The Bank Holiday weekend just gone has been a hectic few days of Geocaching.
We started with a lazy day on Saturday and just picked one up as a drive-by while we were passing; it was competely unplanned and we actually forgot to log it for two days.
However on Sunday we went on a trip arranged by our new Geocaching friends "patdhill" and family. (Patrick and I have emailed each other a few times and we went around to meet them last Tuesday). This was a 10 mile hike around the top of Froggatt Edge for our two families, and included some serious rock-climbing to get to 3 caches rated 5 difficulty and 5 terrain.
The day started off pretty grimly with driving winds making the drizzle pretty awful but within an hour it was easing off and by lunchtime the sun was shining brightly. The wind never let up in the exposed places but it was a very pleasant day.
Owing to the complexity of some of the finds (12 overall) the 10 miles took us 7 hours but we had a great day (well most of us did, I think the kids are sick of hiking) and we cemented a friendship we hope will last a long time. Incidentally for the logs we came up with an on-the-spot group name of Team PADS for Patrick, Aggrajag, Donna and Spandannah which is of course much easier than writing 4 (or 9 with kids) names.
On Monday rather than rest our aching legs (and arms!) Spandannah and I decided to go to Rother Valley and pick-up the new series dropped there only 2 days earlier. Patdhill had, coincidentally, picked up First-To-Find on all these on the Saturday so we were, in a manner of speaking, following his trail again. As it was Bank Holiday Monday, and we didn't set off until about 1pm, we were already about 8th on the logs with 3 other Geocachers finding them before us on the same day - it seems like a very popular trail and it's not even 4 days old!
It was a pleasant 6 mile walk with no 'bush whacking' or 'jungle thrashing' but we did manage to get lost once when we added in another cache that wasn't from the same series and deviated from the desired route.
The series of 17 had 16 normal caches, some with clues in their lids, and a final puzzle cache you found from the lid clues. Out of the 17 there was one we simply could not find despite spending a good half an hour looking. Blasted bridge, it's frustrated us both and we'll have to go back another day and try again.
Typically the one we couldn't find included the last clue we needed for #17 but fortunately with one of the coordinates complete we used logic, the hint, skill and a dash of luck to successfully find #17 - and very proud we were too. Overall this was another 17 finds.
Tonight we need a night off - my back, my legs, my arms and even my aches are aching.
Tuesday 31 August 2010
Thursday 26 August 2010
Puzzle Caches
I've been working on and off, on a couple of Puzzle Caches this last month, just the odd five minutes here and there.
These two particular caches were, to me, incredibly hard. Having a logical brain I can quickly get to the root of mathematical problems or problems involving shifting the alphabet round, substituting letters or codes, or finding patterns and hidden messages but I quickly run out of ideas as soon as it becomes apparent it's not 'logical'.
For both of these puzzles I eventually asked a friend to give me the tiniest hint possible, which he did carefully, and then I solved them both in 5 minutes flat to zero fanfare.
I felt as though I'd cheated.
And I'm doubly annoyed with myself.
The hardest puzzle had been dissected 5 different ways by me and each way was bringing up something that could conceivably, with a bit of fiddling, become a coordinate - and it's these that make the puzzles so hard. The easiest solution was the one I'd started with but I'd come to a dead-end. I'd also followed the official hint and come to another dead-end but I'm annoyed because I didn't join both dead-ends together properly - I missed something and I didn't exactly give up but I was competely stumped.
The second I was sure was a simple 'Caesar code' (I didn't know it was called that until my friend gave it a name for me) where you simply rotate the letters x number of places left or right. For example A might become D, B becomes E, C becomes F etc. The first thing I'd tried on this puzzle was roman numerals, but the second was a Caesar code because the clue hinted at the number 10. I moved the letters 10 and got what I thought was nonsense. I even wrote a computer program that moved the letters every combination from 1-26 so I could see all possible Caesar results. Nothing. I used Google, crossword solvers, you name it on the Internet and all to no avail. But again, I missed the last step. It WAS a shift of 10 but the words produced weren't 'obvious' English. If I'd looked carefully I would have seen this and had the answer straightaway - so I'm annoyed with myself again.
In a pique of frustration I downloaded all the Puzzle Caches within 10 miles yesterday and in a couple of hours solved 5 of the 6. By myself.
I'm still not happy.
These two particular caches were, to me, incredibly hard. Having a logical brain I can quickly get to the root of mathematical problems or problems involving shifting the alphabet round, substituting letters or codes, or finding patterns and hidden messages but I quickly run out of ideas as soon as it becomes apparent it's not 'logical'.
For both of these puzzles I eventually asked a friend to give me the tiniest hint possible, which he did carefully, and then I solved them both in 5 minutes flat to zero fanfare.
I felt as though I'd cheated.
And I'm doubly annoyed with myself.
The hardest puzzle had been dissected 5 different ways by me and each way was bringing up something that could conceivably, with a bit of fiddling, become a coordinate - and it's these that make the puzzles so hard. The easiest solution was the one I'd started with but I'd come to a dead-end. I'd also followed the official hint and come to another dead-end but I'm annoyed because I didn't join both dead-ends together properly - I missed something and I didn't exactly give up but I was competely stumped.
The second I was sure was a simple 'Caesar code' (I didn't know it was called that until my friend gave it a name for me) where you simply rotate the letters x number of places left or right. For example A might become D, B becomes E, C becomes F etc. The first thing I'd tried on this puzzle was roman numerals, but the second was a Caesar code because the clue hinted at the number 10. I moved the letters 10 and got what I thought was nonsense. I even wrote a computer program that moved the letters every combination from 1-26 so I could see all possible Caesar results. Nothing. I used Google, crossword solvers, you name it on the Internet and all to no avail. But again, I missed the last step. It WAS a shift of 10 but the words produced weren't 'obvious' English. If I'd looked carefully I would have seen this and had the answer straightaway - so I'm annoyed with myself again.
In a pique of frustration I downloaded all the Puzzle Caches within 10 miles yesterday and in a couple of hours solved 5 of the 6. By myself.
I'm still not happy.
Tuesday 24 August 2010
Aggrajag, Lord of the Jungle
Spandannah presented me with a list of caches she wanted to do yesterday lunchtime so once home I quickly dropped them into my software, worked out a route, loaded them onto the GPSr and off we set.
These were all in some woods at the south side of Woodhouse. We're not sure of the name but it may be Penny Loaf Woods or it may be something to do with Birley as that's the name of the pit that used to be there.
It looked to be a simple stroll from the carpark, right around the area and back, picking up 3 normal caches and a multi-cache en-route.
Heh.
As we arrived at the car park the heavens opened, as they had been threatening to do for a while, so we donned our proper outdoor gear and set off in the pouring rain. We've learnt to psyche ourselves into thinking that this is 'extreme sport' rather than two idiots getting drenched in rain and covered in mud. It works for us. We're tough.
Less than five minutes later we were onto the first location and thankfully the rain was stopping. It was an easy find in very wet ground and then we continued along the bottom of the woods to the next one about half a mile away.
This one was a multi-cache and the film canister (easily found by Spandannah) revealed, with no puzzle, the co-ordinates to the main cache. We then made the beginner's mistake of heading directly towards the co-ords and after 70 feet of huge thorns, nettles and thistles we decided to turn back and walk around looking for a path. Back at the cache we felt rather stupid when we noticed a path about 20 feet away leading in the correct direction. A couple of minutes later we were in roughly the right location but the GPSr was struggling under the dense, wet tree cover so it took us 35 minutes to find the true cache. However as it wasn't raining and there were no muggles around we took our time and methodically searched the entire area. A satisfying find when in hand, purely because we hadn't given up.
The next cache was a bit tricky. We walked all the way around the three sides available to the area it was located, following the path, trying to find a way into the dense wood. We had only found one hint of an entrance so we walked back to it and took it into the dense undergrowth and woodland. Again the GPSr was struggling but the hint (yes we used the hint) was a pretty clear one so again we methodically searched every matching location and came up with the goods within a few minutes.
However at this point I'd lost all my sense of direction (Spandannah had lost hers, as usual, getting out of the house) so looking at the GPSr I decided not to try to track my own track back, but to simply head for the nearest path.
Oh ho, what fun...
You get to a point after about 50 feet of fighting through 8 foot high dense reeds, hidden fallen trees, nettles and brambles and all along walking in 6 inches of mud swamp that you know you've a) made a mistake and b) gone that far you might as well carry on.
It certainly was an experience and I would have felt like Tarzan if I had a) the looks, b) the body, c) dry terrain and d) mostly importantly, a machete instead of a bloody walking stick!
Today my legs look like an A-Z map, crazed with red paths and blue veins and if I have to be honest I'm thinking I really ought to go back and look for Spandannah...
These were all in some woods at the south side of Woodhouse. We're not sure of the name but it may be Penny Loaf Woods or it may be something to do with Birley as that's the name of the pit that used to be there.
It looked to be a simple stroll from the carpark, right around the area and back, picking up 3 normal caches and a multi-cache en-route.
Heh.
As we arrived at the car park the heavens opened, as they had been threatening to do for a while, so we donned our proper outdoor gear and set off in the pouring rain. We've learnt to psyche ourselves into thinking that this is 'extreme sport' rather than two idiots getting drenched in rain and covered in mud. It works for us. We're tough.
Less than five minutes later we were onto the first location and thankfully the rain was stopping. It was an easy find in very wet ground and then we continued along the bottom of the woods to the next one about half a mile away.
This one was a multi-cache and the film canister (easily found by Spandannah) revealed, with no puzzle, the co-ordinates to the main cache. We then made the beginner's mistake of heading directly towards the co-ords and after 70 feet of huge thorns, nettles and thistles we decided to turn back and walk around looking for a path. Back at the cache we felt rather stupid when we noticed a path about 20 feet away leading in the correct direction. A couple of minutes later we were in roughly the right location but the GPSr was struggling under the dense, wet tree cover so it took us 35 minutes to find the true cache. However as it wasn't raining and there were no muggles around we took our time and methodically searched the entire area. A satisfying find when in hand, purely because we hadn't given up.
The next cache was a bit tricky. We walked all the way around the three sides available to the area it was located, following the path, trying to find a way into the dense wood. We had only found one hint of an entrance so we walked back to it and took it into the dense undergrowth and woodland. Again the GPSr was struggling but the hint (yes we used the hint) was a pretty clear one so again we methodically searched every matching location and came up with the goods within a few minutes.
However at this point I'd lost all my sense of direction (Spandannah had lost hers, as usual, getting out of the house) so looking at the GPSr I decided not to try to track my own track back, but to simply head for the nearest path.
Oh ho, what fun...
You get to a point after about 50 feet of fighting through 8 foot high dense reeds, hidden fallen trees, nettles and brambles and all along walking in 6 inches of mud swamp that you know you've a) made a mistake and b) gone that far you might as well carry on.
It certainly was an experience and I would have felt like Tarzan if I had a) the looks, b) the body, c) dry terrain and d) mostly importantly, a machete instead of a bloody walking stick!
Today my legs look like an A-Z map, crazed with red paths and blue veins and if I have to be honest I'm thinking I really ought to go back and look for Spandannah...
Monday 23 August 2010
The Grand-Old Hike of York
Ooh it's been 5 days since I wrote; I'm slacking.
I had actually started a post last Thursday but realised I had little to say; I'd simply been out the night before (during my son's guitar lesson) and picked up a puzzle cache to which I'd found all the clues the week before but had then run out of time to get to the final location. I was also going to mention running out of local caches, so...
We've decided, with the nights drawing in, that we're going to keep doing local caches in the evenings but make an effort to go somewhere more distant at the weekend. To this end Hannah randomly picked a place, York, and I set to work planning a route or two.
York seems to be inundated with caches and a "pocket query" of the area brought up hundred's within a few miles so I loaded this into my MapSource application and set to work with my electronic scissors. I deleted all the ones outside the walls and also all the mystery & puzzle caches, which left me with (I thought) 31 to do. It seemed a reasonable amount so I arranged these into 2 walks, one to do in the morning which led into the centre of town for lunch, and then a second to do in the afternoon. These came in at 1.7 and 1.4 miles as the crow flies point-to-point so I guessed we'd end up doing about 5 miles total.
(Incidentally I only deleted the mystery and puzzle caches to save time - normally I would plan these in too but as we were already doing so many I decided to keep it simple and not run the risk of running out of time.)
Well what a trek! It transpired that, somehow, 4 of the caches were still mystery types so we dropped those once we got to the location and realised each was invalid without the prior work having been done. Secondly, part of the wall was closed and we had to take quite a long detour around one section and back, doubling up that section's distance. And thirdly we also got lost trying to find HMV for my daughter (and I also doubled up that part again looking for a shop selling drinks while she was in there looking for a specific CD.)
So how do I summarise events without a whole diary for a single day?
We had a nice Steak 'n' Ale pie and a rather filling spiral-sausage-and-mash-in-the-hole for lunch in a good pub. We hunted high and low for caches in film containers, nano caches (magnets about 1.5cm round, with notepaper rolled inside) and hidden magnetic key-holders on lampposts, drainpipes, walls, holes and monuments. We met and chatted with some newcomers to the sport who were struggling with a find in a packed shopping area near the Yorvik centre. We tried not to look guilty in front of muggles as we oddly studied drainpipes, piles of bricks and ivy trees around the city. And we seemed to walk non-stop until 5:15. It was a good but tiring day and the weather was excellent throughout.
On the last quarter mile to the car we all tried to guess the mileage we'd walked. We were thinking it was further than previously estimated because our feet were aching, so guesses ranged from 6.3 miles to 8 miles but we were staggered to find we'd done 9.5 miles.
One final error I had made was in my counting. Of the 31 waypoints in my GPSr I had forgotten that the first one was only the car park and not a cache - but we still happily smashed our single day record with 26 finds!
I had actually started a post last Thursday but realised I had little to say; I'd simply been out the night before (during my son's guitar lesson) and picked up a puzzle cache to which I'd found all the clues the week before but had then run out of time to get to the final location. I was also going to mention running out of local caches, so...
We've decided, with the nights drawing in, that we're going to keep doing local caches in the evenings but make an effort to go somewhere more distant at the weekend. To this end Hannah randomly picked a place, York, and I set to work planning a route or two.
York seems to be inundated with caches and a "pocket query" of the area brought up hundred's within a few miles so I loaded this into my MapSource application and set to work with my electronic scissors. I deleted all the ones outside the walls and also all the mystery & puzzle caches, which left me with (I thought) 31 to do. It seemed a reasonable amount so I arranged these into 2 walks, one to do in the morning which led into the centre of town for lunch, and then a second to do in the afternoon. These came in at 1.7 and 1.4 miles as the crow flies point-to-point so I guessed we'd end up doing about 5 miles total.
(Incidentally I only deleted the mystery and puzzle caches to save time - normally I would plan these in too but as we were already doing so many I decided to keep it simple and not run the risk of running out of time.)
Well what a trek! It transpired that, somehow, 4 of the caches were still mystery types so we dropped those once we got to the location and realised each was invalid without the prior work having been done. Secondly, part of the wall was closed and we had to take quite a long detour around one section and back, doubling up that section's distance. And thirdly we also got lost trying to find HMV for my daughter (and I also doubled up that part again looking for a shop selling drinks while she was in there looking for a specific CD.)
So how do I summarise events without a whole diary for a single day?
We had a nice Steak 'n' Ale pie and a rather filling spiral-sausage-and-mash-in-the-hole for lunch in a good pub. We hunted high and low for caches in film containers, nano caches (magnets about 1.5cm round, with notepaper rolled inside) and hidden magnetic key-holders on lampposts, drainpipes, walls, holes and monuments. We met and chatted with some newcomers to the sport who were struggling with a find in a packed shopping area near the Yorvik centre. We tried not to look guilty in front of muggles as we oddly studied drainpipes, piles of bricks and ivy trees around the city. And we seemed to walk non-stop until 5:15. It was a good but tiring day and the weather was excellent throughout.
On the last quarter mile to the car we all tried to guess the mileage we'd walked. We were thinking it was further than previously estimated because our feet were aching, so guesses ranged from 6.3 miles to 8 miles but we were staggered to find we'd done 9.5 miles.
One final error I had made was in my counting. Of the 31 waypoints in my GPSr I had forgotten that the first one was only the car park and not a cache - but we still happily smashed our single day record with 26 finds!
Wednesday 18 August 2010
Miles and weights
Nothing much to report today I'm afraid but I thought I ought to post anyway as we did do the 'Tae Kwon Doubt' series last night. This was 8 easy finds on a pretty dull straight part of the Trans-Pennine-Trail which unfortunately we had to walk all the way back along - as we were new to the area we had no idea how to make it circular once we'd finished.
It was also strange because 3 of the caches were uncovered and one was only half covered. Either the previous cacher was very negligent or there's a mischievous muggle around.
Another 4.7 miles for the diary but the weight seems to have stopped going down. *sob*
It was also strange because 3 of the caches were uncovered and one was only half covered. Either the previous cacher was very negligent or there's a mischievous muggle around.
Another 4.7 miles for the diary but the weight seems to have stopped going down. *sob*
Tuesday 17 August 2010
In which our legs look backwards...?
I know there's a general bad feeling about people planting new caches when they've only found 10 on their own, as they are still beginners and perhaps not overly aware of rules, regulations and perhaps more importantly what makes a cache good or bad. Also there's the worry that they may get bored of the hobby and end up leaving behind 10 unsupported caches.
For this very reason I decided yesterday to go and bag a brand new series that's recently been placed by newcomers to the sport - I wanted to "get in there" before it turned sour.
Now don't get me wrong; I hope it doesn't go wrong and I hope these newcomers, just like me only 3 months ago, end up being around for the long game - and yes, I am only too aware that for many players I am still a newcomer and will be for a long long time to come.
Anyway after a bad start (and I confess things were looking pretty dreadful for the series) we managed to hack our way through woodland to find our way from the second to the third cache and from then on it was a nice walk to complete the five. The only downside then was that the route wasn't circular and we were 2 miles from the car. However walking back along the roads we detoured a little to pick up an unrelated cache and enjoyed our evening stroll and chat along the country lanes.
Six more in the bag and 4.9 miles walked which then got me to thinking...
After the 15 minute drive home my legs were a little stiff but from then until now I have had no side effects. Yes it was only 5 miles, but how would I have felt 3 months ago? I truly wish I could compare my fitness from 3 months ago side-by-side with myself now.
I can't remember how I felt but I'd guess it was pretty awful.
For this very reason I decided yesterday to go and bag a brand new series that's recently been placed by newcomers to the sport - I wanted to "get in there" before it turned sour.
Now don't get me wrong; I hope it doesn't go wrong and I hope these newcomers, just like me only 3 months ago, end up being around for the long game - and yes, I am only too aware that for many players I am still a newcomer and will be for a long long time to come.
Anyway after a bad start (and I confess things were looking pretty dreadful for the series) we managed to hack our way through woodland to find our way from the second to the third cache and from then on it was a nice walk to complete the five. The only downside then was that the route wasn't circular and we were 2 miles from the car. However walking back along the roads we detoured a little to pick up an unrelated cache and enjoyed our evening stroll and chat along the country lanes.
Six more in the bag and 4.9 miles walked which then got me to thinking...
After the 15 minute drive home my legs were a little stiff but from then until now I have had no side effects. Yes it was only 5 miles, but how would I have felt 3 months ago? I truly wish I could compare my fitness from 3 months ago side-by-side with myself now.
I can't remember how I felt but I'd guess it was pretty awful.
Sunday 15 August 2010
Puzzles within puzzles
I've not much to report this week so I'll keep it brief. We've had a quiet one mostly and also Hannah has been away visiting relations this weekend so I decided to have a lazy one for a change.
I planted my new cache yesterday which has a multitude of false co-ordinates hidden within the listing; codes within codes and false trails leading to the middle of lakes and empty fields. I can't say much here as this blog is linked from my Geocaching profile and I don't want to give any spoilers away! It's a bit of a tribute to Treeton too - I'm very patriotic about the place! (Link: Not a Bit Sticky). I've rated it 4.5 out of 5 for difficulty as the container is also a devil too.
Anyway I'm hoping it gives people the satisfaction of solving a puzzle and doing some armchair Geocaching!
*sigh* Back to the ironing...
I planted my new cache yesterday which has a multitude of false co-ordinates hidden within the listing; codes within codes and false trails leading to the middle of lakes and empty fields. I can't say much here as this blog is linked from my Geocaching profile and I don't want to give any spoilers away! It's a bit of a tribute to Treeton too - I'm very patriotic about the place! (Link: Not a Bit Sticky). I've rated it 4.5 out of 5 for difficulty as the container is also a devil too.
Anyway I'm hoping it gives people the satisfaction of solving a puzzle and doing some armchair Geocaching!
*sigh* Back to the ironing...
Wednesday 11 August 2010
Smoke and Mirrors... and idiocy
To ease ourselves in again last night, after our Sunday over-exertions, I decided to try and finish Mr. Truffles mystery series and also mop up a couple of problem caches.
We drove to Kimberworth and whilst firing up the GPS I noticed that I had Mystery #6 listed in there twice so without further thought I deleted one of them. What a wally. There were two in there for a reason: a marker reference which is simply in the right region and is listed on the website, and then the actual co-ordinates which I'd added myself once calculated from the clues in Mystery #5.
I'd deleted the original photo of the clue in Mystery #5 from my iPhone, so all we had was my memory. Somehow I could remember the first half of the co-ords and bizarrely I could remember the calculation to the second half so we looked up the root figure on Wikipedia (the height of Ben Nevis in metres) and then applied the calculation to get the second half of the co-ords. We then set off, without any great faith, walked the wrong way around a huge wheat field, but blow me if we didn't find it - now that WAS an achievement!
We got the rather vague clue for Mystery #7 which we already knew was somewhere up near Elsecar - an area with which we had a score to settle - and for which I had already pre-loaded two other caches into the GPS.
10 minutes on a very slow loading Geocaching.com and we had the co-ordinates for Mystery #7 which turned out to be very close to one of our problem caches.
Our Elsecar History
We went to Elsecar and had a great day the very first time I had my *real* GPS device. We did about 14 caches with my Mum and Sister but we had three problems: 1) "Tucked Away" we gave up on after 20 minutes searching presuming it was muggled 2) "Black Beauty" we gave up on and we were pretty sure it had been muggled and 3) Some other cache we thought was in a bad spot (glass/nettles/holly) and as it was was late, and now raining, we abandoned it quickly.
It transpired over time that "Tucked Away" was indeed still safely tucked away and that "Black Beauty" had indeed been muggled - but it had finally been replaced this last weekend.
So... off we went to Mystery #7, parked up and had a nice easy find of a large cache box. It was very pleasing to have finished a long puzzle series after a couple of months on and off of it. Tucked Away was only about 500 metres away so we set off for that and somehow, strangely, we found it within 10 seconds of arriving. I left it alone, told Hannah I'd found it and she looked near me and also found it immediately, so whether it was covered in more undergrowth previously or whether we all had a mental block I have no idea. It was very strange.
We returned to the car and moved it the Heritage Centre and trotted off to find Black Beauty (see what I did there?) - it was exactly where we'd previously thought so another easy find.
Overall a nice rewarding evening; we finished a long puzzle series and tidied up two previous fails.
2.8 miles walking total and home for a nice, but late, tea.
We drove to Kimberworth and whilst firing up the GPS I noticed that I had Mystery #6 listed in there twice so without further thought I deleted one of them. What a wally. There were two in there for a reason: a marker reference which is simply in the right region and is listed on the website, and then the actual co-ordinates which I'd added myself once calculated from the clues in Mystery #5.
I'd deleted the original photo of the clue in Mystery #5 from my iPhone, so all we had was my memory. Somehow I could remember the first half of the co-ords and bizarrely I could remember the calculation to the second half so we looked up the root figure on Wikipedia (the height of Ben Nevis in metres) and then applied the calculation to get the second half of the co-ords. We then set off, without any great faith, walked the wrong way around a huge wheat field, but blow me if we didn't find it - now that WAS an achievement!
We got the rather vague clue for Mystery #7 which we already knew was somewhere up near Elsecar - an area with which we had a score to settle - and for which I had already pre-loaded two other caches into the GPS.
10 minutes on a very slow loading Geocaching.com and we had the co-ordinates for Mystery #7 which turned out to be very close to one of our problem caches.
Our Elsecar History
We went to Elsecar and had a great day the very first time I had my *real* GPS device. We did about 14 caches with my Mum and Sister but we had three problems: 1) "Tucked Away" we gave up on after 20 minutes searching presuming it was muggled 2) "Black Beauty" we gave up on and we were pretty sure it had been muggled and 3) Some other cache we thought was in a bad spot (glass/nettles/holly) and as it was was late, and now raining, we abandoned it quickly.
It transpired over time that "Tucked Away" was indeed still safely tucked away and that "Black Beauty" had indeed been muggled - but it had finally been replaced this last weekend.
So... off we went to Mystery #7, parked up and had a nice easy find of a large cache box. It was very pleasing to have finished a long puzzle series after a couple of months on and off of it. Tucked Away was only about 500 metres away so we set off for that and somehow, strangely, we found it within 10 seconds of arriving. I left it alone, told Hannah I'd found it and she looked near me and also found it immediately, so whether it was covered in more undergrowth previously or whether we all had a mental block I have no idea. It was very strange.
We returned to the car and moved it the Heritage Centre and trotted off to find Black Beauty (see what I did there?) - it was exactly where we'd previously thought so another easy find.
Overall a nice rewarding evening; we finished a long puzzle series and tidied up two previous fails.
2.8 miles walking total and home for a nice, but late, tea.
Monday 9 August 2010
Oh the pain!
We signed up for our first Geocaching "event" this weekend and boy did we drop ourselves in at the deep-end! We've not been to an event before so didn't know what to expect but from what I was told on the day this wasn't a typical event; this was simply a walk with a group of friends & Geocachers around a pre-defined route hoping to pick-up a few caches en-route.
The event was published as approximately 13 miles and we knew this was pushing the limits of our fitness - previously we've only done 5, 6 or maybe 7 miles per day. Additionally we were a little dubious about going as we've both been run-down since our holidays and my flight-caught cold had turned into quite a bad cough.
Anyway we decided to take the plunge and set off at 8am on Sunday morning to meet up at Edale. We met a very friendly mixed bunch of people and set off at 9:30.
By 11:00 I thought I was dying. After an easy start, no doubt to throw us off the scent, the route started going up both sides of a tiny stream that trickles down a mountain. I can hardly call it a trail as it was damned near vertical; we rose from 280m above sea-level to 533m within a mile.
This took us to the top of Kinder Scout plateau (made up of, I think, Kinder Scout, Crowden Head and Edale Moor.) We rested and then walked a couple of miles through wet peat (which makes for very tough going with heavy feet and slipping tracks) then we went around the next side of the plateau where the hill is all stones so your ankles are bent every which way and quickly start to ache. Finally about 6 hours later you walk down hill for an hour and your knees and legs feel like collapsing. You don't believe it yourself but the downhill is the worst.
Anyway I know this all sounds like a long grumble but it's not; it is very hard to explain the sheer energy sapping experiences of wading through peat, going downhill knowing you have to then go back up another hill, or carefully picking every single step across a rocky terrain. By 3:15 I would have willingly swapped my house for a helicopter - not the ownership of one, just a two minute ride in one back down to the car. HOWEVER after eight and a half hours we were finally back at the starting point. We'd done some caches (I never took count, they hardly mattered,) we'd done 14.5 miles, we'd gone up to an altitude of 630 metres, we'd fallen over, we'd slipped and got wet & dirty, we'd laughed and we'd made a dozen new friends. It was a great experience.
I'm hoping I'll read this back in years to come and laugh at myself. There were people there of all ages who did it with less effort than we did, a couple of guys even walked around in circles visiting other spots to pass the time while the slow ones caught up. There may be other walkers who read this and think we're total wimps. They're probably right.
However it WAS a personal achievement and, as they say, every great journey starts with a single step. My journey is the journey to fitness. Today I ache, and not as bad as I feared, and I'm also very proud that I have no blisters!
The event was published as approximately 13 miles and we knew this was pushing the limits of our fitness - previously we've only done 5, 6 or maybe 7 miles per day. Additionally we were a little dubious about going as we've both been run-down since our holidays and my flight-caught cold had turned into quite a bad cough.
Anyway we decided to take the plunge and set off at 8am on Sunday morning to meet up at Edale. We met a very friendly mixed bunch of people and set off at 9:30.
By 11:00 I thought I was dying. After an easy start, no doubt to throw us off the scent, the route started going up both sides of a tiny stream that trickles down a mountain. I can hardly call it a trail as it was damned near vertical; we rose from 280m above sea-level to 533m within a mile.
This took us to the top of Kinder Scout plateau (made up of, I think, Kinder Scout, Crowden Head and Edale Moor.) We rested and then walked a couple of miles through wet peat (which makes for very tough going with heavy feet and slipping tracks) then we went around the next side of the plateau where the hill is all stones so your ankles are bent every which way and quickly start to ache. Finally about 6 hours later you walk down hill for an hour and your knees and legs feel like collapsing. You don't believe it yourself but the downhill is the worst.
Anyway I know this all sounds like a long grumble but it's not; it is very hard to explain the sheer energy sapping experiences of wading through peat, going downhill knowing you have to then go back up another hill, or carefully picking every single step across a rocky terrain. By 3:15 I would have willingly swapped my house for a helicopter - not the ownership of one, just a two minute ride in one back down to the car. HOWEVER after eight and a half hours we were finally back at the starting point. We'd done some caches (I never took count, they hardly mattered,) we'd done 14.5 miles, we'd gone up to an altitude of 630 metres, we'd fallen over, we'd slipped and got wet & dirty, we'd laughed and we'd made a dozen new friends. It was a great experience.
I'm hoping I'll read this back in years to come and laugh at myself. There were people there of all ages who did it with less effort than we did, a couple of guys even walked around in circles visiting other spots to pass the time while the slow ones caught up. There may be other walkers who read this and think we're total wimps. They're probably right.
However it WAS a personal achievement and, as they say, every great journey starts with a single step. My journey is the journey to fitness. Today I ache, and not as bad as I feared, and I'm also very proud that I have no blisters!
Friday 6 August 2010
Chapter 7 in which Pooh discovers an amazing co-incidence
(I couldn't resist a Winnie the Pooh type start; I loved the books as a kid and I loved reading them to my kids when they were young enough.)
Anyway I couldn't believe my ears when, as I was packing the car ready to set off on holiday last week, a lady pulled up outside my house and introduced herself. I had spoken to this person before regarding an irrelevant (to this blog) local issue and knew she lived 8 houses away, but I didn't know who she was.
Well slap my thighs and call me Frank but it was Yorkypudding; a local Geocacher with a couple of thousand finds, dozens of hides and an equally keen Geocaching husband Ageinghippy. We'd conversed by email several times and knew we were in the same area but 8 houses! It sure is a small world.
It also has to be noted that she's the owner of several of the nastiest caches I've ever scratched, bumped and scraped my way to finding - damned woman :)
I'll add a P.S. here for myself in years to come... weight loss now up to 12lb. (Hey and that's even after having just been on an all-inclusive holiday!)
Anyway I couldn't believe my ears when, as I was packing the car ready to set off on holiday last week, a lady pulled up outside my house and introduced herself. I had spoken to this person before regarding an irrelevant (to this blog) local issue and knew she lived 8 houses away, but I didn't know who she was.
Well slap my thighs and call me Frank but it was Yorkypudding; a local Geocacher with a couple of thousand finds, dozens of hides and an equally keen Geocaching husband Ageinghippy. We'd conversed by email several times and knew we were in the same area but 8 houses! It sure is a small world.
It also has to be noted that she's the owner of several of the nastiest caches I've ever scratched, bumped and scraped my way to finding - damned woman :)
I'll add a P.S. here for myself in years to come... weight loss now up to 12lb. (Hey and that's even after having just been on an all-inclusive holiday!)
Disappointing Morocco...
I'll confess immediately; the title of today's post is misleading. Morocco itself is a fabulous place for a relaxing holiday, we had a week of reading, lazing, sunbathing, tennis and playing hat-frisbee in the sea (it's more erratic and therefore more fun than normal frisbee) and we've come back both worn out and also refreshed.
The only disappointment, and it's really only a very minor one, is that there's no caches there. Despite my best endeavours using the tools available, I only managed to locate 17 in the entire country and the nearest was 60 miles from where we were stopping. I was tempted to hire a car for the day but then I saw how they drive! We did pass close by one on our pre-organised excursion day to Marrakech but it was so hot (42 deg C - cool by our guides standard of 51 deg C the week before!) we didn't want to get lost from the public places and risk losing our way back to the coach in the limited free time available.
No matter, even without caching we had a great break.
Having had a couple of seriously late nights (we landed back at 3:30 am) we've been run down a little so I thought yesterday that I'd ease us back into Geocaching with a couple of short-walk puzzle ones nearby in Rotherham rather than a long walk. We'd already worked out the co-ords for Mystery #4 previously so we drove off to Gibbing Greave Woods (another place we'd never heard of) and had a 1.6m round trip to the cache and back. Hannah found it quickly and we took photos of the lid for the clues to Mystery #5. We stopped on the way back to the car for a Google and solved the Russian numbers to get the co-ords required. We then drove off to Boston Castle where we'd been a couple of weeks previously to find Mystery #5.
A single mile return walk but the cache itself took some finding. It was hidden under some heather and whilst looking we were deluged with ants and midges. It was an absolute nightmare - I'm never normally attacked or bitten but it must be something to do with my tan, or a distant residue of suncream, but I was covered in insects and it was driving me potty. Fortunately Hannah (again) found the tub, we swapped, signed, photographed, re-hid and ran off!
Another two for the counter, and another two by the legendary Mr Truffles leaving only two to go in this mystery series... please excuse me while I go and puzzle...
The only disappointment, and it's really only a very minor one, is that there's no caches there. Despite my best endeavours using the tools available, I only managed to locate 17 in the entire country and the nearest was 60 miles from where we were stopping. I was tempted to hire a car for the day but then I saw how they drive! We did pass close by one on our pre-organised excursion day to Marrakech but it was so hot (42 deg C - cool by our guides standard of 51 deg C the week before!) we didn't want to get lost from the public places and risk losing our way back to the coach in the limited free time available.
No matter, even without caching we had a great break.
Having had a couple of seriously late nights (we landed back at 3:30 am) we've been run down a little so I thought yesterday that I'd ease us back into Geocaching with a couple of short-walk puzzle ones nearby in Rotherham rather than a long walk. We'd already worked out the co-ords for Mystery #4 previously so we drove off to Gibbing Greave Woods (another place we'd never heard of) and had a 1.6m round trip to the cache and back. Hannah found it quickly and we took photos of the lid for the clues to Mystery #5. We stopped on the way back to the car for a Google and solved the Russian numbers to get the co-ords required. We then drove off to Boston Castle where we'd been a couple of weeks previously to find Mystery #5.
A single mile return walk but the cache itself took some finding. It was hidden under some heather and whilst looking we were deluged with ants and midges. It was an absolute nightmare - I'm never normally attacked or bitten but it must be something to do with my tan, or a distant residue of suncream, but I was covered in insects and it was driving me potty. Fortunately Hannah (again) found the tub, we swapped, signed, photographed, re-hid and ran off!
Another two for the counter, and another two by the legendary Mr Truffles leaving only two to go in this mystery series... please excuse me while I go and puzzle...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)