by Kevin | Apr 18, 2015
Kas entered the 2015 Manchester Marathon. Technically, I suppose, she entered the 2014 Manchester Marathon and then deferred it for a year after winning a place in the London Marathon ( see Marathon Weekend ). She won a place in the 2015 London Marathon too, so ended up doing two in the space of a week.
So, Manchester it is then!
Saturday
We booked ourselves a family-sized room at the Jury’s Inn Manchester, on the basis that it was central, it has family rooms, and I had some air miles or bonus points with someone that meant we didn’t have to pay cash for it. The room was good, but as with many city centre hotels in the UK, the parking was, well, somewhere else.
We had a family weekend away, and drove up on Friday night so we could find a random parkrun to do on Saturday morning. Our entirely random choice was Worsey Woods parkrun, which is essentially a flat mile out along an old railway line, followed by a mile of off-piste in some very undulating woods, and then a final mile back the way you came. It proved to be a good course to run and Izzy ran a PB on it. That was a good start to the weekend. They had a nearby cafe too, althouh it was far enough away that they had to explain it to us. That had us sorted for breakfast.
We spent Saturday afternoon doing different things. I obviously went geocaching, because that’s what I do. Neither of the kids wanted to come with me, so Kas spent an afternoon trying to keep them happy in the fundamental boring location of a hotel room, whilst trying to rest up herself. Hmmm!
Anyway, my caching walk proved to be moderately fruitful for a session of urban caching – they are always a bit slow compared to countryside caching – and over the course of the afternoon I found a total of 19 caches of varying types.
I got back to the hotel reasonably early and we all got cleaned up and went out to meet a few other runners we know at a local generic chain Italian restaurant. I think it was a Pizza Express, but I can’t really remember.
Sunday
Race day began with an early breakfast at the hotel and then a frustrating drive down towards Old Trafford. It was particularly frustrating for Kas, because she’d pre-paid some parking at the stadium but we got stuck in a massive traffic jam and she ended up having to jump out of the car and walk half a mile down the road to get to the race on time. Me and the girls got there eventually, but we lost sight of Kas and didn’t see her again until she passed us during the race.
Speaking of which, while Kas was running the girls and me tried to follow her around on the tram system. It took us ages to find Trafford Bar Station, and from there we made a fairly short hop down to Brooklands Station, at which point we were in urgent need of a toilet. Thankfully there was a pub open, although it was a major squeeze to get in and it wasn’t especially clean inside.
From the station, we made our way out onto the road and found a bunch of other Redway Runners who were out-and-about on waving and cheering duty. Anyone would think there was an event on.
On the trip back we were bright enough to jump off the tram at Old Trafford Cricket Ground and so were able to make our way back up to the football stadium quickly. We arrived just in time to see Kas coming up the final stretch and into the finish. Well done to her!
The trip home was pretty much uneventful. Kas never really eats much straight after finishing a race so we drove a big chunk towards home before stopping in some motorway services for a late lunch.
The house was where we left it, which is always handy.
by Kevin | Apr 12, 2015
Miles from the Point
I always think Sawtry sounds a bit strange. But then, it can get away with it because it’s surrounded by The Giddings. Three villages called Great Gidding, Little Gidding and Steeple Gidding. If you’re surrounded by villages called The Giddings you can probably get away with all sorts of weird names. Maybe also “Sawtry and the Giddings” could be a good name for an indie band. I don’t know.
Back at the plot, there were two series up here that I hadn’t done (The Izaak Wilson Memorial Series and the Gidding Round), plus a couple of odds from a series I’d done before (the Sawtry, Sore Feet) but didn’t quite complete.
The Plot
It’s an area I had visited on multiple occasions before this day, and have revisited several times too, as it’s right in the middle of the triangle that’s been pretty much full of geocaches for years on end. Series keep popping up and being taken down, so there’s always something new to do. On this day I parked in a car park I’d definitely parked in before.
There’s not a lot to say about the day except it was sunny and warm. I walked just over 14km on my main walk and picked up 51 finds in that distance. I then did a further 11 finds in the car afterwards, seeing as I had a bit of time left over.
Quite a productive day then…
The caches I found around Sawtry and the Giddings on this day were :
by Kevin | Apr 4, 2015
The Plan
Time to do the only remaining section of the Milton Keynes Boundary Walk series. The only one for which I had yet to collect the bonus. Even though I devised the coding for the MKBW Golden Bonus cache and knew full well where it was (because I helped Wavvy test it’s placement) I had somehow failed to complete both the Green and Indigo sections at the start of 2015, well over two years after they were placed. Because I’d vowed that I wouldn’t do the Golden Bonus until I’d either set or found each of the 10 section bonuses then it was still waving at me every time I looked at a caching map of Milton Keynes. This MKBW Indigo section was the last remaining one for me, after I’d completed the Green section earlier in the year (see MKBW Green).
The Doings
We went up there in a bit of a Beds, Bucks, Herts mega team. In the group were myself and Ami (aka Travelling Pumpkin), Happy_Hunter_HP20, Wavvy, and various members of Dave’s Piglings. I’m not sure which ones but it was sufficiently few of them that we could all fit in their large car. That’s a constraint that was very much factored into the planning for the day.
The reasoning behind this was that (as with all sections of the MKBW series) it’s a point-to-point walk. There’s a bit of a loopback along the “Caching for Kidz” series but this only gets you so far and leaves a couple of miles of cache-free territory in between. We therefore parked the Piglingmobile up on a country road out the back of Lavendon and carried the requisite piglings down with us to the river bridge at Turvey, where we met up with Wavvy. There must only have been two Piglings then. If there were more, they wouldn’t have fit in my car with Ami and the Happy Hunter.
The walk was quite leisurely and not strenuous (by my standards). The Piglings and various members of the party were armed with cake, Pringles, and other things. You know, means of sustenance with a high calorie-to-weight-ratio. We didn’t walk the entire MKBW Indigo stretch. In fact, we only walked just over half of it. The remaining bits were proportionately a long way away, and, of course, were not necessary for finding the bonus. The section was set out in the agreed format so that the bonus was roughly in the middle. That meant you could find the bonus regardless of which end you started.
Afters
Once we’d finished with the MKBW Indigo series Ami, me and the Happy Hunter headed off towards Yardley Hastings to do five or six drive-bys before heading off home. A couple of those were interesting puzzles that HHHP20 had solved.
by Kevin | Mar 28, 2015
Let’s Get To It
This was a day out with Daughterus Minimus around the very pleasant little villages of Alconbury, Alconbury Weston and Coppingford. We stopped on the way to arm ourselves with the usual goodies. Pringles and chocolate, mainly, and a “getting going” coffee for me.
We parked up at the sports ground between Alconbury and Alconbury Weston. From here we had a pop at the “Alconbury Ambulance” series (plus a few hanger’s on). These took us on a vaguely clockwise loop around the two villages and yielded 31 finds over about 8km of walking. The walk started in Alconbury and then looped across fields into Alconbury Weston, from where we were walking down the side of the road. That’s not a bad start to the day.
When we were done with that, we had time enough to grab 10 more in the car before heading home. Izzy was about done with walking but wasn’t bothered about heading home.
Izzy also made me drive the car through a ford – there’s one in Alconbury.
There’s not a lot more to be said though. It was a good day out. Long enough to be worthwhile without being too much for Izzy.
All the caches we search for were traditionals apart from one earthcache (Limestone and Acid Rain). The caches we found around Alconbury Weston were :
by Kevin | Mar 21, 2015
What’s That About?
FF40 is a series of puzzles near to Rotherfield Peppard, down in the south-east corner of Oxfordshire and not far north of Reading. We went down there because it was the weekend of the Reading half marathon, which Kas was running.
Kas dropped us off nearby and then drove down into Henley-on-Thames to spend the afternoon with an old work friend. Ami and me got ourselves buckled up for a bit of walking.
I’d solved all these and a number of others in the area (at some personal cost) over the preceding weeks and was now ready to do the walk. It was a nice day, but we didn’t notice because the walk was almost entirely under tree cover. This also meant, of course, that some of the caches were hard to find. Heavy tree cover often obscures the satellite signal.
The walk took us about 5 hours in total. It’s a good job we took some snacks with us.
After the walk around in the trees we walked along the road into Rotherfield Peppard to grab a few more whilst waiting for Kas to come and fetch us back. By the time Kas reached us we’d walked 12km and found 52 caches. We grabbed 3 more in the car to get the number of puzzles found on the day to more than 50.
From here we drove down into Reading and stayed overnight so we were handily placed for the race the day after. The hotel we had was a bit rubbish. That’s always a possibility when you’re trying to keep the costs down. We managed to find somewhere decent for dinner though.
The caches we found around the FF40 were :
by Kevin | Mar 20, 2015
Searching for the Sun
I took the day off work, in part because I needed a bit of a break and in part because there was a much talked about solar eclipse in prospect in the middle of the morning, which was being celebrated with a caching event in Central Milton Keynes. I wouldn’t normally have gone, but total eclipses are a rarity. It seemed a good day to take the day off and go to do some more caching after the eclipse/event.
The photo here was actually taken whilst walking down the ramp into the kids’ school with Izzy. The cloud was just thinning the light enough to be able to shoot the Sun perfectly without needing any filters. The shot really is of the Sun, partially covered by the Moon, taken through clouds.
When I got to the caching event, I felt a bit inadequate with my “prosumer” handheld camera. Everyone else seemed to have some expensive kit on show. I managed to get a couple of decent photos though. A couple of which involved the use of someone else’s black filter. I quite like the ones through the clouds with the slight rainbow effect.
A Bit of Caching
Once the caching event was done I headed off for my caching walk I scooted over towards Haynes to finish off the “Between Hare and There” series that I’d started earlier in the year. On the previous visit I’d left a chunk of about 20 caches at the north end and a little grouping of 7 or so at the south end.
I can’t remember why we left them last time. Presumably it was just because they involved a bit more walking than we had time for on the previous trip.
I started with the grouping at the northern end and then moved the car for the southern end.
During the walk the weather had cleared up from the initial grey start to the day, and I managed to find myself with a couple of very good shots over the Bedfordshire countryside, including a great view down a hill and towards the massive Cardington Sheds.
By the time I’d done that lot I had time left (just) to nick a Church Micro in Clophill before coming home to meet the girls from school.
The caches I found during the day were :
by Kevin | Mar 14, 2015
Leighton Buzzard
We began our day with an event in Leighton Buzzard to celebrate “Pi Day” and then moved on to Dunstable. For the mathematically inclined, a Pi Day event should be on 3.14.15 at 9.26am (ish).
Izzy decided she was happy to join me for the day, and I planned a fairly long circuit from Totternhoe Knolls over the fields towards Dunstable and back. We obviously packed “provisions” too, as you can’t go caching at this time of year without appropriate sustenance.
Totternhoe and Dunstable
Our walk took us steeply uphill to start with, past an earthcache that required us to estimate and describe a few things about a massive chalk cliff there. From that point it was somewhat easier going as we walked across rolling countryside and then into the outskirts of Dunstable itself.
We hunted for one multi in Dunstable that we couldn’t find and there was another on the edge of town where I think we must have miscalculated and ended up in a nonsensical location. Other than that, most of the finds were straightforward. We were starting to struggle with energy by about 3:30 pm though.
The walk back home was along an old railway line, so it was fairly quick and Izzy did remarkably well to keep going, but had obviously had more than enough by the time we stopped.
We made 51 finds in total. They were:
by Kevin | Feb 28, 2015
The Doings
I had two sections of the MKBW still to complete – Green and Indigo. By “complete”, I mean “do just enough to get the bonus”, I don’t mean “do all of them”.
The Green section of the MK Boundary Walk caching series starts at Yardley Gobion and runs over the fields to the north of Hanslope before crossing into the bottom of Salcey Forest and over to where the Magenta section starts, at Eakley. On this venture we planned to go from Yardley Gobion as far as the M1. It was a bit of a team outing after I’d heard that Dave’s Piglings were going for a gander, and eventually we ended up with a crack team comprised of myself and Ami, Rachelle off Pat&Roch, Happy_Hunter_HP20 and a couple of Piglings. They parked the Piglingmobile over by the M1 as it’s big enough to carry the entire group in one go.
The walk wasn’t especially momentous other than one moment at the third or fourth cache where HHHP20 had an unfortunate incident involving a slippery, muddy slope and some fast-flowing water. Thankfully he got out with a small helping hand from me. He had soggy feet for the rest of the day though. Fnarr! The cache wasn’t even underneath the bridge.
Apart from that, it was quite slow walking, with a lot of cake and biscuit breaks. We had to replace the bonus cache (with the CO’s permission) and the Piglingmobile was where we left it. In fact, so were all the other cars, which is generally regarded as a good thing, by most.
The caches we found from the MKBW Green section were :
by Kevin | Feb 14, 2015
The Sketch
One of the weirdest day’s caching ever, not because of the actual caching, but because of the almost Higgs-boson-like timespan that the caches were available, and, if I’m honest, the almost Higgs-boson-like difficulty in locating some of them. I think the two things were, as is often the case, related to each other. Anyway, the day was spent in an area formerly famous for its treacle mining industry.
Do what?
Well, when I was a kid, my folks, and particularly my paternal grandfather, used to refer to Ticknall as being the home of a now-abandoned treacle mine. Still, my paternal grandfather used to make up all sorts of stuff. He spoke in a language that I never could understand. Nor could anyone else. Let’s just say he spoke very much in the vernacular. Although in his case the region in which his dialect was spoken was limited pretty much to his own house.
Some Caching, I Suppose
The series in question was located around Ticknall and I did it one morning while we were up at my folks’ pad in Measham. The series had only appeared on the caching radar a few days earlier. OK, they’d been out since Christmas, but this was the first time we’d been going up there since then. I noticed them just early enough to capture them onto the GPS the day before we set off.
It was a loop series of around 10km in distance, mainly on roads or good paths apart from one section over fields. However, I digress from the main gist of this post, which was the short-lived nature of the series and the difficulty in finding the caches.
The first few were OK, but once I’d reached about one-third distance I started having problems with finding the caches. Things got progressively worse until on the back straight I more or less gave up apart from a cursory glance. The cursory glances found me about a third of the available caches. It was tedious. They weren’t brilliant caches anyway. It seems that the CO was relatively new to the game and had not exercised a great deal of care in placing them, especially those along the road. Many were located (or not) in full view of adjacent buildings. Some were right on the edge of private land in some cases. Basically it was as though someone local had noticed the number of walkers and had deliberately followed someone around, removing caches as they went.
Stop Moaning
I still found a healthy number of caches on the day but it was an unsatisfying and frustrating day. The whole series got archived about a week after I did it.
I consoled myself on the way home by grabbing a couple of new (to me) Church Micros – one in Packington and one in Ashby.
The caches I managed to find whilst treacle mining were :
by Kevin | Feb 1, 2015
Two Series in One
A day out with Daughterus Minimus tramping across the muddy fields of west Cambridgeshire looking for bits of Tupperware. We were having a go at the Catworth Cavalier and Covington Conga series.
We had on the plan to do two series, the Catworth Cavalier and the Covington Conga. They conveniently interlink with each other, thereby allowing both series to be done as a single walk. That was the theory at least.
The execution proved somewhat different, but only because with it being February there was a point at about 3 pm where we had to make a call on whether we’d got enough daylight left to finish the northern half of the Catworth loop. At that point we’d already done over 40 caches and Izzy was getting a bit tired. Trying to do a further 15 caches over rough ground didn’t feel like a great idea. So we elected to take a rather long walk back over ground we’d covered already to make the quickest possible return to the car. It was still just about light when we got there. I really don’t like getting caught out in the middle of a bunch of fields when darkness comes. The footing can be dangerous and although I had a torch with me, it wasn’t a massive “second sun” job.
So once we’d got back to the car we did a couple of drive-bys in the failing light. And then we headed home with a total of 45 finds to our names. Not bad for a winter’s day.
The caches we found were around Catworth and Covington were:
Page 5 of 7« First«...34567»
