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.

December 29 : Barkham : “on the Dole”

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

On one of the non-raining days between Christmas and New Year, we were out for a short morning caching walk, not too far from home.

 We chose Barkham, within a mile or so of a place I used to work.   The route to our starting point was very familiar indeed, as I’d driven it more than a few times in the past on my daily commute.   (Probably a few thousand times…)

Doles Lane

We ambled slowly along Doles Lane in the sunshine, admiring the Christmas decorations in the adjoining houses.   Doles Lane is tarmacked at both ends, with a track in between, and we thought it would be quiet.    Not quite right!   A nearby road is closed and a few enterprising drivers are using the road/track as a cut-through – some get more than they expected in the puddly, unsurfaced section in the middle.

Squelch!

It seemed as if every possible muggle in the area was also out for a walk/cycle/run in the sun, and we had to confine our cache searching to the short gaps when no-one was passing.   After finding three caches, we reached the end of Doles Lane, skirted the “Road Closed” signs, and followed a path along the edge of Sand Martins Golf Club.   It quickly got muddy – very, very muddy – but we’d read the cache description before leaving home and were wearing walking boots, so we slithered and slid our way to another two caches, while watching the efforts of a less well-prepared dog walker – the dog was having a great time, not so sure about the owner!

Nashgrove Lane

After a bit we crossed a metal bridge and emerged onto Nashgrove Lane.   It’s a quiet lane, another that’s popular with walkers, dogs and cyclists.  Yes it was a very popular morning for a post-Christmas outing.   Soon after I moved to the area, I remember driving the length of this lane, while trying to familiarise myself with all the possible routes to work.   It was a bit … bumpy … and I never drove down there again.  And in 2012 it was closed to cars and a barrier was placed across the road.  We found our final cache of the morning hidden by the barrier, then made our way back across the fields to Doles Lane, and homeward for a turkey, cranberry and stuffing sandwich lunch.   What a nice bit of post-Christmas exercise!

And here are some of the caches we found:

November 19 : Oh Balls! : Knowl Hill and Warren Row

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

For once this November, it had stopped raining.   Seeking a cache series, we spotted an intriguing circular patch of caches just north of the A4 near Knowl Hill.  They were a very, very new series called ‘Oh Balls’, only placed a week earlier.  The cache titles were all anagrams – excellent, we’re (both pretty good) Scrabble players and we like anagrams.  And there were codes and questions to be solved and answered to find the coordinates – even better, we like quizzes and codes (one of us has a degree in hard sums and the other one likes cryptic crosswords).   This was just the thing for us, so we spent a little while solving all the puzzles, asking for a hint on a couple of codes which frustrated us.

The next weekend, we surveyed our list of coordinates, devised a route, and set off to find the caches.  As parking might have been limited near the caches, we started from the former Seven Stars pub on the A4, doing a slightly longer walk, and visiting the caches in an order different from that set out by the cache owners.

And what of the caches?  They won’t be described in detail as that would take away from the fun of others solving, then doing the series.  Enough to say that the name of the series … ‘Oh Balls’ … gives more than a clue as to the various spherical objects forming, or attached to, cache containers.  We thought ‘Oooh, it’s a … very appropriate container’ more than once.

The series is placed in an undulating area on the edge of the Chilterns, mostly wooded, and criss-crossed with footpaths, tracks and bridleways.  The woods sometimes turn to fields and the trees open to give superb views, including a panoramic view over Windsor Castle and further on to distant London.  The woods were popular with walkers and dogs … so many dogs … including some we saw more than once – one, Albie, a French bulldog, made two determined efforts to steal our sandwiches!

Apart from the dogs and the dog walkers, there were walkers, horses and riders, and runners.   And we met a monk (a monk ??!?) … a man in a full-length grey habit, with a cowl.   We exchanged a greeting and he walked on.   And then we wondered: why was he there and where was he going?  And even: was he a ghost?   But he looked solid enough and was wearing a down jacket over his habit (we don’t think a ghost would feel the cold and need a jacket).  Oh, how we wished we’d taken pictures, but we didn’t, we were nonplussed.

Also on our travels, we met some cachers, not just one, but four (and a geodog) all at once.  This is a rare thing for us – excluding planned meetings, we’ve only met around 50 cachers ‘in the wild’ in 10 years.   Two of them were the cache owners, GilDean, and we were looking out for them as they said they might be out checking their caches.  The other two were unexpected: mikes54, who we’ve met before, and hartk001, with whom we’ve exchanged many a cryptic message over a troublesome cache.   Nice to meet all of you again, or in person!

And so we walked through the woods, stopping for views and caches (and an occasional coffee or sandwich), showing one cache to a muggle (non-cacher) who asked us what we were doing, and generally having a pleasant time.   The rather grey morning had gradually turned into a cool, clear, and sunny day and it was a pleasure to be out and walking.  Eventually the light began to fade and we headed off homeward, having found the twenty caches plus bonus cache in the series, and two others that happened to be near our route.  What a great series, and what a lovely day to be out caching!

After we got home, we settled down to log all those caches, and we began to wonder:  just where had the cache owners acquired all those balls that had so fittingly adorned the series?   The answer came the next day in a message from mikes54, who we had met that day.  It said:

… “Well, a few came from me actually…
Coloured ball is the dogs old Chuckit ball. There were two of those.
Red ball is the one I used to play Racketball with.
Golf balls came from my sons practice bag, so did the lightweight plastic practice golf balls.
Tennis balls came from the dogs collection, she finds them outside on walks.
The rest came from the Cache Owner’s collection. “…

Our curiosity was satisfied!

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.

January 3 : Crondall

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

All Saints Church, Crondall

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, TWO pubs (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.

Here are some of the caches we found:

April 24 : Ankerwycke and Magna Carta

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

Ankerwycke … a historic place.  On the northern bank of the River Thames, just downstream from Windsor, it lies just over the river from Runnymede.  It’s a landscape of trees and meadows, under the care of the National Trust.  Scattered around the area, is a series of fourteen geocaches, ‘Ankerwycke Priory’,  placed in September 2020 by Amberel, an experienced and respected local cacher.   Lockdowns, travel restrictions, winter flooding, and life in general had prevented us from visiting until now. 

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On a beautifully bright April morning, we arrived early at the little National Trust car park and set out into the fields.   We found the first three caches in the series very quickly; all were where the GPS said they should be (though we weren’t always convinced till we spotted them), a good size (big enough for the Lego cards we were dropping off), and in good condition (no sopping wet logs here, or cache containers to bail out).

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  RAF memorial in the distance

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As we walked across the level fields, the views opened out to the RAF memorial atop the hill on the other side of the river.   Crossing a streamlet, we arrived at an impressive double row of trees lining the track to the highlight of the day – the Ankerwycke Yew and St. Mary’s Priory.

The Ankerwycke Yew is said to be about 2,500 years old so it would have already been old when the priory was founded in the 12^th century.   It is said that the Magna Carta was signed in the shadow of the tree (probably most locations close by could also claim the same), also that King Henry VIII courted Anne Boleyn here.   Whatever the truth of those things, it’s a great big old tree, very dark under the canopy, and broad in girth, all held together by some heavy-duty straps.

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Outside the branches, there are a selection of plaques and information boards, which can be used to derive the coordinates of the headline cache of the series, a Church Micro based on the priory.   Fortunately, the means of solving the puzzle and getting those numbers became clear to Mr Hg137 more quickly than it did to me – I would have been there for some while!   The cache itself was hidden in some nearby vegetation (no, not the Yew!) and requires an amount of delving to locate.   As I extracted the cache, I speared my head on a branch and emerged, sore, grumbling, and remembering why I normally wear a hat while caching (sun hat in the summer, woolly hat in the winter).   The caching hat went on, and we went for a look at the Priory.  It’s not very big, and there really isn’t much of it left at all, but there’s a definite sense of history around this spot.

St Mary’s Priory

We found another three caches in the big trees scattered through the fields, then made our way to the riverbank and took the long way round to the next two caches, so we could watch goings on.  The other side of the river, on Runnymede Meadows, was already packed with cars / walkers / dogs / picnickers, all enjoying the beautiful bright day. A Salters paddleboat trundled by, then a dragon boat with outriggers – oh, it’s such a long time since we’ve been down to the Thames!   

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  River Thames …

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  … and a dragon boat

After too short a walk along the river, we followed the path into some trees, hoping to find a cache under a little footbridge.   We approached … we could see the bridge … then a scatty spaniel appeared and ran in rings around us … and then a second. We waited, and an owner arrived … by now the first dog had found an unfeasibly large stick and wanted it to be thrown. We waited for all this to pass …   Now we had the bridge to ourselves, and the cache wasn’t immediately obvious. Mr Hg137 looked, and couldn’t see it. Then I climbed under the bridge, and spotted something tucked away. A bit of fishing with the geopole ensued, and the container came out into view. Hardest hide of the series so far, and very satisfying! And luckily it went back into place much more easily than it had come out.

After another two caches hidden in those large trees dotting the fields, we emerged onto Magna Carta Lane.  We took a short diversion down the lane to see if we could get to Magna Carta Island, another of those places where King John could have signed the treaty.  FYI – it’s now hidden behind locked gates, and is a private house

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We were approaching the end of the series, and so far we had found every cache. But … we could see no sign of the penultimate cache of the series. We widened our search and still couldn’t find anything, except that one fence post had a bit of cord tied to it. Hmm, but we weren’t giving up.  Reading the logs, we found that the cache was no longer hidden as described, but had instead been tucked behind the fence post. We looked there instead; success – there it was!   Mr Hg137 made a valiant attempt to reattach the cache in a way that matched the original description, but we’re not sure how long that will last.

As we neared the final cache in the series, there was even more pressure to find it and get a clean sweep of finds.  But once again we couldn’t anything looking like a cache of the description of how it was hidden, although the GPS said we were within ten feet of it. As before, we read through previous logs and one of them provided a cryptic little bit of extra information. We used that information and found ourselves standing in a slightly different spot, but now with a view of something that matched the hint, and there, too was the cache.  Hooray – full house of caches – we don’t do that very often!

And here are some of the caches we found:

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November 3 : Sandhurst (Gloucs) to Sandhurst : Swallowfield to Sandhurst

The final day of our epic walk from Sandhurst (Gloucs) to Sandhurst (Berks); this section completed the line between all 3 Sandhursts – as last year we walked from Berkshire to Sandhurst in Kent.

Eversley Ford

Today’s 13 mile route would take us over very familiar territory.

We have been caching for over 6 years and we, like most cachers we guess, have found most of our caches close to home. Today’s route would pass through several series we had previously undertaken. It was therefore a little surprising we managed to attempt 13 caches that we had never attempted before!

As we left Swallowfield we noted that the village Firework Fiesta would be happening that evening. Our car was parked close to the main event… we needed to be finish our walk and return with our other car well before the fireworks started – otherwise we would be stuck in traffic!

Our first three caches were all on the Swallowfield boundary. The first, intriguingly titled ‘Twists, Turns and Flow’ and was under a bridge over the River Broadwater. With such a scary title we were a little concerned we may get wet, but a close examination of the bridge from the side, meant the retrieval was easy and dry!

Don’t drop the cache!

The River Broadwater is a small river and has two tributaries, the Whitewater and the Blackwater. Today’s walk would be following the River Blackwater all the way to Sandhurst.

Our next cache was a Church Micro at the nearby Swallowfield Church. The previous cacher had logged a DNF, but we found the cache quite easily. A small clip box, with a fine view of the Church. Our last cache in Swallowfield was adjacent to a large oak tree – another easy find.

Swallowfield Church

Pleased with our early successes we then had a 2-3 mile walk to another set of caches close to Eversley Ford.

On the way our path initially followed the River Broadwater quite closely, yet we somehow missed where the Blackwater and Whitewater merged, as we were too busy watching a horse and trap being exercised in an adjacent field!

Prior to Eversley Ford we arrived at Farley Ford. We had been to this spot twice before, once when we undertook the Hampshire Drive series (November 2016), and once when completed the Farley Forage series (August 2017). We desperately tried to remember some of the hides in the Farley Forage series, but we failed to re-find any of the caches based on our recall of the circuit.

Farley Ford…visited for the THIRD time on our caching travels!

We left the Farley Forage series, walked through several fields with horses until we arrived at lane leading to our next cache. Here the hint mentioned a ditch crossing. Once we found the correct ditch (fortunately dry), it was easy to locate the cache. In fact, it hadn’t been hidden that well, so we hid it slightly better.

Our walk so far had been North of the River Blackwater in Berkshire, At Eversley Ford we crossed into Hampshire, where an old county marker hosts a cache. The cache owner requests that the cache is moved ‘to the other county’ after each find. We moved it back to its proper place.. into the Royal County of Berkshire.

The Ford itself was busy – we paused for coffee. During our short stop we saw many a dog-walker, cyclist and rambler use the foot-crossing by the ford. The nearby Eversley Mill was a restaurant until a few years ago – sadly now closed.

After a short while the Hampshire footpath took us into the village of Eversley where a bus stop provided us with a straightforward find. (Readers may remember we struggled with the Silchester Bus Stop cache, so we really grateful for very explicit hint here !)

Our brief sortie into Hampshire was over and we re-crossed the river back into Berkshire, and followed in reverse the Finchampstead Undulations series. This stretch brought back happy memories as it was one of the first series we undertook way back in January 2013 (and one of our first blog entries too!). Of course we couldn’t remember where these caches were either, but we did recall having to jump across a stream to find a cache, but this looked impossible now as there was a wire-fence on the far side of the ditch.

We also remembered a very muddy path, yet ours was dry and the view the river had changed completely. Instead of a muddy grass field, hundred of trees had been planted. This will be quite a forest in years to come!

Future Forest of Tomorrow

The Finchampstead Undulation series has had a couple of changes over the years, notably the addition of a couple of extra caches. The first cleverly hidden close to the ‘Welcome to Wokingham’ sign, the other less-cleverly hidden in a 45 degree angle fence post.

Up to now, we had been following the river, but now we were in lake territory. Over many years, gravel extraction had taken place and the huge pits have been converted into wildlife lakes. The banks between the lakes form an intricate pattern of paths and it was one of these that we chose to make a small diversion from our route. We almost regretted that decision when it took us 15 minutes to find the cache! It was hidden in a hollow tree-trunk, but the GPS wobbled a lot, we needed to jump (another!) ditch, and fight our way past brambles and thorny branches.

After this ordeal, we noticed a seat and we were in need of sustenance. The seat had been placed facing some bird feeders and we watched blue tits, great tits, robins, blackbirds and magpies all come to feed unaware of our presence.

Yateley Lakes

We proceeded along the lake banks for another mile or so and found the best two caches of the day. The first hanging in plain sight, and the second inside a garden gnome!

We’ve found over 2500 caches, and never seen a cache inside a gnome!

Besides the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst has one really (in)famous landmark, “Happy Christmas” bridge

The Blackwater Valley path deviates from the river as it approaches Sandhurst. There is an area of fishing lakes, and private property, so for a mile we had a section of road walking.

We have found many of the Sandhurst caches on our caching exploits over the last 6 years, and today we added 2 more. The first was well protected by a huge fungus, and the second was a small magnetic nano.

The last cache of the day!

Not the most spectacular cache, but it did mean we found 13 caches out of 13! All we had to do was re-cross the river back into Hampshire, walk along the Blackwater (South side), cross back into Berkshire and finish our grand walk at the Sandhurst sign, where we started our walk to Sandhurst (Kent) nearly 2 years ago.

Phew !

Journey’s End

Then a quick drive back to Swallowfield to retrieve our other car before a firework cordon enveloped it ! Accomplished with ease!

EPILOGUE

Our 85+ mile journey was complete.

We had walked from the Sandhurst (Gloucs), close to River Severn, back home.

We had walked through pretty Cotswold villages, climbed hills, walked along the Ridgeway and by a myriad of rivers and canals.

When we started our walk the paths and fields were flooded following the 2018 ‘Beast from the East’, we had endured the 2018 Summer heat and somehow missed the named Autumn storms by a few miles.

We found 250 caches on our way home in phone boxes, bus stops, and Roman amphitheatres. We also managed to break our daily caching record .. twice!

Most of the route had been on footpaths, some of which we would never have found without the geocaches set on them, so thank you to all the cache owners whose caches we have attempted, as you have helped guide us home!

We hope you have enjoyed reading about this year’s Sandhurst to Sandhurst journey – its been quite varied!

Caches in the final section included :

December 11 : College Town Series, Sandhurst

It is not often a brand-new geocaching series has been placed within half a mile from one’s home location.

An ideal opportunity to grab a few of those First-to-Find accolades.

Sadly though, we don’t have “automatic notification of new caches” turned on from http://www.geocaching.com, so we totally failed to spot this new series appearing on a cold Saturday evening. Would we have gone out at 9pm on a frosty evening ? I doubt it.

Instead we undertook the series 8 days after publication and what a fabulous urban series this was.

Branksome Hill Road

College Road, Sandhurst

We live in Sandhurst (hence our blogging name), and close by is the Royal Military Academy. Running parallel to one of its boundaries are two very long roads Branksome Hill Road and College Road. Each road is about 3/4 mile in length and with two 400 feet shorter lengths at either end; it made for a good 2 mile pavement circuit.

Urban caches can occasionally be exceedingly boring, with minute nanos stuck behind road signs, and admittedly there were a couple such caches on route. The following appropriately road signs may, or may not, be hiding places!

But the majority of caches were well thought through, and very well hidden.

One such hide was screwed into a concrete wall (we guess the cache owner’s house), two more were heavy variants of the plastic stone cache. These caches were actual stone or concrete! We guess a stone grinder had been used to cut out the base to place the logs in.

Another cache was hidden in half-a-branch. We were surprisingly quick at finding this cache, probably because we had seen a similar one recently on the Hampshire Drive By series.

If the Winter’s rain is driving you away from the countryside and onto an urban series, this route is for you. Many of the caches are simple finds, but others will challenge you a bit! You will need to keep you wits about you though, as all of the caches are in full sight of houses and you never know if you are being watched!

We thoroughly enjoyed this series, and we hope you do too.

November 27 : Hampshire Drive By part 2

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here again.

The geocar was (hopefully) fixed, so we set out to finish the Hampshire Drive By series that we had started, then abandoned, only the day before. Taking a very slightly different route to the start, we stopped briefly on our way to find Wiggins Copse (no sign of Sir Bradley!); soon after, we were back in Mill Lane, where we had stopped before. The first cache, no 19 in the Drive By series, led us a merry dance. Up and down the lane we walked, searching what seemed like every one of the possible locations, without success. A deer jumped out of the woods onto the lane, surveyed our efforts with disdain, and walked off around the corner. We looked some more, and eventually resorted to reading all the logs. Something from an earlier log just made us think again, and we found the cache after just another few minutes. Damned clever hide!

We found the next few caches with much less angst, and then emerged from the woodland into a more open area of hedges and fields, where the lane crossed the Devil’s Highway (the Roman road from Silchester to London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Highway_(Roman_Britain) ). And suddenly we weren’t on our own. Every muggle in Hampshire seemed to be out walking, cycling, or exercising their dogs, and all on this little bit of lane. We found a quiet moment and retrieved the next cache, then signed the log while looking out over the fields to the river.

Our next stop wasn’t for a cache, but to look at Thatcher’s, or Little Ford, which lies on the county boundary between Hampshire and Berkshire, and where the Roman road crosses the River Blackwater. It hadn’t been raining much for some days, and yet there was a good flow on the river and the best part of a metre on the depth gauge … not such a “little” Little Ford! (Editor’s note: if you are walking, there is a footbridge over the river close by – there is no need to wade/swim, but I would definitely not fancy driving through that ford!)

Thatcher’s Ford / Little Ford

The final three caches in the 26-cache series were along Ford Lane, another narrow country lane. We parked in a less than perfect spot for one cache, and were, rightly, told off by muggles because we had partly blocked the road. Having finished the series, we had a coffee in a layby (off the road!) and celebrated having found every single cache in this varied series.

Post Post

And then we set off home … oh, but first … another cache; this one forms part of the ‘Post Post’ series, hidden in and around letterboxes, and one we had looked at briefly and unsuccessfully at the start of the day when setting out. We’d noted that another, very experienced local cacher, El-Jo, had also failed to find this cache so our hopes were not high. A second visit, more searching, more rummaging, and then the geopole dislodged something from a place we had already searched several times. A success to end the day! And another 10 caches to boost our measly November total of just 49 caches in 4 years.

Here are some of the caches we found: