A Day around Church Stretton

Spent the day caching in and near to Church stretton with caching buddy Julia of the Bedfords. Julia chose where we were going today and what a fantastic choice she made.  I set alarm for 5.20am and prepared for the day before being picked up at 7am.

Series placed for gFab 2010 event by SleepyNow01

http://coord.info/GC2EPC0

We found somewhere to park and donned many layers of clothing as it was a very cold day. I think we set off around 8.30am. It was a very pleasant walk of just under 4 miles, taking just over 2 hours. There were 18 smilies in the series (2 of which we did as drive by's after we had finished loop).
The terrain was well varied and the one path was in middle of field in which all the ground had been turned over, it was pretty cold so the floor was nice and firm for us, with ice in some places

The route takes you along public footpaths and there are several stiles to negotiate. Unfortunately a lot of the stiles are not dog friendly, and cachers with large dogs may experience difficulties.

Julia and myself had a success rate of 18/18 :)

Another cache bagged !

A quick photo break.

Shame weather wasn't a bit sunnier, but hey ho

gFAB 2010 series workout

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Long Mynd

After we had warmed up we took a drive up Long Mynd as there was a couple of caches up there we had picked out from home.

LQ: Shropshire - Lightspout Waterfall by Izzy and The Lizard King

http://coord.info/GC16NJG

Well this cache just looked so appealing to us and was owned by friends Izzy and Paul. We parked up on the top of Long Mynd and immediately we started doubting we were in the right place to tackle this one.
We decided that there was no harm in taking a look to see if it was possible to get there, so we put back on all the layers of clothing we had to battle the cold again. As we jumped out of car we spoke to a couple returning to their car, they said they had walked where we wanted to go but decided against going any further as it looked like snow.
Well we thought we could go take a look as it would be a nice walk even if we couln't get there, It started to snow on the way but visability was still good and it was still flat anyway, but after walking so far there was then a big 400ft drop we would have to get down. We both decided that this could be done if we took it really slowly and avoided the icy patches, we eventually made it down to the bottom where we were really both totally gobsmacked at the natural beauty of the waterfall and its frozen edges.

A lovely picture but doesn't quite tell the story!

Crazy Lady!

You would never guess that I like snow!

We looked at our GPSr's and knew we had to somehow get up and behind the waterfall to GZ, now this was going to be difficult as area had ice virtually everywhere but after observing area, we knew it could be done. We took it very slow but did manage to get up to a slight path but there was even more ice to contend with and a matter of crossing stream, but once we had done that we were eventually at GZ.

It was snowing in big flakes now it really was magical and I was chuffed to share it with a friend and fantastic caching buddy. A couple of minutes later, Julia had cache in her hands.....FANTASTIC!

We celebrated our find but knew that due to the weather we had to get back to the car sharpish and knew that we had to do everything now in reverse.

Once we were back to the car we celebrated with a nice hot cup of coffee and took a few layers off while warming up with cars heater.

LightSpout Waterfall Workout

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WW2 Series - A Bridge too Far - Pole Cottage by The Time Lord

http://coord.info/GCJ5E7

We moved on down slightly to the car park near this one and prepared for the short walk. Back on with the layers, gloves and hats and we were on our way. We soon spotted the specialist equipment needed and Julia began putting it together whilst I was eating my sandwiches haha.
The specialist equipment enabled us to build a bridge to cross the  stream and get to GZ. Once we were over the nice big Ammo can was found quickly.
We crossed back over to put specialist equipment away and then had a photoshoot standing on the frozen stream. We didn't need specialist equipment as the lake was frozen over haha.
Was nice to bag this D1/T4.5 for the 9x9 grid. I have 75 out of 81 now :)

Proof that cachers can walk on water!

We headed back to the car now and decided that we would head on down Long Mynd and go bag a couple in Church Stretton. On our way down the Burway Julia's car slid a little on the ice, which was a bit scary, we also noticed that they had closed the road while we were up there doh.....How scary was that!

The caching mobile that got us down the closed Burway in one piece!

Road sign at bottom of Burway after we had come down.

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Church Stretton itself

Lovely white stuff!!

We parked up on the High Street for a walk round and to go for a few more caches. It was still heavily snowing, infact there was more down here than there had been at the top of Long Mynd.
We did 3 caches and then decided due to all the snow that we really should leave and get home early. We were both glad we did as if we hadn't of done we would surely have been stranded.
The M54 was covered in snow and there was no signs that it had been gritted, it took us ages to get home.

Thanks go to my caching partner for a very memorable day bagging 23 caches in total, what a day..... filled with caching, big hills and snow.....PERFECT!!!