November 6 : Ockwells Park : puddles and tanks

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

Ockwells Manor … plus tank!

Finally the sun came out.  But it had rained on each of the last 13 days – a total of 78.6 mm or 3 inches – and everywhere was waterlogged.   Where could we go, and have a chance of staying mainly dry?   We chose Ockwells Park which lies to the west of Maidenhead, just north of the M4 and just west of the A404M.  Some of the park was once part of the Ockwells Manor Estate, and the manor house can be seen to the west of the park.   The park opened to the public in the 1980s and now includes a café, a large play area and sports pitches for softball and baseball. And for us, our research also showed that it had well-maintained tracks and paths, a large free car park, and lots of parkland / woodland / nature reserve where a set of geocaches could be found.

Our first geocache the Ockwells Park Mystery geocache, lay just outside the park.   We’d done the vaguely literary puzzle beforehand and we duly found the cache.  But oh dear, the log was really wet. Mr Hg137 suggested drying the wet log in the warm geocar, and we would replace it later. We left a small piece of paper in the cache as a temporary log.

Ockwells Park play area

Back in the park, we set off on our geocaching route.  We started off near the café and play area, then walked further on into the wilder area which is a nature reserve.  After walking along firm tracks, we ventured into waterlogged fields and then onto a puddly track which led close to Ockwells Manor.  The original Manor House was built in the 15th century using wood from oak trees grown in Windsor Forest, which at the time stretched as far as the park; it was offered to the National Trust in the 1940s, but they turned it down.   Walking up the track, we paused to look at the manor, in the middle distance past a field with grazing horses.   And a tank.   A full-size military tank.  “What about the tank?”  I asked Mr Hg137.  “What tank … oooh!” he replied.  He hadn’t spotted it!

We left the incongruous metal object behind us, and moved on.  We were doing well, but we had slight worries about the next geocache, Hang tough!   One of us is old enough to remember watching (the original) ‘Gladiators’ on TV and was nervous that something like the ‘Hang Tough’ round in that game would be needed.  Fortunately no dangling from anything needed for us today!  Our walking pole was enough to lift down and replace the cache – no swinging in trees needed.

Birdbox? Or Geocache?

We made a brief foray south, over the M4, to look for more caches along a footpath between some very posh houses.  One was in a fake birdbox – well, we weren’t absolutely certain it was fake, so opened it very, very carefully – but no bird had ever used this (phew).  Then back across the motorway, and into Little Thrift Wood at the southern end of the park, where our route led us along a path just a fence away from the motorway (and actually not very noisy).   After looking for two more caches we walked back into the park area.

It was wetter at this end of the park, and had probably been underwater only a day or two before.  We ended the walk with dry feet, but muddy trousers, having explored a little area of parkland and open country that we’d never even heard of before, let alone planned to visit. And what of the soggy geocache log from the start of the day?  It had spent the day in the sunshine inside the car, and was dry when we returned.   We revisited the cache and replaced the official log, now dry (and no-one had signed our temporary log while we were away!).

Here is just one of the caches we found:

July 13 : Simon’s Wood

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

Today was a special day for both of us and we wanted to do something just a little out of the ordinary, so … we went geocaching.    Staying local, we travelled just a few miles to Simon’s Wood, owned by the National Trust, on the border of Wokingham/Crowthorne/Finchampstead.   It comprises an area of woodland, heath, and a lake, crossed by a Roman road, and edged by a striking avenue of sequoias.  Needless to say, it’s a popular place for a walk, a run, for wildlife watching, or just for watching the world go by.  Oh, and it’s doggy heaven, so many great sniffs and places to explore, even a lake for a swim.

We’d decided to do one Adventure Lab (AdLab) geocache, plus one physical cache with coordinates supplied by clues found during the AdLab.   Here’s how Adlab Caches work:
… A Lab cache or Adventure Lab is an experimental cache type. The general idea is that the user visits a location and finds a code related to something that’s found there, such as a number, name, or date, entering the correct code in the Adventure Lab-app gives the user one found geocache. The new name is “Adventure Lab” and an “Adventure” can have up to 5 or 10 “Locations” …

For this AdLab, we set off round Simon’s Wood.   We walked through the woods, visited the heathland, then made our way out to Wellingtonia Avenue, a magnificent row of huge sequoia trees lining each side of the road.  The trees were planted in the early 1860s as a memorial to the Duke of Wellington, who lived nearby at Stratfield Saye estate.  The two rows of trees forming the avenue are spaced 75 feet (23 m) apart and the avenue stretches for approximately two thirds of a mile (1.1 km).

Just part of one Wellingtonia

Giant trees admired, we returned to the woods and made our way along paths and boardwalks to Heath Pool, a shallow lake with many waterlilies.    The dam across the northern edge of the pool is part of the Devil’s Highway, a Roman road connecting Londinium (London) to Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester) via Pontes (Staines).

Devil’s Highway

By now we’d worked out the coordinates for the geocache associated with the AdLab.  (FYI: Not all AdLab caches have an associated ‘bonus’ physical geocache, and are just intended to be a pleasant and informative walk – on the whole we prefer there to be a bonus cache, as we feel we’ve achieved an objective by signing a log.)     A short walk took us to the cache location; we knew we’d got the correct coordinates because we could see the cache container, out in the open, as we drew near.   We signed the log and hid it away.

Found the bonus cache!

And that was it … a gentle walk on a special day, and a chance to enjoy nature and reflect on life.

April 15 : Bracknell Bees and Farley Copse

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

After a few very wet days, everything was rather soggy, and we decided against a country-based geocaching walk: probably too muddy.  Instead, we picked a semi-urban route, thinking that the paths underfoot would be reasonably firm and dry … and so we found ourselves walking through the longish grass at the edge of a fairly damp football field while a children’s team played.  Everyone was watching the football, and not us, so we thought we would be fine to get on with our caching without being spotted.

The series we were following is called ‘Bees Knees’ in homage to the Bracknell Bees Ice Hockey team who used to play nearby.  The Bees have now buzzed off to Slough to play and their stadium has been demolished.

Having read the cache descriptions, we knew we would need extra ‘equipment’ and had brought a variety of geocacher’s tools with us.  As we approached the first cache, we realised that our selection of tools didn’t include anything suitable for this. We found a handy substitute nearby (phew!) and used it to retrieve and replace the cache. The makeshift tool was better than anything we would have brought with us.

Moving on … it was good to be walking along a firm pavement rather than a muddy track to our next cache.  On arrival, we looked up and realised we were again a tool short.  (I had decided against bringing a walking pole with me as it would have stood out in a town.) We cast around and found a piece of scrap metal which was perfect for the job. After a bit of wafting and prodding, the container dropped into our hands. Now to return the cache … with pauses while we waited for traffic to pass by … it took us numerous attempts before we carefully nudged the cache back into position with the piece of scrap metal. All good fun!

Our next two caches weren’t so high up, so easier to reach.  However, that gave Mr Hg137 the chance to scrape his knuckles on something or other and he then bled redly and grumpily for a bit. Meanwhile, I removed, signed and replaced the cache without incident, even pausing midway to stick a plaster onto the injured hand.    This bit of our route is very close to where the stadium used to be; while development is going on nearby, the stadium is currently empty land and is a bit sad.

Bracknell Bees: home of the Hive no longer

We moved on to the next cache.  So far, we’d not been especially well prepared, but had muddled through and found/replaced everything. This time round, we’d belatedly read the cache description and had realised we needed to arm ourselves with a tool (which, once again, we’d failed to bring). While walking to the cache, we found something moderately suitable, and brought it with us. It did the trick … now to replace it. Hmm. Mr Hg137 opted for trying to throw the cache back into position – which didn’t seem to be a terribly good idea – but, at the third or fourth attempt, the cache landed within inches of its starting point, and simply needed a gentle nudge or two from the makeshift tool to push it the last little bit.    (If you had happened to be in this part of Bracknell on this day, and had seen two slightly damp and dishevelled people carrying assorted sticks and bits of metal … it was us!)

A longer walk between houses took us to some woodland, Farley Copse , once part of the grounds of Farley Moor House.  We spotted a group of people working away in the woodland and rushed off to talk to some of them, busily planting up a new pond; they turned out to be from Binfield Environment Group and they were doing a great job.  We walked on through the woods, stopped for a coffee break, chatted to some muggle dogs, admired a mature Wellingtonia (a survivor from the former estate), and found more caches; an interesting bit of woodland.

Binfield Environment Group in action

Pond under construction

Farley Copse

Wellingtonia

There was just one more cache to find from the series and we had read that it was a bit special and would need time.   This time, we did have the correct selection of tools with us.   FYI – some caches require ‘extra’ equipment – we’d come prepared with a penknife, torch, string, pen, paper, water bottle, magnet, etc, etc.  Other caches need things like ropes, ladders, catapult, fishing poles, climbing equipment, canoes; we hadn’t brought those, thinking they might be conspicuous on a suburban street …

We set about opening the cache, deploying some of our tools.   There were several stages, each supplying something vital for the next part, and each needing a different technique.  After some little time, and feeling just a bit conspicuous, we opened the third section, to find a capacious log book and a big jar for trackables – we took one.   This cache may well appear on our ‘caches of the year’ post later on this year.

In summary: Iffy weather, excellent caching! And the moral for this series was  : read all the descriptions beforehand. We made our way through the caches with the tools we’d brought, plus bits and pieces found nearby, but we would have done better if we’d brought some of the other tools mentioned in the descriptions.

And here are just a few of the caches we found:

Now you see it …

… now you don’t

December 3 : Aldershot : Wellesley Woodlands

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

We have geocached once before in the Wellesley Woodlands, in December 2019.   Then, it was raining hard, we got comprehensively soaked, and gave up.   Today, we picked a different part of the area, and hoped for better weather.

Wellesley Woodlands comprise 110 hectares of woodlands interlinked by a network of footpaths.  We chose the eastern end, where a cache series, the ‘Sycamore Trail’, is laid out along a walking trail of the same name which circles Chalk Farm Lake between Aldershot and Ash Vale.  On a cold winter’s morning it was quiet except for waterfowl and fishermen.  (Editor’s question: Why, why do they need so much kit?)

The series starts close to the small car park between lake and canal, then wends its way along grassy tracks around the lake.   The caches are hidden in, under or behind signs or various bits of natural material, and not one of them would attract even a glance from a non-cacher, they blend in very well indeed.    So well that it took us a while to find them all; the hints provided with each cache were very, very useful.

Watch out for bugs!

About half the caches have an ‘animal’ theme, or, alternatively, have been invaded by a range of plastic bugs, swarming all over.   And every single cache is well worth finding, there is a little added extra for every one.   Only one cache log disappointed; it has been oh-so-wet recently and the cache log … oh dear, sodden and well stuck. We got it out eventually, and it was very wet and very full. We’ve put another piece of paper in as a temporary log, but it won’t last that long, it’s not very big.

Soggy log

On a warmer day, we’d probably have returned to the picnic area near the car park for a coffee break among the trees, but it was both cool and damp this day so we gave it a miss.   Nevertheless, a great little series at any time of year.

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!

September 17 : Jennett’s Park : Peacock Meadows and Big Wood

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

We hadn’t been out caching for two whole weeks, or anywhere else, either (we caught Covid). But it was a beautiful bright, clear September morning and we thought we could fit a short, local caching trip in around the other stuff we needed to catch up on.   We decided on Peacock Meadows, an area of green space between Wokingham and Bracknell.  We’ve driven past here often enough, on our way to the motorway or elsewhere, and hadn’t given this patch of green very much thought at all.

We parked in Tawny Owl square, and walked along Sparrowhawk Way, passing (among others) Goldfinch Crescent and Osprey Avenue.  We reached Peacock Lane.   Why is everything named after birds?  Well, Jennett’s Park housing estate is built on what used to be Peacock Farm and all the streets were given bird names to keep up the theme.  The old farmhouse is now a pub, the Peacock.

Once across Peacock Lane, we went through an unobtrusive gate in a hedge and were immediately in a large field.  What a contrast!   We’d gone from suburbia to the countryside in just a few paces.  This was Peacock Meadows (North) and we were here to look for a Counting Vowels Multicache, plus four other caches, Big Wood #1-#4, located in and around the wood of the same name (FYI Big Wood is a reasonable size, but it’s not … enormous!)

We started off with the Counting Vowels cache, which conveniently started close to the gate, and walk through the field, collecting clues as we went.   Ahead of us was a tunnel under the A329.  How many times had we driven over that without noticing?  Between us, several thousand …   Of course we went through the tunnel to see if there was anything exciting on the other side, but we didn’t spot anything, not close to the tunnel entrance anyway.

Anyway, back to the main event, the geocaching.  We assembled the remaining coordinates for the Counting Vowels cache very quickly, then a short walk to the cache container.   Yay!  A success to get us started.

After that, we moved on to the four caches of the ‘Big Wood’ series.  Like the rest of Peacock Meadows, the area has been tidied up, with gates, signs and nicely laid paths, so it’s a pleasant short walk out for people living in Jennett’s Park.  Or from elsewhere, like us.

There are two caches in the wood itself, both hidden some way from the path, to keep them from being accidentally discovered, and, in addition, also well concealed.   One cache was in a hole in a tree, well past elbow length, and the other was just as hard to spot. After those two, we emerged into the fields again, to find the remaining caches hidden around the edge of the field; many scratches and much cursing ensued before they were safely found.

An enjoyable little series, in an area we drive past often, without realising the great little area that lies behind the hedges.

And here is just one of the caches we found:

July 13 : Playing Detective on the Berkshire/Hampshire border

July 13 has great meaning for us – our caching handle is, after all, Hg137. So today seemed a great opportunity to go caching. Except it was hot. Very hot. We didn’t fancy a long walk or a long journey to a caching route. After much consideration we found an ideal series on the Berkshire/Hampshire border between Sandhurst and Yateley.

Moor Green Lake on the Berkshire/Hampshire border

Each cache in the series was a puzzle based on a TV Detective programme. The setter, Mikes54, has a longer set of caches near to White Waltham, Maidenhead. In that cache series there are 26 caches and each cache is ‘named’ after a TV Detective programme (one for each letter of the alphabet).

The series we were attempting was much smaller, just 8 caches. Set in a similar style we had to work out which TV detective series began with B, D, I, L M, S, V, and W. The cache description provided some very useful hints, and then using an online search engine we could answer some questions. These were of the type :

• when was programme 1 of series 3 first aired
• how many millions of people watched episode called ‘X’
• what is the run-time of each episode
• how many episodes were there in the fourth series

Once we had gleaned the information we worked out some co-ordinates and discovered the caches were about 3 miles away close to the banks of the River Blackwater. We had cached along there before (back in 2018 when we walked from Sandhurst in Gloucestershire to Sandhurst in Berkshire). We knew the terrain, and so we ventured out in the early evening, avoiding the hot stifling conditions of the day.

River Blackwater

We chose not to park at the North of the series as the car park was due to close at 8pm, instead we parked at the South and approached most of the caches from ‘the wrong direction’.

Mikes54 does give very specific instructions. Not only do the co-ordinates take you to Ground Zero, but the location of the cache, where it is hidden and the type of the container is given. (Many other cache owners would give the hint ‘behind post’, but Mikes54’s hints are ‘behind the central post, 2 posts to the right of the noticeboard’. Mikes54 definitely wants his caches to be found !)

Lots of Information Boards

We followed tracks around the former gravel pits, now wildlife lakes that are adjacent to the River Blackwater. We started our route in Hampshire, but we were quickly in Berkshire.

Unfortunately the caches didn’t make a circular route, so there was a certain amount of walking a cul-de-sac and returning the same way.

After finding 5 of the caches we headed towards the main car park but here the paths split in two, and we found ourselves on the wrong path to locate two caches. Never mind, we would turn round at the car park, and return on the other path. Before we did so, we took a small (half-mile) diversion to find a ‘Post Post’ cache, where the cache is hidden on/under/by a post box.

Somewhere near here is a cache!

We returned to the car park, and started to talk to two horses sheltering from the heat by a tree. In the nearby field, rabbits were running about, close by a deer had also come out in the cool, twilight air.

Deer and rabbits

The advancement of twilight had brought many birds returning to their night time lakeside roosts. They noisily screeched and squawked at each other. It would nice to imagine they were talking to each other about their days adventures : how far they had flown, what food they had found…but we suspect the screeching and squawking was ‘get out of my roost!’

Lots of paths…but which is the correct one ?

We left the car park, selected the correct footpath, found the remaining caches with a small struggle. Whether we were tiring, or the light was fading, but it took us some minutes to find the last couple of containers despite Mikes54’s excellent hints.

Most of the cache containers were small, but one was a bit larger and contained three trackables! We took all three, and will blog about each of them in the coming days. We can’t remember the last time we found three trackables in one cache… or even three on the same day !

3 trackables

We returned to the car content that we had found 9 caches, which we realised afterwards was our highest cache haul on the 13th of July!

May 7 : Send in the giraffes!

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

First – the giraffes!   Here is some information, originating from a report on the local paper’s web site:

… “A family of giraffes has caused a stir among residents and school pupils in Send. The life-like animals, created using welded metal rings, were introduced to the village early in 2013.

“Parents with children park outside and we thought it would cheer them up going to school,” said the owners. “In today’s recession, where there are no smiles around, we thought we would put a smile on people’s faces. Everybody’s been photographing them. Up to 11pm we’ve had cars there because they’re lit by a streetlight. They look so real and we have put plants around them so eventually it will look like a jungle.”

The giraffes have been named Alfie, Grace and Lily and although they were bought in Chichester, they were hand made in Africa. “ …

We were in Send for a morning’s geocaching; the giraffes were also the starting point for our first geocache.   We assembled the coordinates from signs close by, walked off a short way, and made our first find of the morning, smiling as we went – they were so cute!

Once on our way, we found another cache, close to a tiny bridge over a tinier stream.   Afterwards, while making some notes and re-setting the GPS, a rough coated dachshund trotted by – followed by another – followed by two muggles. We greeted them all and they went on their way – Mr Hg137 remarked that one of them looked familiar. Later, another dog walker told us that it was Philip Hammond, ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer, who lives locally.  (Of course it was!  Seeing him in an unexpected place, we couldn’t quite match name and face.)

Someone famous?

Following footpaths through fields and trees, dodging vicious nettles (not always successfully), and along a country lane, we made our way to the village green, collecting some more caches along the way.  The green is a good sized triangular open space, with a few trees around the edge.   One of the trees has a cache hidden in it … well, near it; we were overly influenced by the cache title (Magpie Tree) and spent a while looking in the tree before a re-read of the cache description led us straight to the correct spot, close by.   Reminder: read the directions before starting the search.

Magpie Tree

We sat in the sunshine on a seat near the tree, had a coffee break, and watched the groups of cyclists whizzing along, admired the green, admired the Manor House, and generally did some people / dog / cyclist watching.   After a few minutes we realised that the sun had gone and some threatening dark clouds were rolling in – and then the first plump drops of rain began to fall.   We took refuge under the Magpie Tree, but it got damp, so we moved to better cover, the nearby bus shelter.

Send Manor

A few more minutes passed, the rain stopped, and we emerged.  We took a tour through the village to return to the car and walked down to what used to be the A3, which now runs a little way to the south.   We found our final two caches of the morning – one: a very small travel bug hotel – the other: very high up on a bus stop, much swishing with the geopole required – then returned to the geocar, parked within sight of the watching giraffes.

RHS Wisley

And off we went to the nearby gardens at RHS Wisley, which were resplendent with spring colour. A good morning out!

And here are some of the geocaches we found:

March 12 : Oxshott Heath

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

Oxshott – a most prosperous place, home of the rich and famous. 

Oxshott Heath – 200 acres of sandy heath and woods – a magnet for dog walkers.

And today – a destination for us, too, as there’s a geocache series around the heath, plus more in the village.

We started at Sandy Lane car park, on the northern edge of the heath, which was busy with dog walkers and runners.   Our first cache was near a Coal Post; about 200 of them survive, in a ring around London, and they are connected with the historical collection of duties and taxes.   We admired the post, then searched around nearby for the nearby geocache.

Oxshott Heath Sand Pit

Oxshott Heath War Memorial

Once on the heath and away from the road, the character of the area changed.  We were walking through woods, interspersed with open areas of grass or sandy heath.   The cache route was mostly arranged around the fringes of the heath, in the woods, with occasional diversions into the centre to visit points of interest.  We passed a huge depression, a Victorian sand pit (reopened in WW2 for filling sandbags) and took a second detour to the war memorial.  It’s in a prominent position on the edge of a ridge, with a marvellous view.   And all around were people, and dogs … so many happy, excited bouncy dogs!  Near one cache, a man with a dog walked past … and paused … and looked at his phone. Was he a geocacher? We waited: he moved on: no, a passing muggle.

Almost all the caches were in good condition, but at one – oh dear – there was a problem. The plastic bag that should have held the log was nearby, and full of water, the cache container was lidless and full of water, with the log inside which was rather wet. Oops. We took the whole assembly off to a nearby seat for some TLC. The plastic bag was dried out (a spare Covid mask makes a good blotter!), and the log was carefully unrolled and blotted till almost dry.  We carry some spare geocaching ‘bits’ so we replaced the lid of the container and supplied a new dry log. We replaced both new and old logs (separately wrapped) back in the container so all is in better order than we found it.

And, while we were doing this, we were visited by dogs four times.   All were more muddy, or less muddy, and all thought we had food with us.   Well, we did, but it wasn’t in a wet geocache container!  All dogs went away disappointed.

At the edge of the heath, two geocache series met: a cache from the Sidetracked series (near railway stations) had been combined with the series we were doing.   We admired the daffodils at the nearby road junction, then dived in quickly to retrieve the cache during a quiet moment; woo-hoo, our fifty-sixth Sidetracked cache! Our route then took us along a track parallel to the railway tracks, and, after a little way we crossed the railway on a footbridge to take us into the village (for those who are into such things, this is the oldest surviving reinforced concrete footbridge over a railway in the UK and was built in 1910).   

Up there? Really???

Close to the railway line is a cache in a tree.  Some way up the tree. We found the place, we spotted the cache guardian (a plastic pigeon), and we considered the climb. And bottled it. It was a long way up on a tree that was well damp from recent rain, so we decided it was a slippery climb too far.

Further into the village, and past some very expensive houses, we came to the locations of two other caches.   The first was a multicache based on the village sign, which was erected in 2019 and which features a selection of items relating to the village, including that railway bridge and a selection of sports, including tennis (lots of sports people live in Oxshott, Sir Andy Murray amongst them).  

And, just across the road, was St Andrew’s Church, the start point for another multicache … it would have been rude not to do them both, they were so close to each other!   We walked around the church in the spring sunshine to gather information for the cache coordinates, then walked some way up the road to find the cache container, our 158th Church Micro cache.

St Andrew’s Church, Oxshott

Returning to the heath, we passed the tree climb again – and decided again not to climb the tree – then went back over the bridge and back onto the heath.   We had a few more caches to find, all placed around the edges of the heath, and we worked our way steadily around them while climbing gently back to the car park.  

Did we see any of the famous residents on our walk?  No-one we recognised, though we weren’t looking very hard.   We were concentrating on the pleasant walk in the spring sunshine, the views, and finding the caches.   It was a great place for a morning’s walking and caching.

Here are just a few of the caches we found:

December 11 : Lakeside Park, Ash Vale

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

Having now arrived at the darkest part of the year, we’re down to short caching trips around places that aren’t too far from home, and that we hope are also not too wet and/or muddy.  But that still means that there are good places to cache and good (if shorter) walks to be had.

Our hopefully not-too-muddy caching trip today was in and around Lakeside Park Nature Reserve in Ash Vale on the border of Surrey and Hampshire.  There’s a series of five caches (though one is missing) plus a bonus cache, and another cache nearby, on the banks of the Basingstoke Canal.   A good walk was in prospect.

We parked in the large (and free!) car park and had a cursory look for cache #1 in the series – the one we knew to be missing.   Sure enough, we didn’t find it, and we moved on to #2.   Little did we know, as we crossed the car park again, that we were walking over a buried cement lorry ! A batch of cement set in the lorry, wrecking it, so it was buried along with the cement …

We moved on to the next three caches in the series, threading our way around the lakes and tree-lined paths of the reserve.  All went well, though there were some VERY well concealed caches, which gave us some minutes of consternation before we spotted them.   As we went round, we were also collecting clues for multicache #5 from various signs and notice boards along our route, so we weren’t hopeful (we tend to go wrong if we do more than one thing at a time), but it all worked out, we arrived at a likely spot, and spotted something that turned out to be the cache. We added a whole wedge of Lego cards to the assorted toys inside the large cache; this would be a great cache for small children to find.

But before our last cache, the bonus cache, we went to find an extra cache, and walked a short walk away from the nature reserve, along the Blackwater Valley Path and onto the Basingstoke Canal aqueduct It’s some time since we’ve been here, we walked through here in early 2017 on a walk from Sandhurst (Berkshire) to Sandhurst (Kent). (No, we didn’t do it all in one go!)  All was quiet on the canal, as you’d expect in December, and the cache was soon located and found.   For info: it’s always worth watching out for wildlife around here. Last time we were here we spotted a kingfisher, but no such luck this time.

Basingstoke Canal

River Blackwater

Aqueduct

And finally, the bonus cache.  Although we were one number short, as we hadn’t found the first cache in the series, we had worked out a plausible set of coordinates, and they took us to a plausible spot which even matched the hint. So far so good! A look around showed us something which didn’t quite match the surroundings, and, sure enough, it was the outer container for the cache. Having evicted some woodlice, we lifted out the inner container and signed the log, before replacing everything as found. That was the end of a most successful little walk: lakes and rivers, canals and trees.  Great to get out on a winter morning!

Here are some of the caches we found: