The Beginning of Something Special
This day was the start (for me) of a long love affair with the area between Peterborough, Oundle, Huntingdon, Northampton and Bedford. The area just to the west of Peterborough was absolutely chocka with caches placed by poshrule. He’s a local with an obvious love of walking the countryside. And an unfortunate habit of dropping plastic boxes while he’s doing it. Since this trip, two other cachers (MarcusMaximi and Izaak Wilson) have more or less filled the entire area with caches. They are packed in at near maximum density along all available footpaths.
Back at the plot for this post, the girls were all away in the North East and I was at home. I can’t remember why I didn’t go up north with them. It was probably because we’d just got our guinea pigs and we couldn’t take them away with us.
Cold, Cold, Cold
I got up at a sensible time. I’d pre-planned a trip up to this area to try a bit of a splurge on caches. It was a beautiful morning, and the bright weather lasted all day, but it was also cold, and there was snow everywhere. It was going to be a crisp day for walking in the countryside. First of all I had to get there, though. And I made the mistake of going cross-country around Thrapston and Oundle, which took an eternity. If I’m going that way now I just go around the A421 and A1 to Peterborough and duck into the countryside at the nearest point – it’s quicker.
Pretty much all of the caches I did on this day are gone now. I did 3 series of about 20 caches each and then did a few random drive-bys to make up some numbers once I’d done with walking.
The first series was called “poshrule’s perambulate” and it was just to the east of the village of Warmington, which is technically in Northamptonshire.
Next up was a walk starting from the village of Lutton, also just inside Northamptonshire.
From here I moved across to a series in and around Caldecote, which just strays over the border into Cambridgeshire.
Back to the Cachemobile
When I’d done all these it was pretty much dark. I’d definitely had enough of walking, even though it had been sunny all day. It had been rough walking despite everywhere being frozen solid, and my feet could really feel it.
I got back to the car having found about 55 caches but, being February, it was still fairly early (about 5 pm), so I decided I would try a few drive-bys. There was a series named for the nearby Morborne Transmitter, one of which was literally right underneath the thing. I did a few more to take my total up to 63 for the day but by this stage the temperature was way down below freezing and it was getting a bit dangerous.
My fingers were getting frozen every time I started searching, and I was trying to drive up a load of fairly hilly single-lane roads covered in snow. I was out in the middle of nowhere. If I had an accident of any kind I’d be out here on my own. So I decided to give up at 63 finds. It was a new personal best for me. My previous best was 60. I’d done that a year earlier whilst walking the Chiltern Hundred, so I was actually pretty happy with 63 finds.
Once I’d given up I made the wise move of getting on the A1 near Peterborough instead of going cross-country. So I drove home along a clear, non-snowy and well-trodden road all the way home. I was in plenty of time to grab some wine and a take-away for dinner and get my logs started before Match of the Day came on.