It was another crisp Autumnal day, but the sun was out so Alistair and I decided to have a walk to find some caches around Gosfield. We settled on the Greek Myths series by itandat, giving us a nice circular route.
Of course, no caching expedition is complete without at Church Micro – so we stopped off for CM370 in Gosfield before starting the main walk.
CM720 Gosfield
Part of the route took us past some of the holes of the local Golf club. Look out for low-flying balls!
Low Sun On Our Walk
Some of the signs were a bit the worse for wear, but we spotted them all in the end.
Alistair Shows The Way
There were loads of lovely colours in the trees, and plenty of golden light to show it off at its best.
Golden Trees
As the afternoon progressed, our shadows got longer and longer. I’ve never had such long legs!
Longest Legs I’ve Ever Had
Even towards the end of the day, there was still pockets of frost on the ground in the shadows. Some places hadn’t seen the sun all day.
Still Some Frost In The Shadows
As the last of the daylight was fading, we made the last of our finds – the bonus for the series, and then headed back to the car and home for tea and cake.
Two caches bagged this morning on my way to work. Firstly the time-critical Going Underground (which is only available during office hours on weekdays), and then Church Micro 5919 in Sloane Square.
Another nocturnal walk after work this evening, this time to finish off the Multi in St. James’s Park which I started last week, and pick up a puzzle and a trad in Mayfair.
Wellington Barracks After Dark
The trad was CM7907 Mayfair Grosvenor Chapel, a fine building even after dark.
It was a trying day at work today, so I was glad to be able to nip out at lunchtime for a quick caching walk. My target was CM1749 Pimlico St. Gabriel. Numbers collected, the final GZ was a short stroll away. Another find added to the total.
Time for a trio of Church Micros in London this evening after work. Not too much trouble locating them (they were all multis) even though it was getting dark.
After my adventures with Kitty the other day, I decided on a solo mission for a higher DT cache was in order today. My target was Don’t Fall In! near Copford Green. I arrived to find the pond was virtually dried up, but the cache was still tricky to reach.
Dried Up But Still Tricky!
After a bit of manoeuvring I finally got my paws on the log – and another D4/T4.5 pot was under my belt!
Job Done, Yay!
It took a bit longer to accomplish than I had hoped, so I was a bit late arriving for BEASTMARSTA‘s GeoCoffeeClub#15 in the Old Heath area of Colchester. Shifty quickly made a start on the crisps!
Shifty Tucks Into Lunch
Suitably fortified, I then headed back to Birch and Layer Breton for a circular walk taking in lots of trads. A mixed bag of success – plenty of finds but a few frustrating DNFs too. This alien was a nice quick find though!
Poor Little Dude!
When I’m out and about I do like photographing the Village Signs – Layer Breton is clearly very posh, they have gold leaf on their sign!
Gold Leaf!
They have a quaint little church in the village too.
CM1931
It was getting dark by the time I had finished my loop – the sunset was rather colourful tonight.
Sunset At GZ
After finding the Village Sign cache (it was quite a walk in the gloom to GZ) then finally back to the car in Birch, I was grateful for a sit down before the drive home.
I enjoyed another crazy day today, on my road trip from Essex. I had originally planned to visit Imber Village (for the rare D5 Virtual) next weekend, but checking the access times again a few days ago, I noticed the MoD had decided to close it early. So it was this weekend or bust! A hastily-arranged road trip saw me finally visit the Ghost Village and fulfil an ambition at last. However there were a few caches along the way which needed my attention first!
Selfie At Woodhenge
The village of Durrington was worth a visit, for the Woodhenge Virtual, Cuckoo Stone Earthcache…
The Cuckoo Stone
… and Sun Gap Cache – another Virtual to tick off the list.
Sun Gap Cache Virtual
Then on to the main reason for my trip, Imber Village. It’s a spooky place, even when full of summer visitors. The MoD only open it for about 4 weeks in total each year, so it was definitely worth going when the opportunity arose.
Spooky Houses In Imber Village
The church has two caches associated with it, one of which requires a visit inside, and with even more limited opening times than the village itself, the window to get the information was pretty small! I’m so glad my plans worked out.
Imber Church
Once that business was concluded, I was able to drive across some of the ranges of Salisbury Plain to pick up a few challenge caches which I had qualified for. But you must remember to give way to the Routemaster Bus from Warminster to Imber, ferrying curious muggles to the place I had just left!
Give Way To The Bus On The Ranges!
After the challenges, I was able to find The Biggest Cache In Wiltshire too, which turned out be a true monster!
The Biggest In Wiltshire!
The log was equally massive, and I had a bit of trouble trying to take a selfie in the rain with the logsheets flapping about in the wind! Here’s the best you get.
Ridiculous Log!
From sunny in Imber, the weather was beginning to deteriorate. It was quite cold and damp by the time I arrived at Caen Flight for the multi nearby, a 2002-vintage hide and a Large as well.
Caen Flight In The Gloom
On the way back, I stopped off at Silbury Hill to log the Virtual there, taking another selfie in the gloom. At least it had stopped raining.
Silbury Hill And Clouds
Then it was time to head back to Lambourne in Berkshire for the nearest Finish Line event for the HQ Duck Dash. Little Quacker has had fun over the last month, but is now happy to go into retirement, having covered 1,408 miles with me! I wouldn’t normally do that many miles in a month, but it did occur during the period of my 10-day holiday in North Wales and elsewhere, to visit two Megas!
I’m heading to Imber Village in Wiltshire this weekend (more of that tomorrow), but first I had to drive to Margate in Kent for meeting this afternoon. You never know what the motorways are going to do, so I set off super early and had time for a few finds in Kent before the meeting. Since I was passing, I stopped off briefly for the 13th Day Of Every Month Challenge just south of Whitstable. Then the T3.5 Earthcache near Reculver was high on the agenda.
Looking For Sharks’ TeethBlowy Day At ReculverLittle Quacker Takes A Swim
I had lunch next to the pretty little Church at Reculver before doing the Church Micro.
CM3444 – Reculver
Once my meeting was done, it was back on the motorways, but I had time for one or two on my way to my hotel in Berkshire this evening – the payoff for travelling on the M25 on a Friday night!
CM4415 – Eversley
The CM at Eversley was hardly a Micro! Little Quacker met a blue friend in the big ammo box we found. Why Eversley? Well I needed just one CM in the CM44xx range to finally qualify for The Mega Church Micro (CM) Challenge Cache and this wasn’t too far off my planned route. Job done!
It’s A BIG Micro
The last stop of the day was to Burghclere Memorial Chapel for the CM there, before turning in for the night and settling down to log the day’s finds.
A handful of new caches have been published around Fyfield and Moreton recently, so I thought I would head over there to see if I could find any of them.
My first stop was a multi based around The Free Church. Dusk was approaching and the required information was pretty hard to read, but I manged it in the end and went on to find the pot easily enough.
I then spent ages messing about with Stumped! 56 which is a field puzzle and so far has no finders – in fact, nobody else had even attempted it, and it’s been published since 27th July!
Still Stumped By Stumped 56!
Sadly, I was still stumped by it, and had the dubious honour of being the first to DNF. Despite knowing what to do with the numbers I found, I just could not locate the pot – I was searching by torchlight in the end.
So I gave up and went for the Church Micro in Moreton instead – where I was just in time to witness a spectacular sunset! And I found the cache. Double win.
When you’ve been caching for a few years, it’s not often you get the chance to find a new cache type, but today was the day!
But first, I met up with Essex caching friend Gilly of Bean & Sprout to walk a section of the Llangollen Canal Trail between Berwyn and Llangollen. We also did a couple of extras (including an Earth Cache) while we were passing.
Gilly & Me At EC Location 1Gilly & Me At EC Location 2
The canal walk is a lovely relaxing stroll, all very flat, and a good wide track to walk or ride along. We saw a horse-drawn canal boat excursion while we were on our route.
Horse-Drawn Canal Rides
After “lunch” of a lovely Cream Tea at the canalside café, we made our way to the Llangollen Pavilion to visit the GPS Maze Europe – a rare beast indeed and the first time the GPS Maze has been seen in the UK. Another cache type added to the list, yay!
We’re At The Maze!TFTM 🙂
Little Quacker met a little duckie friend who was also in the HQ Duck Dash races, they got along well while they quacked away happily, telling each other of their adventures.
Little Quacker Meets A Duckie Buddy
After the Maze, Gilly and I found a few more trads around the town of Llangollen, which has the pretty River Dee running right through the middle of it.
River Dee At Llangollen
One fun cache was Over The Bridge, a Whereigo implementation of the classic Famer’s Conundrum (with caching-based characters instead of the usual Fox, Chicken & Grain). We ended up quite a way out of town but bumped into another group of cachers at the final GZ, so we all posed for a photo.
WiG Final GZ
It was getting late, so I left Gilly to sign in at the campsite at Carrog about 10 miles west of Llangollen while I returned to my hotel in Oswestry – via a delightful (but tricky) little CM5266 in Llandysillio, which earned me Powys on the map.
CM5266 Llandysillio
The Llangollen hides had already earned me Denbighshire today, but I couldn’t resist also adding Shropshire to the list by finding Mile End Cache & Dash, conveniently placed in a corner of the car park at the hotel in Oswestry!
