Wentworth Monuments Walk

Wentworth Monument Walk (WMW)

On Friday evening, whilst in my local club, I checked my emails and was baffled to see over 50 had come in on my Geocaching account. Closer inspection revealed that a new series had been published at Wentworth and I recalled that Mr Truffles had mentioned he was planning something special in that area when we met at the Christmas Corroboree. He wasn't kidding - here were 45 new caches placed over a 12 mile circular route.

I knew I couldn't do this on the Saturday, because of the time the kids arrive, so I spoke to Patrick to see about doing it Sunday. Patrick wasn't too keen; the weather forecast was putting him off.

However I was really keen, and for a few reasons. Firstly it's a new series so there's likely other people doing it. Secondly it's 45 caches, with 6 others on or almost on the route. Thirdly, and most importantly, it's 12 miles and would make perfect practice for me doing the Yorkshire Dales Way walk - especially if I do it more than once on consecutive days.

But things seemed to be against me doing this. The weather did look pretty bad with 40% chance of light rain, Adam had been sick on Saturday morning, and when logs started coming in on Saturday night from the first people who had done it they were speaking of having done 15 miles which I thought too much for the kids. (It turns out that this was from adding in extra caches.)

So my plan was thus: go to bed and see what time Adam wakes up. If he's up at 7am playing on the PC (as per usual on a Sunday) then he's well enough to go! We'll go to Wentworth and if the weather is dreadful we'll come home, if it's half and half we'll drive-by the Wentworth Wanders (WW) series that's dotted around and if it's good we'll go for it!

I prepared by copying and pasting all the helpful walking directions from each of the 45 pages and also the description of each cache - it's amazing how much easier it is to look for something when you know if it's a tube or a box or something so small there's no room for a pencil in it. I seperately also printed out a map, the on-site puzzle instructions, all the hints (time and therefore light would be an issue so I wanted all the help I could get) and finally details of the five WW caches. I also double-checked my workings on the two puzzles that you have to solve before setting off.

Up at 8am on Sunday I finished packing, made sandwiches and a flask of tea to go with my 2-litre 'platypus' water holder, and set off at about 8:45 with two highly unimpressed kids. I was a little worried about my overly heavy rucksack - with waterproof coats for the kids, and food & drinks for three it was very heavy - more so than I was used to carrying.

We arrived at 9:20 and immediately spotted some Geocachers just leaving their cars. I quick equip and we caught them up at the first cache, neatly hidden in the car park, introduced ourselves and set off the wrong way. Peter & Di and AldoCandy (and their dogs) headed off in front and it was about 50 metres before I looked at my GPS and wondered where they were going. I turned around just as they did the same and we went back in the correct direction with us now in front.

By this time I had already decided not to do the WW series, I knew I would be back shortly, and I didn't want to 'waste' time as I wanted to complete the entire WMW series in one go.

We set off on the route a good 100m or so in front of the other team, the weather was overcast but dry, the ground was good at this point although clearly wet.

By the 8th cache the two teams had joined forces and it was nice to chat with new friends and also all search for caches as a group. The 9th cache contained a devilish little trick of a puzzle to solve the coordinates for the 10th and I must have done it correctly (or at least accurate enough!) as we soon had that one in hand too.

The trouble with a route of this size and duration is that all the caches blur into one and it's pretty hard to remember any specifics.

After #11 the others headed off to do a WW and we went directly to 12 to solve an on-site puzzle. Quickly calculated and off to the actual cache we were hindered by a loitering dog-walker so we out-loitered him by having a sandwich, during which time the other team caught us back up.

We then remained together for about 20 caches, which did include a standalone cache by someone else and also WW 1 which was not a puzzle and we were walking directly past. Bonus.

Solving the next on-site puzzle the other team left to pick-up two unrelated caches, which I had done previously, whilst we headed for the actual cache. We said our goodbyes, just in case, even though I thought they'd likely catch us up later but this turned out not to be the case. It was lovely to meet them all and once again I have to thank AldoCandy for lending me his spare batteries after I went through 3 sets! (One set half used and eventually ran out, second set just dead, third set lasted 1 minute. Time to throw away and replace all my rechargeables!) I left his batteries under his car wipers later.

A couple of caches later we had our first disappointment of the day; I had miscalculated an on-site puzzle and it wasn't until we were at the supposed final location that I knew I had done it wrong. However time was pressing upon us and I resolved not to be too disappointed, I would recalculate and find it another time and we'd move on. It was already almost 4pm and sunset was at 4:20.

We found the next two easily and then lost the path through a wood and ended up simply "following the arrow" out the other side. Not good as the kids had clearly had enough by this time and Jade was also complaining about her heel hurting. However we found the next two caches easily and then the next two by torchlight.

More bad news - we'd just found the penultimate cache and we were missing one coordinate that had been hidden in amongst the previous 44 caches. The final was a mystery and looked like remaining one. We headed back toward the car, not yet beaten and I hammered some figures into the GPS. The area it was coming up with approximately didn't include any mention of the hint item for the final cache, it looked bad but I wanted to go there anyway.

Walking in total darkness I left the kids behind so I could quickly, with failing hope, examine an area and lo and behold - the hint item was there. I called the kids over and 2 minutes later we had got the final cache! Such elation to finish an epic series on a high note.

We then headed back toward the car, again, with the kids finally realising their ordeal was coming to an end.

We had walked 13.7 miles, found 46 caches, solved two pre-puzzles, solved 4 on-site puzzles and only had one missing cache. It had taken us 7 hours 40 minutes - seemingly slow but if you consider let's say 4 minutes per cache to find it, sign it and replace it then you're looking at three hours in 'downtime'. We'd started early morning and finished in the dark. We'd been drizzled on for an hour and rained on for an hour and we'd met three new friends. The kids legs were 2/3 covered in mud - even inside Adam's waterproofs. We'd eaten our sandwiches, drunk all the water and tea and we were all hungry again. Happily I'd also coped with the rucksack however Jade's heel was a mess - it turns out she was wearing flipping training socks which didn't protect her heel from her walking boots.

They were both tired, aching and fed up but I was so proud of them.

Truly a Wentworth Monumental Walk. Thank you Mr Truffles for all your hard work and time in planning and arranging this series.