February 16 : Elvetham Heath, Fleet

Elvetham Heath is a relatively new housing estate to the North West of Fleet. It comprises about 2000 dwellings with building work starting in 1999 and it was completed just 10 years later. To the north of the estate is the M3, to the south the main railway line to London. Despite these apparent ‘noisy neighbours’ Elvetham Heath is very pleasant, and surprisingly quiet.

In the centre of the estate is a supermarket, a village hall, a school, a church, a pub and many other facilities needed to support its 5000+ population.

The central car park is free for a limited time, but we thought (and we were right), our caching trip would be longer than the free car parking would permit, so we parked some distance from the centre in a residential road.

We planned on locating a cache on our way to the estate’s centre, attempt the multicaches set near the middle and return by visiting a few more caches.

The first cache we attempted was a puzzle cache based on the TV series ‘Death in Paradise’.  We thoroughly enjoy this series, but as it turned out the puzzle didn’t require expert knowledge of the show. A swift google search, some straightforward calculations and the final coordinates were discovered. The cache was hidden on a long, straight track running parallel to the railway.

The cache was a well crafted ‘bird-box’ container hidden just behind rhododendron bushes.

The path was surprisingly empty, we only saw a couple of dog walkers on our 10-15 minute walk to the village centre. We emerged from the quiet, tree-covered path to face the main centre. The supermarket car park was busy, people were crossing roads on errands… the quietness we had experienced had melted into a hubbub of people!

We had two multi-caches to find. We decided to collect the information for both caches, and then plan an optimal route to find the containers.

The first multi-cache entitled ‘My First Multi-cache’ required us to write down numbers from a parking restriction sign. The second multicache, part of the village hall series, required us to use digits from a phone number.

Both caches were in opposite directions! Before we set off to find the first cache, we found a simple cache close to the telephone box and post box – part of the Fine Pair Series. We first found a Fine Pair cache back in 2013 – that cache was number 64 in the National series – this cache was number 1435.

Interestingly the post box was an old George VI post box, so must have either been here 60 years ago, when the estate was a wooded area, or moved from another location. In keeping with the time-travelling nature of the post-box, it was topped with a Dalek, while the no-longer-used phone box, was a frostproof plant container!

With the Fine Pair cache, found, we headed North to find one of the multicaches. The final was a some distance away, and the twisty-turny nature of the roads and pavements, meant it took some time to reach Ground Zero. We were glad for a quick find, as the hiding place was very exposed in front of several houses, on a road junction.

We returned to the village centre and headed a little way south, picking up the other multi-cache.  Again another street sign was the host and a hint that confused Mrs Hg137, who seemingly never learnt the orientation of compass points based on the phrase.. “Never Eat Shredded Wheat” !

Time was pressing, and we limited our searching to one further cache. This was close to the car, but, at the time, many of roads and pavements were being dug up, and non-optimal alternatives meant we took longer than expected to arrive at GZ. The hint was magnetic, and it took us a few minutes to find the correct metal object, but once we did we had our largest container of the day.

There are still a few caches in the Elvetham Heath estate, which no doubt we will collect at some other time.

July 17 : The Ridgeway : Streatley to North Stoke

It had been over a month since our last walk along the Ridgeway.

Streatley marks the half-way point of the Ridgeway, and a complete change of scenery. Gone are expansive views from chalk hills, instead a more urban, riverside walk.

Geocaching walks should really score highly on at least one of the following criteria :

• beautiful or historic scenery
• large quantity of caches
• quality of cache containers or hiding places

Sadly this walk didn’t really score high on any of these indices.

We should have realised our day wouldn’t score highly as we parked our ‘destination’ car in North Stoke. There was a fine pair multi to solve. ‘A fine pair’ relates to a red telephone box and red post box in close proximity. Numbers are extracted from each structure and a set of final coordinates calculated. We decided to do this before driving the ‘start’ car to Streatley. That way if the final hiding place was on our route into North Stoke we wouldn’t have to walk back to it. Sadly for us, the numbers we had to find from the post box didn’t make sense. We had to subtract one number from another… but this gave us a negative number. Hmm. Something wrong. And a strong portent for our caching trip.

As we arrived in Streatley, we drove into the same cul-de-sac we used some weeks previously. We noticed two ladies with two cars doing some odd manoeuvring . Actually it wasn’t odd, they were replicating our actions of some weeks earlier. Parking one car, and driving another to the start. We wished them well on their walk from Wantage to Streatley.

We set off, heading through Streatley’s town centre, and headed East, crossing the River Thames into Oxfordshire. The bridge hosts two long distance paths, the Thames Path (cross the bridge and turn South), and the Ridgeway (cross the bridge and turn North).

Before we turned North, we checked out two more multicaches. One based on the village hall, the other based on the village sign. We sat on a seat on the village green and calculated the final coordinates for both caches. We were in luck, they were both sort-of-ish on our route. We paused for coffee (calculating, quite correctly we wouldn’t see a bench or seat for some time).

Invigorated, we headed North away from Streatley. One of the multi-caches, was close to an estate of houses. Of course we followed the GPS religiously as it pointed left, right, in alleyways, behind garages. It was only when we were at GZ, signing the cache, did we see a less complex route back to the Ridgeway.

Not the most scenic part of the Ridgeway

For about half a mile (seemed longer), we were hemmed in by buildings and trees on the left, and building and gardens on the right. A narrow pathway between. At end of the pathway was the hiding place for the second multi.

The pathway opened out after the cache, to a slightly wider track, with less houses and more trees. We were running parallel to the river, but the trees and occasional house obscured our view. Our next cache was named ‘Cleeve Lock View’, but we couldn’t really see the lock at all! We couldn’t see the cache either. Apparently hidden in a stump or bush, but we couldn’t find it having searched many likely hosts.

Somewhere down there is a lock!

There was only one host to check at the next cache ‘Triangle’. There was only one triangle, a road sign…but no sign of the cache in the sign or at its foot.

We continued on, dispiritedly with consecutive DNFs. We arrived at the large village of South Stoke. Here there was plenty to find. Firstly a 5 stage ad lab. We had to visit several waypoints in the village, and using wireless connectivity answer a simple question. At the first waypoints we were examining a noticeboard with different local numbered walks centered around the village. We entered the answer into the phone… nothing. No response at all. We moved to another waypoint, this time at the local pub. The phone beeped the waypoint question as us… we keyed in the answer… nothing. We had internet connectivity to see the question, but not to enter the answer. Hmm.

Never mind, there is also a Church Micro in South Stoke. It required finding a particular grave to ascertain some numbers. The cache owner had not supplied a waypoint for the grave, so we bumbled our way around the graveyard for some time before alighting on the required information.

It was lunchtime, so we sat and ate, and calculated the final for the church micro. A little distance away, but broadly on our route. But what to do with the ad lab ? We knew the correct answers, but couldn’t get the software to accept them. Now both of us have IT training, and we decided to apply the golden rule. ‘Turn it off, and turn it back on again‘.

We turned the phone off, waited a few minutes and turned it back on. We revisited one the waypoints, and miraculously the number was accepted. We hastily looked for the other ad lab questions – one based in a very well laid out play park, with a Jubilee beacon, fire pit and community orchard. As we answered each ad lab question, we were unusually presented with another. These answer to these questions combined together to give us the final location for a bonus cache. After zigzagging our way around the village we answered all the waypoint questions, assembled the coordinates, and surprisingly found the cache quite quickly.

The church micro was was a little distance from the Ridgeway, and we were grateful for an easy find.

Leaving South Stoke, the Ridgeway dropped down to the River, and for a mile or so, we were in the open countryside which had been missing from our earlier miles. The Reading-Oxford railway line follows the river, and at Cholsey (or more accurately Moulsford), a large brick bridge takes the railway over the river.

We had seen a distant view of the bridge from the other bank when we walked the Thames Path, but this time we were much closer. This bridge is one of two brick bridges build by Isambard Kingdom Brunel over the Thames (the other being at Maidenhead). We hadn’t appreciated that this bridge not only has curved ‘arches’ but the legs of the arch also curve.

There were no caches on this section so we had little to find, until we reached North Stoke. We had done the groundwork on one multi (sort of), but we needed to collect numbers for another Church Micro. Some to and froing around the churchyard, and we discovered the final was some yards back along the Ridgeway.

Or at least should have been. The area had been cleared of vegetation, and new fence panels erected. There really was nowhere for a cache to be hidden. Oh dear.

The cache should have been hidden here… but with all this work…its gone!

All we had to do was attempt the ‘fine pair’ multi, guessing at a replacement digit for the ‘negative’ digit we had calculated earlier. Of course, given our high number of DNFs we had collected on our walk, we added another.

A day of few outstanding views, and even less caches. Fingers crossed the next section will yield more.

April 22 Basingstoke Canal (Odiham to Greywell)

Odiham Castle

Our plan for the day was to walk along the Basingstoke Canal from Odiham to Greywell Tunnel, find a couple more caches in the village of Greywell before returning to Odiham via North Warnborough. We hoped to arrive back in Odiham before the forecasted heavy rain arrived.

The Basingstoke Canal ran from Basingstoke to Weybridge (where it connected to the River Thames). Like many other canals it fell derelict in the 1950s.  Much restoration has taken place, but sadly the full route cannot be reopened as the Greywell Tunnel has collapsed.

We walked this section of the canal in 2011, as it formed part of the ‘Three Castles Path‘; a route linking Windsor Castle, Odiham Castle and Winchester.  It apparently forms the route that King John took prior to signing the Magna Carta.

We should have parked in the car park next to the canal, but our memory suggested it was only for users of the John Pinkerton, a canal boat trip company. We parked in the road, and just we were about to join the towpath we were asked whether we were with a ramblers group. Apparently a group from Staines-Upon-Thames were meeting at the car park at the same time we were starting our walk.

We joined the towpath and looked for the first cache. In fairness we knew we weren’t going to find it, as it needed some sort of boat/canoe/inflatable to reach the far bank. As we couldn’t even see the cache from our side of the canal, we didn’t try to commandeer a boat from a passer-by. There was much going on, the John Pinkerton was about to leave with a 50^th birthday party on board, a couple of ‘travellers’ were lighting fires, and were having fun with their horse-and-carts.

We strode away, anxious to keep ahead of the other rambling group. They had caught us by our first genuine cache attempt of the day. Several trees and ivy to search and sadly a did-not-find for us. A bad start.

Our next cache was an adventure lab cache. We had 5 waypoints along the canal and a question to answer at each. The first was a little distance away at a swingbridge, the second at Odiham Castle. The castle is a ‘ruin’ anyway, but clearly there have been some incidents recently with the brickwork as scaffolding surrounded the castle. We had to do some counting in the castle, and it wasn’t easy. Inside were fences protecting the castle walls from people’s hands. We had to count the green upright fence poles all the way round. These poles were 4-6 inches apart and it took us some time…and then we disagreed on an answer. Mrs Hg137 counted again, while Mr Hg1307 set about the investigation work for an earthcache based on the geology found in and around the castle walls. Mrs Hg137 put her number into the adventure lab… another failure. Mr Hg137 counted and he managed to get the correct answer. To give you some idea the final number is in the 250-350 range!

Inside Odiham Castle, start counting the green poles!

After getting the answer correct, and completed the earthcache questions, we paused for coffee. About this time the John Pinkerton arrived, and some of the attendees of the 50^th birthday left the boat to admire the castle.

John Pinkerton

Just beyond the castle is the  ‘head of navigation’ and the boat turned round while some of the partygoers stayed onboard, as the other half went round the castle.

Canal (left) going over River Whtewater (right)

River Whitewater

We resumed our walk, and almost immediately had another adventure lab question to answer, this time to do with the River Whitewater which went UNDER the canal. It is very unusual for this happen, and we were not aware of this feature when we walked the Three Castles Path previously.

The path on a Saturday was quite busy, cyclists, dog walkers all out and about before the forecasted afternoon rain arrived. About a mile after the Whitewater we arrived at Greywell Tunnel, which is now a renowned bat roost with several species of bat roosting there. This was our final question for the ad lab, and we successfully answered it. This gave us the coordinates for a final, bonus cache…some distance back along the canal, probably near the castle. Sadly for us.. not part of our planned route.

Greywell Tunnel

We were in the village of Greywell, and we had a couple of caches to find. The first, hidden in the roots of a tree. Sadly for us, and like many cachers before us, we took the wrong footpath to the cache and ended up the wrong side of barbed wire fence.

Views of Greywell

After some retracing, we found the cache quite easily.

Unlike our next cache.

Part of the ‘bat’ series around the Odiham area. Hidden unusually in the porch area of a church.

Gardeners were leaving the churchyard as we approached and the porch area was full of flower-filled jam jars  – presumably removed from various graves. We weren’t interested in the flowers, but a small ‘bat’. We couldn’t find the bat – we searched high (trying not to knock over the jam jars) and low, all to no avail. We decided to give up and collect numbers for the Church micro multi cache. We visited a grave, collected numbers and ascertained the final was some distance away. We ate lunch back at the porch. There really were few places to hide a cache. We decided to give ourselves 5 more minutes as we supped a coffee. Mrs Hg137 finished hers, and just as Mr Hg137 was finishing his…he spotted the cache. Suffice to say the jam jars were the problem and had prevented a full scale search of a particular area.

We went batty looking for this cache!

We signed the log, and then went to collect the Church Micro multi-cache. As were signing the log… the heavens opened and the afternoon rain (which we were expecting about 3pm, arrived at 130! )

Ugh! We still had some way to go and several caches to find!

We decided to return to the canal (via another cache – this time by the beautiful river Whitewater) and walk back the way we came. Not exciting, but we could hurry if the rain got harder and not think about navigation. It also gave us a change to collect the adventure lab bonus cache. Even this was tricky, as a group of people loitered next to its location for far too long, which prevented us from searching.

We returned the car, damp and slightly disillusioned that we had to abandon our route.. but on the bright side we can always come back another day!

February 25 : Holybourne

Holybourne is a delightful village just off the A31 a few miles North West of Alton.

Holybourne Church

The village has Roman connections as it was the crossing point of two major Roman roads (Winchester to London and Silchester to Chichester). The village takes its name from the stream which rises by the village Church, Church of Holy Rood.

We had about 8 caches to attempt in the village and the chalk downland to its North. Our first cache was close to the village theatre. Holybourne hosted a German prisoner-of-war camp, and the camp theatre is where the village theatre stands now. In the weeks before our arrival it had hosted a ‘Jeeves and Wooster’ play and a pantomime.

First cache of the day…outside Holybourne Theatre

The cache at the theatre, like many we were going to undertake, was a little bit out GPS wise, and we never quite understood why.

We walked through the village centre, admiring garden after garden of beautiful snowdrops, and another garden with a distinctly ursine twist. Our target was the Church, and the Church Multi-cache associated with it. Numbers were collected easily from a bench erected in 2000. As we calculated the waypoint for the cache’s hiding place, we counted at least 30 different birds on the Holybourne Pond by the church.

Isn’t amazing all the birds disappear when the camera comes out!

Counting complete, we headed along the St Swithun’s Way to find the cache. An easy find, and one which Mrs Hg137 spotted some yards from its host. The St Swithun’s Way is a ‘long’ distance path of about 34 miles linking Winchester to Farnham. We walked it, in our pre-caching days, in 2010.

At this point we were just on the outskirts of the village, but now we walked further away, gently climbing towards the top of Holybourne Down. Initially we were following a sunken track with trees on both sides, but after a while we arrived at a stile (and another cache). We paused for coffee, sitting on the stile, and reviewed the route ahead. A much steeper climb. We had two choices, one was a footpath over a soft grassy field, the other a permissive path with barbed wire on one side, and brambles on the other. Normally we would have taken the grassy path, but with a cache near to the permissive path we tackled the brambles. We were grateful it was February, as the brambles had receded during the winter, and didn’t impede too much on our ascent. The cache was found quite easily, and apart from a minor diversion avoiding a fallen tree, we soon re-joined the footpath at the top the hill.

We had views in most directions from the top, looking North East past Farnham and beyond, and the West to Alton and further afield.

Our descent down followed farm tracks, which we were a little wary of. The first few of these tracks were NOT marked as footpaths or bridleways, and there was a slight doubt in our minds that we were trespassing. But there were caches to find by these tracks, so we had to follow the tracks to find the caches.

The tracks led us around several farmer’s fields. Each field was separated from another by a thin ribbon of trees, perhaps 4 or 5 trees wide. Our next 3 caches were hidden in these ‘ribbons’. Caches were hidden variously in tree roots and boles, but always in the centre of the ‘ribbon’. We could search in peace, though this didn’t matter too much as we only saw 2 other walkers during our searches.

We eventually rejoined the sunken track that we had walked up earlier, but this time headed South back towards the village. A cunningly hidden cache, near a footpath sign was our final cache of the day.

We had arrived about half a mile from the car, and our pavement walk back gave us a chance to admire the village shops, and the former house of Elizabeth Gaskell (Author of ‘Cranford’ and ‘North and South’). Sadly on her first visit after buying the house, she died of a heart attack.

Elizabeth Gaskell’s House

A sad end to our walk, but a walk with history throughout, great scenery, and great caches too.

Some of the caches we found included :

January 13 : Swinley Forest

Swinley Forest is an area of woodland to the South and East of Bracknell.

Today’s caching trip was in a ‘diamond’ shape bounded by 4 major roads (The A329 to the North, the A332 to the East, the A322 to the South and the B3430 to the West).

Our main aim was to visit 4 standard caches broadly close to each of those roads (and appropriately named North, East, South and West). We had solved a couple of puzzle caches which we hoped to find on route, as well as another cache in the centre of the forest diamond.

One of the puzzle caches we had solved was a simple picture identification task once the cache title ‘nice tours, erotic sun’ had been interpreted. The other was more obscurely titled ’30 / 7’. Within the puzzle we had to ascribe numbers to simple words like ‘PANS’, and ‘DANCE’. Once inspiration struck, the puzzle was quickly solved.

One of the puzzle caches was hidden in a holly tree. Deep in a holly tree. There were several at GZ, but one large specimen stood out. We circled it several times, peering into it to no avail. We decided the best way to locate the cache was to scramble into the tree, through lots of prickly leaves and look outwards. Mrs Hg137 volunteered (!), while Mr Hg137 re-read previous finder’s logs. One of the logs made mention of the many dog walkers, which indeed there were, but to find the cache, one had to ‘stand where you cant see the dog walkers’. Mr Hg137 sidled around the tree, hiding himself more and more from the footpath. He looked in… and found the cache. It was easier, just, for Mrs Hg137 to be directed to it..before she left the tree incurring a few more scratches.

Our second puzzle cache find, was in a much quieter location and trusting the GPS implicitly, Mrs Hg137 found the cache in an instant, and in a far less prickly place.

The Northernmost part of our route

Then onto the Compass Series.. North was nearby and we managed to find the cache and leave GZ before a dog walker came by. We even found a trackable too called Travel Toad.

To reach East, we had to cross the centre of the diamond passing another cache ‘Mr Jennison’s Fridge’. An intriguing title .It referred to the ice house of a former grand house in the forest. The cache description provides the following information :

The cache is placed very close to the site of an old ice house belonging to Swinley Lodge. Until the 1820’s (when it was demolished) this was the official residence of the Master of the Royal Buckhounds. It was the location for the monarch and his entourage to meet for breakfast when they were hunting in this area of the forest.

During the reign of George II the hunt’s master was a Mr Jennison. He was a thorough representative of the conviviality of the age, a “five bottle man” who would not allow his friends to walk away from the table.

The ice house was a deep, brick lined pit, surrounded by a circle of trees. In its shady depth food was kept fresh for as long as possible.

Part of a semi-circular entrance to Swinley Lodge

Sadly for us, the ice house has long gone and the cache seems to have disappeared too. After much searching we logged a Did Not Find. Always disappointing to log a DNF, but as there had been a couple of DNFs by other cachers in the weeks before our visit, not unexpected.

Up to now the paths had been dry, sandy heathland paths, but on our way to East the paths got muddier and muddier. Drainage ditches ran parallel to the paths, and we spent some time picking our way between less muddy sections.

East was quite cunningly hidden (well in Mr Hg137’s eyes). In the bole of a tree. A small bole. Mr Hg137 removed the ‘tiny barkoflage’ and found nothing. It was the only tree of note, so Mrs Hg137 had a feel. She discovered the bole had a kink in it, and the cache was hidden beyond the kink. Very clever!

The day was cold, and we were now at the furthest point from our car, with two caches still to find. South’s hint was ‘stickoflage’ and the GPS resolutely pointed to one particular tree  – sadly for us, we couldn’t find the stickoflage or the cache. We did note though the cache had not been found since November, and since then there had been a substantial leafdrop covering the ground. Perhaps after a few more weeks the stickoflage will be visible, but for us, our second DNF of the day.

So we headed another back to our car passing West as we did so. Unlike the other caches, this was clearly visible, but protected by a large tree. It was only as we peered through the lower branches could we see the cache at ground level. An easy find, and another trackable too (The Tourist).

So 5 caches found of 7, but more importantly a great walk in a part of Swinley Forest we have barely explored.

August 20 : Kennet & Avon Canal : Horton to Caen Hill

The intense heat of the Summer had abated, and we returned to the Kennet and Avon Canal for a 6 mile stretch starting a couple of miles East of Devizes and finishing a couple of miles beyond Devizes.

Devizes Pond

Our start point was a small layby by the canal near Horton. We parked the car, and descended a slight slope down to the canal. As we did so, we passed a man setting up a camera and tripod. He wasn’t taking a picture of the canal, but of a WWII tank-trap by the roadside. He was apparently undertaking a ‘photography project’ of WWII architecture in the area. We wished well him and set off.

Taking photos of WWII structures

Unusually this section of the canal had two canalside geocaches. Or at least should have had two canalside geocaches. The first one, we couldn’t find at all. Its recent logs gave a chequered history of ‘did not finds’, ‘found on the floor’, ‘found without a lid’, more ‘did not finds’. This cache either is hard to spot, or poorly maintained. We suspect the latter, and after 10 minutes gave up our search.

The second cache, much easier to find, was exactly where the hint said it would be. Shortly after this find, we took a diversion into the town on Devizes. There were a couple of caches, relatively close to the canal, worth finding. Or so we thought.

Devizes Church…

…and its avenue of trees

The first was close to, and indeed on, church property. (We are not sure how permission was granted, as we thought this wasn’t allowed). The churchyard is very beautiful, with an avenue of trees leading away and Devizes Pond nearby. But the hiding place for the cache was disappointing. We had to move several wheelie-bins, before locating the cache attached to a drainpipe. A beautiful opportunity wasted by a weak hiding place.

The pond nearby hosted an Earthcache. Over the years the pond has become a focal point for the town. Its recent history is celebrated by town twinning celebrations. Earlier history tells of ‘moonraking’ at the pond. The ‘moonraking’ episode is described on the http://www.geocaching.com thus :

The legend of the moonrakers was that smugglers detected an approaching Exciseman (revenue agent) on a bright moonlit night. In order to waylay suspicion the smugglers dumped the contraband (usually barrels or kegs of French brandy) into a nearby pond. When the Exciseman had gone they began to fish out the barrels with hay rakes. However, the Exciseman came back and asked them what they were doing. They told him it was surely obvious, they were raking out the cheese they could see in the water. The Exciseman laughed at them for being so stupid and rode off. The “moonrakers” left off raking the moon, laughed at the Exciseman’s naivety and continued to recover their kegs.

The Earthcache involved studying various stones marking the Devizes events, and answering various geological questions about the stones. Fortunately not too difficult.

Examine the stones, and answer some questions

We returned to the canal, and here unusually the towpath was elevated above the canal. This section didn’t last long as soon arrived at the Kennet and Avon Canal Museum (sadly shut on Saturdays, due to lack of volunteers). This location is also the start of the Devizes to Westminster Canoe Race held every Easter. It was eerily quiet as we arrived, and it was hard to visualise the hustle and bustle of hundreds of canoeists as they set out on their 125 mile journey.

The first 19 miles of the canoeists Eastward journey is lock-less, so they have plenty of time to get a paddling momentum. However, if they travelled West, their canal journey would soon encounter the Caen Hill locks.

Officially there are 29 Caen Hill locks, causing the canal to rise (or fall) 237 feet over a 2 mile stretch of towpath. The highlight is the ‘staircase of 16’, but before the main flight is reached, there are 6 other, more spaced out, locks.

At one of these locks we deviated away from the canal to find two more caches. The first, part of the National series celebrating ‘tollhouses’ (in fact this was number 1 in the series!) was an easy find, but did involve crossing a fast road to reach GZ. Nearby in a woodland path was another cache. Or should have been. Under a large-rooted stump, well protected from the elements, was a log book. No cache container, no protective bag, just a log book.

A former toll-house, now a hiding place for a geocache!

At another lock, we spent an hour chasing our tails, as we had two caches to find. The first was a multi, and we had to collect information at or near the lock gates. One piece of information was so hard to spot, we could only see when the lock gates were opening to let a boat through. We calculated the final coordinates, making a navigational error heading to the cache, trying to walk through a shop car park rather than a nearby footpath. At GZ, the cache was tucked behind stinging nettles. Mrs Hg137 gingerly approached the cache, hooking it with the geopole suffering only a couple of stings.

We spent far too long looking for numbers at this relatively featureless lock

Our second cache was back over the canal at the same lock gates. We wandered down a cul-de-sac leading to a refuse dump. (Apparently the cache site celebrated the former Devizes railway line, all very laudable, but placing a cache next to a refuse dump is a new one on us!) The dump was closed, which should have meant an easy search, but while we stood, assessing options three vehicles came by, turned round and drove back – so much for a quiet search.

A short way further on, and we arrived at the Caen Hill flight of locks. We were surprised to see a queue of about 4 or 5 boats, tied up. Were they queuing ? Yes, they were, but because of lack of rainfall, the canal was short of water, and the Caen Flight was only open between 10-1 each day. It was mid-afternoon and the boating crews had an 18 hour wait. It unfortunately meant we wouldn’t witness the manual effort of opening and closing 16 locks, as well as the movement of boats going up and down the flight.

Our disappointment was allayed by attempting a multi-cache. We extracted some numbers from a noticeboard at the top of the flight, and set off down the hill heading towards the final hiding place. It was some way from the locks – quite useful as the footpath by the locks was busy with people enjoying the Summer sunshine. We took a few minutes to find the cache – we knew it was an ammo can, and there weren’t many places to hide one. We eventually checked a large bush. Mr Hg137 spotted something, and discovered a brand new yoga mat in the bush. A yard deeper in the bush was the cache!

Many of the locks in the flight had been ‘named’ – presumably by sponsors when the canal was rebuilt in the 1980s/1990s. Eventually we reached the bottom of the ‘flight of 16’ with the aim of finding another cache. This one, like our first cache of the day, eluded us. We weren’t too worried as our next stage along the canal would start at the base of Caen Hill, and we could re-attempt the canal then.

Caen Hill Flight

So a pleasant walk along the canal, marred slightly by the closure of the Caen Hill flight. With the exception of the ammo can and the earthcache, the caches in Devizes did not inspire (sorry) – the caches were container-less, hidden behind dustbins or next to a scrapyard. Hardly inspirational.

August 1 Playing Detective in Finchampstead (part 1 – First to Find attempt)

We have remarked on this blog before that we are not First-to-Find hounds. We do not have our phones, our GPS or our laptops set so that they bleep at us every time a cache has been planted within a 10 mile radius.

So it was odd, that mid-morning on August 1, Mr Hg137 pressed the ‘newest caches’ button on http://www.geocaching.com. There were 18 puzzles caches newly published! And none had been found !

The cache owner, Mikes54, had created 3 mini-routes of 6 caches each, two routes broadly in Finchampstead and one in Barkham. The puzzles were of the same type as ones we had recently solved in the Blackwater Valley area :

• the cache title gave the initial letter of a detective or police series
• the cache description gave a broad synopsis of the series plot, location or key characters
• there were 3 or 4 questions about the series, all the answers could be found on wikipedia

The TV series ‘Butterflies’ is not one of the answers!

Each of the puzzles had a ‘geochecker’ so the calculated final coordinates could be verified. Several people had been through the checker with the correct coordinates. Had they already left home to find the caches ?

We decided to solve two of the puzzles. We chose puzzles 8 and 9 in the series (working on the assumption cachers would start their walk from either cache 1 (and go forwards) or from cache 18 (and go backwards).

Cache 8 (letter ‘I’ ) was based based on a 1970s American series, we both remembered being on TV, Cache 9 (‘L’) was far more contemporary, even though we hadn’t seen it.

We had our answers checked… and more importantly no finds had been logged against either cache – so we set off. 2 minutes down the road we realised we had left a couple of garden doors open…whoops!

We parked close to Finchampstead Church. There was one other car nearby… did it belong to a cacher ?

Dog walkers.. or cachers ?

We walked purposefully down a road looking out for other cachers. There were none, just dog walkers disappearing into the distance. The road became a track and shortly we arrived at Ground Zero. The cache owner, gives very specific hints, so we could reach down and locate the cache with little fuss.

First cache we found… but were we the first to find ?

We opened the container, unrolled the log … hoping to find an empty log sheet…but no.. someone had beaten us to it! We are not sure what time they arrived, but we signed the log at 1142 ! Not bad considering we only saw the cache had been published barely an hour earlier!

We walked to the second of the caches we had solved. Again an easy find, and another Second-To-Find!

Second cache… second to find !

We retired back to the car, annoyed we didn’t secure a First-to-Find, but the adrenalin from the ‘hunt’ was pulsing through our veins for a while afterwards.

With hindsight, we might have got a first-to-find if we had solved caches 17 and 18, as only one cacher was finding the new caches that morning … and they started at cache 1!

As for the other 16 caches in the series…. watch this space!

Are the other 16 caches down this path ?

May 27 : Kennet and Avon Canal : Hungerford to Great Bedwyn

Little Bedwyn Church

A Friday excursion for us, and unusually we drove to our start point (Hungerford  Station) and walked to Bedwyn Station where we would catch a train back. The downside of organising our day like this, is that we know the times of the returning trains (one an hour) and approaching our destination the time of the next train may play on our mind.

We left Hungerford passing under a couple of the town’s bridges which we had seen from above on our previous walk. The town had a slight hustle and bustle, people shopping, the Rose at Hungerford was being prepared for a day’s sailing.

The last building in Hungerford, at least on the towpath, is St Lawrence’s Church.     Rebuilt 1816, it is the furthest East church made from Bath Stone – all the stone came along the canal ! Some effort !

We had a mile to our first cache, and having passed a broken swing bridge (fortunately we didn’t need it), we found out why the caches were lacking. A nature reserve known as Freeman’s Marsh. We saw rich grassland, heavily buttercupped.  As we entered the nature reserve, Mr Hg137 caught his finger on one the gates and a splinter lodged in his finger. We removed some of the splinter quite quickly, and left the remainder until our first coffee stop.

Conveniently enough this was near our first cache, and near a bridge over the canal. Splinter removed, coffee drunk we found the cache quite quickly. It was interesting to note that the canal crossing had once been a swing bridge, as some of the mechanics of the swing-bridge still remain.

Once a swing-bridge, now an elevated bridge

About 200 yards away from the canal, by the A4, was another cache, Part of a new series based on the owner’s ‘snugglies’ they have acquired over the years. This one was ‘kiwi’. The cache wasn’t a fruit or a bird…but a film pot!

Back on the canal, we walked onto Picketfield Lock and another cache. Here, reading the previous logs helped, as the coordinates pointed one side of the canal (hint – ‘in ivy’)  but the cache was actually hidden on the other side of the canal (‘base of tree’). Quite how the coordinates and hint have become so separated is unclear. As we gingerly crossed the canal via the lock gates, a boat was entering the lock. We offered to help them through the lock, but the boat was part of a pair, working and closing the locks together. By the time we had found the cache, signed the log and returned to the lock, the second boat had arrived.

Behind the trees, on the top of the aqueduct is the Kennet & Avon canal. Flowing underneath…

…. is the beautiful River Dun

We wandered on a few yards and realised our map shows an aqueduct. The canal passes over a river ! The River Dun is a small chalk stream river, also known as Bedwyn Brook, as the source is near Great Bedwyn. The River Dun joins the Kennet at Hungerford.

After a flurry of 3 caches in a short space of time, we then had a mile or so to walk to our next cache. As we did so, we left Berkshire and entered Wiltshire.

We arrived at Fore Bridge, and undertook a quite old (2004) multi-cache. We made note of several numbers on road signs, and walked away from the canal. The old caches tend to be best caches. Large and well hidden. We were not disappointed – the cache was an ammo can (reached sadly via small outcrop of nettles) and the contents were dry. The can was hidden in a tree root so large the ammo can and several large items of ‘logoflage’ filled the roothole.

An old cache…

…its original logbook…

… and its hiding place

We returned to the canal, and walked towards Little Bedwyn. Little Bedwyn, is a small village a couple of miles shy of Great Bedwyn. We turned away from the canal to find 2 caches. The first was part of 55 cache series (JG series) set around the two Bedwyns. Some of the caches have been archived, but well over 40 remain. The second cache was part of the Church Micro series. Unusually for this series of caches, it was a straightforward hide – no numbers to work out.  The cache was hidden in a fence stump in a green park/playing area. We walked out of the park to the church to look inside. On the kissing gate were two plaques, which marked two royal occasions, and gave the impetus for upgrading of the gate and the park.

Two royal events commemorated in Little Bedwyn

The church was quite cool inside, with perhaps space for a congregation of 100 or so. A couple of maps were mounted on the church walls. One was a montage of all the village buildings in 2000, and the other a map of the various trees planted in the park (some of which are no longer there!).

Perhaps we loitered too long in the church, or maybe it was our refreshing drink in the park. Either way we suddenly realised we had a good mile to walk to Bedwyn station, and 4 caches to find…and all in 45 minutes.

The 4 caches were all part of the JG series, and were surprisingly hard to find. Two were hidden, dangling on a wire (protected by nettles), one of the others required us to cross the canal via the lock gates. All 4 caches took time…and with Great Bedwyn Station not getting closer quickly enough, we resigned ourselves to an hour wait for the next train. We did get within 150 yards of the station, as the crow flies, when the train left, but we had a canal and road to cross so it was too far to run for the train.

Our train loss, was our caching gain, as it gave us a chance to explore Great Bedwyn and find a couple more caches. One next to the station, the other closer to the village centre.

We attempted 12 caches, and found all 12. This was the first time on our Kennet and Avon journey we had found a full house on our travels!

April 30 : Kennet and Avon Canal : Thatcham to Newbury (circular)

Victoria Park, Newbury

One of the difficulties of undertaking a long linear walk, is determining where to start and finish a day’s walk. If we take two cars (as we normally do, parking one at the start of the walk and the other at the destination) there needs to be adequate car parking. Public transport can of course be used, but if the start and end points are not near bus stops or stations, then this becomes impractical.

We had a dilemma. Thatcham to Newbury was a bit short (3 miles), and Thatcham to Kintbury (the next decent car parking) was well in excess of 10 miles, and closer to 12 once we added in deviations for geocaching. Thatcham station was over a mile away in the wrong direction and bus services seemed sparse.

We opted for a short walk along the canal and a slightly different route back.

What could possibly go wrong ?

Well for one…the town of Newbury.

We have geocached twice in Newbury. With mixed success. The town seems to have a Did-Not-Find jinx on us. The omens were not good.

The previous week we had finished in the Nature Reserve at Thatcham, with a DNF. Given that Thatcham is only a couple of miles from Newbury Town Centre…the DNF jinx messages were already being thought about.

The cache we couldn’t find was ‘A Froggie goes a Wooing’ and as we parked a few hundred yards from it, we thought we would attempt it again at the start of this day’s walk. We had read, and re-read the logs on http://www.geocaching.com and within seconds found the cache (a frog, obviously). Not hidden as the hint suggested, but close by. Phew ! Maybe we would find a few Newbury caches after all!

Nearby was Thatcham’s Community Orchard. We had seen it back in 2018 when we walked from Sandhurst in Gloucestershire to Sandhurst in Berkshire and we wondered how much it had grown. By our estimates it had grown about a foot or so – it is difficult to compare an Autumn picture (2018) with a Spring blossom picture in 2022.

Community Orchard 2022

Community Orchard 2018

We walked to the Kennet and Avon towpath and headed to Newbury. As we have mentioned before, there is a paucity of caches on the towpath, and our next cache we believe should have been a snail. The logs were less than helpful (‘coordinates out 100 metres out’ and no obvious hint as the method of hiding). We searched for 15 minutes, but with a canal towpath with lots of trees, a fence line and much more besides…we gave up.

We gave up on our next cache too. It hadn’t been found for over a year, with several DNFs by other cachers. This didn’t inspire us to search for too long. So three caches attempted and two DNFs…the Newbury jinx is working its magic again.

The canal was relatively busy – we followed a couple of boats working as a joint team as they approached each lock and swing bridge. A crew member of the first boat running ahead to undertake preparatory work at the ‘obstacle’, and a crew member of the second boat, closing the ‘obstacle’ once both boats had gone through.

As we approached the centre of Newbury, the canal and towpath got much busier, and here, under a bridge was another cache. One we had DNFed on a previous visit to Newbury. We had discovered that the cache was missing then, but had been replaced as a false bolt/screw. These magnetic caches are very effective, and if the colour of the false bolt matches the metal it is latched onto, it is very difficult to spot. What made it easy for us, was that a previous finder had NOT lined up the false bolt with other screws on the bridge. Its random positioning shouted ‘why am I here’ ! An easy find, because the previous cacher had not replaced it accurately.

It was lunchtime, and just after the bridge, was a large park, with seating. Ideal!

Victoria Park is Newbury’s ‘Jewel in the Crown’. There is lots to do and watch – a children’s play area, tennis courts, bowling green, a skate park and a boating (pedalo) lake. We sat and ate lunch overlooking the pedalos. Each pedalo was powered by two people with varying degrees of success. Fun to watch – less fun to participate!

We had four caches to find to North of the park. Two of them were part of the National ‘Curry Micro’ series of caches. We collected numbers from objects near to each curry house and walked to each of the cache locations. The first took us to a tree on private property (some offices). Being Saturday, the offices were deserted, and we searched the tree, fruitlessly. We scoured other likely hosts, all on the same private property. We read the previous finder’s logs, and realised we were searching a few yards from the correct location. Cache located…but you needed to be 7 foot tall to reach and replace it. (Somehow we did this!)

The second Curry Micro was in the opposite direction, and hadn’t been found for some time (two DNFs since January). We were not that hopeful of finding the cache, but within seconds we had it in our hands. Maybe the Newbury jinx has been broken!

Nearby were several pubs and hotels, one of which is used for a monthly geocaching meet, organised by Cunning Cachers. They have also placed a nearby cache. And it was cunning! Hidden in a barrier. We saw three car park barriers near to GZ, all of which were private property and ‘didn’t feel right’. After much searching, we sat on a nearby wall, about to log a DNF when…we saw another barrier – and the cache was soon ours! Phew!

We walked back to Victoria Park. On its northern outskirts was a cache in the ‘Post Post’ series of caches. These tend to be magnetic nanos hidden underneath the post box. This cache was no different. We needed some stealth here, as the post box was near to the manned entry to the Bowls Club Car Park. The Bowls Club had a home match and visitors were slowing down at the postbox before being let in.

We paused for a quick coffee break in the park, before heading back to Thatcham. We had a long pavement walk and only one cache to find. The pavements took us by a supermarket, and a DIY shop, which we had observed from the canal path earlier.

Our last cache ‘Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree’, was indeed in a Chestnut Tree. A glorious tree and a fine host ! A great hiding place to finish our day’s walk !

Had we broken the Newbury jinx ? We had 2 DNFs, but we did find the other caches we attempted.

March 26 : Effingham and the Lovelace Bridges

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

Lovelace Bridge: Stoney Dene

Effingham: a place I’ve never really visited, except when, a few years ago, I mistakenly caught the stopping train to Guildford, not the express, and one of the many, many stations it stopped at was Effingham Junction.   Today, we were there for the ‘Off The Rails!’ geocache series, which starts at the station.  It’s quite a long series, so we had decided to do just the southern part of the series, leaving the rest for another day.

We parked within sight of our first cache, at a post box (a passing lady on horseback asked if we were posting a letter … mmm … not really!), and headed uphill into the woods, where we stopped to explain geocaching to a friendly American man, out with Bella, his beautifully behaved retriever.   Reaching the remains of some gates, we followed an impressive brick and flint wall, the outer edge of the Horsley Towers estate.   We followed the wall downhill to reach and cross the busy A426 by one of the estate lodges.   We met yet more people: cyclists, walkers, runners, more horse riders, and even more dog walkers.   Everyone, like us, was making the most of a warm spring day.

The countryside turned to a mixture of fields and woods, and we began to climb again.   We came to a bridge … umm, a bridge??? why??? … in the middle of nowhere and with no obvious reason for its presence. There was a plaque by the bridge, and we did some research later.  An (optional) history paragraph follows:

Meadow Plat bridge

The bridge is one of the Lovelace Bridges,  a series built by the owner of Horsley Towers, Lord Lovelace.  He had tracks and bridges built to help with the transportation of timber.  Fifteen bridges were built, all named, all of different sizes and designs, and ten survive.   They resemble a disused small-gauge railway – except there were never any tracks and the gradients are too steep for trains.   We saw two of the bridges, plus the site of one other, and there is a trail which does a circular tour of many of the sites. (As a footnote, Lord Lovelace’s wife, Ada, Lady Lovelace is considerably more well-known than him!)

We continued through fields, tracks and woods, which will be filled with bluebells soon, and which were probably very muddy a few weeks ago.   After a picnic lunch – no seats but many fallen tree trunks – we worked our way in an anticlockwise loop and began to return north, back to Effingham.  Climbing to the top of a ridge, the views opened out as far as a distant view of central London.  We had reached Effingham Golf Club.  Footpaths zigzagged across the fairways and we were grateful for the handy waypoints included with the cache descriptions to keep us ‘on course’.   There were very few golfers around, which meant we could stop to admire the view and have a coffee without watching out for errant golf balls.  

Descending across the course, the views gradually disappeared.  We carefully crossed back across the A246, then walked across fields to return to Effingham and our start point.   What a great day, in an area we hadn’t explored before.  Varied woods, still being worked, wide views, and unexpected history in the Lovelace bridges. A great little series, and we’ll be back to finish off the remaining caches at some point. And what about the caches?  We found eighteen out of twenty, and we probably didn’t search widely enough for those two we missed.  Unsurpisingly, as it was mostly woodland, most caches were hidden in/around/under trees, but there was also scrambling up banks,  rootling behind fence posts, and the occasional foray into nettles, which have already started growing.  The GPS wasn’t terribly accurate throughout the walk – no idea why – and some caches were a good number of paces from where the GPS said they should be.   The containers were good though not stunning – but the main thing was that the series provided us with a great walk on a cracking spring day.

Here are some of the caches we found: