The rain had subsided. The roads were less flooded. It seemed a good day to complete the Yateley Lakes series that we had started 4 days previously.
We had 3 Yateley Lakes caches to find, a couple of stages from a 5-stage ad lab, and one other cache part of the 50+ cache Drive By series. We could have driven to this cache ourselves, but it was only a short walk from one of the Yateley Lake caches, so we decided to include it in our morning’s walk.
We parked the car in an almost identical spot to our previous visit, and Mrs Hg137 set about getting the ad lab started on her phone. For some inexplicable reason the ad lab wouldn’t load, so she resorted to the standard IT maxim ‘ turn it off, and on again’. While this process was happening, we took the liberty of locating a Yateley Lake cache positioned just outside the car park. We stood where there had been 2-3 inches of water a few days ago and picked up various items. Remembering that the caches were set by VR7, the cache could have been anything – and eventually we realised we had the cache container in our hand, more by luck than skilful searching.
We hastily replaced the cache, as a car swung by us, and drove into the car park.
By now Mrs Hg137’s phone had come alive, and the ad lab application was good-to-go. As we walked back into the car park, and neared the ad lab question location, the driver of the car shouted at us “I know what you are doing!”. Yikes ! We had been rumbled!
But no, it was another geocacher, fennyflip, awaiting a friend, who he was going to introduce to geocaching. We chatted awhile, until his friend arrived. They set off following the lake one direction, and we left in the other. We admired the ‘watersports’ section of the lake – no foolhardy watersports enthusiasts today – and completed our final ad lab stage, and headed for our penultimate Yateley Lakes cache.
This one was hidden near a footpath crossroads, and it was quite busy. We initially searched the wrong side of the footpath, and paused for several minutes while various dog-walkers went by. After a few minutes we spotted a likely hiding place which required us to undertake some determined effort to release the cache. Our determination couldn’t have been that great, as we failed to release the cache, and we assumed our thoughts were wrong. After a few more minutes fruitless searching, we re-tried the hiding place, and this time we were successful. Log signed, we headed off, uphill, to the ‘Drive By’ cache..
Our route took us away from the semi-gravel track around the lake, to a grassy slope. After the rain, the grass was muddy, and there occasional ‘marshy’ sections we had to walk around. We passed a couple of people on the way up the slope, and we exchanged pleasantries and swapped advice on how to avoid the mud!We arrived at a road – quite handy as we were looking for a Drive By cache, and spotted a tree, the host, a few yards away. However as we made our way to the tree, a gentleman with a dog came out of the adjacent cottage. We stared at us suspiciously. We decided to feign a navigational error, paused, consulted phones and maps and walked the other way – all the time being watched by the gentleman and his dog. He walked away, and after a while, we saw the gentleman disappearing round a bend in the road, giving us a ideal opportunity to grab the simple cache.
We walked back down the muddy slope, this time aware of all the muddy sections, and found a simple footpath to our final Yateley Lakes cache. Again a sneaky hide, but visible in plain sight.
It was a shame we broke the series into two trips, but given the volumes of water still lying close to the footpaths, we knew we would have got very wet had we continued on our first visit.
If you want to find some clever hides, hidden in tranquil scenery, do attempt the Yateley Lakes – but do visit when the weather is dry!
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