Hannah's parents Julie and Martin (Geocaching name Fat Bloke) came down for the weekend to do a spot of local Geocaching and also to attend a Halloween Geocaching event with us.
After catching up on our geo-gossip we set off to Barnburgh, near Doncaster, about 11am on Saturday, arriving a little early for the Noon meet but not early enough to do any nearby series although we did pop off to do a single find just up the road.
There are quite a few series around this area almost all placed by Mr Truffles. He has a local Barnburgh 1-12 series, plus two small series (each with 4) placed specifically for last year's Halloween event and another series of 8 placed for this year's event. He also has two random single ones locally too.
It was really nice to meet so many Geocachers and to have a proper chat with Ea51ron and Mr Truffles, both of whom I have a lot of respect for. Ron has done several well planned series with nice hides and always manages to make really interesting walks. Mr Truffles has found over 9000 caches and has about 200 of his own hides; he almost single-handedly keeps Rotherham Geocachers busy. He kindly complemented me on my recent puzzle cache and container and pointed me towards two other infamous puzzles that I've since started work on solving.
I must thank Angellica for organising this event, the travel bug swap box and for scattering lots of horrid creatures around the tables, but I must also make a mental note to myself so that next time I do not do as many or even any caches and to invest the time in meeting and greeting and exchanging stories and tips with fellow Geocachers.
Anyway I had planned two routes to take in most of the local caches but by the time everyone had arrived and we'd met many familiar names (and put faces to them) and then eaten, time was pushing on so we decided to just do one of the circuits.
We set off with Patrick and family and planned to meet up with Yorkypudding & AgeingHippy later.
A few easy caches later we came across one of Mr Truffles epic hides. This was an off-set cache where the coordinates point to a location that has the coordinates to the actual cache. Nine of us spent 40 minutes hunting high and low for these coordinates all to no avail. It was one of those occasions where you've invested so much time it makes you less likely to quit but eventually we had to tear ourselves away and get on with the day.
We completed the part circuit and arrived back at the carpark far too late to meet YorkyPudding and AgeingHippy who I correctly presumed had gone on without us. We left Patrick at this stage and Hannah, myself and her parents decided to quickly do another nearby series of 4 before retiring for the day.
In total we did 5.4 miles and picked up another 11 caches - I ended the day (without realising at the time) on 399 finds.
Showing posts with label event. Show all posts
Showing posts with label event. Show all posts
Tuesday, 2 November 2010
Monday, 9 August 2010
Oh the pain!
We signed up for our first Geocaching "event" this weekend and boy did we drop ourselves in at the deep-end! We've not been to an event before so didn't know what to expect but from what I was told on the day this wasn't a typical event; this was simply a walk with a group of friends & Geocachers around a pre-defined route hoping to pick-up a few caches en-route.
The event was published as approximately 13 miles and we knew this was pushing the limits of our fitness - previously we've only done 5, 6 or maybe 7 miles per day. Additionally we were a little dubious about going as we've both been run-down since our holidays and my flight-caught cold had turned into quite a bad cough.
Anyway we decided to take the plunge and set off at 8am on Sunday morning to meet up at Edale. We met a very friendly mixed bunch of people and set off at 9:30.
By 11:00 I thought I was dying. After an easy start, no doubt to throw us off the scent, the route started going up both sides of a tiny stream that trickles down a mountain. I can hardly call it a trail as it was damned near vertical; we rose from 280m above sea-level to 533m within a mile.
This took us to the top of Kinder Scout plateau (made up of, I think, Kinder Scout, Crowden Head and Edale Moor.) We rested and then walked a couple of miles through wet peat (which makes for very tough going with heavy feet and slipping tracks) then we went around the next side of the plateau where the hill is all stones so your ankles are bent every which way and quickly start to ache. Finally about 6 hours later you walk down hill for an hour and your knees and legs feel like collapsing. You don't believe it yourself but the downhill is the worst.
Anyway I know this all sounds like a long grumble but it's not; it is very hard to explain the sheer energy sapping experiences of wading through peat, going downhill knowing you have to then go back up another hill, or carefully picking every single step across a rocky terrain. By 3:15 I would have willingly swapped my house for a helicopter - not the ownership of one, just a two minute ride in one back down to the car. HOWEVER after eight and a half hours we were finally back at the starting point. We'd done some caches (I never took count, they hardly mattered,) we'd done 14.5 miles, we'd gone up to an altitude of 630 metres, we'd fallen over, we'd slipped and got wet & dirty, we'd laughed and we'd made a dozen new friends. It was a great experience.
I'm hoping I'll read this back in years to come and laugh at myself. There were people there of all ages who did it with less effort than we did, a couple of guys even walked around in circles visiting other spots to pass the time while the slow ones caught up. There may be other walkers who read this and think we're total wimps. They're probably right.
However it WAS a personal achievement and, as they say, every great journey starts with a single step. My journey is the journey to fitness. Today I ache, and not as bad as I feared, and I'm also very proud that I have no blisters!
The event was published as approximately 13 miles and we knew this was pushing the limits of our fitness - previously we've only done 5, 6 or maybe 7 miles per day. Additionally we were a little dubious about going as we've both been run-down since our holidays and my flight-caught cold had turned into quite a bad cough.
Anyway we decided to take the plunge and set off at 8am on Sunday morning to meet up at Edale. We met a very friendly mixed bunch of people and set off at 9:30.
By 11:00 I thought I was dying. After an easy start, no doubt to throw us off the scent, the route started going up both sides of a tiny stream that trickles down a mountain. I can hardly call it a trail as it was damned near vertical; we rose from 280m above sea-level to 533m within a mile.
This took us to the top of Kinder Scout plateau (made up of, I think, Kinder Scout, Crowden Head and Edale Moor.) We rested and then walked a couple of miles through wet peat (which makes for very tough going with heavy feet and slipping tracks) then we went around the next side of the plateau where the hill is all stones so your ankles are bent every which way and quickly start to ache. Finally about 6 hours later you walk down hill for an hour and your knees and legs feel like collapsing. You don't believe it yourself but the downhill is the worst.
Anyway I know this all sounds like a long grumble but it's not; it is very hard to explain the sheer energy sapping experiences of wading through peat, going downhill knowing you have to then go back up another hill, or carefully picking every single step across a rocky terrain. By 3:15 I would have willingly swapped my house for a helicopter - not the ownership of one, just a two minute ride in one back down to the car. HOWEVER after eight and a half hours we were finally back at the starting point. We'd done some caches (I never took count, they hardly mattered,) we'd done 14.5 miles, we'd gone up to an altitude of 630 metres, we'd fallen over, we'd slipped and got wet & dirty, we'd laughed and we'd made a dozen new friends. It was a great experience.
I'm hoping I'll read this back in years to come and laugh at myself. There were people there of all ages who did it with less effort than we did, a couple of guys even walked around in circles visiting other spots to pass the time while the slow ones caught up. There may be other walkers who read this and think we're total wimps. They're probably right.
However it WAS a personal achievement and, as they say, every great journey starts with a single step. My journey is the journey to fitness. Today I ache, and not as bad as I feared, and I'm also very proud that I have no blisters!
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