also picked up a Greyboots cache on route.

Sunrise in Sedgley by Louise Pearson

I will have to go back to do the rest of the series, which was thoroughly enjoyable.

Sedgley Stroll Workout

Milestone closing in.

I made an early start today as I wanted to try and hit a milestone of 5000 on Sunday. My plan for the day was to go and do Rio's Romp but to get as many drive by's on the ways as possible
I managed to get 17 on the way there and by 9am I was parked up and ready for a nice walk.

Rio's Romp by The Als

http://coord.info/GC2XM3A

This is a series of 12 caches with 1 extra actually en route. The walk was under 4 miles and took less than 90 minutes. The walk was very enjoyable with mud in places, there was also some nice hides....A word of warning though....Don't try texting people on tour phone whilst walking along, as I walked straight into a 4" thick tree branch....it was painfull and bloody haha.

Photo in the cache gallery



The walk is very easy going but quite a bit of it is on narrow roads so take care. In the village, one of the caches led me to this old pump:

Old Pump with MKH somewhere ;)

I got back to my car and prepared for a few more drive by's.

Rio's Romp Workout

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I did another 13 drive by's and then met up with Julia of the Bedfords to do a few caches together.
We parked up on verge and started at Blue Arrow by Saza36, which we DNF'ed....typical my first DNF of the day was with Julia haha. We then carried on along the path to find Bridge the Gap, Wooden tube, plastic tube and then with the coords we had gained....U Tube.

Another good days caching and 47 smilies gained with just 1 DNF.

New series in the dark

I was sitting around in hope that some new local caches would be published but none were, but there were 9 published by Tim (Admin of facebook group "West Mids Geocaching") 35 minutes drive away.......so I ummed and arred and off I set hehe.
As I was about to get on M5 motorway I took a call from Steve (Hazumu) and I arranged to meet him at the parking coords.

Shire Oak Park by BlueWKD

http://coord.info/GC3A5QM

Shire Oak Park Local Nature Reserve is a wonderful area of Countryside, about 1.5km (1 mile) from Brownhills town centre. There are 9 caches hidden over a 2.5 mile walk.
There are some nicely crafted hides on the trail and a unique way of obtaining coords for one of the caches.

Image from cache page

Steve and I had a great time here in the pitch black. We found A pretty quickly but had to give up on B even though we know what we were looking for. Sometimes torchlight is easier to find caches and sometimes not.
We found all the others bar one which had various hides, scrambling down very muddy banks and a very stile-ish finish.
A fab little series that raked us in 7 FTF's but also 2 DNF's.

Shire Oak Park Workout

Island hopping

Well well well what shall I do tonight, theres nothing on the TV and I fancy doing something different?
Well now this is different!! I got email notifications of 4 new caches in the Oldbury area placed by a friend, Paul., Well I can get there pretty quick as it's only 1 junction up the M5, so I downloaded them to the Oregon and set off into the unknown- I say this as I didn't read listings or take much info as to where they were.
As I was on the way I had a call off Dave (Dibboid) saying he was on the way to them.
I got there first so parked up at McDonalds and got prepared.

Kara & Kieron None Circular Circular series by BlokieBloke

http://coord.info/GC3AZ7H

There are 4 smilies up for grabs here plus one extra for the bonus, which wasn't published at the time.
You need to get the numbers out of 3 of the caches, which I  didn't do as I hadn't read description.

As soon as Dave turned up we knew where the caches GZ was, it was right in the middle of a traffic island, infact all 4 were. Luckily I went straight to the first one and we were in business, no torches required thank goodness. We bagged another before bumping into Becky and Adam (AdamandBeckyChater) who then joined us on finding the last 2.
At the last one Marcus and Debbie (Darlaston Duo's) had beat us to it.

We could not stop giggling at the cheekiness of these caches and the fact that they will be so hard to do in the daylight when the traffic is heaving.
Great fun.

4 caches bagged and 3 were FTF's.

Eccleshall

Set out early for a long day’s caching up in Eccleshall, where we hoped to do a couple of series.  Caching buddy Julia of the the Bedfords picked me up at 7am (she’s a lightweight and doesn’t believe in leaving home before 6.30am on a Saturday!).  We were meant to meet some other caching pals at the parking co-ords, but they had decided to go off on a FTF mission and so would hopefully meet us a bit later on. 

Eccleshall Ring by Sharant

http://coord.info/GC2C76A

Got to Eccleshall without any problems and decided to park up outside the school.  No need for torches this morning as it was now light and off we went.  This loop consists of 13 caches, named after the dwarves that accompanied The Hobbit, plus some bonus caches which can be done en route or picked up separately.  Don’t forget to collect the info for the bonus as you find the caches!

The terrain was pretty good all of the way round – a bit muddy in places but not bad for January.  No major hills and some great views.

We had a really great time doing this loop and although the cache page suggests that this is a 2-3 hour walk, we did the 13 traditional caches in about an hour – and that was with a bit of searching for a few caches in places and a fair bit of gaffing around in others, including the now infamous Giggler Tree, where Julia got her revenge and was not very helpful when I was trying to get the cache back into it’s hiding place...

A good variety of caches, all shapes and sizes.  We found them all (except for the puzzle caches to it) and as we walked down the lane, back to the car, who was lurking at the end of the lane, but my other caching buddies Andy and Shan, who had done their FTF hunt and were ready to join us for our second (much longer) loop of the day.

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EeeByEck by Ticklebrick

http://coord.info/GC2QQAK

Having met up with Andy (Citrus-Lizard) and Shan (the Griswalds ‘n’ Dogs) plus geodog Tia, all four of us set off to do the EeeByEck series which takes in Eccleshall village centre and 6 miles of nearby countryside. The route consists of 27  traditional caches, plus a bonus cache, for which info has to be collected along the route.

We felt like we went round in circles to start with as we weren’t really clear about where we were meant to start and after a bit of milling about and heading up a few dead ends, we eventually hit on a clear GPSr reading and could find a path that took us in the direction we needed to go in. We ended up in the village centre quite quickly – a nice little place with a good selection of small shops, a pub or two, some toilets and the usual local character who decided to stop and chat just as we were attempting to replace a magnetic nano on a bench...

The route out of town took us along a fairly fast, busy road, which caused no problems for four sensible adults like us lol, but you would need to keep an eye on geokids along this short stretch of road. Once off the road, the route took us through lovely countryside, using well marked public footpaths, tracks and quiet lanes. The terrain was pretty easy going, a couple of hills but nothing too daunting, although in one place, with the wind blowing hard in our faces and the underfoot conditions decidedly claggy, it did feel a bit like hard work.

Andy scheming! haha

The weather was pretty kind to us, quite chilly but with some bright sunshine, and although we did have a bit of rain at one stage, this only lasted 5 minutes, so nothing to complain about.

Lots of laughs and messing about – pretty much the norm for us really – fake caches and sneaky finds, meant that the miles and the caches were whizzing by. Only one DNF along the route and it seems clear that the cache has actually gone awol, judging by the number of earlier DNFS logged and those logged since. However, even the disappointment of the DNF was totally cancelled out when I placed a fake cache near GZ, which Shan discovered shouting at the top of her voice “I am such a genius!!!!” while the rest of us stood by sniggering. She has forgiven me...I think!

"Twins and twats" a name Shan gave us all for playing her up!

Shan also celebrated a brilliant milestone of 2000 caches found – well done Shan and geo-dog Tia, what an ace achievement!

Congrats to caching partner Shan & Tia....woop woop!!

All in all, this was a really enjoyable series, a good variety of caches, some easy, some a bit more challenging. Andy and Shan had to cut the last bit short, so Julia and I carried on to bag a few puzzle caches along the way and then picked up the final bonus cache at the end. We ended up back in the village centre where we popped into a local cafe and bought ourselves a hot drink – total bliss at the end of a brilliant day’s caching.

Total caches bagged = 47 with just the 1 DNF.

Workout for whole day in Eccleshall

A big thanks to Julia for this write up x