Trivial Pursuit

On Thursday 02/06/2011 Jade and I drove up the M1 to J35A and onto the A61 towards Stocksbridge & Manchester - a road I've travelled on over a thousand times given that I commuted on it for over 10 years. However this time I stopped pretty quickly, turning off towards High Green and then another quick left onto a B road headed into Westwood Country Park. I was amazed.

Sitting in my vehicular cocoon I've been aware of woods to the south side of this road for many many years but I've never thought that they were accessible; I just presumed it was fenced off woodland that had been cut through by all the new roads when the Stocksbridge bypass came into existance.

These beautiful woods are flooded with a myriad of paths, indeed I've never seen a woodland with so many possible routes. However they all look natural and don't spoil it at all.

The series I was hoping to do, another Mr. Truffles set, was called 'Geocaching - A Trivial Pursuit' and involved finding 6 caches (one for each colour Trivial Pursuit 'cheese' wedge) and solving a puzzle therein. The numbers collated would lead to a final. Additionally I was hoping to pick up two other random caches nearby.

I planned a rough route before we set off, pretty much ignoring Mr. Truffles' recommended order, so that I could get these extra caches as I was walking around. Thankfully, as mentioned above, the plethora of paths helped me accomplish this.

The 6 puzzles all had me stumped - my general knowledge is reasonable I believe, but none of the questions were anything I (or Jade) would have an interest in so the iPhone was out at each stage and the numbers were soon compiled.

One cache had us stumped for a good 20 minutes as all relevant clue items were searched and the cache simply wouldn't reveal itself. Reading previous finder's logs I gathered that the relevant clue item had fallen over and rolled down a slope so this gave me more hope and I set about scratching round again in a more focused area. The cache was soon unearthed - literally - someone had buried it. I replaced it under an obvious (to Geocachers) pile of camouflage.

We took 15 minutes at this point to sit on a nearby wooden bench to eat and drink and wash my hands. These woods were really special, the sun was beating, and the birds and squirrels were out in force.

Off to the final for an easy find and the end of a very successful but all-too-short Geocaching trip which bagged us 9 caches over 3.5 miles.