Marvellous May Day

Monday the 2nd of May and an early rise to get ready for a 10:30 start near Matlock. Patrick had put a shout-out on Facebook for anyone who would like to join him there to do the Alphabet Soup series. I'd mostly prepared the night before so set off easily at a reasonable time as prompted by my SatNav. I got there 40 minutes early; plenty of time for me to find the first cache before the rest arrived, and to fix the blummin' average speeds used by my SatNav.

Alphabet Soup was first brought to my attention by Mr. Truffles during his Coniston 10,000 outing. He raved about it and said I should do it ASAP. Indeed it is something to note that certain caches on this series have some of the highest 'favourite' counts I've seen.

In attendance we had Patdhill (Patrick, Donna, Christianna, Bethany, Jordan and Dizzy the Dog), Ea51ron (Ron and Honey the Dog), Snoopyisboss (Sarah and Megs the Dog) and myself (with an imaginary dog if it makes you, dear reader, happier.) We opted to sign the caches as Team SYMO - an acronym for South Yorkshire May Outing.

This series is based on the alphabet, so unsurprisingly there are 26 caches, but it is not just the quantity that makes this series so good, it is a combination of several things...

Firstly it is set in a beautiful area known as Darley Dale. If I may quote Smart451 the series owner "[Darley Dale] is in fact made up of several smaller settlements, namely Churchtown, Darley Bridge or South Darley, Darley Hillside (Hackney), Northwood and Two Dales."

These small settlements afford a good mix of terrain so although there is a little A-road walking there is also a good amount crossing fields, bridges, quiet B-roads and walking through fabulous unlittered and unspoiled woodlands.

Secondly each cache has a themed name related to its place in the alphabet and also to something near the location or failing that something related to the cache container. For example the second cache is called B - Alphabet Soup (Bridge) and is of course hidden near a bridge. The third cache is called C - Alphabet Soup (Cow) and is hidden near a field of cows inside a model cow.

This brings me nicely to the third point. Bucking the all-too-common trend nowadays of simply hiding 35mm film pots everywhere, the series owner here has taken a great deal of time and effort thinking about each cache. I don't want to give too much away for fear of writing spoilers but I'll give a few unnamed examples... One cache is an ammo can (a large waterproof metal tin) that once you open you are confronted with a padlock and a bundle of keys - only one of which works. Another has a four foot long camouflaged tube stuck vertically into the ground inside a bush in the woods. The cache is at the bottom of the tube and you're given two small tools to work the cache up the inside using small holes on the side of the tube. Another cache is inside a drilled out rock.

Overall I would estimate that of the 26 caches there were 18 that were innovative designs or just plain and simple great camouflage - none were difficult to find but I'd be surprised if they would be found by Muggles.

A great series - definitely one of the best, if not THE best, bettered by good company and yet again fabulous weather.

Huge thanks must go to Smart451 for all the time and effort in placing a well thought out and original series.

[Total was 28 caches (two randoms) and 8.8 miles.]

... and back home in time to watch the last session of the World Snooker Championship in its entirety.

WMW #2

Today I went back to repeat the Wentworth Monument Wander series by Mr Truffles just as I had promised myself on Sunday.

This time it was a solo wander where I was aiming to do the entire series again (without actually touching the caches I had already found) and also taking a few diversions to pick up other caches around the area.

Mr Truffles has placed quite a few puzzle caches in the same area so I've spent the last couple of weeks occasionally looking at them, and then I had a concerted effort on Monday and Tuesday evenings to try to get them ready for today.

I like to think I'm pretty good at puzzles but of course we all have areas of strength and areas of weakness and unfortunately all four caches I was trying to solve fell into the latter category for me. I got some hints off my good friend Patrick and even with those two of the caches were unsolveable. Mr Truffles had beaten me good and proper. More hints and eventually I had to just give in on one of them. Patrick told me how to do it and even now I understand it I reckon it's impossible to solve!

I set off walking at 9:40 (again, coincidentally) and went to the two churches to get the answers for the first cache. This took me an age and I felt really uncomfortable wandering around a church graveyard. I know these poor people have been dead for 200 years but it seemed wrong, to me, to be 'playing a game' there. I never mentioned it on the log because I'm clearly in the minority and many people have complemented the cache which has been there for 7 years.

Then it was a long walk of almost 5 miles to the next cache. My legs started aching after about 3 miles and I was briefly worried but it soon passed - I think they were just loosening up again after Sunday.

It was a lovely day, a little cold, but lots of sun and strangey that was my biggest bugbear of the day...

With it being winter the weak willed sun didn't have the courage to leave the horizon and for the first 3 hours I was heading directly into it and consequently, because of the brightness and the way it lens-flares on my glasses, I ended up hardly seeing anything for the first third of the walk. I wonder if I've got a tan for my troubles?

I then picked up Wentworth Wanders #5 at Keppel's Column, turned away from the sun and headed north-east into the woods.

Another long walk on now familiar ground until eventually I had to make a diversion to pick-up the first of Mr T's puzzles. I was somewhat lost as to how to get to it but in the end just followed the arrow and (*looks around feeling guilty*) went through a fence and ignored the lack of footpath signs.

A good find ensued and then I headed back towards the proper path but again then detoured before I got back to it. A tricky find here and I had to sit down and look at my map, purely as an excuse, while four nice ladies stopped to chat to me - presumably a small walking club of friends out for the day.

I was then quite a way off the original track and couldn't see where to go to get back to it so I simply headed off to my next cache and eventually the tracks did meet. However I then had another, quite large, diversion to pick up the next puzzle cache. Unfortunately it was along roads but as the sun was out and the roads were quiet it was still a lovely jaunt.

By now the clock was at 10 miles and I was feeling as though I could walk forever. No blisters and only minor aches and pains. I was feeling good.

Back on the original course I was now at another monument where I had to solve an on-site puzzle. A rather strange puzzle given that it's about a bizarre and fascinating building - Hooby's Stand - yet the puzzle is about blummin' grafitti. Talk about missing the point. (This isn't one of Mr Truffles I hasten to add!)

Then further West-NorthWest along the hillside edge towards another monument - Needle's Eye. An easy find here and quickly onto the one I miscalculated on Sunday which I had to leave owing to light and time contraints.

Back across the fields and then into the woods on the outskirts of Elsecar.

At this point I was touching 13.5 miles and suddenly, without warning, my legs turned to jelly. They were all out of energy and I knew there'd be no walking through the pain this time because it wasn't pain.

I now came to my final detour - I missed out the last three caches of the original series to pick up the last puzzle I had (eventually) worked out. It was strange finding this as it was about 20 metres from a now-archived cache that I had picked up a few months ago; this is the first time I've visited a recycled spot both before and after.

Now back to the car and up a small, yet to my legs unrelenting, hill. It was now hard work.

I got back to the car at 15:25. This means today I walked 14.7 miles in two hours less time than I did 13.7 on Sunday - however that's primarily because I had approximately 35 less caches to find & sign.

Nine more caches in the bag but the best thing about today was SEEING the walk. On Sunday I knew from the start we would be pushed for time and I hardly actually SAW the sights, the monuments, the views and the countryside. Today I was walking with more time to spare and it made a huge difference. Much nicer.

My legs are now OK but still tired. I'm undecided what to do tomorrow. I ought to rest them to let them repair and get stronger but I want to get out because I wanted to do two consecutive days of long walks. Ahh well we'll see, after all I do have the 10 mile walk in Lincoln to look forward to on Friday.

Still no blisters!

Snow and Puzzles

Apologies for not blogging about last Sunday's Team PADs run out to Dodworth. It was beset with work problems and phone calls, which spoilt the day for me, so we postponed plans to do one or two more series in the area for another day. In a very brief summary we did 3.7 miles and got 8 caches.

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This Sunday, despite the settled snow, we decided to venture down south by 20 minutes into the warmer climes of Harthill situated between Kiveton and Woodall. This was for yet another series of Ron's who I've blogged about several times.

The series involves parking at Harthill Reservoir, solving a simple on-site puzzle for the first cache and then walking around the reservoir to pick up a total of 7 caches over 2.2 miles. As usual Ron has found a lovely area to walk but this time it was very different for us as this was the first time we'd been out caching in snow.

Initially we were somewhat reluctant as we thought we would be leaving obvious tracks where we were looking for caches, but these worries soon faded; with 9 people and a dog doing the walk we were leaving such a large area of disturbed snow that there were no actual clues to lead Muggles to our treasures.

A quick and simple walk round, with only one cache causing us any troubles (triumphantly found by Patrick) we decided to stop off on the way home to do two nearby puzzle caches we'd recently solved.

I should add at this point that on the previous night my son had a sleepover with a couple of his friends to celebrate his imminent 15th birthday. He had stayed up all night and as a consequence was like a zombie today. This, coupled with my daughter and others grumbling about the cold, caused severe apathy amongst the children and as a result of this the adults won the finds by a whopping total of nine caches to nil! We've now agreed we like caching in the snow because it is cheaper for us!

Anyway... Ron had published two puzzle caches the previous week. One of these I had assisted him with, so I couldn't go and grab it immediately because that would spoil it for everyone, but the second was a devil of a puzzle. Last Sunday I had been talking to Patrick and Donna about my interest and fascination with the mathematical number PI (3.1415...) which had started when I had memorised it to 120 decimal places at about the age of 18 to win a bet. (Even now I can still remember 50 places or so). In an amazing coincidence Ron published a puzzle called "...with Peas? And Gravy?" that same evening and it didn't take long to figure out the obvious connection.

I set to work on it rightaway but simply could not get started. A couple of emails to Patrick and back the following day and he showed me the first stage of the puzzle. Again, as usual, I was disappointed with myself for not getting it but I have to confess I don't think I ever would have. So the first stage led me to a couple of sets of numbers but these still weren't coordinates, what to do now? I worked and re-worked them any which way I could think of but still nothing until the next day when it hit me. I can't say much here for risk of spoiling it for anyone but I have to salute Ron for a great puzzle.

So back to Sunday, after doing the Harthill series we stopped to pick both of these up. Lots of snowball fights and snow-angels ensued as we walked past lots of sledging Muggles. A tough walk up a hill rewarded us and in total we had done another 1.2 miles for 2 more caches. More importantly we'd had fun, seen some great views and got some exercise to boot.

(Total for the day was 3.5 miles & 9 caches.)

Guilty Postscript: In early celebration of Adam's birthday we all then went to the Centretainment Centre in Sheffield, to an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet and undid all the good work of the day!