Over the summer we even pitched up next to the evil C/O of the caches at the brilliant Piratemania event. We gave him a lot of stick for putting us through many frustrating hours but said we would get to them as soon as poss. Well unfortunately many things happened after Piratemania that it didn't even get thought of again until this year.
I have being doing lots of fantastic caches this year with my caching partner Jules of the Bedfords and a few months ago I told her about these infamous puzzles and the fact that I wanted to go do them and Mrs. BCC wasn't too fussed. Jules was up for it but wouldn't go without solving the said puzzles herself. She did well and seemed to solve them a lot quicker than we did.
Anyway a month or so ago it was decided that this Saturday was the day that we should go get these 2 epic puzzle caches.....The 5/5 Werewolf and the 4/4 Whitespace... but that we would hand pick a few others to do.....
At 4.30am alarm wakes me up and at 6am I pick Jules up and we are on our way up north.
Tunnel-Tastic by Chillie Slim Kid & GONE-2-FAR
http://coord.info/GCRRB0
We had decided to start off with this one which had been recommended to us as we quite like having a look in tunnels. We parked up by the school nearby and it was a quick walk to entrance, then it was a simple task of following the disused railway track for a short distance to GZ with torches of course.
We did enjoy the cache and was glad we stopped off to do it as it was on the route.
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| Jules following the track |
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| My pose with cache that Jules found! |
It was good to get one in the bag, next stop a tree!
Forest Walk 5 by Mulkky
http://coord.info/GC35MT0
This cache was part of a series but we only wanted to grab this one as it was a D1/T5 which we both needed to help fill in our D/T grids. We parked nearby and enjoyed a short walk to GZ. Jules soon identified the tree and I spotted cache. I went up tree first but chose the silly/scared way up, I got the cache but struggled to get log out. Jules then climbed up a different way with myself still up tree, she managed to get log out and passed it to me to sign...Great team work eh?
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| Another grid square coloured in. :) |
Next we had a short drive to grab another cache in the Little Quest series, this time it was LQ:Gtr Manchester - King of Swing. It was not in the most scenic of places but we want to try and finish the series one day. It was now time to jump on the M62 and head east a bit so we could go and seek those puzzle caches we crave.
Werewolf by muttoneer
http://coord.info/GC1NH60
We found some good parking so that we could grab 3 caches on a little loop with one of those caches being Werewolf. We took the Pennine way at first and was really enjoying some sunshine for a change as the weather has been so naff lately. We past a fair few walkers and I took a photo of a couple of them at the trig point. The terrain so far was easy and absolutely no problems at all and we made a quick easy find of White Hill which was near to the trig.
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| It was sunny honest haha |
We had to leave Penine Way now and well the terrain all of a sudden became much harder with muddy peat, reeds around hidden streams which Jules enjoyed seeing myself take a couple of big squelchies to way above my boots and grassy tussocks haha. We loved it, it really was fun and not as difficult as we thought but hey we were having decent weather.
We had to pass Way Stone on the way as there were some dog walking muggles sitting there but we did that on return and that was also a great cache with brilliant views. The Waystone could be spotted from where we had set off it was that big.
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| Way Stone |
We were a matter of feet away from Werewolf and could see that it was a long way down, but we needed to go down a few feet to get to GZ, we had to be careful here as its not the place to fall. The views round here were fantastic and we could see for miles, even mighty motorways looked so small.
Within a minute of being down and searching Jules moved a rock and we heard the metal clank of an Ammo can....OMG YES we have at long last slayed that tormentor, Werewolves are not a myth as we have tracked the menace down....This cache definately lives up to all the hype and my fave point awarded was its 100th, you don't get 100 fave points on a none series cache for nothing.
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| Yep we found the menace! |
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| A long way down |
We loved GZ , it was a very peaceful place and a shelter from the wind just a few feet above us. I reckon we probably spent 20 minutes or so just taking everything in. The views, the cache, the logbook......this cache was everything from start to finish.
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| Jules with the beast. |
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| Gotcha!!! |
On the way back down to the car we took the direct route but to be honest we wished we hadn't as it was even harder walking of dodging boggy marshes, infact I don't think it was any quicker.
We arrived back to the car in time for a quick coffee and then off we set again......
Whitespace by muttoneer
http://coord.info/GC1AF96
With Werewolf done it was now time for Whitespace, we knew that there was a good chance of a shower so we set off almost straight away. We got to Acrophobic's solace which was just on the side of the big, high footbridge that crosses over the M62, the cache was a quick find and over the bridge we went.
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| There maybe trouble ahead (Black clouds) |
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| A bit more along the Pennine Way |
After a short easy stroll along Penine Way we took in this cache Windy Hill and admire the views, it certainly was windy here haha.
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| Windy Hill cache nicely hidden |
It was now time to leave the path and off route, this is where the terrain started to get harder and was similar than the descent of Werewolf but steeper and more difficult in places.
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| The last pic before the storm. FMF or mwahhpets could hide a cache down here! |
Next cache along the way was Frosties First and the moment I put my hands on it we felt a couple of spots of rain, by the time I had signed log and replaced cache I was soaking. Why oh why didn't I put waterproofs on first before signing the logbook. We were now in the middle of a fierce hailstorm.
We quickly moved on and tackled a bit of rock walking which was pretty tricky but due to the torrential downpour we made our way across it quickly with our heads down to reach the next cache Mad Hatter's Home and by this point we had thunder. Jules was becoming a little nervous at the thought of lightning and I tried to reassure her.
She really is a trooper because this for me was also a huge challenge, we are not used to these conditions but we kept going, unfortunately photos were becoming sparse as there was nothing to take pics of as we couldn't see anything.
We took in some more rocks and walked down some a while before we eventually arrived at GZ for Whitespace where Jules immediately found the lovely sized ammo can. It was a shame we could not appreciate the location as much as Werewolf but it really was lashing it down.
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| YAY Whitespace found :) |
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| Lashing down but we got there. |
Taking everything in stock this cache was fantastic and we were delighted with our success. In hindsight we shouldve done Whitespace before Werewolf but not due to the weather but due to harder terrain.
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| Tired, wet but there's still more caching to do. photo by Jules |
It was hard work walking back but it did stop a couple of times and every step nearer the car we were the better we felt. When we finally got back to the car after a couple of hours walk, it was time for another coffee before jumping in the car for the next section of the day.
It was now a 8 minute drive to grab another Little Quest cache, we parked up at the side of Buckstones Moor #5 - Haigh Gutter and made a quick find there and then it showed up as 0.3 of a mile to LQ:W YORKS - Willmer Green which was a nice little walk but squelchy in places and our feet kinda hurt a bit from the battering of pursuing Werewolf and Whitespace.
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| View from LQ W Yorks thanks to Jules |
It was nice around GZ but yet again as we found the cache we had to get waterproofs on sharpish haha, we took the details and returned to the car.
It was now time for a rest and a 40 minute drive back west, it felt good to be dry for a bit.
We parked up just as the heavens opened up yet again. Do you reckon we will have a summer?
We parked next to Reebok View and I quickly found that while Jules got her waterproofs on. We could see the Reebok stadium in our views but hey its only a football ground. I put my waterproofs on and we made our way to another couple of caches on the agenda for the day.
Valley of the Tiger by The Magna Defender
http://coord.info/GC2BAAZ
An earthcache with a rating of D3/T4.5 in which Jules needed towards filling in her grid.
This really was a lovely Earthcache and although the terrain was a bit high it was definately very slippy and easy to fall in places.
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| Jules is laughing cos I slipped and almost fell! |
It took in some lovely falls and lots of greenery around lovely streams, it was a little gem of an area that we enjoyed exploring.
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| Down by the lovely stream |
It took us a while to find all the answers but we were also doing a multi at the same time.
#300 The End of the World by The Magna Defender
http://coord.info/GC3A7DZ
This was a fun 2 part multi where some questions had to be answered by going down a bunker, another place Jules and I enjoy going down.
I went down first and Jules went down after as we came up with coords that put us quite away from us, but one of the questions was a little confusing.
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| A bit of a tip down there! |
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| OK lemme out it stinks down there. |
The final coords took us up above the falls that were in the earthcache so we completed that in between these 2 stages. Once we were near GZ we were unsure of what side of stream we needed to be so I walked across a few times but it was very slippy.
After a bit of doubt about being in the correct area Jules announces that she thinks she can see it!!!!
YAY she did and we were rewarded with the site of a nice big ammo can.
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| Very slippy but pretty |
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| The cache is in hand. |
Wow can this day get any better, we got back to the car and we only had one hour left before we had to return home and we really wanted to get another 5/5 but wasn't sure we would have time.
I phoned our caching pal GolfChick and she assured us that as long as we found the entrance fast it was doable......Well that sealed it.
We jumped into the car and made our way to the next destination.
Ghost Train by gaznshell
http://coord.info/GC29M8V
This was our 2nd D5/T5 of the day and we were under pressure to find the entrance to yet another tunnel cache. We parked up where it suggested and just followed the paths but headed towards water, afterall there was water going through the tunnel.
I think to both our amazement we walked straight to the entrance and had to just cope with a slippy bank to get down so that we could head on.
Jules had already got her wellies on as they have good grip but I had to put mine on before we went any further.
Ok already and we were off into the water and entered the tunnel, the water wasn't very deep and didn't come above our wellies at all so it was quite easy going. A couple of minutes of walking down we soon arrived at possible GZ but we were just at wrong end of it, a minute or so later and the container was spotted and the cache was found woohoo.
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| Near the entrance! |
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| The entrance has disappeared yikes! |
Although this was over very quickly it was still a fun cache and better than Tunnel Tastic that we did at start of the day, now back to the car and even time for one more as we can park almost next to it hahaha.
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| The cache in hand! |
Back at the car we knew that we could just about fit in one more which was another Little Quest, it was the last cache I had pencilled in so it meant we would complete them all.
LQ:LANCS - Hunter's View
We arrived at the car park and it was only a short but very scenic walk to GZ. It was definately the best Little Quest of the day and a great way to finish such an epic day off woohoo.
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| Lovely scenery from the cache site. |
Well thats it our day is done, we have a 100 mile drive to drop Jules off but it really as been fantastic caching at its best.
Smilies bagged today = 18
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