Marvellous May Day

Monday the 2nd of May and an early rise to get ready for a 10:30 start near Matlock. Patrick had put a shout-out on Facebook for anyone who would like to join him there to do the Alphabet Soup series. I'd mostly prepared the night before so set off easily at a reasonable time as prompted by my SatNav. I got there 40 minutes early; plenty of time for me to find the first cache before the rest arrived, and to fix the blummin' average speeds used by my SatNav.

Alphabet Soup was first brought to my attention by Mr. Truffles during his Coniston 10,000 outing. He raved about it and said I should do it ASAP. Indeed it is something to note that certain caches on this series have some of the highest 'favourite' counts I've seen.

In attendance we had Patdhill (Patrick, Donna, Christianna, Bethany, Jordan and Dizzy the Dog), Ea51ron (Ron and Honey the Dog), Snoopyisboss (Sarah and Megs the Dog) and myself (with an imaginary dog if it makes you, dear reader, happier.) We opted to sign the caches as Team SYMO - an acronym for South Yorkshire May Outing.

This series is based on the alphabet, so unsurprisingly there are 26 caches, but it is not just the quantity that makes this series so good, it is a combination of several things...

Firstly it is set in a beautiful area known as Darley Dale. If I may quote Smart451 the series owner "[Darley Dale] is in fact made up of several smaller settlements, namely Churchtown, Darley Bridge or South Darley, Darley Hillside (Hackney), Northwood and Two Dales."

These small settlements afford a good mix of terrain so although there is a little A-road walking there is also a good amount crossing fields, bridges, quiet B-roads and walking through fabulous unlittered and unspoiled woodlands.

Secondly each cache has a themed name related to its place in the alphabet and also to something near the location or failing that something related to the cache container. For example the second cache is called B - Alphabet Soup (Bridge) and is of course hidden near a bridge. The third cache is called C - Alphabet Soup (Cow) and is hidden near a field of cows inside a model cow.

This brings me nicely to the third point. Bucking the all-too-common trend nowadays of simply hiding 35mm film pots everywhere, the series owner here has taken a great deal of time and effort thinking about each cache. I don't want to give too much away for fear of writing spoilers but I'll give a few unnamed examples... One cache is an ammo can (a large waterproof metal tin) that once you open you are confronted with a padlock and a bundle of keys - only one of which works. Another has a four foot long camouflaged tube stuck vertically into the ground inside a bush in the woods. The cache is at the bottom of the tube and you're given two small tools to work the cache up the inside using small holes on the side of the tube. Another cache is inside a drilled out rock.

Overall I would estimate that of the 26 caches there were 18 that were innovative designs or just plain and simple great camouflage - none were difficult to find but I'd be surprised if they would be found by Muggles.

A great series - definitely one of the best, if not THE best, bettered by good company and yet again fabulous weather.

Huge thanks must go to Smart451 for all the time and effort in placing a well thought out and original series.

[Total was 28 caches (two randoms) and 8.8 miles.]

... and back home in time to watch the last session of the World Snooker Championship in its entirety.

Silverwood Pit Top

This last weekend, thanks to some wedding or other, we had another 4-day weekend. I spent Friday doing housework in the morning and then socialising in the afternoon and evening. I had Saturday set aside for food shopping and then to lazily settle down and watch the semi-finals of the Snooker World Championship (which is held 5 miles down the road.)

Struggling to balance my weekend time with the children and their hatred of Geocaching, I decided to take them out early on Sunday for a quick walk aiming to get back in time to watch the first session of the snooker final and also giving the kids the afternoon free to do as they pleased.

I settled on the idea of doing Patdhill's nearby Silverwood Pit Top series. (You may recall Patrick as my good friend and a regular member of our Team PADS Geocaching group.) This series was published a while ago but I had deliberately put off doing it so that I would have a nice walk to do one evening after work.

I've since realised that I'm actually busy 6 nights a week so I scrapped that plan and stole the series as a perfect quick-fix for a Sunday morning.

We parked up near Wickersley and spent a steady 90 minutes doing the 3.5 mile circuit. It really is a lovely walk across regenerated land passing by woods, fledgling plantations and views down to a (presumably new) lake.

This was one of my ideal walks...

I've realised as time has passed that I'm not keen on the actual Geocaching side of Geocaching (yes I know that sounds odd) but I do like that it takes me to new places and presents me with walks I would never have found otherwise. The caches here were all easy to find so there were no frustrating delays and we could pretty much just enjoy the steady walk in the countryside listening to the birdsong, taking some pictures and chatting to the kids.

The kids seemed happy enough with this arrangement although I do think the anticipation of a nice slow-cooked stew waiting at home was the only thing on Adam's mind.

Many thanks to Patrick & Donna for the series.

[3.5 miles, 7 caches.]

Barca Barca Baaaaaaarca

My friend's 40th birthday is imminent and as a surprise present his wife had bought him a long weekend in Spain so he could watch a Spanish football match - something he's always wanted to do. Despite me being possibly the least football-enthused friend he has she asked me to accompany him as it was impractical for her to go with them having two very young children.

We left Easter Friday afternoon, flying from East Midlands and returned Monday evening - three nights in Barcelona.

Of course I'd loaded my GPS (my older one as I was very aware of pickpockets) with all the caches in the area and on the way explained to Dean a bit more about Geocaching. I wasn't planning on commandeering his weekend but if we passed any then they would be a bonus.

As it transpired the Bank Holiday weekend brought the weather and the tourists out in their thousands and it was impractical to do any - all the caches were urban ones, in highly public places and as Dean isn't a Geocacher I didn't want to waste time hanging around for a good break in the crowds - aside from that I hate looking like a simpleton touching up a bench.

As we had to collect the football tickets we walked from the Hotel, near La Ramblas, all the way to Camp Nou (home of FC Barcelona, the title of this blog refers to one of their chants) on the Saturday morning and then again in the evening for the match. Despite this being only 2.5 miles as the crow flies West, the city is laid out in a perfect grid only it's at 45 degrees so we had to turn left, right, left, right twenty times in each direction.

I was flabbergasted to realise that by the end of the day we'd walked 16.5 miles! Thankfully I did also manage to grab two Geocaches as a bonus.

Sunday we had a day to do anything we wanted (drink) so we went to the Sagrada Familia (the incomplete cathedral), up and down La Ramblas and also down to the Marina where I got another cache. Again we were very surprised to see we'd done 8.9 miles by the end of the day.

So for the four days we'd flown 864 miles peaking at 495 mph, walked 27.3 miles (including Monday morning) and then flown 888 miles return peaking at 510 mph - a different route home and yes, I was naughty and left my GPS on the entire time.

Three caches in total and the marina one is now my furthest cache from home and also my furthest South and my furthest East - how full of dull information am I!

A great weekend away with a great mate - cheers our Dean.