October 21 : Trackable : Bertie

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

Bertie

This trackable set off from a spot near Loch Fyne in Scotland, in November 2019.  

Its mission:
I would like to return to where I was born – East Ham, London.
(presumably that refers to the owner, Beachcomber75, not the trackable!)

There was near disaster after only 3 months when a log entry read … “Hi accidentally dropped this when caching” … but the next log, a month later, said …” Found it in my car will drop off soon” …   After 6 months in a remote cache, it moved south to Glasgow, and by the end of 2020 it had reached southern Scotland.    By mid-2022 it was still going hither and thither around Scotland, not especially heading for London, and there was then a brief trip to Stockholm.    On its return, it was placed in a Travel Bug Hotel (FYI: a larger geocache intended to allow the easy swapping of trackables/travel bugs) near Edinburgh Airport and within a few days it had travelled to Auckland, New Zealand.   Hmm, this ‘go to London’ thing isn’t working so well!    Luckily, it was back in Scotland quite soon, and by the end of 2022 it had been dropped in Sussex (phew, England, getting closer to London now).   It spent the summer of 2023 touring the south coast of England, and finally, in October 2023, was dropped off in Berkshire (the end nearer London), where we found it.  The trackable is now as close to London as it has (probably) ever been, so we will devise a way of moving it closer still.

August 11 : Trackable : Ezra the Eagle

One of the 4 trackables we found on our walk to Saunderton was Ezra the Eagle, though in our opinion looks more like an owl than eagle.

Ezra the Eagle

It was issued by Mountain Warehouse in 2017. Mountain Warehouse issued 4 trackables that year : Meryl Sheep, Jimmy Talon, Moose Willis and Ezra. (Presumably each Mountain Warehouse store must have their own stock of each). The trackables were part of a marketing campaign and owners of the trackables were invited to take pictures of their creature, post them to a social media account run by Mountain Warehouse. The best picture would win 2 flights to anywhere in the world and there lots more worthwhile prizes too.

We suspect Ezra didn’t win!

Despite flying around since 2017, and clocking up 14,000 miles, Ezra hasn’t travelled that far. It started its journey in Scotland, visiting the mountains and eyries Scotland is famous for, A brief tour of North East England, before criss-crossing England’s central belt primarily between Birmingham and Manchester. A brief sortie to Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Portugal, before reaching Southern England (Oxford area and South Coast).

Its aim – to fly up hills and mountains – which will be a great help to us as we further conquer the ups and downs of the Ridgeway.

September – a look around Edinburgh

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

Edinburgh was such an interesting place that we took many, many photos during the few days we were there. Here is just a small selection that didn’t make it into other posts.

Edinburgh Castle at night

Keys to Edinburgh Castle

1 o’clock gun, Edinburgh Castle

Heart of Midlothian

Greyfriars Kirkyard

Scottish Parliament

Edinburgh, Calton Hill

Arthur’s Seat

Port of Leith

Leith

September 12/13 – The end of a Scottish Trip

We said goodbye to the calmness of Cramond, and the elegance of Edinburgh and hello to

BIG, BRASH, BUSTLING… BLACKPOOL !

We stayed overnight on the 12th, with the primary objective of seeing the Blackpool Illimunations and wandering around Blackpool (i.e caching) on the morning of the 13th prior to journeying home.

Blackpool was a ultra-sensory experience. The lights of the Illuminations, hotel neon signs and white car lights formed the overriding experience. Overlaying this was the sound of people screaming on funfair rides, clanking trams, and clip-clop of horse rides… and then the aroma of fish and chips, burgers, onions…

Blackpool Illuminations

Everyone seemed to be in Blackpool, not just to see the Illuminations but one of the heats of the World Fireworks Competition. We ambled along the promenade from the South Pier (Blackpool has 3 Piers!) past the Central Pier to the Comedy Carpet, on which a puzzle cache has been set.

Comedy Carpet

Ed: if you can’t read the text, click the image to enlarge and then try to read ALL the catchphrases listed! We can’t!

Our brains were addled, and we decided we knew less comedy than we realised so retired back to our hotel.

The following day we returned to the Comedy Carpet and went up the Blackpool Tower (315ft) to see commanding views…. of sea mist! (Yep, that’s 3 days in a row!). A great experience though, and one can imagine on a clear crisp day what a fantastic panorama one would get.

Misty view from near the top of the Tower!

We had already found our first cache of the day (underneath South Pier), and took a shorter route back to the hotel car park by picking up the Tangerine Trail of caches. These caches were set in remembrance of the Famous Footballers who played and managed Blackpool Town (aka “The Tangerines”). Each cache gave a potted history of a player/manager and it included the likes of World Cup Winner Alan Ball, as well as Jimmy Armfield. I know many people are not Football fans, but the series did highlight how a cache series can be used to educate on more diverse subject matter than the Natural World.

Jimmy Armfield

So our mini-tour of Britain came to an end, caching in a range of environments from Service Stations to Football Grounds, from Islands to Castles and with a couple of ‘political’ caches and Earth caches thrown in too.. What a week!

September 12 – Seattle Ferry Travel tag

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here again.

Seattle Ferry Travel Tag

In two of the three caches on Cramond island in the Firth of Forth, we found trackables. Both started off in the USA and I surmise that they were dropped off by the same geocacher (they were – I’ve checked).

The second trackable was ‘Seattle Ferry Travel Tag’. This trackable set off from Oregon in 2012 and wants to travel around by ferry. Once again, we haven’t been able to oblige so far – there aren’t many ferries at all near where we live – but at least the trackable has had a memorable time in Scotland.

September 12 – Celeste

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

Celeste

In two of the three caches on Cramond island in the Firth of Forth, we found trackables. Both started off in the USA and I surmise that they were dropped off by the same geocacher.

The first trackable was ‘Celeste’. Her mission is to visit Hawaii, South America, China and India. Hmm, she’s a little way off course! And here’s the story of how Celeste came to be a trackable on a small island in Scotland:

… “This hitchhiker was found in a cache in Reno, Nevada by our 8 year old daughter, Rachael. The second she laid her hands on it, she said she wanted it to become a Travel Bug.

On the way home, Rachael decided that the dolls name should be Celeste but couldn’t decide where she wanted Celeste to travel to. We talked about ideas for a while but when she got home, she immediately went to her spinning globe in her room. After spinning it, she stopped it randomly with her finger and what she was pointing to was a destination.

There was no waiting to get this done. No sooner had I stepped out of our truck when Rachael asked when the travel tag would go on her. I went straight to the drill press to install a hole. We had several traveling tags to choose from and Rachael thought it would be a good idea to use the Nevada State Flag so that everyone would know where Celeste was from. “ …

I’m not sure we can manage anywhere as exotic as Hawaii, but we’ll try to find somewhere suitable for Celeste’s next adventure.

September 12 – Edinburgh Day 4 (Cramond Island)

Something a bit different to finish our expedition in the Edinburgh Area.

Cramond Island

Situated a few miles North West of Edinburgh, Cramond Island is accessible twice a day for two hours either side of each low tide. We had researched the tide times before we left home, and low tide was late morning so provided we had left the island by 1pm ish we should be alright.

The island is about a mile offshore reached by a raised concrete causeway. Even at low tide this can be slippery! Concrete pylons run parallel to the causeway path – these were used as a submarine defence boom during WWII.

The Causeway

We were expecting a very ‘natural’ island but scattered about it are the remnants of WWII fortifications built to prevent enemy warships attacking the Firth of Forth.

Island Fortifications

When we crossed, we passed two ladies who had clearly camped overnight (i.e at HIGH tide), and for a while we thought we had the 19 acre island to ourselves. But as our visit went on, we were aware of more and more people on the island or indeed crossing the causeway to visit.

Looking back at the mainland.. cracking campsite!

We would have loved to have seen great views across the Firth, but like our previous day, low mist prevented us from getting a good view. Still the low mist, and a nearby ship’s foghorn, added to the eerie atmosphere that a deserted island brings.

Why were we there ? Because there were 3 standard geocaches, and an Earth cache to find. The Earth Cache was based on the causeway, and focussed not on geology but how tides work.

Two of the three standard caches were hidden in the concrete rubble of the WWII buildings – the other under a rock in relatively plain view of muggles as they stepped onto the island.

What a great log book!

We walked back from the island in good time, content in finding all 4 caches and 2 trackables! Our next destination would be much, much noisier… Blackpool – to see the Blackpool Illuminations!

September 11 – Edinburgh Day 3 (Leith)

HMY Britannia

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here again.

After the exertions of yesterday it was to be a slightly quieter day. We wanted to see the Royal Yacht Britannia, which is now permanently moored at Leith, the port of Edinburgh, so we jumped into the geocar and took a slightly wayward route across northern Edinburgh to arrive at the docks. It was a grey, misty morning and the tops of the fancy new dockside apartments were disappearing into the clouds.

HMY Britannia is a fascinating place to visit and a whole morning sped by while we inspected state rooms, engine rooms, and royal bedrooms, including an extended elevenses in the tea-room on board; though a little pricy, this delivered everything that should be expected – an immaculate setting, cheerful, smart, efficient staff, elegant crockery and cutlery, monogrammed napkins …and lemon drizzle cake to die for!

The Queen’s Bedroom

The State Dining Room

A bit different for the crew!

And how the tourists are served!

Close to Britannia’s berth lay the first of our caches for the day ‘MV Windsor Castle’, named after a ship that’s moored around the corner. Mr Hg137 retrieved the cache – a nice easy one – while I acted as a diversion by taking lots of pictures of a nearby Anthony Gormley statue.

Then we were tempted by a 12-stage multicache ‘Leith Old & New’. The sun had broken through the mist by now and we whiled away rather too much time enjoying the Leith waterside (a lovely place) finding all the clues and doing the sums. On our route about Leith waterside we discovered connections with King George IV, Walter Scott, Mary Guise (mother of Mary Queen of Scots) and a beautiful War Memorial.

Part of the Leith War Memorial – can you determine the different trades ?

Then – disaster – the coordinates we had derived seemed wrong and we couldn’t get the geochecker to work (we checked later and our answer was wrong). We couldn’t figure out our mistake, and time was passing, so we gave up on that one. A big shame as we had expended a certain amount of effort collecting our answers.

Another item to cross off our bucket list was a crossing of the Forth Bridge. Neither of us had been across this before. It’s impressive, even in nose-to-tail traffic caused by a breakdown on the bridge itself. Once across, we turned into North Queensferry to inspect the Road Bridge, the Forth Rail Bridge, and the partly constructed new road bridge from the ground. Mr Hg137 started tapping away at his phone and very quickly had the location of a nearby cache to hand. A quick scramble around on the foreshore and we had the cache : it must be quite a wet place to be at a very high tide or in stormy weather, but today was calm and still. And this is yet another record for our most northerly cache!

Large red object=bridge, small white object=geocache!

September 10 – travel bugs on their way

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

While we were visiting the GC10 Edinburgh Castle, it seemed a fine and opportune location to drop off the two trackables we had brought with us, ‘Tag-a-Bondz geocoin’ and ‘Doc Jaunty’s Bug 3’. As this geocache is visited often, we thought they would be picked up soon, as was the case, and they are now safely on their ways. Good luck to them on their journeys!

September 10 Edinburgh Day 2

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

Today it was time for some seriously touristy stuff, along with the geocaches associated with them.

Edinburgh Castle

We started off with a visit to Edinburgh Castle.

It’s the No 1 must-do tourist attraction in Edinburgh/Scotland (and the 2nd in the UK, we’re told) It was VERY busy, but we arrived before 10am and spent 3 hours investigating almost every corner. After watching the 1 o’clock gun being fired (yes, it’s loud!), we headed out into Edinburgh for the first cache of the day, GC10 Edinburgh Castle, at the foot of the castle mound. We spent some while poking around the likely spot and got it in the end. This was one of a series placed to mark the 10th anniversary of geocaching and was to showcase some of the wonders of Britain. (We tried for another in the series a few months back near the concrete cows of Milton Keynes, but it was missing.)

GZ for GC10

Then we moved on, along Grassmarket, to reach Greyfriars Kirkyard, known for paranormal activity but also as the home of ‘Greyfriars Bobby’. There’s a geocache here of the same name, just outside the kirkyard, but it’s hard to search for amongst the crowds of muggles crowded round the statue of the dog and making their way into the kirkyard.

Statue of ‘Greyfriars Bobby’

… A small bit of background here: Greyfriars Bobby was a Skye terrier who became known in 19th century Edinburgh for spending 14 years faithfully guarding the grave of his owner, until his own death at the age of 16 (there are other versions of the story, but this is the most famous). His statue is just outside the Kirkyard, and lots of people touch his nose for luck; it’s very shiny! The Kirkyard itself has had a long reputation for paranormal activity, and this has intensified since the late 1990s when one of the memorials was disturbed. So many incidents happened that part of the Kirkyard is now fenced off, and is only accessible as part of a controlled tour; we did NOT want to meet any poltergeists so we didn’t go on this tour!. … That’s the end of the background information.

Greyfriars Bobby is somewhere in this crowd!

Now for the action of the day, a climb up Arthur’s Seat. We prepared for this by collecting (another) earthcache, ‘Earthscape Scotland’, which can be found just inside ‘Our Dynamic Earth’. Then it was off up the path to Arthur’s Seat, a volcanic hill which rises dramatically above Edinburgh’s skyline, especially looming spectacularly over the Scottish Parliament. It’s only about 800 feet of ascent, with a steady ascent from the road next to Holyrood Palace, and a final steep, rocky section. But we made it to the top … and so had dozens of others. There’s another Earthcache here, ‘Arthur’s Seat’, and we collected the answers to the earthcache questions but had to queue (!) for a photo of us at the trig point. Tiring now, we made our way down along the foot of Salisbury Crags, collecting another cache, ‘Radical Road’, on the way.

Arthur’s Seat

Another day, just 5 caches, but caches of the highest quality.

PS Some of you may think that this post looks familiar – that’s because Mr Hg137 accidentally published my post before it was complete (doh!). It’s now been finished, and polished, and is ready to go.