Two days before Christmas … the turkey was defrosting, the homemade Christmas pudding had been checked (a year old but fine), and all was pretty much under control, Christmas-wise. On a dry, bright morning we made our way to Kingsclere in north Hampshire for some geocaching in the countryside around the village. We planned to find the caches in the Kingsclere Kaper series, and maybe add in a few others as we went.
From the Fieldgate Centre on the edge of the village, we made our way uphill along a country lane and into the bare, wintry country, hearing the bangs of guns from a distant shoot ahead of us (luckily, not on our route, we don’t like being shot at). Just before turning onto a bridleway, we were hailed by an elderly countryman, and stopped to pass the time of day. He said he was on his way home – from where? no idea. He was also clutching a laden carrier bag – we had suspicions that it contained pheasant(s) “obtained” from the shoot going on a little way ahead of us – but we can’t prove that!
Once off the tarmac, it was damper underfoot, but a lovely walk through trees, part of the Brenda Parker Way, a long-distance footpath. We skirted a fishery, crossed a little bridge – there are lots of small footbridges on this route – and emerged onto fields. Other people had the same idea as us and were out for a pre-Christmas walk: most were very clean and tidy and we wondered if that would still be so once they’d negotiated the muddy path! Geocaching-wise, we were doing well, we’d already found eight caches, all but one from the Kaper series, and were making steady progress.
We emerged onto the A339, the main road between Basingstoke and Newbury. At the Star Inn, we saw that, again, other people were out for a pre-Christmas meal … but they weren’t watching us as we stopped to find a cache.
From here, we followed paths and field edges and made our way through the edge of the village. It was lunchtime, so we found a seat in a quiet spot for a picnic. (As an aside, this was one of our better lunch spots, overlooking the playground and allotments: we’ve previously had lunch in leaky bus shelters, industrial estates, graveyards …) Afterwards, we walked back out into the country, passing the community orchard : much better seats here, we shouldn’t have stopped so soon!
We walked in a loop through the countryside to the north, crossing a few more of those little bridges on the way. A brief furtle for a cache behind the postbox, then we made our way to the end of our walk along the delightfully named Frog’s Hole, following a little stream back up the hill; and a chance to cross yet more of those ‘little bridges’ that abound in Kingsclere.
Here are just a few of the many interesting caches we found:
Bentley is a small town, or perhaps a large village, a few miles South West of Farnham, just inside the Hampshire border.
Winter was having a final throw of cold weather, and the morning was cold. We could keep warm by walking around, but too much dawdling at a cache, and the cold weather could be felt.
We parked near the village pond and sports field, where some football training for young children was about to start. There was much running around and chasing of footballs.
The Village Pond, Bentley
There was a cache nearby, but we left it – hopefully the sports field would be quieter later, and it gave a waypoint for the car.
The A31 skirts Bentley and one assumes many years ago the road went through the village. Today the A31 is about ½ mile to the South and the village is quiet.
Our first cache though was by the A31. Or at least should have been. The cache was missing. In fairness, we thought it was missing, as the last two cachers hadn’t found it either, but they only had 10 geocaching finds between them so there was a chance they may not have looked everywhere. They had. We did as well . The cache was missing.
We headed back to the centre of Bentley and admired the village history on a large map. Various dates and numbers on the map were needed for the multi – part of the national village hall series of geocaches. A quick calculation later and a short walk and we were at GZ. A very inauspicious sign to check, but Mrs Hg137 found the cache within seconds. As we walked to the cache we noticed the town had a good range of shops – the independent grocers being the most popular- two pubs and a small trading estate.
The caches in Bentley are quite spread out, and we had long uphill walk to our next cache at St Mary’s Church, part of the Church Micro series of caches, Many of the Church Micro caches are multis, this though was a standard cache hanging in a tree. There were of course several trees, and lots of ‘protective branches’ so it was quite a tricky find.
St Mary’s Church, Bentley
We looked inside the church and sat outside for a quick cup of coffee. As we did so, several people came by – they were heading to a choir practice for the village’s jubilee celebrations. Apparently the choir will be singing a song from every decade of the Queen’s reign, We hope it goes well for them.
Our next three caches were to the North-East of the village, and another long-ish walk.
The first cache, called ‘horses and hawthorns’, had been DNFed recently by a very experienced cacher. We decided to give this cache a quick 5 minutes, but we only needed 5 seconds ! The cache was hidden exactly as hinted, and less than 3 feet from the gps. ! How the previous cacher couldn’t find it, we will never know.
Smugly we continued on, walking around various field boundaries, crossing stiles, admiring the colourful rapeseed crop (surely it’s too early in April, for rape to flower? ), and also rows and rows of grapevines. The chalky soil and south facing slopes should be ideal for grape growing.
Eventually we arrived a large fallen tree (the cache description called it log), and after battling with the early Spring hedgerow growth, we found the large cache quite easily. More fields, and more stiles and we arrived at our next cache. ‘Troll 2’. Yes, it was hidden under a bridge.
A dried up streambed leading to the Troll’s cache hiding place!
Surprisingly it took us some time to see the bridge! The bridge crossed a stream, but surprisingly, for early April, it was dried up and a much simpler footpath, crossed the streambed. As we crossed the streambed we saw the bridge, and walked on the bank to it. The cache was supposed to have been hidden under the ‘West’ side, but it wasn’t there ! Mrs Hg137 retraced her steps, and walked along the streambed, looking upwards. There she saw the cache…. on the East side ! (In fairness there was a good ‘ledge’ for the cache on the East side, but it meant the hint was wrong!).
Our last cache was back near the car. We retraced our steps through the village, much quieter than when we walked through earlier. The playground was quiet too, as was the village pond. Nearby was the cache, we signed the log, and read various signs about the correct food for ducks. Who knew you shouldn’t feed ducks bread, but feed them porridge instead!?
The porridge sign reminded us how cold we were, so we drove home, encountering a snow shower on the way back.
A cold morning’s cache with some unexpected finds in Bentley.
A beautiful clear Saturday, and we were off to Fifield, a small village just south of the River Thames. A new geocache series, the ‘GilDean Ramble #5’, had been placed here only days before. We’d put in some pre-work to determine the locations of the caches, as they are mystery (or puzzle) caches where a puzzle is to be solved to determine the location of the caches. There was an ’aha’ moment as we guessed the theme (which we think is a current – or mostly former – TV series with a connected subject). There followed some scribbling, some Googling, and some sums. There are twelve caches in the series, each with a number written inside the lid of the container, which can be used to derive the location of a bonus cache. On the map, the caches are laid out in a neat cross-shape – needless to say, the coordinates derived after solving each puzzle place the actual caches across a much wider area, spread approximately between Fifield and Oakley Green, the next village to the east.
Fifield caches
We set off into Fifield village to look for our first cache, called ‘Fifield Village’, another new cache, but not part of the series. It starts at a postbox, and, as we rounded a corner, a lady with two dogs was standing in front of it. She was taking a suspiciously long time to post a letter … we approached and greeted her – hello Pebbles, Meggie, and Honey! Nice to meet you! At the time of writing this blog, Pebbles&Co have found well over 55,000 caches, the 4th most prolific finder in the UK. And, by comparison, we have found about 3750 caches and are in about position 2500. We are just beginners!
Pebbles&Co
We went our separate ways to find the caches in the series. We’d worked out a route which took us hither and thither around the footpaths of Fifield (as if we were auditioning for Google Street View!). It was a glorious spring morning: skylarks singing, leaf buds swelling, sunshine, mud (mud? Yes, quite a bit in places). And the caches – how did we do? Well, without giving away exact locations, we found them all, most quite quickly, some after a great deal of prickly searching, and some after traversing some muddy bits. Part way round, Pebbles passed us; she was getting on more quickly than us, and stopped to pass on hints about two of the caches she’d already found – just as well, we would have failed to find at least one of those without that assistance. There were caches behind posts, in trees, under bridges, in hedges, by gates, widely spread around the area.
Every so often we broke off to find a local cache, an ‘extra’ to the series. The owners of those caches may be wondering why they are now being found much more frequently? It’s because caches that are in a series (or near others) tend to be found more often; isolated caches are found less frequently; one of the ‘extra’ caches we found was about four years old, but had only been found about 60 times … and 6 of those were in the last two weeks, since the new geocache series was placed nearby. Our wanderings to the ‘extra’ caches took us as far as Oakley Green cemetery, which also provided us with a handy seat for our picnic lunch. (Not many seats today, not many at all.)
Oakley Green Cemetery
Just after lunch – near disaster. Mr Hg137 bent down to extricate a cache and stood up … blood dripping from both hands. Oh dear, lots of blood. The cache was put aside and urgent first aid started. His hands were washed (we carry water with us) till we could find the source. The blood was traced to a thin, deep cut running the length of a top finger joint. Next up, stop the bleeding. Oops, we’d left the first aid kit in the car. A spare Covid mask was repurposed to form a bandage. The elastic ear straps were removed and tied to apply compression, and it worked beautifully. (We’re sorry, we don’t have photos of the incident, we were both busy at the time!)
Once all was sorted out, we went on our way. All through the day, we’d had a recurring … ”we’ve been here before” … feeling, and we were correct. At one place, we could remember exactly where there used to be a cache, so we went to look – and there it was! The old series was the ‘Fifield Ramble’, which we found back in 2017. The caches were made/placed by JJEF, a local cacher who favours one-off constructions usually made from wood. We remembered how it worked, tried the mechanism and the cache popped open, to show everything in great condition, plus a nice dry log last signed just before the series was discontinued in 2019. (As an aside, if you ever come across a cache made by, or set by JJEF, it is very well worth doing – finding the cache isn’t the problem, it’s getting inside to sign the log!)
Bird box 1 back in 2017 …
… and the same cache in 2022
And finally, we’d found all the caches in the Gildean Ramble #5 series, and now had a set of numbers (written inside) to turn into coordinates for the bonus cache. We found another seat and sat down to do some calculations – it seemed quite some way away, we wondered if we had written down a number (or two) incorrectly. No matter, we were going in that direction anyway, and there were some extra caches along the way, including a Counting Vowels cache. Apart from Pebbles and us, we noticed other signatures with today’s date; hmm, other cachers were around, too.
Spotted on our route – Fifield residents?
Having stopped again to check the coordinates for the bonus cache, we eventually arrived at the spot we had calculated. It wasn’t where we had expected it to be, but at least the surroundings matched the hint. We searched, then looked again, and eventually spotted the bonus cache. Phew – a full set! Then we set off back to Fifield and the geocar. Two people were walking towards us: the swiftly hidden GPS was a giveaway. Hello to Crispy 1 and Dora_Explorer – another two very experienced geocachers! Of course, we stopped for a chat; they, too, were heading for the bonus cache. We reassured them that the coordinates for the bonus cache were correct, and off they went.
We returned to the geocar, handily parked almost next to an ‘extra’ cache for both a final find and a waypoint to navigate back to. We’d found all nineteen caches we’d attempted, had a day out in the countryside and the spring sunshine, had done a decent longish walk, the first for some while, and had met lots of lovely cachers, dogs, and horses. Oh, and we’d also met quite a lot of mud – we were well covered! What a great day out!
New Year had passed, and it was time to get outside and do something other than eating (!) and watching TV. The weather was grey, but OK, so we packed a picnic lunch and set off for a day’s caching, the first of the year, around Crondall, a village in Hampshire, a few miles north-west of Farnham.
We parked in the newly gravelled Village Hall car park – two muggles were working inside the hall and we asked permission to do so. They came to talk to us and were told that the village ‘wasn’t what it used to be’ – we reserved judgement as we’d only just arrived.
After a quick look around and inside All Saints Church, we set off down a muddy footpath between the churchyard and the village primary school, to make a start on the ‘CUIYC 2000th Cache Celebration Series’. (In case you were wondering, it stands for Cache Us If You Can …) After a couple of caches, we emerged into open fields and were climbing gently, with good views back over the village. While signing a cache log, a muggle passed us, with his dog (Barney) some way behind; we were told that Barney knows his own mind and turns for home when he’s had enough; we looked up a little later and there was no sign of either muggle or dog, so we assumed that Barney had decided the walk was over … And, Barney was just the first of the many, many dogs, maybe two dozen in total, that we passed, out for a winter walk with their pet muggles.
Further on, we came to the first truly inventive cache container of the year, based on an animal. A great cache; we learnt later that the caches nearer the village tend to go walkabout from time to time, so they are fairly standard containers, easily replaceable, such as 35mm film pots. Further out in the country the containers are more creative, many based on animals, birds, amphibians and insects (!) We worked our way on around the fields and hedges, finding more caches concealed by assorted wildlife. Another in the series was hidden amid a pile of flints and stones – yes, the cache was a stone – yes, it was also the very last one we picked up!
Part way round, we stopped for lunch – we had been expecting to yomp round the circuit, then have a late and rushed lunch on a seat in the churchyard – but we did better, with a comfy log and a country view.
Apart from the cache circuit, there was a bonus activity, because there was a bonus cache to find at the end of the series. Some of the caches had a letter/number written inside, which could be assembled to make the coordinates of the bonus cache. We had concerns that we might not find all the numbers, as some of the logs were damp or fragile (so we couldn’t see if there was a number) and there was one cache we didn’t find (nope, simply couldn’t spot the cache hidden in a spider!). But all was well, as we assembled enough numbers to come up with a plausible set of coordinates, and navigated ourselves to within a few paces of the cache … so that worked out very well.
Penn Croft Winery, Crondall
Having finished the series, we saw some new farm buildings in the distance, and wondered what they were. Once there, we found out: it was a winery! It was closed for the holidays, so we went off a little way down the lane to find an extra cache, ‘Crondall’s cache’. We wished we hadn’t: the cache hadn’t been found for four months, and the log was then marked as damp: by now it was sopping and way too wet to sign.
This log is far, far too wet to sign!
Fingers dripping slightly, we retraced our steps and returned to the village, soon arriving back at the village hall. This, too had a cache, from the ‘Village Hall Series’, and on our short walk to the cache, we had chance to admire the rest of the Hall, the adjoining playground, cricket pitch, and bowls club. A great asset for the village.
Crondall Village Hall
Once home, caches logged, we considered what those villagers had said – ‘Crondall wasn’t what it used to be’ – and we thought we disagreed. Apart from the well-used church, village hall, and playground, it’s on two bus routes, has a super primary school, a general stores/post office, doctor’s surgery, TWOpubs (few villages still have this), and a Rolls-Royce/Bentley garage (even fewer villages have these!). Hard to say that it’s not a thriving place.
Late in September, while we were attempting some caches in Warren Row, we met another geocaching couple, GilDean. They suggested we might like to attempt their series set in Shurlock Row. Today was the day we undertook that challenge!
Billingbear Polo Club
Shurlock Row is a small village, almost hamlet in size, part of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, but a little section of our walk was in the neighbouring borough of Wokingham.
GilDean’s geocaching route was linear, starting with a Counting Vowels multi-cache, then 10 standard caches. We decided to undertake the Counting Vowels cache first. Many of the caches in the counting vowels series require visiting several waypoints to collect words, and hence vowels. For this particular cache, GilDean managed to find all the words (and vowels) on the village notice board. Relatively simple to do, and even simpler to walk to, as the noticeboard and final hiding place were close to the village pond.
A less than full pond…and lots of hiding places for caches
We took sometime locating the final hiding place, as the hint gave little away, and we paused several times as the local cycling club came by, in several different groups. Nevertheless a great start to a morning’s walk.
The remaining caches did not form an obvious circular route, so we decided to attempt alternate caches on the outbound journey, and the remaining caches on the return. This would ensure we would maintain caching interest throughout the walk.
Shurlock Homes ?
Cache 1 in the series was within the village itself, and a very quick find. Being relatively early in the morning, there were few people in the village, and our ‘quick grab’ of the cache went unnoticed. This cache would be so much harder on a warm summer’s afternoon, when village is more awake.
We crossed the road out of the village and walked down a wide farm track and through a metal gate (noting cache 2 was at the gate…which we would save for our return).
We crossed the M4, the noise of which formed a constant background hum for much of our walk, and arrived at a hedge. We started looking for our next cache, and then stood back in amazement, it was displayed in the open! We suspect there has been some hedge trimming, and what was a well concealed cache – is now fully visible. We hope that there aren’t too many non-geocachers walking this way during the winter who may investigate the cache and remove it from its very exposed position.
Our next attempted cache (#5) was just inside the grounds of Billingbear Polo Club. The Polo club is relatively new (20 years we think), but the adjoining Golf Course can be dated back to Victorian Times. The area of Billingbear is much, much older, as it was owned in Anglo-Saxon times by Edith, the wife of Edward the Confessor, and is mentioned in the Domesday book of 1086.
We were greeted at the Polo grounds, by a bonfire. An unmanned bonfire. Smoke drifted upwards, spiralling in different directions, but mainly – or so it seemed to us – at where we wanted to search for the next cache. Several trees to check, and it was only after inhaling bonfire smoke for 10 minutes did we find the cache. We walked away quickly, noticing an open groundsman’s shed some distance away… so perhaps the bonfire was being observed after all.
The Polo grounds had a delightful avenue of trees, and as we reached the end, we saw an immense metal sculpture of a horses’s head. Coming by road, this would be one of the first things a visitor would see !
We followed our path, near to where the polo ponies (Ed : horses, really) are tied to when they are not in action. It was interesting to note the signs were, we think, in Spanish!
A squeeze gate brought us to a couple of houses, one with a fantastic tree house and on the other side of the road, the Golf Course. A large hedge separated us from the golfers. Although we couldn’t see the players we could hear much of their conversation as they walked between playing shots.
Our concentration on their conversation was broken intermittently by looking for caches (it was after all why we were there). These caches were well hidden, but with accurate hints, easy to spot.
After a short while, we had completed the ‘odd numbered’, alternate caches so we walked a little way to cache #10, before walking back to Shurlock Row.
Many cache owners like to finish their series with a clever container or unusual hide. Cache #10 for most people would have been the last cache and it was indeed a clever container. A pencil sharpener! One of the large plastic types that collect pencil shavings as you sharpen. Here, though, the shavings container was the host for the log sheet. Very inventive.
The caches on the outward leg had been hidden in just slightly out-of-the ordinary places. We took this knowledge with us on the return journey…. and it backfired. At one stump, we completely overlooked the very obvious space for a cache, and hunted elsewhere for sometime before returning to first principles!
As we approached the horse sculpture we saw a lady with a dog approaching. Was she a cacher? No, just out with her dog…which seem to spent more time in the nearby lake than running on grass.
Cache #6 was the only one without a hint. We were slightly concerned and we geared up for a long search. We needn’t have worried. as the cache had been placed in a large tree bole.
The tree-lined avenue lead us back to the bonfire which was belching far more smoke now than before. We were grateful we had found the adjacent cache earlier, as finding it on our return was have been very, very unpleasant.
One more quick find, and we were back at our last cache of the day, by the metal gate. We had our eye in with the modus operandi of the cache owner, but we were tiring. The cache proved elusive. Where could it be at the metal gate ? The hint ‘to the left’ we interpreted as ‘to the right’ as we completing the series in reverse. Making our search worse, was that the Shurlock Row Villagers were out and about and several families were striding out for late morning exercise.
Nature in the air, at waist height, and on the ground
Eventually we did find the container, again it was one much easier to locate in Autumn/Winter months than in Summer months when prickly vegetation would make access so much harder.
So we finished the 4 mile walk having found all 11 caches, and we also pleased we met GilDean a few weeks previously as we may not have undertaken this series otherwise.
We’ve driven through Chobham many times; it’s an attractive, prosperous and well-kept village. But oh dear – the traffic! Two A-roads meet in the centre of the old part of the village; throw in two mini-roundabouts, a zebra crossing, narrow village streets and busy village life, and there seems to be a semi-permanent traffic queue.
Nevertheless, there were three interesting-sounding geocaches around the village, one Church Micro cache and two multicaches, so it looked like a promising place for a morning’s caching. And there was also a village car park, free for two hours and not expensive thereafter.
Although there were two multicaches, with waypoints in interweaving locations, we decided to attempt only one cache at a time. We’ve gone wrong so often while trying to ‘speed things up’ by doing more than one cache at a time, and have ended up grumpy and confused (possibly that should have been our caching name!). It was not such a very large village centre, there would be no problem if we did a couple of circuits on this bright, sunny autumn morning.
Chobham Cannon
Our first multicache was ‘Chobham Cannon’, which starts at that very object; it commemorates a visit from Queen Victoria in 1853. We followed the waypoints, dodging the traffic; actually, it was busy (and noisy) by the roads, but only a few yards away from the main roads, in the churchyard, the park, or down side streets and alleyways, it was quieter and more peaceful and … nicer. After a little time, we had acquired all the numbers we needed for the cache coordinates – except one. Hmm, what to do now? Go round again?
Chobham Village Hall
Realising we were close to the start of the second multicache, ‘Chobham Village Hall’, we decided to try that one instead. The coordinates for this cache were much easier to assemble than the previous cache, and very soon we were walking away from the road, along a footpath that led into the fields outside the village. Such a contrast: in a very short distance, we went from urban to rural: a busy main road, then fields with horses grazing and dogs out for a morning walk. We arrived at a kissing gate, where we hoped the cache was hidden. But where was it? After a good look and feel around, we were defeated.
We returned to the village and chose a seat in the churchyard for a coffee break. Of the two caches we’d so far attempted, we’d got an incomplete set of coordinates for one, and had failed to find the other: it wasn’t going well so far. Over coffee, we wondered about the Church Micro cache, the only one we hadn’t attempted so far. We wondered if it was anywhere near where we were sitting? We consulted the GPS. It was 11 feet away. Yes, that close!
We had found a cache at last, and were immediately happier. Next, we decided on another attempt at our first cache, to see if we could find that missing number. We returned to the location of the missing number and spotted something we hadn’t seen when approaching from a different direction. Coordinates were finally assembled; at the likely spot, there were only a few places we could look, and searched them all, several times. Eventually, yet another look at the place that most closely matched the hint showed us the cache, very neatly tucked away (a previous feel with fingertips had just missed it).
With a few minutes left on our car parking time, and increasing confidence (we’d now found TWO caches!) we thought we would have another look for the cache we couldn’t find earlier on. This time round, we got lucky. Or more likely, our previous searches had moved vegetation around just enough that the cache could be felt on a second search.
All caches found – finally – though for much of the morning, we didn’t think it would turn out that way! And a jolly nice stroll around a very pleasant village.
sandhurstgeocachers 