Elmdon Park

Well another Friday has turned up and so another days caching. I awoke at 5.50 am and was at first cache of the day at around 7am.

LQ:WEST MIDLANDS - The road to nowhere by OldNickCov

http://coord.info/GC1669A

I have been doing some of the Little Quest series of late with caching partner Jules and today as I was close to this I decided to pick it up. I parked up at end of road and then walked the rest of the way.
The cache located in Meriden is believed to be the centre of England...Always nice to take a History lesson when Geocaching..

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After this I picked up a couple of drive by's before parking up on a Church car park in Elmdon Park.
The park is very close to big roads and Birmingham International airport but it really is a lovely pleasant area.

I started off doing some caches on car park side of church, picking up caches by Aramis144, matlou98 and part of a Tree series by Family B.

There was a cache up a tree right by this.

The caches were all straightforward except for one perhaps which was up a tree, infact I did not attempt that one as there were just too many muggles around. I will have to go back there with Ben and create a distraction hehe.

Down stream side.

The park really is ideal for families and good to mix the Geocaching with playtime too.
After I had managed to get all the sperate caches I decided to keep car where it was and attempt the Spotted Trail series by R&T with M&T. It was a fun little series apart from #1 being missing at the time.

I had enjoyed myself round here very much and will need to pop back for a couple. I think Ben would love the walled garden.

The Walled garden!

Walk around Elmdon Park workout

I did a few more drive by's and then parked up for a bit of a walk along the canal. My objective here was to pick up a TB owned by caching partner Jules and to take it on its travels for a while.
The cache was Bridge 80 by matlou98 and it was a real sneaky hide and took me a couple of minutes to locate.

Canal side

After lunch I had arranged to meet up with some caching buddies and do the Wast hills walk.

WHW 1 by Lime Candy

http://coord.info/GC3CYXH

The walk is approximately 3.5 miles long taking in 10 caches on the way. The terrain is pretty good but can be muddy in places especially after rain....of course.!

This is a lovely walk with some really fab views of the city, was just a shame it wasn't just a little bit clearer. The walk also takes you over the top of the Wast hills tunnel.

The team for the series was AirEd, Catshill Clan, the Bedfords, Turnbull Tribe & of course myself.

The rest of the team!

Baaaa!

None of the caches posed any difficulty in finding really but could see a couple maybe cause a few probs for some.


As we were having so much fun we decided that we should carry on the walk and do a Letterbox hybrid called Stagecoach Stash by Steve-e-b and Marina. This was very enjoyable and different in many ways but don't want to give anything away.

Wast Hills & Stagecoach workout

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Another fantastic days caching and another 39 smilies bagged.

It's all about the numbers....

So this week I had to go out on Wednesday rather than Friday which gave me an extra hours caching. So I thought I would try and get a few over Balsall Common sort of area.
I set off early and arrived at first caches at around 7am taking in a couple on route to first series, I had enjoyed Dave (The Stranglers) easy-ish puzzle cache Golden Memories - Balsall Common and thought his hint was very clever.

Fishermans Trail by The Als

http://coord.info/GC27TB5

A series of 8 caches over a 2 mile walk around the local fishery. I extended the walk a little to take in a few more caches close by.

I started the series after parking up in a park and taking in a cache on the way to near the fisheries, all the caches were easy to find but hidden in good places with a couple of sneaky ones in there too.

Approaching first cache of the series!

A walked down the Kenilworth Greenway which was a lovely track containing a couple of solved puzzle caches and a nice big container on a traditional.

Just as it says on the tin!

I really enjoyed the variety of caches and picking up some of which I had solved the puzzles too. I doubled back up the track and headed towards Berkswell Station picking up a few more caches on way back to the car. I had to change coats and put waterproofs on when I got back to car as it was now lashing it down.....but that didn't stop me...

Old Stores?

Berkswell Workout

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I moved the car a couple of miles and parked up on Ye Olde Saracens Head car park, I then proceeded across the road to nab a cache by a stile before moving on to do a Letterbox Hybrid cache named Pink Panther Letterbox where I had to find a laminated photo of a plaque and then answer a series of questions to enable myself to get a set of coords for the final GZ. It was only a short walk to GZ and an easy find.

I carried on taking in 2 small series..

Dexter Series by The Als

http://coord.info/GC1T5MG

This is just a small series around the edges of fields and with 6 caches up for grabs, all caches posed no problems at all and were found quickly.

Lonely tree.

There were also a few single caches along the route and I only really had to spend over a couple of minutes on one of them. That was one that was well hidden under some leaves....I got pretty wet searching and it had stopped raining, still it made rest of walk back to the car via another small series interesting....

Cocka I had already bagged 1 of this series of 4 by The Als and had no problem with these. I visited these sandwiched in with the Dexter series.

Fungi near one of the caches.

I carried on from the last cache of this bit of the walk and was soon back to where I was parked.

It was a good place to park today.

I got back to car and took off waterproofs once more as it had stopped raining and knew I had time for one small series before meeting up with some geobuddies later.

Balsall Common Workout

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Bloom Trail by The Als

http://coord.info/GC267PT

This is a short trail of 5 caches over 1.3 miles with no micros or nanos.
I parked up at side of road to take these caches in, it was an easy walk over the railway up a road a little and then back over railway again.

The Walk

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I moved on yet again and bagged a cache and dash on the way to meeting up with Jules and TurnbullTribe to grab another series.

Max's Favourite Walk by The Cuthies & Max

http://coord.info/GC34ZB0

A nice little series of  11 caches over 3 miles.

I parked up on church car park and Mrs. T was first to arrive ao whilst waiting for Jules we decided to get some info for the Heavens Above! - St. Giles multi by The webbies, we found all the info we needed except for 1 piece that eluded us....still it wouldn't make any difference as it was the last digit so a guess sufficed.

As Jules arrived we headed onwards and was soon greeted by a nice hand crafted hide to get us on the way.
A few of the caches had involved some effort put in, which is always a plus and obviously makes finding them more challenging.
The walk itself was lovely especially around Packwood House.

Sunshine-but for how long?

In between grabbing the Packwood ones we made a mile or so diversion to the final of multi but it was most definately worth it once we could find the one footpath that was hidden by big farm machinery.

Mrs.T put in the most work on Multi and so retrieved and signed cache.

We had to double back on ourselves after diversion but with lots of geo and holiday chat we were soon in some lovely woods finding another sneaky hide.
There was a couple more in Packwood before getting to a road for the final across a footpath and back on road to by the church.

A lovely area.

As we got back to our cars we said goodbye to Mrs. T and Jules and myself headed off for one more quick series before heading home. 

Fave Places and Multi workout

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Box Trees Trail by Twilightsteve

http://coord.info/GC2FBRT

A 2 mile series of 6 micro's leading to a bonus  cache making 7 in total.

We parked up at the Barn pub and quickly got started on this series due to time restraints. We got round this series very quickly as terrain really was perfect when short for time. The hardest find of all was definately the bonus as it was very well covered up.
Would defianately recommend this series for people who don't like to walk far.

BTT Workout

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Another fantastic days caching in which I managed to bag 55 smiles.

Down M5 in morning and Curry at night.

I had decided that today I wanted to have a go at part one of the new Animal Letterbox series, so I planned the morning caching around that area.
I started of doing a small loop of 5.

TEE OFF and others by Red Lionfish

http://coord.info/GC3494P

Well I arrived here at around 7am and parked just round the corner to attempt 5 caches, they are not actually a series but were all by the same C/O. Walk was 1.6 miles and took just under a hour. I did need a paf from Alan of the Vaughans for Tee Off but no problems with others.
Thanks Alan

The Workout

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I carried on to do a few drive by's by the cacher Team Karma which I enjoyed before moving on to do the Animal Letterbox Series.

Animal Letterbox Series by HKMHill

http://coord.info/GC3B7X4

All caches are Letterbox Hybrids in which you will need to find animal type and value for the Bonus. In first cache there are some sheets to take round to fill in the bonus info.

There are two parts to this series, I am just doing part one today as part two is in a different area.
All caches are in or near large trees with the exception of 7 which is magnetic, all small boxes containing Log Book, Rubber Stamp and Laminated card with animal picture and value (on reverse) for bonus, if you wish to record the rubber stamp you will need to bring an ink pad. This part (one) of the series is just under 2.5 miles, The walk is mainly on grassland and some crop fields. Some of the stiles are wired so not very dog friendly.

I really enjoyed this walk and liked some of the hides, it is great to get some more Letterbox Hybrids in my stats gaining 7 in total :)

ALS Workout

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I then moved on to do Gannow East and West, Young Growth and New Copse which I found no problem. I then did a few more of the 60 series as drive bys....numbers 9,8 and 7.

I then carried on to Bromsgrove to do a few caches with caching buddies Lucinda of The Turnbull Tribe and Julia of the Bedfords). I met them at Sanders Park and we did the 2 caches there.by darren 2000

http://coord.info/GC3504N

Julia getting stuck in!

Peekaboo hehe!

As you can see one of the caches was inside a fallen tree haha. We completed the caches and carried on to next port of call ..... Chez Roland by SOAPY Chickens  http://coord.info/GC3921Z

This was an interesting one haha but my trusted specialist equipment soon pointed out where it was, Julia went into retrieve as she had wellies on.

Next on the agenda was another SOAPY Chickens cache called Bromuda Triangle   http://coord.info/GC352P7
We had fun here and had an idea what to look for but couldn't find it, then as we chatted to a lady, I spotted something which ended up being the cache..... We did 3 more SOAPY Chickens caches before all returning home....at least for a couple of hours....

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On the evening we were meeting up with lots of caching buddies for a curry at 7.30pm, so Julia being Julia, forced me to go out earlier and bag a few caches first.......so she picked me up at 5pm and we made our way to do some more of Sedgley Stroll.
We did one drive by on approach and then parked up to attack a few caches.

Sedgley Stroll by Dibboid & Mrs. Dibboid

http://coord.info/GC3B8TT

We did most of this section but unfortunately had to miss Hook a Duck and Holly and Ivy. We did all this by torchlight as it was dark well before we got there.
We struggled on a couple but got there in the end and found all the ones we attempted.
It was magical on the top of the hill as we could see for miles, there were lights everywhere....we could even make out the ones in Droitwich.

We desperately wanted to get to Hook a duck but couldn't work out how to get there as there were no tracks on Oregon maps and it was difficult with torch....we decided to loop round and also attempt Illumination in which I had worked out final coords for just a couple of days ago. The cache was nothing to shout about really but the puzzle part was fine.

We enjoyed the caches set by Dave and Kaye (Dibboid and Mrs.Dibboid) and will be back again soon to grab some more.
BUT now we are off for a curry.
We bagged 1 cache during curry as one of the attendees Paul (blokiebloke) had place one just over the road. So we had a mass exodus and a huge joint FTF by 20 odd people.
We also bagged one on the way home which was another set by Paul, it was quite nice to have the rest of Basketcase crew with me too haha......

So total for the day was 42 finds, a great day

The Curry Addicts!