Back to Devizes

I mentioned to [monki] a couple of weeks ago that there was an event down Devizes and did he fancy it, well a few days later whilst being out on the Brewood Bonanza trail he announced he was up for it and so did Lime Candy.
Walking wood also showed an interest in coming so that was it....Devizes here we come.

[monki] picked myself and Lime Candy up from her abode at 7am and we picked Walking Wood up near M5 J6. We stopped off for brekkie at McD's and then hit the first series of the day shortly after 9am.

Stan’s Sausage Series by Stanthews

http://coord.info/GC2ZEVC

Stan's Sausage series is approx 7 miles with 35 caches, there is also a little bridge cache that can be picked up enroute. The series is in a figure of 8 so it can be done in two smaller rings if prefered.
The series is mainly flat but there is a bit of an incline between #25 and #28. Most of the tracks and paths across fields were under water and/or very muddy but it is October after all and besides mud is fun.

A good start to the day.

 

 

 

WW signing the logbook.

This was a nice walk with all the caches being easy to find. The mud obviously slowed the pace down, but there's no fun in rushing.

A laugh a minute today :)

Dry rather than wet mud hehe.

So 36 caches out of 36 found and time to move on to the next series of the day.

The Westbrook and Chittoe Ring  by Stanthews

http://coord.info/GC1W3WA

The Westbrook and Chittoe Ring is a series of 21 caches with #21 being the bonus cache, there are also 2 little bridges caches on or slightly off route.
The terrain today was very muddy and slippy in places and more inclines than previous series.
Unfortunately I had to quit series after #6 as I was feeling unwell.
I went to rest in car while the others completed this nice series, when I get chance to get back down this way I will be sure to do #7 onwards.

The others finished the series and moved the car to grab the bonus cache and then we all headed off to the nearby event.

The Wiltshire Event #27 by Stanthews

http://coord.info/GC3XB96

Surprisingly by the time we got to the event I was feeling a fair bit better but have a feeling that was mainly due to the hospitality we received, from the moment we entered the room Stan the host looked after us.

I wonder if event is here?.

We had some good geochat with Stan and Celia & Ron aka Ailec Nor and then the south reviewer Southerntrekker came over and we had a good chat with him too.
It was also great to have Stowford Press on draught so I had a couple of those while Walking Wood & Lime Candy sampled the beers.

Chilled out nicely.

As we had completed Stan's Sausage series earlier in the day we decided that we should all have sausage and chips, so it was good to sit at a table to eat and wash it down with another drink.
We laughed and chatted away with new friends Celia, Ron and Stan and Stan even serenaded us before we had to call it a day and head for home.

Some fab new friends.

 

Smiles all round. Picture by Ron (Ailec Nor)

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

The Lovely Dovedale

Today was somewhere we have wanted to go to for a while and better still the forecast looks good again.
We arrived at main car park at 8am only to find it doesn't open until 9am doh. So we decided to park on side of road and do an earthcache first and then reposition car onto car park.

SOTL - Thorpe Cloud by PopUpPirate

We walked  along the river and then around the back of the hill following the path up to the top. We saw a couple of groups of ramblers way below us as we were almost at the top and then as we reached summit we were almost blown over by the wind hehe.

On our way
 

A shot from a few feet up the steep side.
 

Some crazy woman on the stones

Despite the wind it was great to be up here and look down at the lovely green scenery. There were a few questions to answer and a couple of pics to take and then we decided to take a much more direct route to the car.

It's a long way to roll down!
 

Me with knoll behind me.
 

Lovely blue skies as we approach car.

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Back down on low ground and £2.50 later we were parked up ready to walk down the river to Milldale and back down the other side.
The walk is spectacular and as I said earlier it is one we have wanted to do for a while.
We grabbed the first trad of the day before the stepping stones, unfortunately lid was cracked and log was not very signable.

Our first of a handful of trads today.

 

Down by the riverside

 

A bit of a walk to next cache
 

Jules in awe of what we can see.

It was quite a walk to the next cache but it was great as we had more time to take in the beauty of the area. There were some lovely rock faces down the sides of the river and we even passed a few climbers who were certainly making the most of the weather.

Further along we chatted to a couple of walkers for a couple of minutes and whilst chatting I spotted a lovely rock archway....perfect for a photo with tripod.

Natural beauty at its best.

We did another couple of earthcaches next, the first one being Lionshead rock mimetolith by pete37038 which was a rock which looked like the picture of a lions head, but we thought we saw lions head in a different rock haha.

Me near Lionshead earthcache

 

A nice pointed rock.

The rocks around here are fantastic though and next on the journey was SOTL - Dove Holes by PopUpPirate .

The dove holes

 

Me in front of Dove Holes.

The Dove Holes are impressive caves which are created by water wearing out the soft limestone cliffs.
There were a fair few people at the Dove Holes when we arrived so we only took a couple of quick pics and answered questions the best we could.

We then carried on along the river until we arrived at the lovely little village of Milldale.

Milldale

 

 

Whilst in Milldale there was a little shop selling food so we both had a nice warm pasty and a soup and then sat on wall at side of river. It was really lovely to sit down and enjoy watching the river flow.
Before we moved on we had to put our waterproofs on as it had started to rain and the sky looked full of it, but within a few minutes it had all blown over and the blue skies were back.

We headed up the road and connected with the footpath which was to take us to our next cache and then we had to somehow find our way to the next one but there was no logical way without back tracking.
We decided to just follow the arrow and what a mistake that was.... but being the adventurous pair that we are, we eventually got down to the path we needed and then DNF'ed the next cache doh.

It levelled out a bit
 

YAY more blue skies

The walking was a tad more difficult this side of the river but added a great deal of fun to the walk.
We could see the Dove Holes again and picked up a couple more caches as we approached the bridge to cross back over the river.

The Dove holes with someone climbing across the ceiling.
 

We had fun here getting through
 

Almost back
 

There was just one more cache before we arrived back at the car for a cup of coffee and to see where we needed to go next...

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Robbers' Safe House by chramm

Whilst we were down Wales a week ago Jules picked up a TB that wanted to go back to this cache, so of course we obliged and had a great day out in Dovedale too.

We did a couple of Baggiewhite caches on journey home to round off another perfect day.

Total smilies bagged today = 11

A trip to Wales.

Well it seems a while ago that I booked a cheap travelodge room at M4 Swansea, infact I was going on my own up until a week or so before when my caching buddy Jules announced that she had managed to get a reasonably cheap room too.
The reason I chose Swansea area was just for Mumbles Lighthouse Island but as usual we added a few more on so we could collect the oldest cache in Wales and to colour in all the lower counties.

I picked Jules up around 6.30am on an already beautiful, sunny day. We arrived at parking for first walk of the day at 8.20am.

The First in Wales by The Gecko's

Jules had chose this cache for us to do as it was the first cache placed in Wales, it was placed on 17 Feb 2001.
On the way to it there was a YOSM that we picked up, it was a lovely walk high up on top of the hill.

Blorenge YOSM

The views were fantastic when some early morning fog disappeared, this walk in lovely countryside with great views is what Geocaching is all about.
When we arrived at GZ after just over a miles walk, we were greeted by lots of rocks and underneath those rocks was (yes, you guessed it!) the geocache.

YAY Jules with the cache.

It took us ages to find but just as I began lining everything up with the spoiler pic, Jules had found it yay....... a nice big ammo can.

View from cache.

We then moved on to a park which should help us colour in South Glamorgan on our maps.

Caedelyn Park by Teaonesugar

A short walk around the boundary of some playing fields. There are 4 caches available but unfortunately we could not find one of them.
The park was ery busy with kids playing football but it was a huge distraction for us and enabled us to search for them no problem at all.


We moved on after the DNF and this time we did a fair few caches as drive by's on the way to Porthcawl where we wanted to do a cache which was close to the shore.

The Secret Diary of the Cacher's Tales by The Pacman Clan

We parked up close to the start of the path as possible and took in a couple of caches on the way in to this one. What attracted us to this one was the fact that you could make your own story up about the cache experience....We do enjoy doing things that are different from the norm.

Looking towards Porthcawl.

It was nice to be walking on the edge of the beach in lovely sunshine, the walk to the cache and back was less than 2 miles but so glad we chose to do it.

Not far from GZ.

We had a few minutes sit down while Jules ate something and then we moved on back to the car.
A few more drive by's later and we arrived to do a well favourited series but after looking at first 3 caches we gave up.... 2 weren't there and 1 was just lid and pencil only.
I won't name the series as it's obviously normally a great series.

So next stop was a pub called the Copper Penny in Port Talbot where we both had a voucher for a free drink....It was good to stop and chill which I think is a first for us...

Next we decided to head of to the cache which was the original reason for this trip.

Mumbles lighthouse island by golden pig

We parked up at car park on main road above seafront and made our way down to this one. This cache is tidal and low tide today was at 5.20pm..... we arrived at parking just after that time.

It was a nice walk down to the beach and we even walked straight past a cache as we wanted to get this on first.
It was then over the rocks and then up Lighthouse Island. Cache was easy to locate and while we signed the log we also took in some of the fantastic views on offer from here.
A great cache.

Swansea over there!
 

Wow, simply stunning.

On the way back there was a slight diversion to another cache that was a must do. We had read up beforehand and there was lots of fave points, so whilst back on the rocks it was time for a bit of climbing....

Seal View by sdh1412

It was a bit of a trick climb up at the bottom but once so far up it was no problem at all. The views up here yet again were stunning and offered the best shot of the lighthouse.

Mumbles lighthouse.

The cache was also found quickly, this really is everything great about geocaching!

One last cache by the pier and then it was time to head off to the travelodge and grab our rooms, luckily as it was quiet we had rooms away from motorway noise and right next to each other.

We had decided to get ready and then head off to the nearest Wetherspoons for tea, it was absolutely rammed but we only waited 30 mins or so for food so not bad.

So a fab days caching comes to an end, it was a shame we pulled out on one series but we were so disheartened that caches weren't there.....

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Sunday morning and an overcast start, a bit different to the lovely day yesterday. We grabbed a McD's breakfast and then hit the road picking up drive by's on the way home.
I had to be home for 1pm to join family in celebration of my dad's 70th birthday.

Another fantastic time caching and another 30 smilies in the bag.