After a cold, wet start to the month, Friday dawned bright and sunny. We headed off to Aldershot for a morning’s caching on dry (we hoped) pavements.
We found a parking space in a quiet suburban road, and strolled along to our first cache, hidden close to St. Mary’s, the first of four Church Micro caches we would attempt today (Church Micro, or CM geocaches are hidden near churches / chapels / cathedrals, active or redundant. There are just over 15000 in the series, making it the largest geocache series in the world.)
From there, we made our way down the hill towards Aldershot Town FC, catching a brief glimpse of the hallowed turf as we went. In front of the entrance we assembled coordinates to find the cache associated with the club. (Editor’s question: why is turf hallowed, especially football turf?)
Aldershot Town FC
Next it was time for a walk in the park and another cache, in Manor Park. What a popular and busy place on a sparkling morning! Dog walkers, runners, mothers and small children, and folk simply taking the air. After a coffee break, watching the ducks and seagulls going about their lives in the pond, we moved on to visit a curry house – not literally, as Mr Hg137 isn’t a curry fan (but I am!) – but instead, to work out the coordinates for yet another cache. This one is part of the Curry Micro series, which started in Brighton and is now spreading across the South of England and beyond.
Incy Wincy Spider, hiding in a hole
We moved on to the most inventive cache of the day, named Incy Wincy Spider. Part way there, we read the cache description and realised we hadn’t got the correct equipment, for this one required us to pour water into a container to make the cache float to the top, and we had no water with us … oops. Fortuitously, we passed an abandoned, half-drunk bottle of water, and took it with us. It turned out not to be enough water … oops again. Plan B – a thin stick – was deployed, and the cache extracted. It was a fun few minutes of problem-solving; luckily we were tucked away along a quiet path between hedges and no-one was watching our efforts.
We circled suburban southern Aldershot, completing the morning’s walk with three more Church Micro caches. Two of the churches supplied us with the coordinates for geocaches, but the third didn’t (it hadn’t been found for a while and is now awaiting attention from the owner). And by now, it was nearly lunchtime and we’d made our way back to the geocar in the sunshine, having visited many a place to pass the time – football grounds, parks, restaurants, and a goodly selection of places of worship – something to satisfy both body and soul!
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!
A new-ish series had been placed around Yateley Lakes. This is an area we have walked and cached several times. It seems a popular place for a cache owner to place a few caches, leave them in place for a couple of years and then remove them, allowing the space for other caches to be placed.
We had previously found two of the Yateley Lakes caches in 2018 and 2021, but now there were another 10 to find.
The River Blackwater runs parallel to the Lakes, and perhaps it was not a good idea to undertake a series so close to a river and lakes the day after 2/3 of an inch had fallen. Hindsight is wonderful.
Alarm bells started to ring as we drove to the car park near cache 1. Farmers’ fields were awash and the water was flowing from the fields across the road. As we approached the car park we saw a sign saying it would closed the following day, but it was padlocked shut today as well.
One of the drier road sections!
We had one other alternative, to drive back through the flooded roads, to another car park. This one was closer to cache 12. As we approached the car park the roads were even wetter as roadside ditches had overspilled their banks. We also noted that 3 caches we were due to find were along this flooded section.
We decided to start the route, and would abandon if the riverside paths were too submerged. We also decided to miss the caches near the flooded road section.
The caches were set by local cachers VR7, who are frequently devious in their choice of containers and hiding place. Given that Yateley Laeks is a popular area for walking, this is no bad thing – it just meant we wouldn’t have any ‘quick finds’. We also had a 5 stage ad lab to complete, though we noted a couple of the sections were closer to the flooded road, so again we decided to move these stages to a subsequent visit.
View from inside a bird hide
Surprisingly the paths around the Lakes were easy to walk around. A couple of large puddles here and there, and one very long muddy section where we had to navigate by and avoid the nearby barbed wire. Otherwise our sturdy walking boots were ideal.
As we expected the caches were ‘devious’. Sometimes the hints were misleading – “I’m next to a Multi-Trunked Tree” was one such hint. The GPS led us to a large tree where the cache would have been placed by most other owners. VR7 had put the cache next to a much, much smaller tree about a yard away! We spend ages here as we did at several other caches.
The ad lab stages were far simpler, a quick question – sometimes involving counting, other times noting names from a memorial bench.
Lots of information boards – useful for ad lab stages
Soon we were approaching the lowered numbered caches and we saw a couple walking towards us. They had parked in the car park which we thought was locked. It was, but it is generally unlocked from 930… we were there at 920! The approach to the car park from the River Blackwater is along a footpath on one side, a hedge in the middle, and a bridleway on the other. The caches we had to find were invariably on the wrong side of the hedge, so some backtracking was needed.
We were surprised to see a birdbox close to cache 1, and assumed this to be the cache. It wasn’t and a bird flew away as we approached. We are sure many other cachers would make the same mistake, and the cache owner has changed the hint, so that the birdbox is ignored.
Sadly the route is not totally circular – and we headed back to cache 12 taking one diversion to cache 7 (the easiest cache of the day) situated partway between 2 lakes.
With hindsight we could have completed the series, but we had mentally said ‘park the rest for when the conditions are drier’, so we drove back, through the slightly dropping water levels back home.
Binfield is a small village/town, a little like Sandhurst, which is part of Bracknell. A new-ish series had been placed on the footpaths and tracks to the North of the Village. The series owner, GilDean, lives in Binfield, hence the name ‘Home Turf’. But, this was a puzzle series too.
Every cache name was an anagram of a film star, some current, some from former times. Not being film buffs, we had to work hard at each anagram as the brief film role biography was occasionally alien to us. Examples of the anagrams included BARRELED TRUG, YUMA RECALLING and MONKS HAT (Answers at the end of the blog). Having solved the anagram we then had to ascertain a key date in that person’s life, and use the digits from the date to derive coordinates. There were 21 caches in the series, so quite a lot of anagramming and googling before we even found a geocache.
Parking in Binfield is limited, so we parked in a residential street, and were greeted by… Mr Potato Head!
Apparently over the next week, Binfield would host a scarecrow competition/walking trail. Residents were invited to place a decorated scarecrow, near their property. We saw a couple of scarecrows as we left the car, several others as we approached the centre of Binfield, and also when we returned to the car much later. A lot of ingenuity and fun – well done Binfield.
As for the caching we found cache 1, quite easily, though there were several metallic places a ‘magnetic’ item could have been placed. We took a short diversion to the village centre to find our only non-‘Home-Turf cache of the day, before resuming the film star series.
Saturday morning is clearly dog walking time, and the first few caches were placed near a popular dog-walking route. Stealth was definitely needed as we retrieved magnet caches from signs. hanging bison-caches from trees, and one we never did retrieve as it was wedged behind some broken concrete. When we mentioned this to the cache owner he granted us the find, as the cache was impossible to retrieve, mainly due to the over-zealous placing by a previous finder. There was one other cache we couldn’t find, and this was due to a footpath gate being temporarily closed and access to the cache was impossible. Again the cache owner granted us a find. Thank you GilDean!
The dog-walkers became scarcer as we headed further away from the village, climbing slowly up a muddy track. Caches were placed at regular intervals and one was placed near to a seat, exactly half-way round the route. How convenient and thoughtful!
Most of the caches were quite small, but a couple of the caches were big enough for trackables, and we dropped off two, Ezra the Eagle and Polly the Parrot and found another two to replace them.
Most of the caching trail was on footpaths or tracks, but there was a short section of road, with a surprising amount of traffic. There were caches on this section too, and stepping away from the traffic to hunt for a cache behind a tree, provided welcome respite.
As we turned away from the major road, and onto a minor road, two horses went by. We were accused of startling the horses! We still don’t know why ! The minor road was close to Billingbear Polo Club and it was here a polo ball had been used as a cache container. (About a year previously we had undertaken the Oh Balls series, by the same setter, and we suspect this cache container may have been left over from that route). Mr Hg137 jumped over a ditch, collected the cache, and threw the ball to Mrs Hg137 to sign the log.
The hint for this cache had specifically stated ‘Be Stealthy and Careful’. A van was parked opposite, with its engine running but had no-one in the cab, we were in in the clear….except….just as Mr Hg137 threw the ball across the ditch, a group of 8 walkers strode round the nearby bend in the road. We nodded to the first seven of the them, giving the appearance that ditch jumping whilst holding a polo ball is a natural thing to do. But the 8th person, said ‘What are you doing here?’ It was our neighbour from home, and we were standing closer to her, than our houses are! Fortunately her walking group had now pulled away, and we never did explain about the ditch, the polo ball and the tiny sheet of paper inside.
Polo Ball Cache
Our route now took us back towards Binfield, crossing fields, and passing isolated houses. A small smattering of caches to find, as this part of the route coincides with another puzzle series and the minimum distance between caches (1/10th of a mile) was being strictly adhered to.
As we skirted round a field, we approached probably the best cache on the circuit. It required more ditch jumping by Mr Hg137 – a bit wider and far more slippery than the polo ball cache, and then a search. We were advised it should have been visible from the field-side, but we couldn’t see it. Eventually Mrs Hg137 crossed over too, and we wandered between trees, looking for the cache. Then we saw it, one of our favourite types, a ‘pulley’ cache. We had to lower some rope to lower the cache. Sign the log, and return the log to its lofty position. Easily done… we even survived the second ditch crossing too!
Pulley Cache
After a cache hide that we really enjoy, came a cache hide we really hate. In ivy. Normally ivy hides take ages, but Mr Hg137 found the cache in what for us was a record time (less than 2 minutes!).
A short walk led us back to the car, pausing to search for our last caches of the day.
A very good route, a great variety of containers, and a little brain exercise beforehand to balance the 4 mile walk in Berkshire Countryside. Thoroughly recommended. Here are a few of the standard caches we found :
PS Did you work out the film star anagrams ? Here are the answers : GERARD BUTLER, CAREY MULLIGAN, TOM HANKS.
After 10 years caching, we have seen many different containers, and of course quite a few film canisters. This though is a selection of some of the more unusual caches we found during 2022. Some of the pictures do appear on our blogs, others are being shown for the first time.
Cryptex cachePick a carrot, any carrotAbsolute banger!WoodhengeArrgghh – SPIDER !!!
The Puzzle Detectives series near Finchampstead was divided into 3 mini-routes of 6 caches. The 6 caches we had left to find were on the Finchampstead/Barkham border. The weather had got very, very hot, and just leaving the house was unbearable, so we waited a few days until the temperature had dropped to a tolerable level.
Like the original puzzles we had to answer simple questions about detective series to ascertain numbers to yield coordinates.
Today’s caches were hidden mainly in an area known as Rook’s Nest Wood and Country Park. The agricultural land was taken over by Wokingham District Council as a SANG (Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace) in 2011 and boasts a myriad of paths, some streams and a pond.
We parked at the car park. One of the caches was near the car park and, with a very specific hint, we knew exactly where to search. Our quick inspection yielded nothing. We couldn’t search for longer as a dog walker returned with her two dogs and was half watching our antics. We left the cache for later.
After some discussion, we chose this path… it was wrong!
Several paths led away from the car park, and we had a minor dispute as to the correct one (we went with Mr Hg137s suggestion, but we later discovered Mrs Hg137 was correct!). As a result we took a slightly longer route than necessary to our next cache. As with all Mikes54 caches, the hints are very exact. All we had to do was find a silver birch and a beech tree and a mini birdbox would be the cache. Silver birches and beeches are easy to spot, but it still took us a bit a time, and the bird box was very small ! We extracted the log, signed it and moved on.
Shady woodland
We walked through woodland which provided some cool cover. Back in the open we followed a stream line, to a ‘lonely post’. Even though there had been little rain, the stream had orange traces, and we wondered why. The cache was attached to the ‘lonely post’, and a quick find.
Why is the stream and pond orange ?
We were heading in the direction of Barkham church, and just before we reached it, we turned through 90 degrees onto another footpath. The path narrowed, and just before a stile a large tree and excellent barkoflage provide the hiding place for our third find of the morning.
Barkham Church
Unfortunately the route is not circular so we returned the same way, taking a minor diversion for some sustenance in the churchyard.
Through the wood again, but this we exited in a different direction. We had two caches to find before reaching the car park. Mr Hg137 had loaded the coordinates in the GPS but had mislabelled the map. We thought we were walking to one cache, but in fact the GPS was saying another was much nearer ! Oops !
So after a quick recalibration of our thoughts, we found the ‘nearer’ cache ! Another bird box ! This one covered in false ivy. A very good hide.
So one more cache before returning to the car park. As we strode on, passing a lake, presumably used by cattle, we were aware of 2 people with dogs behind us. We arrived close to GZ, and pulled out our water bottles. It was beginning to get hot, so this action was not too suspicious. We waited for the dog walkers to go out of sight, before finding the cache.
We crossed a couple of bridges on the way to the Car Park discovering why the streams were an orange colour.
The Car Park was empty, and we had another attempt to find the first cache. This time we widened our search and found the cache quite quickly. We had solved the puzzle some time ago, and the hint had changed, so we had out of date information which explained why we struggled earlier..
So all 18 of the Finchampstead Detective series found over 3 attempts including some clever hides.
New Year had passed, and it was time to get outside and do something other than eating (!) and watching TV. The weather was grey, but OK, so we packed a picnic lunch and set off for a day’s caching, the first of the year, around Crondall, a village in Hampshire, a few miles north-west of Farnham.
We parked in the newly gravelled Village Hall car park – two muggles were working inside the hall and we asked permission to do so. They came to talk to us and were told that the village ‘wasn’t what it used to be’ – we reserved judgement as we’d only just arrived.
After a quick look around and inside All Saints Church, we set off down a muddy footpath between the churchyard and the village primary school, to make a start on the ‘CUIYC 2000th Cache Celebration Series’. (In case you were wondering, it stands for Cache Us If You Can …) After a couple of caches, we emerged into open fields and were climbing gently, with good views back over the village. While signing a cache log, a muggle passed us, with his dog (Barney) some way behind; we were told that Barney knows his own mind and turns for home when he’s had enough; we looked up a little later and there was no sign of either muggle or dog, so we assumed that Barney had decided the walk was over … And, Barney was just the first of the many, many dogs, maybe two dozen in total, that we passed, out for a winter walk with their pet muggles.
Further on, we came to the first truly inventive cache container of the year, based on an animal. A great cache; we learnt later that the caches nearer the village tend to go walkabout from time to time, so they are fairly standard containers, easily replaceable, such as 35mm film pots. Further out in the country the containers are more creative, many based on animals, birds, amphibians and insects (!) We worked our way on around the fields and hedges, finding more caches concealed by assorted wildlife. Another in the series was hidden amid a pile of flints and stones – yes, the cache was a stone – yes, it was also the very last one we picked up!
Part way round, we stopped for lunch – we had been expecting to yomp round the circuit, then have a late and rushed lunch on a seat in the churchyard – but we did better, with a comfy log and a country view.
Apart from the cache circuit, there was a bonus activity, because there was a bonus cache to find at the end of the series. Some of the caches had a letter/number written inside, which could be assembled to make the coordinates of the bonus cache. We had concerns that we might not find all the numbers, as some of the logs were damp or fragile (so we couldn’t see if there was a number) and there was one cache we didn’t find (nope, simply couldn’t spot the cache hidden in a spider!). But all was well, as we assembled enough numbers to come up with a plausible set of coordinates, and navigated ourselves to within a few paces of the cache … so that worked out very well.
Penn Croft Winery, Crondall
Having finished the series, we saw some new farm buildings in the distance, and wondered what they were. Once there, we found out: it was a winery! It was closed for the holidays, so we went off a little way down the lane to find an extra cache, ‘Crondall’s cache’. We wished we hadn’t: the cache hadn’t been found for four months, and the log was then marked as damp: by now it was sopping and way too wet to sign.
This log is far, far too wet to sign!
Fingers dripping slightly, we retraced our steps and returned to the village, soon arriving back at the village hall. This, too had a cache, from the ‘Village Hall Series’, and on our short walk to the cache, we had chance to admire the rest of the Hall, the adjoining playground, cricket pitch, and bowls club. A great asset for the village.
Crondall Village Hall
Once home, caches logged, we considered what those villagers had said – ‘Crondall wasn’t what it used to be’ – and we thought we disagreed. Apart from the well-used church, village hall, and playground, it’s on two bus routes, has a super primary school, a general stores/post office, doctor’s surgery, TWOpubs (few villages still have this), and a Rolls-Royce/Bentley garage (even fewer villages have these!). Hard to say that it’s not a thriving place.
Like many people, we found 2021 an odd year. Lockdowns prevented much travel early on, there was always the threat of further ones as the year progressed. We did manage to find 356 caches mainly in the South of England. We visited the Isles of Scilly and found a few caches there. We even attended a couple of events. This blog received over 5000 views during the year (a new record) and we thank our followers and ‘viewers’ for their comments and likes as the year has progressed.
Here though are our favourite caches, or caching adventures of 2021 – enjoy!
Its not all about the container…its how we found them we enjoyed !Now you see it …… now you don’tOrange
The town of Egham nestles between three major roads, the A30, M3, and M25. It is also close to the River Thames. It hosts a number of geocaches and our plan was to attempt 6 of them.
St John’s, Egham
Perhaps, undertaking urban caches one week before Christmas wasn’t a good idea. Supermarkets would be busy, and townsfolk would be rushing around trying to complete as many pre-Christmas tasks as they could, in the shortest possible time.
We decided to park in a side street a short distance away from the town centre, and avoid the crowds (and car parking fees!). Our first target was ‘Sidetracked Egham’ part of the nationwide series of caches placed near railway stations. This cache met the brief admirably as the station, and its railway crossing was visible from the cache site. We made a slight error here, as the hint alluded to ‘behind’. This should have been taken in context, ie coming from the railway station. We approached from the opposite direction and of course the hint meant nothing. Despite this we found the clever cache quite quickly.
Egham Station
Our next cache was as close to the Town Centre as we got. The cache was hidden in a churchyard. Quite how permission was granted, we don’t know, but this was our second graveyard cache in 2 months. Our problem was the exposed nature of the host, a glorious yew tree.
The church was open, and a nativity play was being rehearsed, and angels and shepherds sat glumly awaiting their moment. The yew tree was close to an intersection of paths used by shoppers and nearby, in plain sight of the cache, were volunteers tidying the graveyard. We grabbed the cache, walked on a few yards, signed the log, and replaced with almost indecent haste.
On the way to the third cache
Our third cache was a puzzle cache based on Shakespearean quotes. Some of the answers were homonyms of numbers e.g ‘WhereFOUR art thou Romeo’. We solved the puzzled relatively quickly by thumbing through our Complete Works of Shakespeare.
A noisy place for a DNF !
To find the cache we retraced our steps to the railway, and headed closer to the M3. We spotted the host quite quickly, but sadly didn’t find the cache. The previous cacher had also DNF’ed the cache, but other finders had remarked on its ‘sneaky’ container. Too sneaky for us.
Our spirits fell even further at the next cache – a tree climb. We were expecting a fairly simple tree climb, as the terrain level for the cache was a 2. Most tree climbs we’ve seen have been 3, 3.5 or higher. We were expecting to climb perhaps 2 branches, reach and grab the cache and move on. This cache though was 15 feet high. The first 2 branches were easy-ish to ascend, but to get to branches 3-6, a slim sylph-like body was needed to squeeze between 2 upright branches. This is easy for a thin, skinny teenager wearing a T shirt in summer, but Mr Hg137’s middle-aged frame combined with several winter layers, made this impossible. Mr Hg137 opted out after the third attempt.
Up there ? Really ?
Our last 2 caches were much closer to the car. The first was odd for a couple of reasons. Many people had struggled with the cache, but in midwinter after leaf-fall the cache was very, very visible. What was also odd, was the location – behind a seat. The seat had no purpose. No view, no bus stop, and the road it was next to didn’t lead to many houses so no need to a halfway-breather-stop-seat.
A seat…but its not clear why its there !
Our final cache was hanging in some street furniture. We arrived at the ‘furniture’ at the same time as another family so Mr Hg137 simulated a phone call as we let them pass. Once they had gone by, we pulled a piece of string to acquire the cache. These caches frequently give us pleasure, as we never know how long the string is, or what the final container will be. We were disappointed at this cache. Waterlogged, dirty and the type of container that gives geocaching a bad impression.
Six caches attempted, four found but a feeling of disappointment as the quality of hides and containers of the last two caches won’t inspire us to return. Sorry Egham.
Our good caching friends W&KdP recently recommended a short cache series to us. It’s in Fleet, comprising six caches plus a bonus.
The series is themed on LOD (Line Of Duty) and, to get the coordinates for the first six caches, you need to solve some online, Line of Duty themed jigsaws – not a problem for us, we like jigsaws. And to get the coordinates for the bonus cache, the coordinate numbers are hidden in the other cache containers. (Should be) simple …
A flurry of jigsaw solving followed and all six jigsaws were duly completed. Some didn’t take long as they did not have many pieces, while others took rather more time.
Armed with six sets of coordinates, we set off for Fleet. Soon we were on the Basingstoke Canal towpath and, a little way along it was our first cache. I’d like to say that it was a simple, triumphant find, but what really happened was that we found the cache, got the mini-container holding the log out of the larger object – then we couldn’t figure out how to open it. By then we’d taken a photo of the cache container and mentally composed a note to the cache owner along the lines of ‘your cache won’t open’. After a bit we gave up, shrugged our shoulders and walked on to caches #2 and #3. At about this time light dawned, and we realised how to open the container (doh!), so we backtracked all the way to #1, got the log out, and signed it. We got there eventually! And that mental note never got sent.
Luckily, the second cache was easy and we’d now amassed two of the six numbers which would make up the bonus cache coordinates. Just before the third cache, we turned away from the canal and set off through woodland beside a small stream. The third cache was a little distance from the path, in tall vegetation. We weren’t sure why till we opened the outer lid and saw that we had a puzzle to solve. What a great cache! We’ve seen similar ideas, but never one quite like this. After only five tries, we got the correct answer and could sign the log. We see now why it was tucked away off the path, you need a bit of quiet time to solve this one.
We found a fourth cache – it was going well – but it all went wrong at cache #5 where we simply couldn’t find the cache, even though we inspected what seemed to be every possible object anywhere near the location. On we went to cache #6 where we found the cache container attached to a ‘thing’ with a smiley face (we smiled, too, but you need to find it yourselves to see what it is!).
Having found five out of six caches, so we had all the numbers, bar one, for the bonus cache. We made some educated guesses and came up with locations some distance away to the east so there was something not correct in our guessing. Nevertheless, we gamely set off, but found our way blocked after a bit, realised our attempt was not going to succeed, and decided to retreat homeward and have a good think about our numbers. Postscript: once home, we found we’d made a simple error (doh! Again). Once that was corrected, we’d solved the bonus. We’ll have to go back and find cache #5 and the bonus another day.
sandhurstgeocachers 