Open the photo gallery >>

The Sketch

This weekend I originally planned a trip to a caching event in Oundle on Sunday, which the good lady wife said would be OK. But I then noticed I had a “Matrix” day on Saturday and not on Sunday. I revised plans a bit. I’d spent a chunk of the week persuading Daughterus Maximus that she wanted to come on a numbers day with me. By Thursday she was suitably warmed up to the idea. Just a question of where to go, really. Up near Oundle there’s an 8 mile circuit with 53 caches, which might have been fine except we’d need to have left home really early (Sunday) to make sure we got round in time and still make it to the event. But going on Saturday instead of Sunday meant we had the whole range of UK caches to have a go at. Most of those are, to be honest, quite close to Peterborough courtesy of three cachers called Poshrule, IzaakWilson and MarcusMaximi. So sticking a proverbial pin in the map we ended up with a day up the Giddings.

Having had a look around, and with some judicious use of www.gmap-pedometer.com for distance estimation, I plumped for the 10km, 45 cache Giddings and Back series, with an option for a 5km, 24 cache extension around Another Gidding Gander. I know Ami has the legs for that kind of distance because she’s done it before.

Saturday is parkrun day

So we did our usual trip to parkrun on Saturday morning. We nicked Kas’s marshalling slot and forced her to do the run. I’d made my knee ache on Thursday night and I knew Ami would struggle with energy later on. So not a great idea for either of us to be doing a run first thing. Then we were off, having had a decent breakfast (as ever) at Cafe 146 and being suitably tooled up with a heap of snacks, drinks and caching paraphernalia.

The drive up was what you would expect. It involved roads. And driving. Now they have completed the A421 dual carriageway all the way from the M1 to St Neots it takes remarkably little time to get up into the “just south of Peterborough” area, so a lot less driving than there used to be.

On parking up in Great Gidding the first call, as ever, was to find a toilet. We parked up over the road from the only pub. We made the assumption that like at home, all pubs are open all day from breakfast onwards. This one wasn’t, but the nice ladies in the kitchen let us go in to use the toilet. And then back off down the road for a bit of caching.

To the Caching!

The planned circuit had 40 caches, with an option on 4 Church Micros plus the “corner” off another circuit. We originally had in mind a little extension around the “Another Gidding Gander” loop too. Once we set off though, it became quickly clear that we didn’t have the time.

Progress over the first 10 or so caches was quite slow. We took lots of photos  and a couple of caches took ages. Plus, we were adapting ourselves to the weather. The forecast said it would be mainly dry with maybe a few showers. The forecast was right. But it was also windy. We weren’t sure whether a coat was needed, either for warmth or dryness. Eventually we left them behind. We only had the big winter ones, which would have been too warm.

As we worked our way through the series we got progressively faster, with the first 10 taking 70 minutes, the next 60, the next 50 and the last 45.

The countryside around here is very gently rolling hills and our route was mainly quite flat. It’s quite pretty in an English-countryside way. It was certainly better than some walks I’ve done. There weren’t any fly-tipping haunts or general filth for a start. Excellent. There also weren’t any fields with inquisitive or unpleasant animals in. Nor their droppings. So win-win-win.

Most of the caches were very straightforward, as they tend to be in this area, and we only missed one out of 45 attempts. I managed to drop a bunch of TBs I acquired at an event in Aylesbury last week, but only found one other to pick up. Never mind. It’s a travelling dog that wants to go to as many places as possible, so next week it can go to Blackpool with me. Bet it’s never been there before.

Enough of That

When we’d done all that lot we needed another toilet stop, but this time there was no sign of anyone at the pub (despite being 4:30 on a Saturday afternoon) so we had to drive somewhere else.  We were still harbouring thoughts of doing a few more (maybe a few drive-bys to get Ami’s total near to 500), so we didn’t want to waste too much time. We tried a nearby Zoo / Wildlife Park as the next closest viable opportunity but they wanted us to pay the full entrance fee just to use the toilets. No way. Not paying £16 for a wee, so I’m afraid it was a quick trip behind the bushes over the road. It’s times like that when you appreciate the relative convenience of living in or near a town. You’re rarely far from a khazi when you’re in town.

After this, with time marching on and Ami looking a bit done in, I suggested we just give up and go home rather than staying out. Kas said she’d have been happy with us gone all day, but Ami was very ready to jack it in. So with 44 finds out of 45 we decided we’d had enough and we went home. Ami fell asleep before we got back onto the A14. She stayed that way until we were in Milton Keynes, so she wasn’t much company on the ride home.

A Night Out

Snoozing in the car meant that Ami was perked up ready for going out again later. She did well. I had my Garmin GPS watch on and I measured the walk at 12km. That’s quite a lot over rough ground for a nine-year-old.

Whereupon we had baths/showers and then all four of us scooted up to Pizza Hut for a diet-busting tea.

Both kids slept like a log, which was nice after the rough night we had the night before. Izzy, in fact, slept off her cold with 2 hours in bed in the afternoon. And then a full 12 hours sleep overnight.

The caches we found on the day up the Giddings were :