August 14 : Bracknell : Geocachers visit the library

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

Geocachers visit the library

It was a damp Monday morning, and we were off to Bracknell for a miscellany of geocaching.   The main purpose of the visit was to attend a geocacher’s meet, described below:

… “This meet will be inside Bracknell Library, at the invitation of the Librarian.
We know that cachers are so enthusiastic about their hobby, and are always happy to talk to those who have not yet seen the light, and perhaps convert them.  This will be your ideal opportunity, for although this is a proper geocaching meet, the librarian also intends to attract to the library at that time those who are not yet cachers, but who might be interested.  In addition to chatting about the basics of geocaching, you may wish to recall some favourite caches, either ones that you may have placed, or found.   So, talk away – on this occasion you will be able to do so inside a library. “…

And nearby was a multicache or two (that’s a geocache with two or more stages), an AdLab (a virtual tour using a phone), and the word was that a couple of new caches would be released nearby to coincide with the event.

That sounded like enough to keep us busy for a couple of hours, so we set off for Bracknell, parked the geocar, and set off for our first (multi)cache.   Its starting point was the ancient milestone outside Blue’s Smokehouse; soon assembled coordinates led to our first cache.   Blues was also the start of our AdLab cache, ‘Bygone Bracknell Watering Holes’, as the restaurant used to be the Red Lion pub before it turned blue.   We made our way through the town, visiting other past places of refreshment – the Bull Inn (still a pub, still the same name), Prospect estate agents (once Gingers, a deli), the Old Manor (now a pub, once a manor house), and the Market Tavern (still a pub, but which has had many names). 

Blues Smokehouse aka the Red Lion

The Old Manor

The Bull

The Market Tavern

Prospect aka Gingers

After that tour of some of the older bits of Bracknell – and there were many, many more ‘old’ bits and pieces in a town centre that I’ve always thought of as wholly modern – we set off for the library and the meet.   Other people, some we recognised, some carrying ill-concealed GPSs, were converging on the building – aha, other geocachers!  Inside, we met, and talked, and saw possible future geocachers being informed on how it all works.  We heard talk of the caches that were about to be released, with much staring at phones; then we spotted a lone geocacher exiting the library at speed.  We followed: or rather, Mr Hg137 hared off in pursuit, while I followed at a more sedate/sensible/’as quick as I could’ speed; as long as one or both were view it would be fine.    I caught up with them both in the middle of what is still called the Met Office roundabout, though the weather folk have long since moved to Exeter.   

The brand new geocache we were seeking is named ‘Thinking of Days Gone Bye’, and, sure enough, Mr Hg137 was reminiscing as he and GilDean (the other cacher) claimed a joint First to Find (FTF).  Mr Hg137 knew this bit of Bracknell very well indeed; he used to work at International Stores – the building there now is Avis. And he played Scrabble nearby when East Berks Scrabble Club met at the nearby Met Office building, now demolished.
(Editor’s note: the first geocacher to find a cache after it has been published gets First To Find and the chance to sign an empty log.  Some cachers set great store by this and many a cache is found within minutes of being published, day or night.)

First To Find

Finally, another multicache, another tour of central Bracknell, this time mostly around the Lexicon shopping centre, which was opened a few years ago.  We gathered the coordinates, which confirmed that we need to return to the library – one clue was in the cache name, ‘Quiet Please!’ – another was that the description states that the cache is only available during library opening hours – and a third was that I’d spied on the activities of other cachers in the library during the meet (much sneaking off to one particular area!), so I knew roughly where to look.  Sure enough, we returned to the library and soon found the cache tucked among the books.

The Lexicon

By now, it was nearly lunchtime; time to stop.  It had been a varied morning, with many parts of central Bracknell that I’d not visited before.  Interesting to see how many bits of ‘old’ Bracknell survive among the modern buildings!

January 26 : Sandhurst Village Hall Meet

In the UK, there are many National series that links caches together. One such series is the Village Hall Series where caches are placed near to Village Halls. Information boards at Village Halls lend themselves to providing numbers and many of the Village Hall caches are multis. The first Village Hall cache was placed in Denmead (near Waterlooville, Hampshire) on February 18th 2013.

Since 2018 there has been a celebration of these Village Hall caches with a ‘Village Hall Week’. Cachers are encouraged to place new Village Hall caches, visit existing Village Hall caches or attend a meet (or all three!) during that week.

This year there were several Village Hall meets, and one was at Sandhurst Community Hall about a mile from our home. (Arguably Sandhurst is a town, not a village…and is a ‘community hall’ the same as a ‘village hall’ ?). The meet was at the unusual time of 1030 am. This was fortunate as Mrs Hg137 regularly attends a weekly yoga class between 930 and 1030 and her leaving time coincided with the start of the meet in the car park.

Mr Hg137 walked to the venue and arrived shortly before 1030. there were already 6-10 cachers loitering in the slightly murky, drizzly conditions. As we chatted Mrs Hg137’s yoga class finished and she joined the ever-expanding group of people.

There was much talk of local caches (most of which we had found). We discovered cachers had come from far and wide – at least 2 were an hours drive away from Sandhurst.

The meet lasted until about 1130, though we left shortly after the group photo was taken. Well over 30 people attended, and as one person lightly complained ‘there were more people here at an unsociable time in the rain, than I had for my Village Hall event last night in a warm cosy pub’. That’s cachers for you! Our thanks to cachers VR7 for this photograph of many of the attendees.

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.

December 31 : Trackable : Herisson voyageur / Traveling Hedgehog

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

Herisson voyageur / Traveling Hedgehog

Now, here’s a trackable with a story:  its owners are from Quebec, Canada, where, incidentally, there are no native hedgehogs.   But – however it got there – it started its journey in July 2018 on the other side of North America in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, California.  After looking round the city for a couple of days, it was off east to Denver, Colorado, then to near Detroit, Michigan, where it travelled around until about the end of the year.   After visiting several travel bug hotels, it reached Miami in August 2019.  

There’s a bit of a gap after that – a pandemic lockdown and travel ban, maybe? – but by May 2020 it had crossed the Atlantic and reached, Kent, England.   It stayed there briefly, went to Sussex, also briefly, and then went north to Lincolnshire where it seems to have visited nearly every geocache in the county!  This took it until May 2021, when it moved south a few miles, changed cachers and set off around Norfolk for the summer.

It went quiet for a bit after that, but in October 2021 it set off south again to arrive in Fleet, Hampshire in November 2021, finally making its way to a cacher’s flash mob in nearby Aldershot on New Year’s Eve.

That is a varied 15,000 mile journey, well fulfilling its mission of:
… “This hedgehog is very curious. He wants to travel around the world and see amazing scenery. One day he will return to Quebec.” ...

Good luck, little hedgehog, and we’ll find some hedgie/herisson-related places for you to visit before we move you on.

December 31 : End of Year Meet, and a puzzle cache

Over the festive period. there had been many caching events undertaken which were local to us. We chose to attend the outdoor End of Year meet in a park in Aldershot.

Aldershot Park

The meet was due to start at 930 and last 30 minutes. We parked up at 915, thinking ‘if no-ones here yet, we can put on our boots and sit in the car’. We needn’t have worried. As we manoeuvred the car into a space at least 3 cachers were striding to the allocated ‘meet area’.

The ‘meet area’ description had suffered a predictive text error when the cache was loaded on http://www.geocaching.com. Instead of ‘meet at the picnic tables’, the text had been changed to ‘meet at the panic tables’. This formed the focus of the first few minutes chat!

Chatting about caches, waiting for catches!

As more and more people arrived, the conversations ranged from ‘What tools do I need to grab a cache under the M27 ?” to “when we were in Dubai over Christmas, the first cache we found was not at the Burj Khalifa but a concrete multi-storey car park”.

Cacher’s meets are great places to find and swap trackables and the event organiser had clearly acquired a few trackables in recent weeks. There must have been a dozen or so to check, examine, and hopefully move on.

A tin of trackables

Eventually (an hour later), we made our farewells and left to find an actual cache container.

We had solved a puzzle cache in the days leading up to the event, and the final hiding place was about 1/2 a mile away. Sadly for us, it was closer to the River Blackwater, which after recent rainfall was quite full, and neighbouring fields were, to put it mildly, a little soggy.

Muddy footpaths, flooded fields

We sploshed and slid our way to the cache’s hiding place, and after a few minutes retrieved a film canister. Our final cache of 2021!

In fairness, we were going to try finding another cache, but after walking some distance along the river bank, we discovered a flooded field protecting the cache. We will wait until the fields dry out before attempting it again.

A great way to spend a morning, chatting with like-minded people and finding a cache too!

October 22 : Trackable : From Venice with Love

On October 22, we attended a cacher’s meet in Farnborough. These meets provide an ideal opportunity for cachers to swap or move on any trackables they have. We had one, which had a mission to be placed in a cache near Cheddar Gorge, and the South-West caching couple of Lydford Locators took the trackable and would move it Swindon-way.

From Venice With Love

In return we collected a trackable called ‘From Venice with Love’.

Back in 2017, it was a beautiful heart shape with a Venetian scene.

The original From Venice With Love

Sadly less than a year into its geocaching travels the heart was replaced by an advertising plate.

Despite this, the trackable has racked up nearly 25000 in 4 years, visiting the far West of America and Canada and visiting many European countries including the Canaries, France, Germany, Switzerland and Hungary. Prior to us collecting the trackable at the Farnborough meet, it had been to London, North Wales and Cyprus!

We will of course move it on – the question is, to what sort of cache ? One that is near a canal (simulating Venice), or near a bridge (simulating the Rialto) ? Whatever happens we shall have fun trying to find a good location.

October 22 : Crazy Caching in Cove (Farnborough)

A rare Friday’s caching trip for us which should have finished by attending a Cacher’s Meet in Farnborough.

Just 5 caches to find, a couple though were unusual and we weren’t confident of a quick find at either.

The morning started with us collecting numbers for a multi-cache. 8 Waypoints and 11 numbers to find. Somewhat unusually the cache owner hadn’t exclusively used numbers to generate the final coordinates.  They had used the letter ‘O’ as a zero, the letter ‘I’ to be a 1, and in one rare case, the letter ‘V’ as a Roman numeral. All very unusual, and we had no degree of confidence of calculating the final numbers correctly.

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Write down letters and numbers from the signs…

We could see the route of the waypoints on www.geocaching.com , and we decided to attempt the two unusual caches as we progressed around the waypoints.

The first unusual cache was a test of technology. A puzzle cache, with no information on the cache page. Just the title ‘it may be a bit wiffy round here’. On reading the finder’s logs, we had an inkling as to what was required … stand at the published coordinates, and wait for something to happen. Being a puzzle cache, this blog won’t tell you any more, but once the title of the cache is interpreted in a different way… final coordinates are yielded.

 We walked on, through tree lined residential roads, collecting waypoints, and omitting two standard caches we intended to collect on our return. With a couple of waypoints left to collect, we arrived at the second unusual cache.

We were told to bring a cross-headed screwdriver, some tweezers, and solve a three-part 3-D multi-part puzzle.

Let’s hope the police don’t see us !

The screwdriver was used first, and a metal plate was removed from a wooden post. This revealed an oblong hole from which we were able to pull out a camo bag, and remove the puzzle from a coded padlock for further investigation.

Across the road was a church, and some seats in its remembrance garden. We took the puzzle there and realised what we had to do. It was a maze, but the pointer/cursor was hidden within the outer covering of the maze, and using logic/guesswork we had to manipulate the container around the pointer/cursor until the maze had been exited. We’ve seen a couple of these mazes before and set about it, with a bit too much gusto.

A peaceful seat…great for some unpeaceful puzzle solving!

Within minutes we had somehow moved the maze into a pathway from which we couldn’t escape. We could wiggle the maze along a few paths, but couldn’t escape. What had we done wrong ? We drank some coffee, and twisted and turned the maze for well over an hour before conceding defeat.

We hadn’t opened the first part of the puzzle, and hadn’t reached parts 2 and 3!

Time was pressing, and we still had to find the multi, two standard caches and walk back to the car. We hastily re-padlocked and re-packaged the maze cache inside the camo bag – we couldn’t fully close it as we couldn’t reset the the maze. We then pushed the bag back through its hole, screwed back the plate and walked away, frustrated.

Grr!

Our note taking (sorry Mr Hg137’s notetaking) for the multi was found wanting and we were one number short. Using a bit of logic, and some arithmetic, we calculated 4 different possible locations for the final hiding place of the multi. Only one of these seemed close enough, we walked there and found the cache quite easily. This brightened our mood considerably.

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Time was ticking ever faster for us to attend the meet and we had two standard caches to find on the way back to the car. The first gave us most trouble (in fairness, we searched the first tree we saw, rather than watch the GPS guide us to the correct one). The second a very quick find by a road sign.

So 4 caches out of 5 and just an annoying maze stopped us collecting a clean sweep.

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The Tilly Shilling, and its history

We drove to the centre of Farnborough, walked the car and walked into the pub, The Tilly Shilling. It was heaving ! Well over 100 people! But where were the cachers ? We both walked around the pub and saw no-one we recognised. (We’ve only attended 7 local meets, the last being in April 2019, so our cacher recognition skills were a little rusty) .

We stood at the bar, musing. Then out of the corner of eye, at the far end of the pub, we saw some people arriving who were met as long lost friends. They were also brandishing a toy sword…they had to be cachers surely ?

Would you enter a pub carrying this ?

They were.. and we joined about 15 other cachers spread across 3 tables. We ordered food, and chatted about caches found, new caches etc.. The sword turned out to be a trackable, which had been brought along to give a a cacher who had ‘pirate’ in their caching name (‘bikepirate’).

It became apparent that 4 of the cachers were going to leave the pub after the meet and head for..the maze cache that we had failed miserably at just an hour previously!

We gobbled our lunch and followed them back to the maze cache location.

A group of 5 had arrived at the post. Each of them armed with a screwdriver. They had removed the plate, but couldn’t reach the camo bag. We had somehow placed it the wrong way round, and it couldn’t be threaded back through the hole. (Whoops!).

To resolve this, one of the lighter, thinner ladies was lifted above the fence line, and she pulled the camo bag over for the maze to collected.

We  watched as the maze was passed from one person to another. The maze was not revealing its secrets. Two other cachers arrived and then another two. We now had a group of 9 adults, mostly aged well over 50, and probably closer to 70. Each armed with a screwdriver and tweezers. Everyone took turns to twiddle the annoying bit of plastic. Eventually the maze was passed to a lady, Sandra, one half of the Lydford Locators caching couple, who with great dexterity resolved the maze !

Inside the maze….was a second maze! A much easier maze…and inside that…a third very easy maze! Sandra solved these last 2 mazes in no time. Inside the third was the log book which all 9 of us signed.

Amazing – one person does all the work, the rest sign the log!

Sandra, who by now, had her eye in then twisted and turned the mazes so that the final container would close.  Except it didn’t. While she was rectifying her mistake, a 10^th cacher appeared, and all 3 mazes were reopened for her  to sign the log.  This time the mazes were repacked correctly, and the whole puzzle was re-padlocked (properly) and fed through the hole (properly) before an army of screwdrivers were used to replace the plate.

Phew !

We spent 2 man hours in the morning at this cache, and there was at least 9 man hours after lunch so 11 man hours were expended…to sign a piece of paper.

Definitely a crazy caching trip in Cove!

Footnote : the cache was called “Princess Jazzy Wazzy” named in honour of the cache owner’s cat Jasmin.

The cache owner had written on the cache page, that if a cacher took a photo of Jasmin, there would be a small prize. During our second visit at the cache site, and unbeknownst to the other cachers…we saw and photographed Jasmin…and won a £10 voucher. Who say ca-T-ching doesn’t pay!

Jasmin

June 6 : Non-physical geocaches

In our previous blog we talked about ‘physical’ geocaches, ie containers that have to be found, opened, and signed.

However there are non-physical geocaches too, of which we have ‘found’ three different types.

Firstly, meets. These could small-ish gatherings in a pub, perhaps a flash mob (though these are currently not allowed by http://www.geocaching.com), or perhaps a much larger event (Megas) where in excess of 500 people attend. There will be stalls selling geocaching gadgets, perhaps live events too. To accompany the larger events new (physical) caches will have set which means much of the surrounding countryside is swarming with geocachers!

Bicton Park – home of 2017 Devon Mega

Geolympix banner

The second sort of non-physical cache is a virtual cache. For some years, no new virtuals were allowed to be set, but there are a few more to be found recently. These are typically in a busy, ‘touristy’ location where there is something notable to see. To claim the virtual, the geocacher typically has to stand at Ground Zero, and write a message to the cache owner answering a few questions about the notable object or its general vicinity. The information may be on a noticeboard, the colour of a nearby object, or perhaps a date. Many virtuals require photographic evidence that you were actually there! We have so far found 9 virtuals ranging from a Paddington Bear statue, to one on the Liverpool Dockside to one in a Imber, a Ghost (Army controlled) Village on Salisbury Plain.

Paddington – and lots of friends

Then there are Earthcaches.
These tend to be more involved, and often seem like a geography or geology exam.
Many earth cache owners, provide a lengthy preamble in the cache description perhaps describing how different rocks form, or different types of erosion. To log a find involves looking at an object, frequently natural like a rock face, or sometimes man-made like a statue, and answering questions. Typically the answer is documented, or at least partially documented in the preamble. Again, some times the cache owners require a photo as proof of attendance. Some cache owners often require a measurement, or at least a guess. (How high is the rocky outcrop ? How wide is the river at its narrowest point ?)

Finding an Earthcache

EarthCache

For most of the caches above, we had to email our answers to the cache owner prior to claiming a find. The cache owner will confirm the answers before the find can be logged formally.

There are other ‘non physical’ cache types too, the most interesting is probably a ‘webcam’ cache.
Webcams are everywhere, and one of the most famous locations is the Abbey Road Zebra Crossing. The webcam captures, and uploads to the internet, people in the vicinity, and on, the zebra crossing. To claim a find, the cacher must stand on the crossing, be photographed by the webcam, and then upload the web picture to the geocaching website. Not easy – but fun !

April 10 : Trackable – Get A Grip !

At the Farnborough meet there was the customary pile of trackables and geocoins to be admired and moved on. Amongst the pile GET A GRIP! caught our eye.

GET A GRIP!

It was a small pair of grips or pliers, perfectly functional as a tool! Attached to it was laminated piece card stating that the trackable was in a race from Nottingham US to Nottingham UK. We knew we would be in Leicester (just 30 miles from Nottingham UK) over Easter so it seemed right we should take it.

When we got home, we discovered it had reached Nottingham many years ago!

Originally, back in 2011, it left Nottingham US (New Hampshire) bound for the UK in a trackable race. Before it reached Europe it travelled through some the Easternmost states in the US before leaving Florida in August 2012. It then went to Germany in Europe until March 2015 ! Eventually the grips made it to England but took a long route to Nottingham.. via South Wales!

After 8 months in the UK, the pair of grips made it to Nottingham…but its target cache had been disabled! It was placed in a nearby cache as a substitute. It is not clear whether this trackable won the race, or which other trackables it was competing against..but reaching the destination city is no mean feat.

Since reaching Nottingham it has travelled extensively in the UK, not helped by people believing it still needs to go to Nottingham! It has though visited Scotland and Marrakesh in Morocco!

We’ve emailed the trackable owner and the grips have a new mission… to travel the world.. perhaps Egypt? Italy? Japan? Australia? Here’s hoping it has further GRIPping adventures!

April 10 : Farnborough cacher’s meet

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

Plough and Horses, Cove, Farnborough

When did we last attend a geocacher’s meet? We thought about it, and it had been a while, years, Leap Year Day 2016. We’d noticed that there was a meet coming to a place near us, the Plough and Horses at Cove, Farnborough. A little bit of research showed us that there were two Church Micro multicaches very close to the pub. As we didn’t fancy an extended search of a graveyard later on, in failing light, and so we didn’t get lost, searching fruitlessly in the dark, we also did a daytime recce of the area, spotted the pub, and collected all the information we needed to find the caches later.

Early in the evening, we returned to Cove, and stopped a little way short of the pub, to look for the Church Micro based on St. John the Baptist. We parked near a parade of shops, then walked off a little way to wait for a gap in the dog walkers and joggers to dive, hopefully unsuspiciously, behind a tree to find the cache: our research was correct.

St John the Baptist, Cove, Farnbourough

From there it wasn’t far to the pub. There were no spaces in the car park: that was a good sign. We went in, past the group of people watching football on a big screen in the bar, to a dining area at the rear. It was FULL of cachers, some we recognised, and some new to us. We were greeted by the organiser, Reggiecat, and signed the attendance log to claim our cache find. After getting drinks and a bowl of chips to share, we joined a table, to have a chat to Woking Wonders (we’ve done lots of their caches, many of them Church Micros) and DTJM (we’d done one of their caches earlier that evening). JJEF was there, to showcase his fiendishly clever wooden caches (take a look at them here https://www.quirkycaches.co.uk/apps/webstore/products )

Buzio, a cacher new to us, stood up and gave a short talk on caching in Myanmar. Those at our table joined in with tales of derring do, including, I think, a story about setting sail on the Thames dressed as a pirate to find a cache on an island. The pirate costume was a disguise as it was ‘Children in Need’ weekend – at least I think that’s the excuse that was given! Adam Redshaw turned up, accompanied by Tabzcake and Barry the very well-behaved geodog. Adam publishes a geocaching magazine and does loads of other caching related stuff http://www.ukcachemag.com/

Anyway, enough caching name-dropping, we still had one more cache to find, so we said our goodbyes and left. It was pretty dark now, a good cover to find our second Church Micro of the day (Cove – Baptist), hidden in some street furniture. … No-one spotted us …

A good evening – pleasant company – great stories.

Here are two Church Micro caches, against bland backgrounds, for anonymity.