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...
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