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.]
Showing posts with label donna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label donna. Show all posts
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Monday, 24 January 2011
Lincoln let-down
On Friday Patrick, Donna and I had all arranged to do a long walk near Lincoln which tracked due West along a long-disused railway line.
I set off at 8:15 (getting up earlier than on a work day!) and did the 45 minute drive down to the end of the walk near Newark. Donna, Patrick and Dizzy the dog then arrived in the van, parked up and got into my car and I drove to the start of the walk, about a further 30 minutes away.
It was a very cold day, somewhat surprising after the day before, but fortunately I had packed my gloves and hat just in case.
The cache owner here had placed four consecutive series in a straight line, with each series having a bonus cache calculated from numbers placed in the preceding caches.
We set off in good spirits and found the first few with no problems but then the proverbial started to hit the fan.
Number 5 was obviously a tough one as proven by the ~55 did-not-finds (DNFs) against ~70 finds. The hint was near useless so eventually we resorted to phoning-a-friend who told us exactly where it was. Except it wasn't. I'm not sure if it's been stolen (highly unlikely given where it's meant to be hidden) or if it was pushed too far in or frozen into the surroundings but we simply couldn't find it.
Frustrated we headed to the next.
Number 6 couldn't be found anywhere and to add to our frustrations the given hint was meaningless; I guess it might mean something to locals but to us it meant nothing. There was also a previous DNF logged.
Frustrated we headed to the next.
Number 7 couldn't be found anywhere and even with the hint there was no sign of it. We think this one has beeen muggled as there was also a previous DNF logged.
Frustrated we headed to the next.
Number 8 couldn't be found anywhere and even with a (finally!!!) useful hint there was no sign of it. There was also a previous DNF and again we think this has been muggled.
By now plain annoyed, we headed to the next cursing the cache owner for not maintaining his series (ie. checking caches after DNFs), for having mostly useless hints and we were all beginning to think that we'd wasted a day's holiday.
THANKFULLY number 9 was found and indeed for the rest of the day we found every cache (except for one and the bonus for each series) and slowly, as we progressed, our frustrations eased although we were still disappointed that each bonus cache was behind us. I guess the series owner wanted people to walk (maybe cycle?) 9 miles west, picking up ~30 caches, and then walk 9 miles back east to pick up 4 bonuses - rather a strange plan given that it's possibly the most boring walk I've ever done - nine miles on a perfectly flat track, on perfectly flat landscape, with nothing to view except empty fields.
Needless to say I won't be returning to pick up the 5 DNFs and the 4 bonus caches.
However the day wasn't a complete washout because of the company - we did a walk that would likely drive a solo walker to suicide but the three of us entertained ourselves and the walk, after cache 8, passed by quite quickly.
In the end we logged 30 finds (no idea how, I thought we'd done about 16!) and almost 9 miles walking. It was also a great real-world test of my new GPS and I'm getting the hang of it now.
Last but not least we then had to reverse the vehicle procedure of the morning and despite it being Friday afternoon the traffic was great and I was home quickly.
I set off at 8:15 (getting up earlier than on a work day!) and did the 45 minute drive down to the end of the walk near Newark. Donna, Patrick and Dizzy the dog then arrived in the van, parked up and got into my car and I drove to the start of the walk, about a further 30 minutes away.
It was a very cold day, somewhat surprising after the day before, but fortunately I had packed my gloves and hat just in case.
The cache owner here had placed four consecutive series in a straight line, with each series having a bonus cache calculated from numbers placed in the preceding caches.
We set off in good spirits and found the first few with no problems but then the proverbial started to hit the fan.
Number 5 was obviously a tough one as proven by the ~55 did-not-finds (DNFs) against ~70 finds. The hint was near useless so eventually we resorted to phoning-a-friend who told us exactly where it was. Except it wasn't. I'm not sure if it's been stolen (highly unlikely given where it's meant to be hidden) or if it was pushed too far in or frozen into the surroundings but we simply couldn't find it.
Frustrated we headed to the next.
Number 6 couldn't be found anywhere and to add to our frustrations the given hint was meaningless; I guess it might mean something to locals but to us it meant nothing. There was also a previous DNF logged.
Frustrated we headed to the next.
Number 7 couldn't be found anywhere and even with the hint there was no sign of it. We think this one has beeen muggled as there was also a previous DNF logged.
Frustrated we headed to the next.
Number 8 couldn't be found anywhere and even with a (finally!!!) useful hint there was no sign of it. There was also a previous DNF and again we think this has been muggled.
By now plain annoyed, we headed to the next cursing the cache owner for not maintaining his series (ie. checking caches after DNFs), for having mostly useless hints and we were all beginning to think that we'd wasted a day's holiday.
THANKFULLY number 9 was found and indeed for the rest of the day we found every cache (except for one and the bonus for each series) and slowly, as we progressed, our frustrations eased although we were still disappointed that each bonus cache was behind us. I guess the series owner wanted people to walk (maybe cycle?) 9 miles west, picking up ~30 caches, and then walk 9 miles back east to pick up 4 bonuses - rather a strange plan given that it's possibly the most boring walk I've ever done - nine miles on a perfectly flat track, on perfectly flat landscape, with nothing to view except empty fields.
Needless to say I won't be returning to pick up the 5 DNFs and the 4 bonus caches.
However the day wasn't a complete washout because of the company - we did a walk that would likely drive a solo walker to suicide but the three of us entertained ourselves and the walk, after cache 8, passed by quite quickly.
In the end we logged 30 finds (no idea how, I thought we'd done about 16!) and almost 9 miles walking. It was also a great real-world test of my new GPS and I'm getting the hang of it now.
Last but not least we then had to reverse the vehicle procedure of the morning and despite it being Friday afternoon the traffic was great and I was home quickly.
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Frogs, Friends and Frustration
The Bank Holiday weekend just gone has been a hectic few days of Geocaching.
We started with a lazy day on Saturday and just picked one up as a drive-by while we were passing; it was competely unplanned and we actually forgot to log it for two days.
However on Sunday we went on a trip arranged by our new Geocaching friends "patdhill" and family. (Patrick and I have emailed each other a few times and we went around to meet them last Tuesday). This was a 10 mile hike around the top of Froggatt Edge for our two families, and included some serious rock-climbing to get to 3 caches rated 5 difficulty and 5 terrain.
The day started off pretty grimly with driving winds making the drizzle pretty awful but within an hour it was easing off and by lunchtime the sun was shining brightly. The wind never let up in the exposed places but it was a very pleasant day.
Owing to the complexity of some of the finds (12 overall) the 10 miles took us 7 hours but we had a great day (well most of us did, I think the kids are sick of hiking) and we cemented a friendship we hope will last a long time. Incidentally for the logs we came up with an on-the-spot group name of Team PADS for Patrick, Aggrajag, Donna and Spandannah which is of course much easier than writing 4 (or 9 with kids) names.
On Monday rather than rest our aching legs (and arms!) Spandannah and I decided to go to Rother Valley and pick-up the new series dropped there only 2 days earlier. Patdhill had, coincidentally, picked up First-To-Find on all these on the Saturday so we were, in a manner of speaking, following his trail again. As it was Bank Holiday Monday, and we didn't set off until about 1pm, we were already about 8th on the logs with 3 other Geocachers finding them before us on the same day - it seems like a very popular trail and it's not even 4 days old!
It was a pleasant 6 mile walk with no 'bush whacking' or 'jungle thrashing' but we did manage to get lost once when we added in another cache that wasn't from the same series and deviated from the desired route.
The series of 17 had 16 normal caches, some with clues in their lids, and a final puzzle cache you found from the lid clues. Out of the 17 there was one we simply could not find despite spending a good half an hour looking. Blasted bridge, it's frustrated us both and we'll have to go back another day and try again.
Typically the one we couldn't find included the last clue we needed for #17 but fortunately with one of the coordinates complete we used logic, the hint, skill and a dash of luck to successfully find #17 - and very proud we were too. Overall this was another 17 finds.
Tonight we need a night off - my back, my legs, my arms and even my aches are aching.
We started with a lazy day on Saturday and just picked one up as a drive-by while we were passing; it was competely unplanned and we actually forgot to log it for two days.
However on Sunday we went on a trip arranged by our new Geocaching friends "patdhill" and family. (Patrick and I have emailed each other a few times and we went around to meet them last Tuesday). This was a 10 mile hike around the top of Froggatt Edge for our two families, and included some serious rock-climbing to get to 3 caches rated 5 difficulty and 5 terrain.
The day started off pretty grimly with driving winds making the drizzle pretty awful but within an hour it was easing off and by lunchtime the sun was shining brightly. The wind never let up in the exposed places but it was a very pleasant day.
Owing to the complexity of some of the finds (12 overall) the 10 miles took us 7 hours but we had a great day (well most of us did, I think the kids are sick of hiking) and we cemented a friendship we hope will last a long time. Incidentally for the logs we came up with an on-the-spot group name of Team PADS for Patrick, Aggrajag, Donna and Spandannah which is of course much easier than writing 4 (or 9 with kids) names.
On Monday rather than rest our aching legs (and arms!) Spandannah and I decided to go to Rother Valley and pick-up the new series dropped there only 2 days earlier. Patdhill had, coincidentally, picked up First-To-Find on all these on the Saturday so we were, in a manner of speaking, following his trail again. As it was Bank Holiday Monday, and we didn't set off until about 1pm, we were already about 8th on the logs with 3 other Geocachers finding them before us on the same day - it seems like a very popular trail and it's not even 4 days old!
It was a pleasant 6 mile walk with no 'bush whacking' or 'jungle thrashing' but we did manage to get lost once when we added in another cache that wasn't from the same series and deviated from the desired route.
The series of 17 had 16 normal caches, some with clues in their lids, and a final puzzle cache you found from the lid clues. Out of the 17 there was one we simply could not find despite spending a good half an hour looking. Blasted bridge, it's frustrated us both and we'll have to go back another day and try again.
Typically the one we couldn't find included the last clue we needed for #17 but fortunately with one of the coordinates complete we used logic, the hint, skill and a dash of luck to successfully find #17 - and very proud we were too. Overall this was another 17 finds.
Tonight we need a night off - my back, my legs, my arms and even my aches are aching.
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