Not-So Wet Weekend

After picking up another couple of loose-ends on Tuesday we didn't have the time or the weather to get out again until Saturday. We met up again as Team PADS (minus Adam and Jade who were in London for the day) to complete the KB series near Doncaster which we'd started the weekend before and which Patrick had expanded a little with four more caches in a nice additional loop to the south.

After the torrential rain of Friday we were a little apprehensive, and packed accordingly, but the day turned out to be a total joy.

We arrived at 11am to find Patrick and Donna mopping up the remains of the third 'final' cache which had been Muggled and scattered around the parking area.

(This series has a final cache which you calculate the coordinates for on the route around. This final cache has coordinates inside for a bonus cache which itself has coordinates inside for an extra bonus - it was this one that had been damaged.)

We did almost 6 miles walking over three hours in lovely autumn sun and picked up 14 caches. The ground was extremely wet in places and involved some walking around or paddling but it was all good fun.

At one stage we passed (what I thought was) an amazing wooden bridge structure that appeared to be carrying a gas pipe across a ravine. We walked under it and I've never seen something so old-fashioned, large and bizarre. It was very Hollywood-esque if you imagine the old westerns or suspense movies where a steam train crosses a rickety bridge.






En-route we replaced one of the missing caches which had been alerted to us by the series owner. Patrick took the tub, pen and pad and we took some goodies to drop in it. We had a little fun watching the kids searching for it for 5 minutes before Patrick 'found' it in his rucksack. Needless to say the children didn't share our sense of humour.

On the way home we stopped off for a drive-by that Patrick had seen en-route. This was at a lifting bridge in Barnby Dun and was a magnetic nano attached to the fencing on the bridge. We had just arrived when three barges and boats queued up so we had the bonus of watching the bridge in action. (I doubt it's much of a bonus for the 100 cars that were sat waiting within 5 minutes!)


Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the bridge raised, or being passed under, as I was videoing it.

We'd all given up on this cache and were just turning around to leave when Hannah found it. She was very pleased with herself and for good reason, it had been a tricky one and rather than ending the day in frustration it turned out to be a good final find of the day.

Cooling Towers and Keyboards

After a very quiet Geocaching week, because we both had heavy colds, we ventured out on Sunday for the third Team PADS outing. Patrick had spotted a good sized series on the North side of Doncaster called the KB series, KB being short for Keyboard and used to solve the final-cache puzzle. We took sandwiches for a break somewhere and met up at 10:30.

On the way around the series we popped in to do a cache that was in a now disused power station and for the first time in my life I was up close to some HUGE cooling towers. The winds that appear from nowhere once you are under them are quite amazing, the echoes are quite deafening and the scale quite bewildering. Of course the kids made the most of the echoes and made as much noise as possible.

Another first on this series, believe it or not, was my first ever on-foot crossing of a railway line. I've driven over them of course on real roads, but I've never seen a small countryside foot one. Our route snaked over the line in a few places and at one point we had to wait for a London bound train to pass at considerable speed - as highlighted by the crossing signs warning pedestrians of trains passing "in excess of 100 MPH". Not surprisingly a couple of the kids were quite intimidated by it.

Two new things in one day; if I keep this up someome might think my life is exciting!

The series was a distorted figure 8, with the car being parked centrally, and after completing the larger northern half we decided to call it a day as we would eventually run out of time and light - we pledged to do the second half within the next couple of weeks.

Overall we found 16 caches and did 7.5 miles walking. The weather held out nicely and it was a good day all around.

Bradfield take two

After a lazy Saturday (not planned but as a result of a needlessly long Friday night session with several friends from work) we set off on Sunday to do two separate series around South Bradfield. We had originally planned a long series around the North side of Doncaster but the bad weather made us think twice so Patrick (he of Team PADS fame) came up with a plan of two small series split by a pub meal - this way we could stop if the weather was too awful.

We met at 11am in light drizzle, on the Damflask reservoir wall (where we were only two weeks ago) and set off to do A Stroll Around the Brickworks. This was a nice 2 mile series of 6 caches with some lovely views and unfortunately some heavy mud.

Once again the children had been bribed at 50p per cache but to avoid in-fighting between the 5 of them I came up with a new plan; the kids would share £1 between them... they initially thought this was a bad deal until we explained they had five times the chance of getting 20p each.

This also meant the adults had to try harder to save some dough!

We finished the first series and went to the Nag's Head Inn for a fabulous home-cooked meal each, and then decided to continue onto another series called Storrs Circular. This was a longer walk of nearly 4 miles, 4 caches, a little more hill-climbing involved but the view were staggering and made all the more beautiful by rainbows.

The drizzle was on and off all day but not really bad at all; I think we got more drenched from wading through a couple of cow-pat soaked fields! We had a great day caching, chatting and walking and for once I also think the kids enjoyed it too!

Overall result: Kids 6, Adults 4.

Actually I'll put this in more detail to put Patrick and Donna, in fact the Hills overall (except star Bethany) to shame:

The Kids
Bethany 3
Adam 2
Jade 1
Christiana 0
Jorden 0

The Adults
Mark 3
Hannah 1
Patrick 0
Donna 0

Special thanks to the Hill family for their company and also their map which we needed for one of the puzzles. Cheers all.