Notton Navigation

31/05/11
Just Jade and I out on our first duo caching trip of the week. For this I'd selected Notton Navigation; a series of caches around Notton between Barnsley and Wakefield. This series was highly recommended and I'd been planning to do it for ages however I have to say that ultimately I was a little disappointed. This is probably my own fault for having high expectations for so long.

It also started badly in that we simply couldn't find the first cache. It was a glorious day so I was in no rush and we spent 40 minutes looking, including ringing Patrick for a clue. He was talking about a railway bridge nearby, of which there was no sign, so I presumed he'd got his caches mixed up (easily done considering he's done well over 1000.)

Having given up we moved along to the second cache. This was a really tricky find but thankfully, considering the frustration-depression I was in from the first, I found it quickly. The third was also a great hide, but no match for Jade, and having found somewhere to sit we enjoyed the sunshine, relaxed, ate our sandwiches and drank some tea. The 4th and 5th were also great hides, again easily found, the 6th was a bugger to find and then the series, in my opinion, deteriorated; the innovative cache containers were gone and we were finding nanos hidden in public places and film canisters hidden on semi-dangerous roads. Such a shame. However I don't want to sound too negative; the series owner had made a GREAT effort on most of the hides and indeed more effort in those than some people take for an entire series.

Having missed one cache, and stupidly forgetting to get clues from two others, we didn't have the coordinates for the final. I tried a few possible coordinate matches on the way back to the car but there were too many options for a realistic chance of finding the cache.

Once back at the car I decided to pop back to cache #1 again. I'd noticed that on my GPSr each cache location had a waypoint marker as well as a Geocache marker, and that there was a waypoint marker near a railway bridge. This tied in with what Patrick had said. We hurried back, searched, rang him again, search some more and then gave up.

Once back home I realised, as had Patrick by this time, that the original cache #1 HAD been near the bridge but it had been moved a couple of months after Patrick had found it and the series owner had updated the Geocache coordinates but not the waypoint.

So cache #1, somewhere near where we first looked, had still eluded us. I think I shall return to this series shortly and get clues from (hopefully) #1 and also #2 & #3 and then go for the final.

In total we did 5.5 miles, bagged 9 caches and had a lovely walk and chat around some great countryside.