Winning with The Hills

Sunday 10/04/2011

It seems like ages since I've had a good walk and also a good Team PADS outing but thankfully this was rectified last weekend.

Patrick Hill fancied a wander up Win Hill near Ladybower Reservoir. He's done all the caches before but it's a great walk and with the weather looking so promising we packed up a picnic and took both families out for a good stretch.

Almost the whole gang (Patrick, Donna, Bethany, Jordan - Christianna was on an outing to Belgium) met up with us (me, Adam, Jade and Hannah) at 10:30 in Hope. Glorious sunshine met us there too and we all set off towards Win Hill.

Patrick had suggested that we add the coordinates for two archived caches into our GPSr because he suspected they would still physically be there. This, for me, was the only downer of the day. Not only did we find both of those caches still in place, but also another two archived caches which I had found previously and knew where they had been. I do wish cache owners would remove their geo-junk when they archive a cache. Failing that, after all there may be good reason they can't get to it, at least keep it active but change the description asking the next finder to remove it and then archive it.

Aside from that bugbear, the walk was really good fun through both beautiful open countryside and also managed woodland, and towards the end Win Hill afforded us some seriously spectacular views over Hope and Ladybower Reservoir - good job I'd taken my binoculars.

The western arm of Ladybower reservoir, taken from lower down Win Hill facing north.

The same view but taken from the top.

Turning a little right, a view to the A57 Snake Pass bridge which straddles the south part of the northern leg of Ladybower.

Turning right again, a view to the road to Bamford and the southern section of Ladybower. (Image comes with free random strangers picniccing.)

Speaking of binoculars (they're quite heavy,) something struck me about the day too; I'd packed sixteen sandwiches for the four of us, three litres of water, crisps, chocolate, first aid kit and binoculars - the rucksack was as heavy as any I've carried yet I hardly noticed it. We did 8 miles up a decent hill in hot weather but I felt completely fine after - I may not be losing any weight but I'm certainly MUCH fitter than this time last year.

Wentworth Trilogy

Just a brief note to explain my lack of blogs... I've done no caches!

Sunday 06/03/2011

Participants:
* Team PADS - Patrick, Aggrajag, Donna and Spandannah.
* All the kids - Adam, Jade, Christianna, Bethany and Jordan.
* Snoopyisboss (Sarah) and her dog - Megs.
* Patrick & Donna's dog - Dizzy.

All going to make up an extended Team PADSS.

Today we met at Wentworth to do Mr Truffles WMW series. Patrick had done all the peripheral caches but none of the WMW. Hannah and Sarah had done none. I had done them all.

We had lovely weather and a nice walk around the 13 mile circuit. Patrick got 45 caches, Hannah & Sarah got 51 and as it's my third walk around this series I got none.

However even though I got no caches I wouldn't have missed it for anything, in fact it didn't even cross my mind to go caching elsewhere. A really nice day and with the extra daylight we even stopped for a picnic type lunch rather than eating on the hoof.

We were even joined briefly by Mr. Truffles himself who was out performing maintenance.

And yes, even though it's my third time around, my legs still ached the next day!

Standhill Woods

Hoping for a break in the lousy weather we met up with Patrick and Donna on Saturday afternoon (26/02/2011) just North of Barnsley for a series called Standhill Woods. This is another series on reclaimed mining land that runs alongside a river and some mature woodland.

It had rained on and off all week so we knew the going would be tough but we really needed to get out and as this was only a small series then it would be just the ticket to start again.

We parked as suggested on the outskirts of Mapplewell (which I'd never heard of, sorry) and set off down the road before turning into a field. The first cache was almost immediately upon us but we had to hang around trying to look innocent whilst a loitering metal-detectorist was hanging around looking guilty. He probably had the exact same thought process but in reverse. Once clear Hannah quickly found the cache, we signed it and moved on.

This is when we hit the first problem.

Patrick, Hannah and I were all using our own GPS devices. My GPS had the 'pocket query' (a file containing all the cache information) loaded onto it that I had created on Friday afternoon. Patrick had created his on the Thursday but he, unlike me, also includes disabled caches. Hannah had created hers that same Saturday morning and merged it into her existing file of 'local to home' caches.

It turns out that the second cache had been disabled a couple of weeks before and then replaced and reactivated in a slightly different location only the day before. So in a comedy of errors set of combinations and complications this meant that:

• Patrick had the disabled cache on his GPS, but at the old coordinates.
• I didn't have the disabled cache at all.
• Hannah had, it turns out, the cache on her original 'local to home' file and the GPS was using that, rather than the new download, and as this was 3 weeks old it wasn't disabled but was still at the old coordinates.

Three variations, all wrong.

Fortunately three of us have iPhones and Donna was soon out with hers (while we were head scratching) reading what was going on and providing us all with up-to-date coordinates.

Patrick then found the cache and we crossed the bridge, over the swirling and swollen river, to walk half a mile along the bank towards cache number three.

Second problem. (I bet you can see it coming can't you?)

At 100 feet from the cache we realised it was the other side of the uncrossable river. By now it was raining quite hard and I could feel the kids hearts sink and to be honest I felt for them - there's nothing worse than being dragged out to do something than then finding out it was pointless and you have to go back and do it again.

I think the adult's spirits were high, certainly mine were, so it was no problem to walk back and pick up the correct path on the other side of the river.

Number three was found by Donna near an impromptu pond and we then slipped and slid our way towards number four. Another simple find for Patrick and then we walked up the river, err, path (as Patrick stated quite accurately in his log) towards number five.

Problem number three was a copy of problem two and again Donna dug up the new coordinates for a cache I didn't even know existed. After that it was a quick find and then onto the last of the main series.

Walking in intermittant rain we soon arrived and got hold of the last coordinate for the bonus cache which was conveniently, as is really to be expected, back towards the starting point in this nice circular walk.

Problem number four.

We got to where we believed number seven to be and saw either a small pond, or a huge puddle depending on whether you like a half full or half empty glass. It was about 30 feet long but as it was mentioned in a previous log we thought we were in the right area. What did put us off though was all the nearby trees, at the other side of the path, were also all underwater. We read the hint, double-checked Patrick's writing (of the feeder clues) and the coordinates we'd each entered onto our GPS devices. We were sure we were in the right area but couldn't fathom why the only likely place for the cache, given the hint, was a foot underwater.

I prodded the area for a while with my walking pole and then went off to circle the zone. Hannah started to feel around in the water whilst I had walked through it to the other side to see if there were any likely spots behind. There wasn't and it was awkward, and previously occupied by kids dens I think, so looked unlikely.

I went back and took over from Hannah standing in the water and feeling around under this specific tree. Luckily I found it. The stone protecting it had come off as it had floated upwards (the cache, not the stone!) but luckily it had got stuck fast as it rose into the bent over tree. Some leverage in the icy water and I pulled it out and found it completely dry inside. Thankfully the seal had held together.

It's hard to see from this angle that it was deeper on the other side.

We signed the log, Patrick took a travel bug, and we then had a discussion on what to do with the cache. I wanted to replace it where found but went with the majority decision to relocate it and post new coordinates and a picture on our logs. This way subsequent users can still find it and of course the cache owner can relocate it when the waters recede.

What a day but I have to say that despite me having used the word 'problem' for each of our issues during this walk, it was a really nice walk. Yes we were wet and exceptionally muddy, yes we'd made a couple of mistakes and had a technological breakdown but we had finally got some fresh air and we'd had quite a good adventure too. It was also great to get out with Patrick and Donna again after what seems like weeks.

[Total for the day was 2.9 miles and 7 caches.]

Blustery Castleton

On Saturday Patrick worked out a plan to do some caches at Castleton on the Sunday. I was busy so quickly created a Pocket Query (a list of caches that match your desired criteria in a certain area) which I downloaded on to my GPS without having the time to actually read about any of the caches.

We all (Me, Patrick, Hannah, Donna, Adam, Jade, Christianna, Bethany, Jordan and Dizzy the Dog) met up in the main Castleton car park at 12 noon and headed off to the chippy for a sandwich to set us up for the walk - we didn't eat too much as the hills would be hard work.

Patrick, Hannah and Bethany wandered off to find the nearby cache-under-a-bench, that I had already picked up last summer, whilst Donna and I ordered half a ton of chips for nine.

We set off up to the 'fallen road' (the abandoned A625) on Mam'Tor. A good brisk walk through bracing winds and we soon found a couple of caches, got confused about waypoint clues and also took a couple of required photos for two Earth caches (no physical cache but photo and answers to email to the cache owner).

Once walking I quickly got frustrated with my lack of preparation as one of the caches had 4 waypoints I didn't know anything about, and also Patrick was looking for 3 caches which had been disabled but he was sure were still fine as there were recent logs - presumably the cache owner hadn't removed the disabled flag after the caches had been maintained. Anyway, these caches also weren't in my GPS and because of this I felt I was being led blind, didn't know where I was going and consequently felt a little lost. (This does make me wonder if the kids might enjoy walks more if they had a GPS? Do they get bored because they've nothing to do?)

Walking along the broken road the wind got stronger and stronger and was now being accompanied by a light rain which was being driven into us. At one point, whilst I was at the back figuring out waypoints, I saw Jordan literally get thrown over by a gust of wind - fortunately he didn't land flat on his face and just managed to catch his footing.

We rounded the corner, after I think it's the Blue John Cavern car park and back onto the working road, and whilst walking directly into the wind we decided to call it a day. Had there just been the adults we would have carried on but it was getting too much for the kids. We backtracked down the road and hill, picking up a further clue we'd missed coming up the hill, and back into Castleton.

A frustrating and cold day but a great way to clear the cobwebs out of your head - one of those days where you get back home and feel like you've really done something.

Overall we walked 5.4 miles and somehow, thanks to Patrick, bagged 6 caches.

Hide and Walk

On Sunday morning I set out to place my new cache. I've been working on a puzzle in my head for a week or so now but couldn't progress with it until the cache was in place and I had the coordinates to work with.

I popped out and placed it locally in a location I've had my eye on for a while but which, I have to confess, I'm not overly happy with. There's little reason for people to be there as there's not really a walk involved.

It was a nightmare getting accurate coordinates because of the tree cover and also, I believe, because it was placed on a south facing banking which blocks the view to the satellites. I spent 45 minutes there with both my GPS devices taking multiple readings (each averaged for a couple of minutes) before moving away and returning to reset and do another. Each reading was nowhere near the previous so it took me ages to finally get some coordinates I was happy with. (I had 15 readings in total, disposed of the furthest out-of-range, and averaged the rest but weighting ones which were more common).

Back home I searched online for all the clues and calculations to allow people to solve my puzzle and published it about 12:30am. It was reviewed and went live within two minutes (DalesmanX certainly on the ball today!). As I type this blog no-one has yet solved the puzzle which I'm surprised at as I made it only medium difficulty. It is, however, a completely different style of puzzle to one I would normally think of - the result of specifically trying to do something different.

Shortly after this was done we set off to meet Patrick, Donna and clan to do the High Hoylands Hike - a short walk of 3.5 miles and 9 caches.

This was a hundred times more interesting than Friday's walk - we were back to fields, woodlands, lanes, tracks, roads, hills, farms and mud. A very pleasing walk with some interesting hides (and some we don't agree with as they involved nails into trees which is generally frowned upon) and we timed it perfectly as the rain started to come down as we got back to the cars.

The only downer for the day, for me anyway, was that the kids rang their mother and vanished off home when we told them we were walking. I didn't put up a fight but in hindsight I was wrong. They might not like walking and I know they would rather be on MSN or Facebook but "normal" families do activities together and next time I won't be so soft.

Icy Dinnington

On Sunday afternoon, after a quick lunch following on from the morning's Beeley Wood clean-up, Patrick, I, Hannah and Donna met up (as Team PADS) to do a second 'Great Scots' series in Dinnington. We had done the first series a month or so ago.

This series was about 10 days old but because of the heavy snowfall had only been found once. There were also several did-not-finds (DNFs) because of the snow, a DNF because of child muggles playing nearby, and one that was believed muggled before ever being found.

Having suffered badly from the snow ourselves, which was clearing away nicely, we hadn't expected to see so much still at Dinnington. Also, strangely, the hill sides were coated in solid ice - I don't mean compacted snow that has been walked on and turned into ice, but ice like you would find on the top of a pond; the tracks up the hills were solid ice with water running under them as though the trails were originally streams. Very odd.

We first walked across what appeared to be flood plains with huge frozen puddles-come-lakes and quickly got the first easy cache. We then went up the tracks to another easy second one with Dizzy the dog eating ice where possible. On the way to the fourth one we stopped by the third which was seemingly muggled, just in case, and lo and behold it was there in the snow in plain view. We presume that it had fallen from it's hiding place in the snow and was buried for the previous two seekers - we happened to be first to arrive once the thaw had started. A completely unexpected First-To-Find (FTF) and amazingly the first one for Team PADS as a group.

The fourth was another easy find and after a wet trudge up semi-frozen tracks and a good search Hannah found the fifth. Then it was just a brisk mile back to the cars.

A great Sunday afternoon; fresh air, a good walk and good company. What more could you want?

[Total 5 finds, 2.5 miles.] [Forgot to mention in last blog the 2.4 miles done this morning.]

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.

-

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!

Ron's last one (or not)

On Saturday we met up again with Patrick, Donna and their kids, along with my two pests newly returned from a long holiday in Orlando, to do Easiron's series entitled TTTWHSFTCP - a humorous acronym of his That's The Third Walk He's Started From This Car Park.

Starting from the same small car park in Ridgeway we used for a walk I blogged only two weeks ago, we set off on what *was* Ron's last series and was the only caches of his we hadn't yet done. This is another spectacular walk of 11 hides (the last being a calculated bonus) taking in over 6 miles of woodland, farmland, hedgerows and paths. I commented in my logs at the time that Ron had excelled himself with this walk and I think all agreed.

The kids were all quite excitable, as usual, but I do think Christmas is already creeping up. Aside from this we had been to see Paramore at the Sheffield Arena two days before so Jade and Christianna had lots to gossip about.

We stopped at the pub, like last time, when back at the car park but this time we only had coffee and biscuits to help us thaw out - once the sun had set it turned very cold.

The sun was disappearing behind us as we walked down this field.

I don't know whether it was because we've cut back on the walking over the last couple of weeks (bad weather and bad diaries), or whether it was because this walk took in a couple of hills, but the next morning my legs and even my arms(!) were aching quite badly.

Roll on the spring when we can get out more often!

As for Ron, the sneaky chap, he published another series of 8 whilst I was logging these so it looks like we've got another good walk to look forward to!

(Total for the day: 11 of Ron's plus a random nearby cache so the total for the day was 12 caches over 6.6 miles.)

Thurcroft Colliery

The last week has been a quiet one Geocaching wise. We can handle the dark nights and we can handle the rain but when both are put together it starts to make us think why bother?

We didn't get out at all until Saturday afternoon where we had arranged to do a new series by n.e.a.r. over in Thurcroft with Patrick and Donna. This is reclamation ground on the site of the old colliery.

n.e.a.r. have excelled themselves with this 3 mile walk through nice open spaces and woodland and which includes 12 hides, many of which have had some good effort taken to disguise them. I was pleased with their efforts and grateful for their time.

Once back at the car we were all chatting and I realised that Hannah was very probably on 399 caches so with a nudge of an idea from Patrick we popped over to Dinnington, after saying our goodbyes, to pick up a standalone urban cache to round Hannah's day off on 400 finds. Following Patrick's description, as we didn't have this cache logged in our GPSr, we actually found it quite easily and it wasn't until later that night when logging the find online that we realised we must have found the old cache. It transpires that after several did-not-finds the cache owner had replaced it several tens of metres away with new coordinates. As Patrick had found it several months before he wasn't aware of this and had directed us to the old spot where, fortunately for us, the original container still existed despite the previous DNFs.

It's quite amusing, to me at least, to think of finding a cache several searchers had missed and that the cache owner had then looked for, abandoned and republished.

I just hope she let's us count it as a valid find!

A Snapper's Stroll

After a quiet two weeks of caching we finally got our teeth into a meaty series on Sunday. As part of Team PADS again (Patrick, Aggrajag, Donna, Spandannah, kids & doggie) we met up at 10am in Barnsley to do the reasonably new "The Snappers" series "A Snappers Stroll".

This starts a couple of minutes drive from J37 of the M1 at the Locke Park car park but heads off south and then west over the M1 then a long W/SW loop before heading back, over the M1 again on a different footbridge and looping back up to the start.

It's a very good series of 18 caches during which we also picked up 3 unrelated ones. Total walk was 8.3 miles over 4.5 hours including searching, signing, swaps and a lunch break.

I took a couple of travel bugs on the way around which I'm hoping to drop in Dublin at the weekend - assuming we find caches big enough to place them in.

We were out of practice and aching a bit last night but a big thanks must go to the UKSNAPPERS for taking the time to lay down a nice long series.

Also a big thanks to Patrick, Donna and family for entertaining us on the way around.

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.