Tag Archives: fungi

solo

Gosfield & Broak’s Wood

Trad: 11
Walked: 6.4 miles

I headed to Gosfield today to find some caches in the area, it’s not somewhere I find myself very often. My first target was the Village SIgn trad – and I got a bonus two for the price of one on film pots here!

BoGoF At VS Gosfield!
BoGoF At VS Gosfield!

Next I went searching for a trio of trads in the little woodland to the east of the village. I found some great hides and some natural sights too – including the first spot of a decent Fly agaric specimen this season.

Fly Agaric En Route
Fly Agaric En Route

Next I relocated to the footpath north of Great Spanseys Wood to find another trio of trads. Two were in the Something Fishy series – and I certainly found something here, although it wasn’t fishy!

Stick 'Em Up
Stick ‘Em Up

The next was supposed to be a Mighty Oak, but all I found was a small plastic tree! Well, it was inside the cache, so I guess that’s OK.

Odd Little Tree
Odd Little Tree

Broak’s Wood was next on my agenda. The hides were a bit tricky, and some of the undergrowth was a bit hard going. I was amused to stumble across this “seat” dedicated to Vera along the way!

For Vera
For Vera

Autumn is really taking hold now, with turning leaves and dampness in the air, but it’s a very photogenic time of year, so I’m not complaining.

Autumn Is Here
Autumn Is Here
by bike, grand day out, hq duck dash, solo, with friends

Day #371 – Geolympix Mega 2016

Trad: 15 Multi: 2 Challenge: 1 Letterbox: 3
Virtual: 1 Mega: 1
Walked: 7.5 miles

Shifty Saddled Up And Ready To Go!
Shifty Saddled Up And Ready To Go!

Today it was time to head to Ashridge Estate to attend the Geolympix 2016, my second Mega event.

I was delighted to test out the geo-bike properly. Ashridge is a big estate and it enabled me (and Shifty Duck!) to get around and find a good few more caches than we would have managed on foot alone.

Shifty bagged the jump seat pretty quickly – and certainly turned a few heads as we rode along!

Little Quacker was also keen to help out with the finds and signing the log!

Little Quacker Joined In
Little Quacker Joined In

We found some interesting fungi in the woods too.

LQ WIth Some Fungi
LQ WIth Some Fungi

The birds were a bit worried about the camo for this cache!

Cannibalism?!
Cannibalism?!

If I was worried that Shifty would be the biggest kid on the block, I needn’t have – look at this monster bear who was helping out on the Mega sign-in desk!

A Big Bear At Sign In
A Big Bear At Sign In

At 2pm the participants of #UKGeocachingHour on Twitter got together for a little meet up. It was well attended! Nice to meet folks in person who I’ve only chatted with online before now.

#UkGeocachingHour Meetup
#UkGeocachingHour Meetup

Three Irish cachers turned up for the meetup – The_Chris, lulybelle and Saramur – great to meet them too, I’ve been chatting with Susan (lulybelle) and Sarah for ages, so lovely to put faces to names.

The Irish Contingent!
The Irish Contingent!

After riding around looking for a few more caches, I returned to the main site to have a rest and watch the National Geocaching Awards – there were some worthy winners – some of whom seemed particularly ecstatic to have won!

National Geocaching Awards
National Geocaching Awards

It was a very enjoyable start to my geocaching holiday, and I managed to find a few more boxes on the way back to the car, arriving just as it started to rain! In the nick of time…

I then made my way to the Travelodge in Hemel Hempstead for the night, so that I would be ready to set off again, bright and early tomorrow, for day two of my trip.