December 21 : Buckhurst Meadow, Wokingham

A morning of reminiscing for Mr Hg137 who used to live about a mile or so from Buckhurst Meadow, on the outskirts of Wokingham. Back then the area was known as Buckhurst Farm and in the late 90s, the area could have been made the stadium for Wokingham Town FC. Instead local residents complained, the football club move was vetoed, and an estate of 620 houses was built.

As well as the housing estate much of the farmland has been turned into a 30-acre country park ideal for walking around and of course geocaching!

Normally our diaries are quite busy on a Thursday, but today, a few days before Christmas, our bookings had been cancelled – do we need a better excuse to go geocaching ?

Well the weather could have been better ! A misty, murky day greeted us as we set out. The December rain had made much of the grass very wet, but the paths otherwise were more or less good. Occasionally we stepped away from the path to find a cache.

The first cache brought back memories of the first cache we found just 5 days previously. Tucked near a post, behind a bramble bush. Fortunately this time the bush was relatively easy to lean over, yielding us a quick find.

Most of the caches we were looking for were set by local cacher, Mikes54, who gives very specific hints. We were grateful of this at the next cache where we had to find a cache at the base of a tree – the hint made sure we looked at the correct one from a choice of 4! We couldn’t grab this cache immediately as the tree was close to an intersection of footpaths, and a constant series of dogwalkers!

Fortunately our next cache took us away from the dog-friendly footpaths and into a hazel coppice. Here we had not only had to find a ‘knobbly tree’ but then count coppiced hazels to find the cache. We were grateful we hidden from prying eyes when we did this.

The Mikes54 caches had all been placed barely a month before our visit, but our next cache was much older having been placed in 2009. This was deep in area called ‘Big Wood’ which straddles the Wokingham and Bracknell boundary. We found some caches in the Bracknell side of Big Wood back in September 2022. The 2009 Wokingham cache was a quite easy find, albeit the GPS was 30 feet out. (We do find that the older the cache, the less accurate the GPS is – any ideas why ?)

We returned to Buckhurst Meadows and we should really have read the cache notes before we headed for cache 4 in the series. It advised, that after heavy rain, from cache 3 we should walk into the centre of the park via the central butterfly statue and take a different path to cache 4. We didn’t, and soon discovered the perimeter path was underwater. We waded through and around the puddle-cum-lake to arrive at a seat near Ground Zero. We gave a quick search for the cache but couldn’t find it. We saw a ‘cache-size hole’ at the front of a tree, and assumed the cache was missing. Then in the gloom, 300 yards away we saw a dog-walker approaching. Should we move on ? Continue searching ? The man turned away, and we resumed our search, and after few more minutes we had the cache in hand.

Our final cache in the Buckhurst Meadows series was closer to the car, so we took a path out of the meadows, passing a playground, a school and a pond. We arrived at Clay Lane – an enclosed wooded footpath Mr Hg137 remembered well as he sometimes walked their family dog there. Unsurprisingly, the lane had altered slightly in 40 years, many of the saplings had grown, the new estate provided less tree-cover on one side. On the other many of the gardens set back from the tree-line now had gates giving access to Clay Lane and Buckhurst Meadows.

In those intervening years, fairies have visited Clay Lane too. Their tiny houses nestled at the base of trees. We were admiring many of them… and walked by a cache. After walking a few yards, we retraced our steps, and after quite a lengthy search -found the cache. Another old cache as it placed in 2008!

We returned to Buckhurst Meadows and found the last cache snugly hidden behind a lifebuoy post, again near a junction of footpaths – so stealth was needed.

Close to Buckhurst Meadows were 2 more caches – both near the busy A329M. The first in a cul-de-sac that led to a hotel (in Mr Hg137’s time, the hotel was a nunnery!). The GPS wavered here but we soon found the tree the cache had been placed behind.

We crossed the A329 to find a most unusual cache called “It’s a Letterbox”. Letterbox caches, are named, after the ‘letterboxes’ found on Dartmoor. Geocaches of this type tend to have an ink stamp inside. The size of letterbox caches tends to be slightly larger than average, to accommodate the ink stamp, but the size of this cache caught us by surprise!

A highly unusual end, to a fun morning’s caching!

May 20 : The Ridgeway : Foxhill to Ashbury

We had a choice with our next section of the Ridgeway – take 2 cars and undertake a 7 mile walk with nearly 40 caches or split the distance into 2 shorter sections, with about 17-19 caches in each.

We decided to keep the distance short and number of caches to 17. (Our caching record is 34, so we knew how hard 40 would be).

Rather than take 2 cars, we opted for a there-and-back along the Ridgeway.

Foxhill Car Park was much quieter than the previous week (no charity checkpoint this week) and we were soon on our way, climbing up level with Foxhill Transmitter.

Our first cache had a good view of the transmitter, but little did we know that our approach to the cache would be indicative of most caches we were to attempt that day.

Thick undergrowth we would get accustomed to

The cache was positioned about 6-10 feet from the Ridgeway and to reach it, we had to walk through 5-6 foot high nettles and cow parsley. An easy find, but a painful one!

Many of the caches we were undertaking were part of  a series named, or should that be numbered ‘the first’, ‘the second’… up to ‘the twenty third’. We had found ‘the second’ the week before, and our second cache of the day was in fact‘the ‘third’ !

Before we reached out next cache, we saw something nobody likes seeing in the countryside – fly tipping. Mainly sheets, coushions, mattresses. A few yards further on we saw a sign with a phone number to report fly tipping. We did our duty, and hopefully the rubbish would be cleared in a day or so.

As we walked on, generally upwards we collected more and more caches in the numerical series. The Ridgeway frequently gave views to the North and East, with more intermittent views to the South.

The views were not constant as periodically there were lines of trees or bushes, set 6-10 feet from the Ridgeway, with a protective line of nettles and cow parsley (and occasional thistles and hawthorn) in front. To find the caches, we had to brush through the hawthorn, the thistles, the cow parsley and nettles before we could undertake a search

Every cache we attempted became a struggle through the undergrowth – we tried to take in turns to locate a cache, so that we each had a few minutes respite from the stings.

Mr Hg137’s turn to get stung!

This wasn’t always possible, as often there were a couple of hosts to search and we needed 2 pairs of eyes.

A warm Saturday in May brings lots of people to the Ridgeway. We saw lots of walkers like ourselves, several runners, many of whom were training for the ‘Race to the Stones’ a 50k (or 100k!) running event in early July.

Most of the fields were arable, but we did see some fields of pigs and nearby a van where the pig products are normally sold. Normally it would do a roaring trade on the Ridgeway on a Saturday, but the owner had another booking at a village fete, so we couldn’t sample the wares.

After about two-thirds of our route, we changed Cache owner, this time to Pebbles and Co who we met caching about 15 months ago in Fifield.

Her caches were split into two different types : letter box caches and ‘unusual’.

The letterbox caches contained in a stamp (a legacy from when geocaching perhaps emulated Dartmoor’s letterboxing). The first cache we found was called ‘two little ducks’. The stamp should have been a picture of two little ducks. Mrs Hg137 tried to use the stamp on spare piece of paper we had with us….what a disaster!

It smudged, badly. The ink from the inkpad went evey where. After a couple of minutes we both had blue hands! We decided after that to not try the stamp in the other letterbox caches.

As for the unusual caches, the container was simple but is was connected to unusual items… a mini bird box, a small skeleton, and a spider (A clever clue ‘8 feet up’…. A spider has 8 feet but it was only 5 feet up in a tree)

We had two failures on our outbound journey at ‘the seventh’ and ‘the thirteenth’. As we walked back to the car, we had another attempt at each. We failed at the thirteenth – a blue bison apparently – and found the seventh after some extensive searching – an old fish pot.

We found 16 out of 17 caches, and obtained some nettle stings in interesting places too.

February 4 : Donkey Town & Brentmoor Heath

Donkey Town is a small village just south of Lightwater and just north of Bisley. To the West is an Army range and to the East the busy A322. Between Donkey Town and Lightwater is an area of heathland, known as Brentmoor Heath, owned by the Ministry of Defence, Surrey Wildlife Trust and 2 local councils.

Surrey Archivists are unclear how the unusual name ‘Donkey Town’ evolved. It may be that donkeys, a cheaper working animal than a horse, were kept there. It may also be the ‘donkeys’ was a slang term for ‘labour workers’. Either way the area of ‘Donkey Town’ first appeared on Ordnance Survey maps in the late 1800, possibly coined by locals.

Given this somewhat un-salubrious history, we were pleasantly surprised both by the area and the quality of caches.

We were attempting the LG series (LG being the initials of the cache owners, The Laing Gang). We parked in a small car park adjoining the A322. We took the last space at 9am Saturday morning (bad timing  as this was peak dog walking time) avoiding the tree roots which straddle the car park.

We set off following the dog walkers. Some walkers kept their dogs on a lead, others the dog ran ahead, other dogs walked 20 yards behind their owners. To us, non-dog owners, sometimes it was tricky to see who owned which dog.

Eventually we arrived at cache one, Hidden in a tree hollow. Or a least should have been, all we found was a hole in a tree. However hard we poked and prodded the cache was missing. A bad start.

No cache on this hole – sadly!

We wandered on, following yet more dogs and their owners, arriving at a metal sign. With a hint of ‘magnetic’ it didn’t take us too long to locate the cache.

We had broadly been walking westwards, but now we headed South, to a curiously named cache called ‘Empale Lot’. The key here, is that the cache title is an anagram, which we managed to solve before arrival. Another cache in the series – surprisingly well hidden – well we took several minutes– was an anagram of ‘Scone Tips’.

This series not only had ingenious titled caches, but ingenious containers too. They included a skeleton hand, various insects and a 1970s radio!

After the first few caches, the dog walkers disappeared, and we saw few people. The one person of note, was a former networking colleague of Mr Hg137, who also performed very well on a previous series of “The Apprentice”. A brief chat ensued, but he was on a tight timescale, as he had tickets for the England-Scotland game at Twickenham later that day.

“You’re Fired” – a former Apprentice contestant runs into the distance

The heathland became less wooded, and more open and the Army ranges opened up beside us. We were about halfway round, and we had now accumulated a further DNF to add to our first attempt of the day. 

We had had spent a few minutes at many of the caches to this point, but it was nothing compared to two caches on the second half. Hidden exactly as hinted… but… the GPS never settled, there were several host items. In the end we resorted to a phone’s GPS as well a standalone GPS, and a very, very close inspection of a few of the photographs placed on www.geocaching.com.

We turned North heading back to the car, and at this we point we crossed another caching route. We attempted one of the caches on this route ‘There’s no place like Gnome’. And indeed, in the third set of tree roots we looked at… was a Gnome! A great container.

We were chuckling to ourselves as we replaced the cache, and noticed a cyclist, going at no great speed behind us. He was clearly ‘unaware of his whereabouts’. We advised him on what we thought would be the quickest route for him, and watched him slowly pedal away.

We walked onto a footpath, picking up a cache under a bridge called ‘Welcome to Donkey Town’, given where we were walking we had to find this cache!

Another DNF soon followed – a puzzle cache placed near a stile/gate. We searched both thoroughly as well as a nearby tree. As we did so, the cyclist reappeared, his route finding hadn’t improved much and we set him on a different path. (Note, we were on a footpath, NOT a bridleway so technically he shouldn’t have been there).

The LG series was coming to an end, and we had one more ‘clever cache’, an insect to find as well as a fairly standard magnetic cache..

We arrived back to a much emptier car park, satisfied with our exploration of Donkey Town but slightly disappointed with 3 DNFs. The caches we did find were clever and varied and we wondered what we missed out on with those 3 DNFs.

November 12 : The Insect Walk, Moss End, North Bracknell

Just to the North of Bracknell is a linear walk of caches themed around insects.

It was close to where we had cached before, so on a brightish, but more importantly dry, November morning we set off.

Our car was parked some distance from the first cache – which oddly enough was not part of the insect series, but was actually an insect – a slug !

The Insect Walk is a linear, there and back series of caches, so we decided to undertake alternate caches heading south, and the remainder we would attempt on the return.

The path was very straight, and surprisingly un-muddy even though for much of the route we were adjacent to a stream.

The caches were quite small, and well themed. They varied from ants to butterflies, from locusts to flowers (Ed – we know and the cache owner knows a flower is not an insect).

About halfway along the path we had a mystery cache to find. Here the cache owner gave nothing away except to say it was placed according to caching rules i.e it was not nearer than 0.1mile from another cache.

As we walked away from the insect cache before the mystery cache, we watched our GPS slowly rise to so until we were 0.1mile away from it. This would be the range of the mystery cache in one direction. We started to look at trees, posts, and soon arrived at a road. We continued in a similar investigative vein until we were 0.1 mile from the next (insect) cache.

Lots of places to hide a cache here

We didn’t find the mystery cache, but we drew lines in the footpath so that we would know the ‘range’ on our return.

The next ‘insect’ cache was our only DNF in the insect series. The hint said ‘floor’, and despite looking at ground level we couldn’t find it. We checked the logs, and this cache is one of the hardest to find in the insect series.

We strode on, slightly deflated with 2 consecutive DNFs. We made hard work of the next cache too, but this time we were triumphant. By now the path had given way to a tarmac road, and we soon passed the only industrial building on route. Bracknell’s Sewage works.

Many of the caching logs mentioned the path can be ‘aromatic’ during the Summer, and we grateful it was November as we found a couple more caches.

Just beyond the insect trail was one more cache, hidden behind a ‘Welcome to Bracknell Sewage Works’ sign. We did wonder why anyone would want to be welcomed to such an establishment !

And so we undertook the return leg, finding the caches we hadn’t found previously. Most of the caches were relatively straightforward. On a couple of occasions the GPS seemed a little out, but the cache was generally found after a few minutes.

Can you help us find the caches? Nay!

The execptions were of course the twocaches we hadn’t find on our outbound journey. We searched the ‘floor’ again with no luck, and then returned to the mystery cache.

This time Mr Hg137 remembered seeing a couple of photos posted on http://www.geocaching.com Although the hiding place was not shown in any of the photos, the angle of the camera gave an indication of a ‘good area to search’. Also, another cacher had mentioned that a certain plant species made searching quite hard. Mr Hg137 set about his search, while Mrs Hg137 searched more familiar hiding locations.

Am I poisonous … or am I a cache?

After a short while (10 minutes maybe), Mr Hg137 found the cache. Its camouflaged container was dark against the leaf litter and even on a sunny November day, the cache was still in shade.

We walked back to the car, quite happy, one DNF from thirteen caches attempted and more importantly we had chosen one of the few days without rain.

October 22 : Crazy Caching in Cove (Farnborough)

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

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

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

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Write down letters and numbers from the signs…

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

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

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

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

Let’s hope the police don’t see us !

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

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

A peaceful seat…great for some unpeaceful puzzle solving!

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

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

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

Grr!

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

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

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

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The Tilly Shilling, and its history

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

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

Would you enter a pub carrying this ?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Phew !

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

Definitely a crazy caching trip in Cove!

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

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

Jasmin

July 31 – Dorney

We hadn’t undertaken a longish cache series for some time, and the series ‘Dorney Loop’ caught our eye. Approximately 20 caches circumnavigating Dorney Lake (aka Eton Rowing Club Lake aka London’s Olympic Rowing Lake). Part of the route also went by the River Thames, so the boats on the river would provide added interest.

We had walked beside Dorney Lake before, when we walked the Thames Path back in 2015 and had had a quick peek inside. We hoped to do the same today.

We could have started the cache series at Dorney Loop #1, near St James the Less Church. Parking there is limited so instead we parked in the ramblers car park nearer to cache #10.

Where would you hide a cache here ?

Cache #10 was one of the hardest searches of the day (Ed : either that or we weren’t quite in the ‘caching zone’). There were only three places to hide a cache : in a very open-boled multi-trunk tree, in a garden gate entrance or in a very gnarly tree. We dismissed the first two very quickly and concentrated on the gnarly tree. After quite some time Mrs Hg137 stood in just the right position to see a hidey-hole and the cache.

We had two choices of route to either walk ‘clockwise’ around the series (starting with the River Thames section) or the Northern section away from the River. We chose the Northern Section first, and with hindsight this was a mistake, as the footpaths are less frequented, and the caches more interesting. The more usual cache containers were placed nearer to the busier, Thames-side footpath.

A rare uninterrupted view of the Rowing Lake

Sadly for us Dorney Lake is now fully fenced off, and a 12 foot chain link fence surrounds it. Dorney Lake is now used not just for Rowing, but also Triathlons (and probably Biathlons). Our path took us close to the fence boundary, before dividing into 2. The better, made-up path kept close to the fence, our route was on a much older, overgrown path. This provided excellent places for hides, as the prying eyes of the dog walkers, cyclists and runners on the made-up path were some distance away.

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Creative caches on the Northern side of the route

The hides varied from small micros wedged into tree crevices, to false stones. Partway along the Northern Loop was a caching highlight. Hidden 8 foot deep in a hollowed out tree-trunk was a cache with a hook. The cache owner had also placed a long pole with a hook so that all we had to do was ‘go fishing’ or more correctly ‘hook a duck’ ! A real fun cache !

We were still chuckling as we walked to our next cache. On route we were accosted by a gentleman on the other path.

“Do you know anything about insects ?”

We paused just a bit too long. We should replied ‘no’ quickly, but didn’t.

“There are no butterflies…”

He continued.. and we were forced to listen.

“…there’s no butterflies, on the stinging nettles over there… no butterflies…do you know why ?”

Of course we didn’t. But we conjectured about the Summer weather (or lack of), or perhaps the Winter weather. Maybe the butterflies or chrysalises had been eaten.. All we could do was bluster with possible solutions. After 5 minutes, we had run out of conjectures, and moved on.

A few more quick finds, and a muddy stretch or two or footpath, and we were at cache #1. This cache is near the security checkpoint. A magnetic nano. With only a few metallic posts to check, this should be easy. Some cachers are helped by the security guard as he knows where the cache is. He enquires to ‘hapless geocachers’ what they are looking for, and takes them to the correct metal pole. We didn’t have Mr Helpful on duty. We checked post after post after post. Eventually we found it, signed the log and moved on.

Our next cache was a little distance away at Dorney Church. We needed numbers from a sign and a very particular gravestone. While we were searching for the stone we were aware of a wedding being prepared. The hustle and bustle that happens in the 1-2 hours before a wedding when people bringing items into reception venue.

With the gravestone found, we sat on a very rickety bench just outside the open Church Door and calculated the final cache coordinates. We decided not to go into the Church, but instead have lunch on a slightly less rickety picnic table hidden behind the church. As we finished our lunch the strains of ‘I Vow to thee, My country’ were emanating from the Church Organ. By the time we arrived at the church door, the groom, the best man and a couple of guests were standing outside. Our chance to go inside the church had gone!

What they thought of 2 scruffy geocachers, when they were so exquisitely dressed is another matter. We wished them well and sneaked away. On the way to the cache we passed a few more ushers, directing traffic, directing people. Fortunately a quick find at GZ, and more surprisingly the cache contained a trackable, Watercolor Bär from Berlin .

We struggled to remember the last trackable we found, so we were very pleased.

Welcome to the Thames Path

We returned to the Dorney series. Our cache numbers were now going down from #25. We rounded the end of Dorney Lake, wondered why there was no cache numbers #23 and 22, and arrived at the Riverside. Our last 10 or so caches would all be near the Thames Path. We had walked the Thames Path back in 2015. Separating us from the river on the right were trees, reeds and bushes. The cache owner stated there were no caches ‘riverside’. Instead all the caches were in the woodland strip between us and Dorney Lake. This strip was sometimes 3-4 trees deep, others 15-20, so lots of places to hide a cache.

Oakley Court – former home of Hammer Horror films

We found another couple of Dorney caches, before hunting for a puzzle cache we had solved before we left home. We were opposite Oakley Court , the former home of Hammer Horror Films and is now a hotel. The puzzle required us to find the release years for certain Hammer films, and use them to derive coordinates. Easy to do, especially as the cache owner had told us which website to refer to ! The cache as a relatively large container (it was placed in 2005, when this was the norm), and inside was another trackable – Worsley Wombles – #5 Don’t be a Tosser . Two trackables in less than an hour – we can’t remember the last time that happened!

Two caches later – we found a third trackable ! We think we’ve only ever found 3 in one day once before, but we had found 3 in less than 90 minutes ! This trackable was Medweds Wandercache-Coin . Each of these trackables has a different mission of course, and we will endeavour to move them constructively on their journey.

3 Trackables!

Surprisingly for Summer time the Thames was surprisingly quiet (possibly change over day for boat hire, and all the boats were moored awaiting new holidaymakers) .

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Some Thames boats – including a Dunkirk Little Ship

Occasionally the woodland strip surrounding Dorney Lake was narrow, and we caught glimpses of the former Olympic Venue. One of the caches was placed on the fenceline and we got our best view yet.

We had found every cache so far… until we approached #13. (Unlucky, superstitious?) Yep, you’ve guessed it – it was our only DNF. Hidden behind a sign, high in an ivy tree. We had several attempts of reaching and grovelling behind the sign, but found nothing. A big shame as we found the remaining caches, before pausing for an end-of-walk coffee. We didn’t pause long, as suddenly a heavy shower started, and we ran for the car !

An unusual end to a great circuit – some interesting caches…and of course three trackables !

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Varied containers on the River Thames section

December 31 : End of Year Highlights

What a strange year !

Every year we have published, on this blog, pictures of our best caches of the year. Just containers we liked, or locations we loved.

This year is our ‘highlights’ blog is different.

To start with, we have found about 75% of our normal amount of caches. (We’ve adhered to, mainly, the Government guidelines of exercising close to home for an hour and as the year progressed not travelling too far.) We did have 2 mini-breaks (visiting the Cotswolds and Dorset) – but most of our caching has been local. When the ‘tier’ system came in, this also meant we couldn’t travel in/out of different tiers – restricting us further. As a result, the diversity of caches hasn’t been so varied.

But we have still had a few adventures and a few caches we can look back on fondly.

In February we attended a Scrabble tournament on the Isle of Wight, and managed a short caching trip before we returned on the ferry. The series was set near to the Postal Museum, and we found probably one of the best, and apt, cache containers of the year – a small letter box!

Post Box Cache

A couple of week’s later – we found a simple cache container in the centre of Reading. But the beautiful fox that ‘helped’ with the hunting was wonderful to see. Its moments like this that may geocaching special.

During the various lockdowns, we solved a few local puzzle caches, so that when we did go out, we had caches to find. We solved online jigsaws, sudokus, famous Berkshire Residents and various codes. We solved various puzzles on the theme of ‘Apples’, and even solved puzzles contained within the cache to unlock the log book!

On one of Summer’s brighter days, we cached along the River Thames and unexpectedly saw a number of vintage boats. The significance of the boats was explained by one of the owners… they were all Dunkirk Little Ships. Every year there is a ‘social meet-up’, but this year they just settled for mooring together adhering to COVID guidelines.

Dunkirk Little Ships

A notable achievement for us, though not in the same league as the Dunkirk Little Ships, was the completion of our ‘finds by hidden date’ grid as shown on http://www.project-gc-com. We realised we had one date to find – Christmas Day – and an aptly named local cache ‘Hope Yule find it’ completed our grid.

Here though are our top 3 caching experiences of 2021.

In third place, Stuffagps 4: Over Under… At this cache, as the name suggests, we had to reject our GPS and revert to basic map navigation and calculation. An old cache (placed 2007), and a pre-GPS method of finding. So great to achieve!

A very old log book !

From an old cache, to two brand new caches. In equal second place we have Counting Vowels #79 – Limmerhill and Fox Hill Woodland . We are not First-to-Find hounds, as many other cachers are, so for us to be the first to find on 2 caches on the same day is rather special. And worth the early start on a cold December morning to achieve.

But the top spot caching experience of the year goes to….wait for it …. (cue ‘drum roll’)…. Giant’s Jaunt in Cerne Abbas. Although the final container was nothing special, the finding was. In the style of a multi, but written as a poem with no co-ordinates, we had to wander around the village of Cerne Abbas looking at buildings, signs etc collecting numbers. A fantastic ‘treasure-hunt’ cache and highly recommended if you are in the village.


On a different note, the various lockdowns have meant more people have been reading this blog..in previous years we have has 2900-3000 views each year (broadly 8 views a day). We had overtaken this total by the end of September and with over 100 views in one day in November alone…we have become much more widely read.

To all our readers, new or old, cachers or non-cachers, thank you for reading.

Here’s to a much better 2021

Stay local, stay safe.

June 28 – Southwood Country Park

Southwood Country Park is based on the grounds of the former Southwood Golf Course, just South of Farnborough. The Golf Course closed a couple of years ago, and the area was made into a country park shortly after. Well maintained paths surround and criss-cross the park and traces of the former golf course still remain.

10 caches have been placed around the park in a series entitled ‘Southwood Lost Links’. Many of the caches had ‘golfing names’ e.g T off, Water Hole, In the Rough etc..

Seven of the caches were traditional but there were three other cache types. The first a puzzle cache, where a jigsaw of the former golf course had to be solved, to reveal the final coordinates. Another cache was a straightforward multi, which we managed to work out the coordinates before we left home.

The third non-traditional cache type was a ‘letter box’ cache where there is an ink-stamp inside. This was also a ‘multi’ which we didn’t fully realise until we read the full cache description. (Actually the hint ‘tree roots’ made no sense when we were standing in front of a memorial bench!)

The walk around the park was very rural, we saw few houses, and nearby roads were surprisingly quiet. We were only a mile or so from Farnborough Airport, and occasional planes were taking off and landing. Between the trees we espied the Frank Whittle Monument, placed outside the parkland.

Sir Frank Whittle Memorial (Gloster Whittle Aircraft)

Many of the caches were very well hidden, and much thought had been given to ensure they weren’t muggled. The park is relatively busy, so a plastic box under a small pile of twigs would soon disappear. We were surprised by many of the caches including a magnetic cache which were expecting to be a small nano… but it was far, far larger! We didn’t find one of the caches – it was the second cache of the day – and a combination of not quite being the the ‘caching zone’ and probably taking the hint too literally meant the cache called ‘Lost Ball!’ wasn’t found by us!

The creative caches involved false tree-logs, and very imaginatively a bug hotel! The pictures below don’t do the caches justice, and of course we are not showing where they are!

May 26 : So what is a geocache ?

Geocaches are usually physical containers to find, or less-commonly location-based (ie non-physical containers).
This blog will focus on the physical containers.

These containers can be any size, though the finder generally has some idea before they arrive at Ground Zero what the size will be. As a broad rule, the more urban the location.. the smaller the cache.

The smallest caches, nanos are frequently very small magnetic tubes, not much bigger than a fingernail. The largest caches, or at least the largest we have found are metallic ammunition boxes.

All physical caches must contain a log – a piece of paper that the finder must sign. The logs in nanos tend to be very small, the logs in larger ammo cans can be exercise books. In the early days of geocaching many finders would use the exercise book to give a detailed explanation of the find, the weather, the terrain – and it is often fun to read these historic commentaries.

The size of cache larger than the nano is the 35ml film canister. Normally black by design, these are great for cache owners to wedge into ivy..and the film canister comes invisible.

Both nanos and film pots are easily hidden but don’t provide much storage other than for the log. One of the selling points of geoecaching is the aspect of ‘treasure hunting’ and this where the larger containers are useful. Typically a Tupperware sandwich box is good for holding a log book and ‘swag’. Swag items are left in the cache by previous finders (or the cache owner) for the next finder to REPLACE with something of better value. Swag items can’t be food (wild animals love food and will always find a way into a cache) but could be playing cards, cracker-toys, keyrings, marbles etc. We tend to have a small selection of such items with us, so that if we see something in a cache we would like, we can swap our item into the cache.

Clearly the larger caches, ammo boxes in particular, have space for much larger items and sometimes it is difficult finding the logbook in amongst the swag!

Then there are the unusual containers.

Amongst our travels we have encountered various toy animals hosting a cache, wooden owls, Halloween ghosts, stone frogs, fake rocks. a fried egg, a plastic carrot and many more.

Some cache owners make the entry into the cache a bit of fun too.

A local cache hider to us, JJEF, builds wooden structures similar to bird-boxes but with a twist. The cache is inside the birdbox but it isn’t always obvious how to get in to sign the log!
Another cache container with a puzzle twist is the maze container. Here the finder has to unscrew the top from the bottom of the cache, finding lots of maze dead-ends along the way. It is only when the container is fully opened that the log is revealed which will enable the find to logged. (Then there is process of rebuilding the cache back to its original state).

The method of hiding a cache varies too. Sometimes the cache has been placed in a bole of tree, perhaps placed behind a tree and placed under a pile of sticks or stones. Sometimes a magnetic cache, perhaps a ‘false bolt’ is well concealed on metalwork (‘hidden in plain sight’). We have also found caches high up in trees, either after a tree climb or preferably for us, with a rope/pulley mechanism aiding the lowering and subsequent raising of the container.

The novel hides and the novel containers frequently make us smile when we are caching, as it means the cache owner has taken some trouble in setting and placing the cache, adding to the fun of the find.

September 21 : Ash Green Meadows

**** SPOILER ALERT ****
The cache containers in the Ash Green Meadows are based on different book titles and are therefore unusual containers. If you wish to retain the element of surprise when you undertake this series – please do not read this blog! ****

Welcome to Ash Green Meadows

It is always a pleasant surprise to find a brand new circuit of caches placed relatively close to home, and the Ash Green Meadows series met these criteria. Placed on the 12 September and less than 10 miles from home, this was an ideal series to undertake on what was one of the last days of Summer. We had 4 trackables in our possession and we hoped we could place at least one in the containers we found.(We managed to place one!)

The caches in this series were named after children’s books :

Aaaaarrrgghh Spider! by Lydia Monks

Norman The Slug With The Silly Shell by Sue Hendra

One Hundred Hungry Ants by Elinor J. Pinczes

Terror At The Sweet Shop by Lawrence Prestidge

The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull

The Highway Rat by Julia Donaldson

The Lost Acorn (We think the intended book title is The Lost Acorns by Nick Butterworth)

The Story of the Butterfly Children by Sibylle von Olfers

Each cache, had in a different way, been designed to fit in with the book title. This meant we could speculate on the container before we arrived!

The Noisy Blue Tractor

Ash Green Meadows was formerly horse grazing land, and is now available to walk around in quiet countryside. (The exception to this was the Noisy Blue Tractor ploughing in a nearby field). The Meadows were acquired as a condition for building 400 houses nearby. Footpaths criss-cross and circumnavigate various fields; each field having bushes and trees at the edge. A former railway line forms the northern edge. Interestingly we had walked (and cached) near to Ash Green Meadows in early 2017, when we walked from Sandhurst, Berkshire to Sandhurst Kent. At that time we walked along the disused railway oblivious to the fields adjacent to it!

The Disused Railway Line

As we walked today, we were conscious it was a relatively new series and fully expected to see other cachers out and about. We didn’t! Instead we saw a myriad of dog walkers which meant we had to be super-careful at each cache location. At one cache, we discreetly picked the cache up, and walked on to a nearby seat, and waited for three adults, a child (in a buggy), and four dogs to go by before replacing.

A welcome seat for log-signing

All the hides were easy to find – the two cleverest were Butterfly and Acorn – both of which were hanging and needed to be ‘unwound’ to lower the cache to log-signing height.

Was this a cache…no!

Here are some of the caches we found…as mentioned earlier… look away now if you want to enjoy finding these containers yourself!