RSS
 

Kev’s Birthday Bash

28 Dec

Ah ! 46 years young, and what better way to spend the morning than by getting my parents to look after the kids and then taking the Mrs on a 7 mile hike through the freezing cold looking for tupperware. We chose the Grizzly Pair’s GCC series around the “Blue” circuit at Conkers.

I had been wondering for some time what happended to number 11 of 12 in the series. When I was putting the logs in for this day it occured that I couldn’t find #11 becuase we had already done it, so it wasn’t appearing in my pocket query. Still, we’ve done all of them now, then.

We had planned to get going nice and early and be out caching by 9am, but we all had a long snooze. Kas was not well and the kids were being entertained by Grandad so we didn’t actually get up until 9am. By the time we’d had a quick breakfast and gone out it was at least 10am. It didn’t seem to matter too much though, because my parents volunteered to take the kids out for the morning so we knew we were clear for a bit.

So we drove round to the Waterside site of Conkers and parked up. We toyed with parking at Sarah’s Wood but it was a good idea we didn’t as the car park was all locked up. The weather was, to put it bluntly, cold and miserable. The snow of the last couple of weeks was warming up (slowly) and as a result there was lots of fog ‘cos the air as all saturated with thawing snow. On top of that, there was drizzle. So, remind me again, why exactly do we do this ?

We opted to do things out of sequence to make the route more circular, so we began with GCC12 Sarah’s Wood (GC28P9T) – a quick walk over the Marquis Bridge from the car park and then on into the wood. We had a couple of tree identification issues but otherwise no problem. A nice quick starter for 10.

Next up was GCC1 Mines Rescue Service (GC28MXQ). We approached this by walking up the main road instead of around the paths – partly to avoid doubling back and partly because the surface of the paths was treacherous – week old snow, packed down and then wetted on the surface by overnight rain. We ducked back onto the path via a conventiant gap in the fence and were soon at GZ, or at least, a selection of GZ’s depending on which device you were reading. We had two iPhones and the Garmin with us. Kas was trying out the Geosphere app for iPhone on her 3GS, but I fear all it proved was that the update speed and GPS capability of the 3GS is very bad in comparison to the newer iPhone4. In fact, Kev now uses the iPhone4 as a primary device because it works quickly, the GPS seems as accurate as the Garmin, plus you can instantly switch to satellite maps and actually position yourself relative to the terrain you are looking at. It is really quite good.

So much for the Gadget Show update. The cache itself was located reasonably quickly by Kas, having found a piece of vegetation which matched the hint. “Nay bother” as they say up north.

Next was The Curse of the FTF Leicestershire #7 (GC1Y97M). The idea here is that whoever found this one first is cursed to never succeed in an FTF again until they have themselves added another “Curse of the FTF” to the chain. They are all traditionals so you can find each independently, but it gives me an idea for a somewhat more evil plan, which my devious mind is hatching even now. It involved wandering up through some woods with the 2 phones going in totally opposite directions again. The iPhone4 won, quite easily. The cache itself is a bit of a whopper and we took the opportunity to drop a bunch of trackables that we had previously failed to deposit up north after they had been dropped in our own Tyne Tunnel (GC2FQCG). We failed to drop them because the intended other end of the tunnel isn’t currently there. Doh ! Still, wandering through the trees getting drizzled on, dirty and brushed by trees was a sign of things to come.

So onwards to GCC2 Junction (GC28P78). There’s not much to say about this one except it was where it was suppsoed to be (according to the iPhone4) and it was bagged before you could say “antidisestablishmentarianism”.

GCC3 Quarry & Lake (GC28P7F) is a bit further round towards the lake in what used to be a clay pit at Albert Village. It certainly a big hole in the ground. This cache was made trickier by being small and suffering from tree location problems.

GCC4 Albert Village Lake and Woodland (GC28P7M) was a nice little nano attached to an infomation board. Again it was a pretty easy find, but worthy all the same. It gives some background to the lake and maps of the Conkers circuits. We lingered for a bit, while some muggles drifted by.

GCC5 Gate Weight Tyre (GC28P85) is exactly what it says on the tin. Easy to locate but we were delayed in returning it slightly by some muggles and a doggle approaching and then lingering around slightly too long about 10 yards away from us. Don’t these people know we are trying to do something stealthy here ? Apparently not. At least they went in the opposite direction.

GCC6 Diana’s Memorial Forest (GC28P89) was a slightly harder find and involved a fairly long walk from the previous across some half frozen, half boggy terrain. Hard work today !

Next up was GCC7 Stile to Nowhere (GC28P8G). On the way we encountered an elderly muggle with doggle who were loitering apparently without any intent whatsoever. He managed to get in phase with our cache/sign/walk cycle so it took us about 3 caches to get away from him. Anyway, to avoid suspicion at this one we took a photo of these square looking constructions. Each consists of a square array of 4 sticks with a pile of other sticks layered beautifully within. No idea what they are for, but they look good and photograph very well.

GCC8 Another Brick in the Wall (GC28P8M) proved one of the more disappointing ones. It leads you to believe there’s a real wall involved but it was really just lying under a pile of bricks.

GCC9 Danger of Death (GC28P9D) was better. You have to go there, but it was a more cunning hide and a much better feature to use.

And so finally to GCC10 Sidetracked Moira West (GC28P9K), which is also a clever little hide because it isn’t at the altitude you are expecting.

After that we had about about half a mile back to the car down some of the worst pathways of the of the day – narrow, slippy and treacherous. All in all though it was a good walk around. It doesn’t have the highest density – just 12 caches round a 7 mile walk, but they are all at reasonable features, well looked after and well strung together so we enjoyed it.

 
No Comments

Posted in Ashby de la Zouch, General, Geocaching, GPS, Measham

 

Gee ! Snow-caching

20 Dec

We managed to escape from Milton Keynes early on Saturday and therefore avoided the 6 inches of the magic white stuff that fell on Saturday afternoon. We were making our Christmas pilgrimmage to Sunderland to visit Kas’s parents.

We had a bit of snow on Saturday night and a bit more on Sunday – to a total depth of about 3 inches maybe. Enough to be pretty without causing everything to stop. The kids were away with Kas’s dad for the morning and the sun was out. Cold, but sunny and still. Perfect for a spot of caching. So we decided we would try to visit INVASION! (GC29PTK), which is the destination end of our Tyne Tunnel (GC2FQCG) cache. That proved a non-starter though, as the logs reported this has been muggled for the second time in a couple of months and is currently not there. So what shall we do ? Guess we’d better go find a few other caches to make up for it, then. And try to find somewhere large enough to drop some of the many TBs we have collected in the last couple of months.

Since we set up the Tyne Tunnel we have so far been totally unsuccesful at dropping TBs into the nominated northern end. When Kas came up in October it had been moved after a muggle attack and Kas couldn’t find it. This time it just isn’t there.  We might have to take a suggestion mentioned at an event earlier in the week and just set up our own. There is a fairly wide gap for caches inbetween South Shields and Sunderland. I feel a new cache coming on next time we visit. Then at least we will always know where it is supposed to be and we have the option to place it somewhere walkable from Kas’s mum’s house.

Meanwhile, back to the plot. We had about an hour and a half before needing to fetch the kids so we thought we just hit a few simple looking ones on the north side of Sunderland.

First up was the Sunderland footie fan’s dream – the Academy of Light (GC2GC7G). As we were driving there we passed a whole group of Sunderland Academy members on a training run. I guess they have to train even in the snow. We managed to avoid running any of them over.

The cache is down a public footpath which seems to cut right through the middle of Sunderland’s new training ground just outside Cleadon. Weird. The iPhone4 was happy but Kas’s iPhone 3GS somehow thought that our location was N 00 00.000 W 000 00.000 – and as a result it thought the cache was about 7000km away from us. I think not.

So iPhone4 it is, then. The cache proved to be a nice little hide – easy to find and yet not at all visible. It was in excellent condition and was of sufficient size to receive 3 of the 5 TBs we had on us. Only the big ones would not fit in. So that’s a big chunk of the job done.

All in all this one took no more than 10 minutes from where we parked the car. In non-snowy conditions I think you would describe it as “abandoned” rather than “parked”, but I claim total inability to determine the locations of kerbs, pathways and grass verges. still, the parking location was not bad enough to prevent escape, and we were quickly on our way again down to the National Glass Centre.

The Glass Centre is home to the cunning little People in Glass Houses Shouldn’t Throw Stones! (GC2CCM8). Not much to say about this one because it is a magnetic nano, but suffice to say we found it eventually after a few altitude issues. Not saying what though, ‘cos that would be telling.

By this time, unfortunately, two factors were coming into play that would put an end to the activities. Firstly, we were running out of time and secondly, Kas felt as sick as a dog and obviously wasn’t enjoying herself. Can’t have been, because she actually said she wasn’t happy. So we planned one more target, St. Peters (GCX972). This proved to be quite simple from Kev’s perspective, mainly because Kas had located an unlikely combination of geological items and investigated far enough to extract the goodies while Kev was still farting about with the maps. Moral of the story is that you should use you eyes in the real world occasionally, instead of focussing on the other-worldly, permanent-summer world that GoogleMaps inhabits.

So a quick find, a quick signature, and quickly jump back into the car to fetch the kids, having first stopped off to pick up the remains of last night’s pizzas to be used for lunch. They were actually still in excellent condition and the “remains” managed to feed five of us happily – only Ami decided she’d rather have a cheese sandwich and crisps. Some things never change.

 
No Comments

Posted in Away from home, General, Geocaching, GPS, Sunderland

 

MK Schooldays: Series Release

09 Dec

So far we have blogged all about a number of our expeditions to search for caches. Whilst doing all this we have also been planning a bit of an epic series of puzzles to place around Milton Keynes.

In total we had 14 to place as part of our MK Schooldays. We reached mid-December and finally, finally, we had 14 puzzles, 14 target locations (ish) and fourteen little tupperware boxes wrapped in duck tape and contaiing a book, a pencil, a pen, a geocaching note, and an FTF certificate. Each box had been duly labelled up using Kas’s newly acquired Dymo-tape thingy, which is now a mini hand-held inkjet printer taking all kinds of cunning different types of tape. We chose waterproof white strips.

So, all we had to do was to set aside enough time to go and physically places 14 boxes and then release them all. Oh, if only it were that simple.

Anyways up, 14 boxes is not something you can do reliably in the evenings and we didn’t fancy trying it on a weekend because of “The Daughter Factor”. So Kev took a day off work (a Thursday, as it happens), and Kas arranged her day to suit, and thus began the most driving-around-a-lot-ish day I have ever had in Milton Keynes. I am surprised the cache-mobile made it round. It got started and stopped about 30 times during the day but none of the journeys was longer than about 10 minutes.

First up we dropped of Izzy. Then we drove back to Tattenhoe to take Ami to school, and now we were child free for around 6 hours. Which obviously leaves enough time to go to Costa before beginning the cache dropping. Good job we haven’t got a busy day in prospect.

If you haven’t done them yet, then it might be a good idea for me to talk about the series a little bit so you get the idea.

MK Schooldays is a series of 14 puzzle caches in Milton Keynes based (very loosely) around GCSEs. As parts of the national curriculum are optional then so are some of the caches. There are 13 caches divided into 9 subject groups. To graduate (and find the 14th cache) you have to complete at least one cache from each of the 9 subject areas – lost yet ? Good ! Each cache contains one of 9 bonus codes. These give you the starting grid of a Sudoku puzzle which you must then solve and use to extract the final coords for the graduation cache.

Why are there 13 caches instead of 9, or 25 ? Well, not all subjects are mandatory at GCSE, so we have provided some optional courses. Mainly, however, we believe there are 13 secondary schools in Milton Keynes, so each subject cache is (loosely) associated with one of those schools. each puzzle icon is shown in the car park of one of the schools and the associated cache is within a mile or so of the school too.

It is also worth saying at this point that this day was the culmination of a couple of months effort in divising puzzles, identifying locations, reverse engineering puzzles to fit the answers, adjsting, and generally farting about. And even after all this effort, 4 of the caches were not placed in the location planned, 1 got moved the day after because we didn’t like where we’d put it, and a further 3 had to be moved after release because the reviewer didn’t like where we’d put them. So we had to reverse engineer 7 of the 14 puzzles to fit the new answers even after we had placed the boxes. More of that later. What about all that driving ? And all those puzzles ?

First of all was the statistics puzzle, MK Schooldays: Statistics (GC2GXD2) at Leon School in Bletchley. The planned location was supposed to be the Blue Lagoon Nature Reserve in Bletchley. Silly us – can’t put it there, but we didn’t know at the time. It was a fanatastic location to leave one, to be honest, but we should have been suspicious about the fact that there aren’t any other caches in the Blue Lagoon. Must try reading the instructions next time. Anyway, that’s where we left it on the day. Check later down for an emergency relocation update.

Next was European Languages, MK Schooldays: European Languages (GC2GV6G) at Lord Grey School in Bletchley. This is a simple puzzle. The coords are given in plain text, just in several different official languages of the European Union, and no hint as to which language is which. I had found an excellent location a couple of weeks before on the same afternoon that I had wandered over a load of muddy fields with Ami looking for Kitey’s Magiovinium (GC1HKXY). See the photo – by “muddy”, I mean six inches taller when we got back to the car. Good job we took spare shoes.

Back to the plot, and next up was MK Schooldays: English Literature (GC2GYZF) at Walton High School in Walnut Tree. This one is a poem cipher. You know – a string of numbers relating to words in a poem – take the first letter of each word. The twist is that I don’t say which poem. Crack that, and you’re away. At the time of writing this though, most people have solved it with substitution cryptanalysis rather than finding the poem. Which is a bit disappointing given that I deliberately used more than one word for each letter, but then I guess some of the “pros” have a whole host of weapons in their puzzle-solving arsenal.

Next up was MK Schooldays: English Language (GC2GV4V) at Oakgrove School in Middleton. Can’t say what this puzzle is about because so far people have found this more difficult than the others, so I don’t want to give it away. We found a parking spot on a street in Monkston which we would definitely not have parked on in the evening. It isn’t dodgy, but it is where some other people live, and at night they would want to park their cars, so it would feel inappropriate to park ours there unless invited by a local. Middle of the morning though, fair game. No one at home.

So far then, we have spent a little over an hour and have placed 4 of the 14. Much quicker than expected and starting to believe that finishing in one day would be possible.

And so on to MK Schooldays: Geography (GC2G77G) at Ousedale School in Newport Pagnell. It was originally placed under a pile of logs as shown to the right. It didn’t get to stay there though. It was apparently too close to the physical stage of a multi-cache around Tongwell Lake that has been inactive for 18 months. I know. I tried to find it on the day I sussed out the pile of logs, and it wasn’t there. Definitely not, no Sir-ee. So it was a bit disappointing, that one. See below for the Monday morning relocation event.

While we were up North we popped over to Stantonbury Campus for the next couple. It was about time for “turning our bikes round” as well, which proved very troublesome for a public sports centre. Apparently you can go into the place to “check the football scores” unless you are using the sporting facilities. Kev managed to slip unnoticed into the gents but Kas was cut off at the pass and (strangely) got told she could use the staff facility in the entrance hall but couldn’t go into the changing rooms. Eh ! How does that work then ? Anyway, once we had both successfully “collected our printout” we hiked along the nearby redway to drop off MK Schooldays: History (GC2G9YQ) at Bury Lawn School in Stantonbury. Again, I can’t really describe the puzzle because that would be a spoiler. The original drop off point was behind one of the pillers under the expansion joints of a footbridge. This one also had to be moved on monday – it was too close to another cache which I had simply not noticed or checked for. Put that one down to experience. In the process of dropping this one off my skiing jacket picked up some black marks on the sleeves which won’t wash off, so that one is now the caching jacket. Don’t care how dirty it gets or how ripped. By the way, it is worth saying at this point that a skiing jacket os a very good caching jacket. They don’t weigh much, they keep you warm, they have thousands of pockets and they are not prone to being ripped by spiky vegetation, which was to prove most useful at the next site. Back to this one – a couple of muggle delays, don’t these people know we are trying to run to a schedule, and a couple of repositionings because we could see the hide. We were very happy with the final place until the reviewer asked us to move it.

So on the way back to Stantonbury Campus is the location for MK Schooldays: Music (GC2GV5R) at Stantonbury Campus. This too was supposed to be placed under a bridge, but when we got there we discovered there was no way we would ever hide the actual box where I had planned. You simply couldn’t get it out of sight. So we were a bit stumped until Kas looked around and said “what about in there ?” “What, there ? OK, lets have a shufty.” The thing in question is very obvious when you are there, but it is also very well concealed because you just would not pay it any attention, and it contains a plant that definitely discourages any form of investigation. Should be safe in there, but it requires a bit of a warning in the hint to make sure people are aware. To place it I was shoulder deep in a burberis plant, wearing a ski jacket and ski gloves, but still getting stabbed. Some of the people who have found it have managed to find a less spiky way in, but I still like this site the best of all. It is in the highest traffic area of any of the 14 and yet it is the least likely to be found by a muggle. You just wouldn’t stick your hands in there.

It was now rapidly approaching midday, but on the bright side we had dropped half of the 14. The obvious next one was MK Schooldays: Physics (GC2GBE2) at The Radcliffe School in Wolverton. It’s actually not that close to the school, as I couldn’t find anywhere I liked anywhere near there, so it is maybe a mile and a half away, but in a very low traffic area and only a short walk from a handy car park. So we went over there and had a quick walk through the trees. Kas liked the location, and the box fitted into the hole better than I thought it might. It didn’t seem necessary to a brilliant hide here though, because it is just not somewhere people are likely to walk.

Hmm ! 8 down, 6 to go, and lunchtime. We decided on The Shoulder of Mutton in Calverton, site of an event some months ago in August. Which meant we had time to look for Gorrick’s Spring, Calverton (GC2DAVQ) on the way by. This has been a previous failure for Kev but this time was quite easy. OK, only because we cheated and grabbed a PAF from someone at another event. How did I miss that last time ? A combination of wandering coordinates and altitude issues, I think. Anyway, back to the plot. Lunch was good. Sandwiches, chips, drinks, and far too full. Mmmmm ! Just the thing after 4 hours outside in the freezing cold.

Where to next then ? Well MK Schooldays: Electronics (GC2GV3D) was supposed to be near Denbigh School in Shenley Church End, straight down the V4, so that seemed best. This proved to be the ultimate quick cache and dash from the drop-off point of view. No cars around, no muggles around, and the location was, if anything, better than I had remembered from the “sussing” trip. No more than 5 minutes were spent between parking up and setting off again. It’s was beginning to look like planting all 14 in a day would be feasible after all.

And so to MK Schooldays: Leisure, Travel and Tourism (GC2GZ00) at Hazeley School. This was made more difficult by the fact that the nearby car park was full and we had to park on the road in Oakhill, or whatever that estate is called. Some of the cars in the park were empty but more than half seemed to be either cabbies having a rest, or schoolteachers have a sneaky off-site ciggy. Anyway, it was a bit busy and we had to wait for an opportunity to dash off the path and into the trees without being seen. Once there, it was a simple-ish job to place the box and cover it. It involves a tree, a hole, and some covering pieces of stick and bark. Not a bad spot.

We had some ideas in mind for the final cache but it seemed a shame to not do MK Schooldays: 10km Race (GC2G7B9) at Shenley Brook End School on the way there. However, if you have done that one, you will note that there is a road nearby but not any convenient parking, so we decided on a “drive-by” caching. Kas dropped Kev off by the roadside and then scooted up to the front of the school to turn around while Kev went for a rummage, and a “mark” on the GPS to prove we had the location right. Wouldn’t ya just know it, just as Kas parked up roadside to pick Kev up again a bus appeared round the corner and made us look like right chimps for parking just there. Bum! There’s none for hours and then just when you don’t want one……

MK Schooldays: Graduation Day (GC2FXN1) had originally been planned for Campbell Park, but after some thought the night before I had decided that the planned location was going to be too public, so we gawped at the maps a bit to find somewhere better. Close to the Open University looked a good idea for a graduation ceremony but there are a few around there already so the location needed a little bit of thought. In fact, we hadn’t actually decided, we just rolled up into a little car park near Simpson Village and started walking. A couple of sites near the car park were discarded, partly because of a woman in a little car who was obviously “out to lunch” and was giving us the evil eye as we were examining the undergrowth. So we moved on. A couple of hundred yards away and Kas’s eyes were drawn to an absolutely fantastic looking feature that was just crying out to host a cache, so it got one. It is another tree, hole, bark arrangement, but none the worse for it. We liked that site too.

Which left nearly an hour before needing to fetch Ami and only two left to place. MK Schooldays: Algebra (GC2GA0P) at Sir Frank Markham School in Leadenhall was one where I had sussed a site on the very first day of looking for them, maybe seven weeks earlier. However, when we got back there, I really couldn’t remember which particular tree I had tried to mark. It just didn’t look right. Here is the photo of where I wanted to put it, but could we find this tree at the site ? No, we could not. Maybe this is a photo of an altogether different tree. I don’t know. Anyway, we found yet another tree within spitting distance of the original plan, but then decided on Friday night that we didn’t like it after all.

Only one left. MK Schooldays: Ancient Greek (GC2GBEN) at St Pauls RC School in Leadenhall. Kev had planned a couple of locations but one of those was a stand-out. Parking was a bit tricky because the closest streets are distinctly residential and not really suitable for evenings or weekends when the inhabitants are at home. Middle of the afternoon was OK but it still felt like there were a few twitching curtains. Hopefully OK though, although several finders have commented on the parking situation.

So that was 14 in one day with enough time left to pop home to turn the bikes round again before fetching Ami. Cool. A handful of puzzles placed at locations different from the plan, and therefore a handful to re-jig, but otherwise long day, job done.

Or so we thought…………..

The puzzles were re-jigged on Thursday and Friday night, but on Saturday we decided we didn’t like where we’d put Algebra – too close to the back of someone’s house, so we all biked over there on Saturday morning and moved it a bit. Another puzzle to update but then finally 14 puzzles to release on Saturday night with the expectation that they might take a week to get reviewed because we had asked they all get released at the same time.

So imagine our surprise when we got a pile of emails on Sunday evening. That would have been great except that the reviewer had asked that we move 3 because they were in a disallowed place, or too close to something else. That affected Statistics, Geography and History. Because of the possibility of this taking a while to do Kev therefore asked that the other 11 be released anyway. Which meant 11 went live on Monday evening but with no cache in the Humanities category at all, so it was not technically possible to get to the graduation cache unless you could brute-force the Sudoku.

Which meant some work to do on Monday. Kas let Kev set off nice and early (in fact, straight after getting up, while it was still dark). So first down to the Blue Lagoon to collect, and a quick trip over to Water eaton for a new location. Found one quite quickly. Quickly enough to tempt me into doing another one. It wasn’t a wonderful idea trying to drive from Water Eaton to Tongwell at 8:30 in the morning but to be honest I reached a point where I might as well do the job, because I was going to be late for work anyway. Off I went then. Retrieved Geography and then went in search of somewhere better. Again, thankfully, I found somewhere quite quickly. Not an ideal spot but perfectly adequate for the job, and handily close to a redway and suitably miles from any other caches. It’s starting to look good. Which just left History. I did this one on a lunchtime dash, and while I was at it I bagged the cache that was the source of my location problem. It wasn’t a brilliant one.

And so Monday night at home and three more puzzles to re-jig and re-release, which meant that all 14 were up and running by Tuesday night, just in time for an event round the other side of Tring on Wednesday, where there was much talk of all these puzzles which had magically appeared all over MK in the last couple of days. Funny that, I wonder where they came from ?

 
No Comments

Posted in General, Geocaching, GPS, Milton Keynes

 

Going Wild in Woburn

10 Oct

What can you do when it’s Thursday afternoon, everyone is out, and you have a minging cold. Go caching, that’s what ! There is no point in mooching around at home feeling sorry for yourself when there’s a whole world full to tupperware to be discovered.

So I planned a quick trip around the Woburn Animal Series in (funnily enough) Woburn. To be more precise, they are to the south of Woburn, spread over about 5 miles round a bunch of fields of the agricultural variety.

I parked in the middle of Woburn village, leaving me a half mile hike before starting, and paid for parking. I then realised that all the time I had spent lovingly loading waypoints onto the Garmin was wasted. Why ? Because I left the flaming thing on the windowsill at home instead of chucking it in the bag. Doh ! Let’s just hope that I can get a 3G signal on the phone all afternoon or it might be a very short afternoon. In the Car Park, the signal was fine, so I decided to give it a go and see how far I could get. As well as the iPhone I was armed with a pocketful of tissues, several hankies, a couple of Tracker bars and a Lucozade Sport (other isotonic sports drinks are available…).

And so to the caching…..

The series proved to be fairly well laid out and the walk is fairly pleasant, but it is just fields, mainly, so don’t go here expecting a great view.

Most of the caches also were pretty easy to find. I missed a couple from the series because they are marked inactive. As it turns out, one is actually there and has been rehoused on the same feature. It has been in an inactive state for several months now, so I am assuming that the owner is not maintaining the series at all.

First up was Woburn Animal Series – 7) Antelope (GC192DE) – a fairly easy find in a tree. Second up was Woburn Animal Series – 6) Lion (GC192DD) and then Woburn Animal Series – 5) Camel (GC192DC) – both of which were in hedges. The hint was off on one of them so I spent ages looking on the wrong side of the gate.

Now time for someone else’s cache. Woburn’s Three Mansions (Beds) (GCWQ20) was quite tricky to find. I had the coords around 15 feet from where I actually found it. This cache claims to contain some coordinates for a puzzle cache back in Woburn somewhere, but in practice there was nothing in there. I have subsequently gleaned the coordinates from someone else, and lost them, and got them again, and lost them again, so I don’t foresee me collecting the puzzle anytime soon, I am obviously jinxed.

So back to the animals. Woburn Animal Series – 4) Zebra (GC192DB) was a nice little one next to a fence and Woburn Animal Series – 3) Monkey (GC192DA) was under a rock near a hedge. Woburn Animal Series – 1) Black Bear (GC192D8) was under the roots of a tree. It took me a little while to do this one as someone parked up a white van on the road just around the time I arrived and then spent an eternity offloading a couple of dogs before walking off in the direction I was going. He wasn’t going quickly and I was in two minds whether to walk past him on the way to Benjamin’s Cache (GCVT6M) or not. I chose not as I didn’t want him to catch me while I was looking underneath the huge lump of concrete which is its home.

And with that it was time to turn around and start walking back again. Woburn Animal Series – 15) Ape (GC192DP) was an easy little magnetic on a gate by the side of the road.

Woburn Animal Series – 14) Rhino (GC192DN) was the first “proper” cache of the series – a reasonable sized clip lock box inside a tree. It was easy to find but a bit more tricky to walk to than some of the others. There is an official footpath across the field there, but it had been harvested and ploughed, so there was nothing you could actually call easy walking. Good job I had the walking boots on.

So on to Woburn Animal Series – 12) Bison (GC192DK), which was in a ditch and under a rock. A number of people have marked this not found recently, and I seem to remember it took me a while, but mainly because there were a lot of rocks for it to be under. I suspect these guys have just missed it.

Woburn Animal Series – 11) Wolf (GC192DJ) was quick to find but a weird location. It is near the remains of a rusting supermarket trolley. How the hell did that get all the way out here ? Well placed on a bridge and in good condition was Woburn Animal Series – 10) Tiger (GC192DH).

Woburn Animal Series – 9) Elephant (GC192DG) is another “proper” cache – a great big ammo can under a pile of logs. Finally on this walk was Woburn Animal Series – 8) Giraffe (GC192DF). This was quite tricky to reach as it was quite high up in a tree.

Whilst walking around I also noticed Maryland Cookie (GC2FDQ2), which required a bit of a hike off course and actually could have been done somewhat earlier in the walk, had I noticed it. No bother. It was one of those cunning little pots hidden around a kissing gate. When I arrived it wasn’t very well hidden, so I buried it a bit deeper.

I had a little time left before needing to go home so I scooted over to the woods beneath Bow Brickhill to try to find a couple more. 16 in one afternoon just isn’t enough, so more are definitely required. Give Peas a Chance (GC1TT6J) is a cheeky little puzzle which looks much harder than it actually is. Anyway, the cache was spot on at the calculated coordinates so I decided to try another a bit further into the woods. Max’s Marvellous Cache (GC1BE5N) was not difficult to find. Much easier than I thought given the heavy tree cover.

And by this time it was getting on towards 5pm and it was getting a little dark, plus I was getting a bit tired after now around 7 miles of walking with a stinking cold. So I gave up and went home. Anyway, the iPhone was pretty much out of juice………..

 
No Comments

Posted in General, Geocaching, GPS, Milton Keynes

 

10km Route Planning

10 Oct

Hmmm ! How can we describe this afternoon without totally giving away the game on the prime purpose. Ahh bum ! It isn’t giving away much really. The point of the afternoon was to plan the route for one of our own caches – MK Schooldays: 10Km Race (GC2G7B9), but obviously you can’t cycle that far around Milton Keynes without finding a few caches as well. So off we went, Kev Kas and Ami under their own steam, and Izzy under Kas’s steam as well.

The general idea of the 10Km Race is that we were trying to set a course of around 10Km ( surprising, huh ? ) that you have to follow in sequence to get to the cache. At each kilometre along the route you have to find an item from which you read some letters or numbers, then you do a few sums and get the coordinates for the next kilometre marker. Is that clear ? If not, read the cache description. It probably won’t help you understand, but at least by the time you get back to reading this blog post I might have finished writing it…..

So the job for the day was to measure out lengths of 1Km around a loop starting from Shenley Brook End school, and ending as close to that same point as we could manage. We didn’t do too badly, as it happens. I’m going to skip over most of that though as the cache will give you all that. We did the route a bit out of sequence but then we had planned it using www.gmaps-pedometer.com first – a very useful resource for planning routes before you set off, and stuff like that.

We started with kilometer marker 2, which is the first we come to from home. It’s in Emerson Valley. Quick photo, then off we go. Next was kilometer marker 3 in Shenley Lodge, and then marker 4, also in Shenley Lodge. At number 4 we took advantage of a little stopping off to let the kids have a quick run around while Kev ambled off to bag MK Aeolian #2: Shenley Lodge (GC284BG). It was a quick easy find behind an obvious feature.

So back to the bikes and on to kilometer marker 5 in Knowlhill, and time for a snack break for the kids. This proved handily close to Ware the Weir – Redway Rambles (GC13ZJC). This one involves pacing around some green space just inside Loughton looking for this and that. I seem to remember there was a bit of debate over “that” but “this” was easy. Anyway, calculated coordinates in hand we proceeded up a bit of a slope and started a bit of searching around. I’m not sure if our GPS was off or whether the cache owner’s were off, but it took us some time to find it. We got there eventually. Correction, Ami got there eventually.

Just time then to cycle round to kilometer markers 6 & 7 before the girls got an attack of the grumps and that was our lot. Kas took the kids home while Kev hacked on for a bit. Kilometer 8 and then over to a previous failure (or, more precisely, a non-event). Dry Stream ? (GC27WXK) proved to be quite and easy find, but I think it’s fair to say we were rank amateurs last time we came. The iPhone 3GS was undecided as to whether the cache was there or not, and the GPS was taking us round in circles. This time though, it was easier than Jack McEasy ( I must find a new cliche to use, mustn’t I ? ). Anyway, it was where it was supposed to be. The iPhone 4 got it spot on. Magic !

And so on to the end of a bit of an epic journey. An adventure. A quest, no less. In fact, the end of Kitey’s excellent Mission Impossible series. The last one, for some reason, is numbered 5 of 9. No idea why. Anyway, the is a whole blog post dedicated to just this series, so more details there, but I had previously visited where I thought Mission Impossible MK5: Finale (GC22T9J) ought to be probably 6 times. I had been in and out of bushes and hedges, into a wood and down a drainpipe, but all to no avail. I had worn out all available Brownie Points with Kitey himself by continually emailing him – Is it there ? Is it really there ? I can’t find it. Is it where GoogleMaps says it should be ? Blah-di-blah, warple, warple. I had kind of resolved that this would be my last ever visit. I had all but given up hope except for one hint from Kitey. I can’t even remember if it was in an email or verbal, but anyway, I had a fresh bit of info to work with. This one proved spot on. It allowed me to focus my search somewhat. Somewhat enough, inn fact, to actually find the thing. Success, joy, deep satisfaction,…..,disappointment. It’s a Kitey, so there has to be another stage, doesn’t there. And there was. I’ve been at this one for so long though that I was more than familiar with what tools I needed. Just didn’t know what I would need to do with them. What I needed to do was to cycle another few hundred metres and go hunting in a tree. The final part of this was probably the easiest bit of the whole series.

So we are the 7th team to complete the Mission Impossible series – I have a little laminated card to prove it, and everything. That must be enough excitement for one day. Anyway, Kas will be wondering where I am, and I’ve still got to find kilometer markers 9, 10 and 1, in that order.

Job done !

 
No Comments

Posted in General, Geocaching, GPS, Milton Keynes

 

Over the Fields and Far Away

03 Oct

Sunday afternoon and all three girls seem to have made their minds up to watch telly and generally do very little, so Kev decided to go out hunting tupperware for a couple of hours. I did ask Ami if she wanted to come but the answer was a resounding “huh?”, so alone it was.

After the trip to the “Bordering on the Ridiculous” event we were aware that there are a bunch of caches around a walk of reasonable length around the fields there. What we didn’t realise was that there are a couple of others within a few yards of each other. In fact I parked up on the roadside just north of the pub looking to start a walk from there. So I fired up the iPhone and the Garmin and lo and behold there’s supposedly one within 5 yards. Gorrick’s Spring, Calverton (GC2DAVQ), no less. Finding it on the phone was the easy bit, though. Finding the cache was a nightmare. After a PAF at a later event I now understand that my problem was partly to do with altitude and partly to do with the coords being slightly off. So I didn’t find it.

I also didn’t find Ouse Valley Walk – Pointer (GC2ERW8), des;ite 15 minutes of hunting around. Must try a PAF on that one as well. Couldn’t find the little Herbert. Maybe returning during winter, with the correspondence lack of leaf cover, would be a good idea.

And so to the main event. I seriously had no idea how far i would get around this walk, but by now it was getting on 3 pm so time was not my friend.  First on the walk (once I found how to start the walk) was Riverside. No Troll. (GC2DGKD). This was a simple little cache under a pile of wood.

Next was Dare You? (GC2DGJA). The name gives more difficulty than the actual cache, which proved quite easy to retrieve.

From here I would have done some more but I made a bit of a boo-boo. I lost sight of the markers for the public footpath and ended up walking most of a mile down the wrong side of a hedge that I couldn’t get through. So I walked all the way back and then walked all the way down the other side of the same hedge. There were lots of sheep. The next cache was very appropriately called Baa Baa Black Sheep (GC2DGF9). It was quite easy to find.

I was just toying with the idea of what to do next when Kas called to mention the girls were getting restless and she was about to put the tea on to cook. I begged for a half hour reprieve and walked back to the car via Just Northamptonshire #008 (GC2C3CH), which is just up the road to Passenham and stuck behind a tree. That, to, proved to be a fairly easy find.

So not a bad afternoon, all in all.

 
No Comments

Posted in General, Geocaching, GPS, Milton Keynes

 

Casing the Joint

02 Oct

The initial purpose of this trip was a bicycle borne expedition to measure markers for a half marathon around Milton Keynes. That exercise, however, turned into our MK Schooldays: 10km Race (GC2G7B9) cache, which is around the Shenleys mainly, so this purpose was wasted. However, there’s always the opportunity to look for a few while on the way round.

My proposed half marathon route followed the approximate course of the MK summer half marathon starting at Stantonbury. This puts the Grand Union Canal in Woolstone and Campbell Park at around miles 7 through 9. It also means I was scheduled to pass Grand Union Series – Bridge 85 – Woolstone (GC24BPV), which proved to be a nice easy little find. It was exactly where it said on the tin. Unlike Grand Union Series – Bridge 84: Barge Inn (GC1435P), which proved to be a nightmare scenario of biblical proportions starring Charlton Heston and Elizabeth Taylor. OK, maybe that’s a bit excessive but it is one of those heart sinking MK caches that is “shoulder high in ivy covered tree”. I hate ivy covered trees. Every last one of them. And in this case there were plenty of them to hate. I think that was the problem. I couldn’t tell which tree I should hate the most, as it were. Bum !

So I moved on towards Sleeping Logs (GC24BPP), which involved a high risk of puncturing the bike tyres but apart from that was an easy find.

Not so, Grand Union Series – Bridge 81b: Campbell Park (GC14800). This is a previous falure where we had to suspend the search due to a particularly stubborn angling muggle who just refused to go home. Today there were less muggles and the location was conveniently my scheduled mile marker #9. However, I had another good old rummage around and got precisely nowhere. No idea. To the extent that I still couldn’t even confirm which side of the bridge it should be.

So I thought that Twisted but not Bitter – Down the Lane (GC26QPK) should be somewhat easier, and indeed it was. It was very easy, even with the proverbial cow infestation. And the piles of smelly stuff. Mmmmm !

So time for a leisurely ride home, with one final stop off in NewportNobby’s back yard to bag A Little Bit of Nature (GC2CRMA), and so to home. About 25km of cycling and four finds, so not bad.

 
No Comments

Posted in General, Geocaching, GPS, Milton Keynes

 

Tyne Tunnel Release

30 Sep

What can you say. We’ve spent a few months finding other people’s tupperware, so it’s about time we dropped one of our own, I’d say.

The history behind this one is that there used to be a cache really close to us that we could never find. I mean we could NEVER find it. The one we could never find was Linear Trek #3 (GC1QC3R), which is now archived. What happened was that we read the logs on this and saw the guidance that if the owner didn’t sort it then the cache would be archived. We smelled an opportunity. So we watched said item whilst making some cunning plans of our own. But we didn’t want to do anything as boring as just a simple traditional cahce. We’d like a bit more sport and a bit more purpose.

We had already visited a few “teleport” caches where the owners promise to move TBs to particular locations so we decided that would be a good idea, an we contacted the owner of a likely looking cache up north to act as the end point. The end ppint needed to be something capacious and easy to find, and, of course, something we are able to visit regularly. A likely looking spot seemed to be INVASION! (GC29PTK). The owner was happy.

Which just left finding a cunning hiding place and coming up with a title/description. We toyed with a few ideas on the Stargate and Wormhole themes but eventually plumped for Tyne Tunnel (GC2FQCG). Seemed like a good name and allowed plenty of scope for reusing photos and verbiage that others had written.

However, I’m not going to tell you how we hid the cache. You’ll have to go look for it yourself………….

 
No Comments

Posted in General, Geocaching, GPS, Hiding, Milton Keynes

 

Back on the Bike

25 Sep

So, last night’s failure to complete Really Keyne (GCG8JR) was really grating and needed to be corrected. So Kev went back on the bike on Saturday afternoon in the name of some exercise as well as a bit of caching. In daylight, it proved to be extremely easy to find. In fact, how did we miss that last night, even in near total darkness. The thing it the size of a small planet. It is cunningly located against a wall, but I can’t show you which wall, because it’s a multi and my photos would allow you to get the cache without doing the donkey work. So here’s a photo of a Viking TB visiting the cache. So now you know what kind of container it is…..

Next up was ARP – Woolstone (GC1BT8W) by Wavvy. This is a simple traditional under some vegetation in the park in Woolstone. It is very difficult to spot the random pond after which it is named. I think it is a virtual pond. I couldn’t see it.

After that I went of looking for Thorn in my Finger (GC25MW2) and once again failed. It must be quite well hidden. So far I have been here 3 times and haven’t got a Scooby where the cache is. It is quite irritating really. Maybe I’ll report it missing and ask the owner to confirm it is actually there.

And finally for the afternoon I found Pond Life (Ouzel Valley) (GC15G4X) by Monkston Madgirl. This is over the road into Woughton on the Green and I never knew the place existed, even though I have driven, run and cycled past it many, many times.

 
No Comments

Posted in General, Geocaching, GPS, Milton Keynes

 

Friday Night – Fading Light

24 Sep

Friday night, all’s well. Must be time for a bit of caching. Especially seeing as Kas had to fetch Kev back from work due to the bus still being at the repair shop following the disastrous trip home from the Great North Run the previous weekend.

We had three caches on the radar. First up ARP – Middleton (Milton Keynes) (GC1C23T), which is a cunning little job shoved in an orifice in a tree near a pond in Middleton (hence the name, I guess – “A Random Pond”). This was a nice quick find, so quickly double back and start looking for MK Aeolian #4 – Middleton (GC28484). This is a fairly new one and part of a series which we’ll now have to do all over again, having lost the relevant bonus codes from this one and the sister in Shenley Lodge. Doh ! Anyway, this was also quite an easy find but did result in Ami adopting a pose whilst pretending to be a tree.

Really Keyne (GCG8JR) is a multi cache requiring some walking (or in our case, jumping in and out of the car) around Middleton (or Milton Keynes Village, if you prefer). However, being late September the light goes quickly and by the time we had the clues the light was more or less gone. Kev and Ami had a dash at it anyway but the location was away from any sources of light and there is not much you can do  when you’re trying to illuminate a whole wall by using the iPhone screen only. Doh ! Come back another day. At least we know where it is supposed to be.

 
No Comments

Posted in General, Geocaching, GPS, Milton Keynes

 
« Older Entries