Back to Poshville

The time has come for yet another visit to a land we call Poshville. Why do we call it Poshville?....well thats because of all the great trails laid down by the c/o Poshrule aka Paul.

This trip included my partner in crime Jules of the Bedfords, Ash [Monki] and Nikki (BlueNora) who were with me on the 151 trip, Griff aka Dave (BaggieDave), James (Pfaffabouters) and Emma (Shorty Pfaffabouter).....the last 3 just down for the day whilst the rest of us were staying in the Premier Inn at Norman Cross.

We met up at 8am at a McDonalds near Kettering and after a drink and bite to eat we headed off to first planned series of the day.

Old Weston Outback

http://coord.info/GC306TB

The Old Weston Outback is a walk of under 6 miles taking in footpaths, bridleways and quiet lanes. There are 26 caches plus one other enroute and two others with a slight diversion.

There are no hills on the walk and no stiles as far as I can remember, we didn't come across any cattle either which is always a bonus.

The walk started of with a walk through a recently ploughed field, so by the time we got to the other side we had all grown a few inches in height.

Team Adix
 

It was a long slog through this huge field.
 

Here's the blue skies we ordered.

I think our group size was just right and it was nice to get to chat to everyone at some point and of course there was plenty of banter , the friendly type of course.

We clocked up just over 6.5 miles with the diversions and were then back at our cars for a food / drinks break...

Buckworth Blitz

http://coord.info/GC31C1N

So a quick few minutes drive and we were parking up ready to begin our second series of the day.

The Buckworth Blitz is a walk of 31 caches plus 1 more enroute, it clocks up just over 6 miles on footpaths and country lanes..... there were no cattle on this route.

We had a few more freshly ploughed fields to cross on this series but they didn't produce as much clod (is clod a word?) on our boots.

Loving the sunshine

Another cache in the bag!

So another enjoyable walk over and surprisngly it's much warmer than forecast, it's so much more fun caching in the sunshine.

Buckworth church

The church micro was a little off the route (even though the church wasn't) so we drove to it on the way to next series.

Broughton Bananarama by poshrule

http://coord.info/GC3WGXT

The Broughton Bananarama is a walk of approx 7.5 miles with 36 caches and 4 more on route. The going is easy  with flat footpaths and byways,  there are just a few stiles towards the end.

I think this was personally my favourite walk of the day and it was a bonus to finish it in daylight which I think none of us expected.

Sign at start of walk.
 

An alpaca taking interest in us.

We did meet another caching team during the walk but to be honest they weren't fussed about stopping and chatting.... a shame really as we are all very sociable.

Mr Pfaffabouter and shorty

 

Almost done yay.

We arrived back at the parking in full daylight even though it wouldn't last long before it disappeared.
We said goodbye to Dave, James and Emma and then made our way to the Premier Inn at Norman's Cross for the night
Another day with over 100 caches in the bag.

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So after a nice meal at a pub and an earlyish night it was back on the trail again today.

I had noted 2 series that could be walked together as a kind of figure of eight. The walk was just over 8 miles and reeled in 40 smilies.

Ailsworth Amble by poshrule

http://coord.info/GC39F3C

The Ailsworth Amble is a walk of 20 caches with 1 other on the route.

Castor Canter by poshrule

http://coord.info/GC2WC6P

The Castor Canter is a series of 15 cache's with 4 others available within the route. The walk is just under 5 miles if done on its own.

Both of the series combined made it an ideal length of walk as we all wanted to be back home in the midlands at a sensible time.
For Trig loers there is one on the way round.

Bagging the small trigpoint.

 

 

 

It is warmer than Jules makes it look haha.

Well once back at the car we decided that was it and we would now go separate ways. Nikki wanted a cache in Lincolnshire and Jules and I wanted to get LQ Cambs and LQ Rutland.

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Jules and I headed for LQ Cambs first but stopped for a few drive by's on the way.

LQ:CAMBS - The Green Man by The Klever Boys

A lovely area of open green land with a lovely church and some fantastic trees. It is really a cache and dash but in a picturesque place.

Seen from cache site.

Next stop was a quick drive by and then onto another Little Quest cache.

LQ:RUTLAND - Luffa's Ham by Jonovich

The route to the cache takes you through a church yard & past the beautiful parish church, over an old stone stile, across a field and down to the River Chater.
The cache container is a lovely big ammo can.


We did one last cache near by and then headed home.
Yet another fantastic time was had by all.......


Total smilies bagged over weekend = 158

Broken in Peterborough day 2

So day 2 begins and we are all aching a fair bit but nowhere near as bad as we thought we might be after yesterdays mammoth day.
We bagged a cache outside Travelodge and then another by McDonalds before making our way to the first series of the day and to meet up with caching buddy Jules, who was down here for the day.

Apethorpe Agadoo by poshrule

http://coord.info/GC3FHE5

The Apethorpe Agadoo is a walk of just over 5 miles taking in 25 caches with 3 more on route, it will take you on footpaths and bridleways from just outside the village and back again.

So at 9am we met at parking coords and set off on the walk. The sun yet again was shining for us but there was also quite a breeze in exposed places.

A good start on the series!

The walk was easy going which is always a plus when your body is broken from the day before, I think the fact that Jules was here with a fresh, non-aching body was a plus for all of us.

Lou & Ash waiting whilst Nikki signs the log.

We took a slight diversion after #6 to pick up CC02-The Railway which took us a couple of mins to find but we got there. At around cache #8 we were really spoilt!!! Lou looked up and spotted a Red Kite, there was lots of showing of for us but nobody managed to get a really good picture but it certainly was one of the highlights of the walk....

It's there somewhere haha!

All the caches were proving to be quick finds and so was our next "extra" cache ..... Glenn Miller cache by thepanteras.

Glenn Miller Memorial at the former RAF Kingscliffe, site of his last hangar concert..

The cache was placed very close to a Glenn Miller memorial., which we all found rather interesting. The only thing that really put us off were signs all over the place telling us to keep off private land, it was hard to tell which was the real path......surely it wouldve been easier for them to mark the footpath better?

Ash on the old airfield!

The area round here was lovely apart from those damn signs. We carried on with the walk passing a couple of ladies on their fine horses and a while after we were passed by a jogger twice!!!! He must've been running around in circles haha.

I think this walk was a little bit more less flat in terrain than the others but it may have just felt like there were more slopes due to tiredness of the feet.

Clouding over, but still dry!

After a while we came to another cache kinda on the route: Sneaky - The Box II by mad.bird which was a good one for the D/T grid (4.5-1,5), the main difficulty being that it was an ammo box.... but not just anormal ammo box as it was much much smaller in size than the traditional ones. With 5 of us searching, Jules soon made the find in an interesting area too.

So it was just 4 more caches of the series and 1 other on route back to the car, we really enjoyed this nice walk and feel we have enough energy for another one before heading home.

Catworth Cult TV circular by schnaws

http://coord.info/GC3EHKQ

A fun walk of just under 5 miles with 25 caches up for grabs. The route takes in the village of Catworth, across crop fields and bridleways and alongside farming land. Parking is available at the local pub, and next door there is a small village shop. Once out of Catworth however, there are no available amenities.

The series is based on popular TV programs of a generation ago, ie when I was growing up haha.
There were some nicely thought out caches on this series and we had a lot of fun remembering the programs.

Yay well done Nikki!

Most of the cache containers had pictures of the TV programs and some of them had little toys which played the theme tune, it was really a nice touch. Others were handcrafted
I think most of us who were here yesterday are really beginning to ache now and so it was quite inevitable that this would be last series of our stay here.

Team work as usual, what a team!

We were chuffed to have chosen this series to end our stay here. We loved all the Poshrule walks but it was nice to try someone elses.

Both Paul (poshrule) & Ian (schnaws) emailed us all afterwards and thanked us for doing their walks.
A big thanks to them and of course to all my caching buddies for making these 2 days so enjoyable.

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Total smilies bagged today = 57

Broken in Peterborough day 1

I had booked a cheap Travelodge family room back in February for Alwalton, Peterborough and after a few weeks of sorting  out who was coming the challenge was set. What challenge???
Well originally I wanted to get to 100 caches in a day and I knew it would be possible as there are plenty of caches available within a 10 mile radius of Peterborough......but then Blue Nora, TheHorde, [Monki] & Unowho67 became involved in the plans and after a last minute change of plan, we decided that 150 was just about possible but obviously not easy...

The morning on Friday 13th April arrived and my darling wife kindly dropped me off at Ash [Monki]'s house at 6am. Lou of the Horde was already there so after having a chat with Wendy (Ash's lovely mom) we were on our way to the first series, picking Nikki (Blue Nora) up on route.

We arrived at parking coords for the first walk of approx 20 miles at around 7.20am and by 7.30am our other buddies Elaine & Simon (Unowho67).

So off we set on a foggy start to the day to take in the series Keyston Kache Kaper & Hargrove Hobble.

On our way to first cache of the day!

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Keyston Kache Kaper by poshrule

http://coord.info/GC3B89X

The Keyston Kache Kaper is a walk of approximately 9 miles taking in  47 caches plus 2 extra on route and 2 more in the village. The walk is on bridleways and footpaths and a short section of road and the going is fairly easy.
There was cattle in field to cache #1 and when entering the field go to the left of the fence to get to the cache or you will have some climbing over to do, we didn't have to walk across any other cattle. Between caches 33 and 34 you go through some farm buildings and a field with two horse's, 28 is slightly off set from the rest due to landowner issues so you have to double back but not far at all....the walk is very easy going and all caches were easy.

Have we found it yet?

We combined the walk with Hargrave Hobble so in effect we started in Keyston and ended in Keyston....this was parked up by the only pub we came across.

Hargrave Hobble by poshrule

http://coord.info/GC3D1GV

The Hargrave Hobble is a walk of approximately 12 miles and taking in 55 caches along footpaths, byways, bridleways and country lanes. There are two Just Northamptonshire caches directly on the route, one very close by, two Church Micro's and also a RAF Chelverston cache on route.
Between caches 33 & 34 go round the field edge as the farmer is happy with that, between 41 & 43 the road is busy but has a wide grass verge, 51 to 52 has a big gap as you will walk through a massive field along the track, 53 to 55 again is on a busy road but again a wide verge.

Taking a breather!

The weather was kind to us as the forecast said we were in for a couple of heavy showers but thankfully they didn't materialise. We clocked in over 21 miles although for some reason my everytrail only shows 20 miles in around 10 hours....

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We were all in need of some warm food to keep us going, so we  went into Thrapston and popped into a chippy, whilst sitting on a bench opposite it was decided on what series we were going to do next and also it was when our buddies Elaine & Simon decided to call an end to their day as their Travelodge was near to where we were and most of the drive by's needed later were by our Travelodge.

Winwick Wander by poshrule

http://coord.info/GC2WF2V

The Winwick Wander is a walk of just under 5 miles, where you can take in 23 cache's plus 1 other enroute.
We tried to get a bit of speed up on this one until it was dark so we could have as much light as possible. All the caches were easy to find but a little more difficult once it did turn dark.

Not broken yet!

We soon had the series up once it had gone dark and were back at the car but beginning to ache a little.... We now stood at 134 for the day......

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We now headed back towards our Travelodge and took in as many poshrule drive by's as possible, afterall the man is a legend around these parts. We decided to get 151 just incase we messed up somewhere but we hadn't....by 11pm we reached the Travelodge 151 smilies better off....

What an epic day, total smilies bagged = 151