The Sketch
How many caches can you do on one day in January when you’re on a bit of a mission? Especially when there’s a new puzzle series you’ve already solved, in an area you’ve already cached in more times than you remember? It’s enough to give you the Giddings.
I decided to test that by having a pop at the “Celebrating 43 years of Charlton11” series up in the Gidddings, followed up by the nearby Gidding Gallop series. They’d been lurking around on the map, crying out to be done, for a number of months, so I thought it was about time I got off my bum and went to collect them.
I parked up in my customary place on the grass outside Hamerton Park Zoo, after all I have 4-wheel drive, so tend not to get stuck. Despite being out in the middle of nowhere but surrounded by small villages, there is basically nowhere to park for miles around. Even the zoo charges money and doesn’t let you use their toilets without paying to get in.
Celebrate Good Times
The route of the “Celebrating 43 years” series took me around a route previously occupied by the Twin Turbine Trail, and that route was still mainly flat and agricultural. There still weren’t any toilets or other facilities anywhere nearby either, but never mind. It’s one of the occupational hazards of being a geocacher. I’d been to the area before and knew what to expect, so I stopped on the way up to attend to the necessary.
The walk around was quick and fairly uninspiring, but that was kind of what I was expecting. Most of the caches in this area are pretty much like this – small to medium sized caches placed in hedges or at fence posts. They also tend to be easy walking because the area is mainly arable and hence there are never any delays caused by stiles, gates or livestock. All of the field boundaries around here just involve big, wide grassy or paved routes that you can get large tractors and combine harvesters through. That makes for fast walking and generally easy caching. Winter is the best time to come, in many ways, because there’s a lot less undergrowth in the hedges.
Galloping
The second series on the radar, the Gidding Gallop, also went over old ground. In fact, I think it went over ground I’d been over more than once. One of those previous walks was Sawtry and the Giddings. Anyway, that one was a vaguely flat walk that was out along a country lane and back down a pretty decent footpath that runs down the side of fields, and hence has grass underfoot rather than mud. It was fairly fast going.
The caches I found on the day were :