Geocaching and Trigpointing

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Blog - A cachers / triggers diary

7th May 2007

This was a big weekend for us as we were camping at The 2007 South Wales Event in Dare Valley Country Park, which was our first ever event. It was a chance to put faces to all those names that we have come to know so well over the last year or so. I had the day off work on Friday and picked Will up from school. Cath wasn't feeling too well, so we said farewell and headed for Aberdare. It took about three hours to get our tent up as we kept talking to Welsh Angel, SCAL and Write and Mane. Then a fire engine arrived to put out a heather fire. We ended up having a pleasant evening chatting to The Royles, The Great Redmondo and The Flying Boots. Will went off with some of the other kids to play NDS in a camper van. A key conversation was about which caches we wanted to do that weekend. The Last of the Mohicans was my must do cache and it seemed to spark much enthusiasm from the others, some of which had done it before.

After a sleepless night we had a leisurely start before the 10am event. A bunch of new caches had been created and we spent the next couple of hours finding clues in the school room and wandering around the campsite finding answers to the children's observation quiz and gathering information from other cachers for the quiz. We just had enough time to do a couple of caches before we had to head back and meet the others for The Last of the Mohicans. As we were first to set off we stopped to pick up an unusual magnetic geocoin cache on the way out of the park. In total we numbered about 20 for the cache and arrived in 6 cars. After a pleasant walk to the waterfall we spread out and searched for 30 minutes. There was no sign of the cache and even those that had found it before agreed it had gone. A new cache was planted and we somewhat dubiously logged our 300th find.

We stopped for a drink on the way back and then Will and I set out for a couple on our own. At the first we bumped into some more cachers and enjoyed the view over the park with more good company. Then Will and I set off to bag the nearby trigpoint which way currently the trig designated by Ye Ole Survey Monuments. This is a cache I strongly object to for many reasons, so I won't be logging it except with trigpointinguk. We arrived back at the campsite to find we'd won a bottle of wine in the raffle and enjoyed some good company and hot dogs. After a bit more activity, a hot day and some vino we managed to sleep like logs even though the socializing went on well into the early hours for some.

The next morning was a very sociable affair as we went caching with The Royles and Satellite Kid. They picked off the two caches we had done the previous morning as we looked on, then we got stuck in finding the next three.

Poor old Jon had had a late night and was feeling a little worse for wear, though he put on a brave face despite having to visit a nearby copse on more than one occasion. The caches were easy enough and the company was good. Bob and Magic got on especially well, as did Will and Dan. We returned to the site for lunch and after a visit to the supermarket Will spent the afternoon with Dan, leaving me to go for a couple of more challenging caches on my own. I failed at Peace in the Park as someone was watching me, but it was close by and I could easily come back for the final cache. I headed for Clydach Enigma, which was in a lovely location, though the drive down the valley roads was quite difficult. There are long, drawn out streets of terraced houses, narrowed by the cars parked bumper to bumper on both sides. Low speed limits run through most of the area.

We finished up with Cwm View near Ferndale which let us burn off a few calories and then sat by a pool enjoying the views before it was time to head back to find Will. We went into town to eat at Weatherspoon's, which was a total disaster and emerged over 2 hours later into a wet darkening world. It poured down all evening and night, so there was no socializing to be done. We got up very early, as I hadn't slept all night due to the wind and left. The ground at the campsite was very rocky and I didn't dare go to sleep in case the tent pegs came out. We arrived at the park to finish yesterday's cache only to find it locked. As I circled the park trying to find an entrance the park keeper drove up in a throaty Subaru Impreza and opened up. I made an immediate find in the pouring rain and we headed home. We had a fabulous weekend and me many lovely people. I was also pleased to discover that quite a few of you out there read this blog! We look forward to meeting you all again very soon.

28th April 2007

We put Will's bike in the back of the car and headed to Radstock, which is south-east of Bath. We picked this location as there was a line of caches along a disused railway, which, as always, had been converted into a cycle path. But first there were four caches that lead from the town to the Fosse Way. The first had us crossing two very busy roads, reading a telephone number from a shop window and then into a grubby car park to find a micro under a breeze block in a rundown area. The walk must have been less that 0.2 miles and was in no way in a pretty or interesting area. Still the log reads, great cache and thanks for showing me Radstock. I just don't understand it at all.

On our way to the Fosse Way we climbed a path behind some houses. The path stood at the height of the roof of the houses on the hill. I couldn't help notice a buxom young girl prancing around her bedroom as naked as the day she was born. It was nearly mid day, so maybe she was just a bit of an exhibitionist. It certainly brightened things up after that last cache though! When I told Will, he just said "Yuck!".

We detoured off on the way back for two caches. At the first we met two girls with a retriever that we kept bumping into. They were very nice and we chatted each time, but they must have wondered what we were up to. Off the beaten track - part 1 was much harder. Partly due to the coordinates being so far out and partly due to the very steep and slippery slope the cache was on. We found it in the end and slid down the slope crouched on feet and hands. After this we got back to the car, did one more cache and then headed home. As so often lately on these trips as we drove up the Wye Valley we had to appreciate the beauty of where we live and wonder why we were traveling elsewhere. Nearly all the caches today were pretty mundane, with no real reason for being where they were. No thought or effort had gone into them, but most people seem more than happy with that. I'm beginning to get a little disillusioned by it though.

21st April 2007

I had planned to re-walk The Three Castles Walk today, but when Rock rock who's there? was posted on Thursday evening plans were quickly changed. This was a 22 mile walk from Pontypool in a clockwise direction passing through Blorenge and encircling Blaenavon. We got a nice early start then had to return to the car after walking 1/2 mile as I'd left our water behind and it was going to be a scorcher. I didn't realise how hot it was most of the time as the wind was quite chilly on the hill tops, but I came back quite burnt. The initial climb wasn't too hard once we'd left the town behind. It was great to be in the peaceful hills again. We saw one other walker all day. We picked up a trig and covered about 8 miles before the second virtual cache. Then we had a very steep descent to the next virtual, which was by a pub. Unfortunately it was closed as our water supply wasn't going to last the day.

We only had a small detour to pick up Cipher Cache 3, which was a nice easy find and off the beaten track. Bob was almost asleep while I signed the log book. We lost the trail shortly after as the path was not really marked on the OS map. After about 15 miles my little toe and the sole of my left foot begins to rub and it gets a bit uncomfortable. I carried on (not that I had much choice), now without water and was glad to make a simple find of the cache. Quite literally the first place I looked again. I was later surprised to find Sniffadogz had driven the course and couldn't find the cache. We finished up with another trig and The Folly, a cache I had been saving until the Shell Grotto was open for the summer, but as it was on my route I couldn't really refuse it. The folly was built over 200 years ago and was destroyed as it was aiding German bomber raids on Glascoed Royal Ordnance factory. It was eventually rebuilt as a WWII memorial in 1994 and is an impressive landmark on the top of the hill.

14th April 2007

The regular threesome headed just east of Stroud. Schrodinger's Cache was first up in Horsley. This was a lovely jaunt round a pretty village taking in some nice bits of countryside. Will had an opportunity to shine too when be passed a house with a plaque mentioning Dick King-Smith. I had no idea he was the author of The Sheep-Pig. After another three caches we did Cider with Laurie. Laurie Lee grew up in Slad. I remember reading Cider with Rosie as part of the English sylabus at school, though I don't remember much about the book itself. The cache was in a beautiful valley, which we saw at it's best on a hot spring day. There were some crazy trees with exposed roots growing out of the side of rock.

Sheep may safely graze in the village of Sheepscombe was a great cache. Lovely views and a late afternoon visit to the pub afterwards. We'd already had Cotswold Ice Cream at Cold as Ice. The worst part of the day was following the GPS's directions, which lead us up an extremely narrow road. We couldn't get out at the top as it was so steep, dusty and narrow so we reversed back down with an inch spare in places on either side. This is no exageration and it was extremely stressful, but we made it without a scratch. Cache with a view brought serious deja vu, then we realized we'd visited it before and must have logged against the wrong cache. Oops! We then messed up On the Edge, but had a great walk (which strangely went through the middle of two gardens). It's quite nice to mess the good ones up as we certainly don't mind visiting this again. Finally we stopped off at the dreaded Gloucester to pick up a micro is a dodgy park. Never again.

8th April 2007

It's Easter! My New Year's resolution was to get away for more camping / caching trips this year as Will's at an age where he loves it. So with four days clear we decided to head for North Devon. Will wanted to be back for the Easter Bunny Egg Hunt so we only had one night away, but on Saturday I convinced him that the egg trail would remain and we stayed another night. We planned to pitch near Lynmouth, so we only had a short stretch of the M5 to negotiate - and guess what - the M5 was closed at Portishead so the air ambulance could land. After a painfully slow detour (we avoided the 15 mile tailbacks on the M5) we eventually made it to the Quantocks. After a picnic we set about 7 or 8 caches and were surprised to find so many micros.

There was an unusual cache where you had to work out how to retrieve the cache once you'd found it and several camouflaged hides. One cache had been muggled, but we even found the container and some of the contents. We were on a roll.
CM1 was a hide that we hadn't come across before. Fortunately the hint made it very easy. 1 in 4 was our 10th and last cache of the day on Porlock Hill. This was the first (but not the worst) of many steep hills over the weekend.
It was late by the time we got to Channel View campsite and we only just got in, but it was a great campsite with wonderful views over Lynmouth and the sea. After erecting the tent we had a potter round Lynton and Lynmouth (the cliff railway is amazing), had fish and chips by the harbour and then a drink in a pub on the way back to the campsite.

The weather was unbelievably hot all weekend for Easter. We combated this with a fresh sea breeze, which was just as well as the first 2 caches of the day consisted of good climbs. Valley of Rocks and Beachcombers Treasure were both great caches, though the first was yet another dreaded micro. Having not read the listings as usual I didn't realize that the second hadn't been found for months and was thought missing. We found the ammo box a long way down the hillside completely uncovered. As the log book was full I flicked through it to find an empty half page. As I started writing I noticed that the top half had been filled by RobandTiina in 2002. It's Rob I have to blame for getting me into this geocaching thing.
There were wild goats and Exmoor ponies and plenty of walkers / tourists. We completed this area with an easy virtual cache called Castle Rock, our furthest from home find so far.

We moved in land and particularly enjoyed A Winter's Tale, by The Gecko's (from Wales). We found the ammo box just sitting on a wall - opened. We then somehow ended up driving to Minehead as we needed cash (not that sort) and provisions. We moved on to Blue Anchor and really enjoyed a good walk down the beach almost completing a series of caches based on Pill Box coastal defences. We spent ages at both caches making the final find for a variety of reasons, but it didn't matter as Will loved playing in the water and on the beach and Bob found a young Airedale to play with. It's great to see two dogs get on so well together.

There was a wonderful sunset which I'll put on the main site's photos page. There was also a steam train which ran along the sea wall line. All in all a great set of caches. Afterwards we grabbed some food and got back late to the campsite where we slept like logs.

Where Exmoor meets the Sea is a great cache that's done easily from our campsite, so we packed up on Sunday morning and did this one. Terrific views. After a quickish micro (really can't get to grips with this) we headed to Minehead to complete the last (or first) in the Defence of the Realm series. We estimated time badly and only paid £1 in the seafront meter. Despite really marching in we were still 20 minutes late back. It was hard work for Will, especially in the dry sand, but at least the find was an easy one this time. We did a couple more micros / nanos in Bridgwater on the way home and a DNF which turned out not to be there and then stopped for a quick drink at The Boat Inn in Chepstow before returning home to see Cath and the Easter Bunny trail.

31st March 2007

And so our first year of geocaching draws to a close. We found our first cache on 1/4/2006. In that year we've found 244 caches and we've had many, many memorable outings.

One evening in late September we went caching in Portishead. There were now a few new caches around the area and a couple we'd missed and as Will loves the seaside, we decided to do a mop up trip.
We had a couple of blustery, but very enjoyable seafront walks and we had a couple of very odd caches. Our DNF for the day was a very poorly constructed cache which started by the sea, then had you counting fence panels and graffiti on trees whilst leading you through a housing estate and into a very unpleasant wooded area. Something tells me the hider lives in a house next to the cache. This sort of cache really annoys me. It shows no thought or imagination at all and I know where the council dump is if I want to see rubbish.

The other strange cache we did had you find a telephone number and then not use it. Then you had to work out coordinates which had no bearing on anything. Someone had been on the double strength espresso when they set this one. Having said that it was in a great location and we really enjoyed our picnic on the top of the hill looking over the sea.

We really enjoyed Zig Zag in Clevedon as the town is lovely and full of character. It also has the only in tact Grade 1 listed pier. Amazingly we couldn't find a Fish and Chip shop. You've got to do it when you're at the seaside.

Will walked into a gate after walking with his eyes closed because dust had blown up. 9 year olds do some daft things. He really enjoyed listening to the whistling sound a hollow steel gate post made as the wind blew past a hole in it, picnic on the hill, meeting loads of friendly dogs, playing on the beach and playing the egg-banana game that we invented last year - but that's another story.

After a long day out we got ten finds and a bunch of travel bugs. Will had an unusual treat of visit to Burger King on the way home and he soon forgot all about his bump.

Will has stuck at geocaching for a year and he's been great company. We've had some terrific times together and I hope we have as much fun in the year to come.

24th March 2007

We kicked off the weekends caching on Friday night with a series of four new caches based on Slade Brook, just outside St. Briavels. As it's only three or four miles from our house we couldn't resist, so after work / school Will and I took Sid and Bob for an evening stroll. I struggled with Sid on three stiles, but otherwise we had a great time. All the caches were great and by the time we reached the last it was dark. The lights on the hillside at Llandogo where very pretty. We didn't realize just how far downhill we'd gone as it was more of a climb back than I would have imagined. We'll definitely be back to walk this lovely route again, though maybe not with Sid. And that's exactly what geocaching is all about.

With the day to myself on Saturday I decided to head for Risca and do The Raven Walk. There are a series of five Write and Mane caches based around the 16 mile walk. I nearly turned back at the start due to a shooting back pain whilst tying my boot laces of all things. The trail was hard to follow in places and I had quite a few detours to grab other nearby caches. There are four raven posts placed along the walk. These are post that originally had a carved raven on top and still have a brass rubbing on each, which combine to make one complete picture. I found the first post only because I was skirting round a stile due to my back. The ravens have been vandalized, so it's just a post at first glance.

After finding the first cache OK we had to find a specific headstone at church. We failed miserably and had to crack on if we were to complete the walk. We detoured to CC20 and which has the most impressive view and then found a legitimate route back to the Raven Walk. We headed down to the disused Nant-y-draenog Reservoir where, thanks to a previous log, I easily spotted the cache despite not having the coordinates. The reservoir was fed from Grwyne Fawr all the way up in the Black Mountains. It was sad to see it in disrepair and low water level despite all the recent rain. We made a detour to CC47 to make a quick find at the disused quarry at Cae'r llwyn.

We had a real struggle following the paths up to Tyle-gwyn and many paths just aren't signposted and one just turned from path to thick undergrowth. Any later in the year and it would have been impassible.

After another easy find we had to head down the Sirhowy Valley Walk, which doubles as the Raven Walk. I decided to find the next cache purely on the bearings from Raven Post 2, but somehow managed to miss it completely. Because (for the first and last time) I'd removed the names from the caches on Memory Map so that the map wasn't obscured I made a monumental cock-up and walked straight past the next cache as well, only noticing 1.5 miles too late. This stretch is the old railway line and is therefore flat. It has been converted to a walk / cycle path. This was the only flat section on a pretty hilly walk. We took a wrong turn at CC35 as the way ahead just didn't look right, but it was. An impromptu decision was made to climb Mynydd Machen. A crazy decision as it's an 800' climb and is very steep indeed. It's great to sit on the top and enjoy the panoramic views on a warm March afternoon. A father and his son flew kites from the trig point.

Bob had a little snooze as I filled the log. Even he was tired. I had a coffee and we shared a hot cross bun as I had forgotten to bring him any food. He's often too tired to eat by the time we get home.

Paths disappeared again as be headed back down to Risca. We found a shop and enjoyed some cold milk before hunting out another headstone. This gave us the information of the whereabouts of cc19, the last Raven Walk cache. After another stiff hill we found the cache OK, but we were beginning to tire. We passed over a canal bridge. Ducks swam to our left, but as we looked to our right just a mound of earth and grass. The canal just stopped dead under the bridge.

I made a monumental error after the last Raven Post and be struggled through thick undergrowth for a mile.

My had were cut and bleeding and it was the last thing we need at this stage. At the top of the hill we joined another cycle route and two guys were coming the other way. The hill was very steep and one fell off as he just couldn't get up the hill. Nobody said anything, but we all just started laughing. We all knew that each of us was shot. After one more ridiculous detour I was back to the Cwm Carn Visitor Centre. Tiredness really did mess up my judgment at the end.

After 21 miles plus 4220' of ascent (that's the best part of a mile) and 11 hours, we had found 7 caches and messed up 2, but far more importantly, we'd had a great walk and a great day out and my back no longer hurt, but that was only because my feet drowned out the pain!

18th March 2007

I placed two caches on Wednesday night. The first will be the start of a series taking in various aspects of the local dismantled railways. The second is within 1.5 miles of our house, by Clearwell Castle and is part of a mini series related to rock/pop music in the area. I released a couple of geocoins while I was at it.

I worked out the clues for the TOTP series, but decided to leave these five caches for another time. We headed to Wiltshire. We did 3 pairs of caches, 2 from the same series and 2 others. It's very unusual as most caches are unrelated or in a large series. The groups of 2 really just gave an extra find where I would normally expect only one. The first cache really added very little to the second.

Our seventh cache of the day was Fosse Bridge 2. We passed a stream, which was almost pretty. Unfortunately the large pipe crossing the river by the bridge was pretty ugly, but it was reasonably warm and Bob enjoyed a swim whilst Will threw stones for him. Bob swam against the current for a while until some off road bikes came along and rode through the river a few times. The riders looked to be in their 60's. The cache finds were all very simple and all very similar. At the first one we looked at the wrong hint and found it straight away. After that we didn't use a hint.

We'd done Zero One before and really enjoyed it and Zero Three and Zero Five were no different. The first took us to a disused canal. It was odd how one section was full of water, then a few planks blocked the canal at it was dry and slightly overgrown. There's an interesting ruin of a cylindrical 3 or floor storey building en route.

Zero Five was also excellent, this time near a disused canal tunnel. It was a bit too wet to investigate though. I'd left the PDA in the car and the co-ords were massively out, but found without too much of a problem. We finished up with On the Edge. A nice ramble through a wood, which like the last cache, was full of the wonderful scent of wild garlic. Will was a bit fixated with it and took to chewing the leaves. I didn't know he was such a garlic fan, as we've stepped down our garlic intake massively since he was born. Met some beautiful and very friendly sheep, which Will coaxed over to have their picture taken. They wanted to get so close it was hard to take a picture.

We stopped to do the shopping in Barnwood on the way home which took forever and then picked up a suitably garlicky curry on the way home.

11th March 2007

Bob and I went walking in the Brecon Beacons on our own. After a 15 mile hike we set about Pip's Falls. I really enjoyed this one. We made up a longer route and struggled through a muddy wood down to the river, which was very full. There were no bridges, only crossing points which were almost impassable. We decided to go for it, but the under water stones were so slippery I had no chance. I took a small ducking (camera was OK) and my feet were soaked. Found the cache easily, but then had to come back again. This time we found a stone with some grip and headed back to the car to change socks and shoes.

On Sunday Will and I spotted a possible cache location in Tintern and planned one for Clearwell. We eventually met up with The Flying Boots in the evening and had a lovely time chatting about our mutual obsession.

I had a couple of night walks during the week to Coppet Hill and Lydbrook.

I bought a Palm M515 from eBay for £14 . Not bad as one went for £45 the previous night. I really benefited from a case of poor selling, as the item was in the wrong category, was poorly titled and the auction finished at 9am. Still, one mans loss is another mans gain. I liked this model as it takes SD cards, rather than just Memory Sticks. I might still keep my eye out for a Sony NR70V for the right price though, as I'm sure I can always get my money back on this one. The main thing was to get one ASAP so I'm not paper caching any more than I have to. I added a Palm leather wallet for £4.50. Looks good.

4th March 2007

The weather forecast was good for Saturday and terrible for Sunday, and for once they almost got it right. I'd put my back out on Friday and was in real pain when it came to bending, so I downed a couple of codeine and we made an 8am start. There's a lone cache in Newport which I should have done whilst visiting the RSPCA on the open day, back in the summer. There And Back Again has a brilliant location at Newport Transporter Bridge. There's only 3 of these things in the world and we didn't know it existed before geocaching. We couldn't find the micro, but that didn't seem to matter. Now we've got a great reason to visit again. A platform is suspended from the bridge by cables and glides up to six cars across the River Usk at a time for the cost of 50p each. We were the only car around. We were tempted to go back and forth again on foot, as it's free.

Our destination was a couple of miles north of Cardiff. We picked up an easy Motorway Mayhem and then headed to the main reason for today's locale, which was to complete a trio of puzzle caches we'd solved a few weeks ago. First was CC47 Channel View. We were pretty pleased at solving this, despite needing a slight help from Write and Mane. We had the wrong answer for one question, though I still feel my answer is just as good as the intended one. We found the box without a hitch in a wonderful location. Great views stretched over Cardiff and the Severn as well as the less populated hills to the north. It really is the stuff you remember when you solve a toughie, it's in a great place and it's a sunny day. The only downpour of the day came as we were starting this cache, so we were left wearing waterproofs all day. It kept the mud off at least.

We went to find Cipher Cache 1, which was surprisingly close to the previous cache. This is a series utilizing a variety of encryption techniques. I've cracked the first three, but seem to have lost momentum on the series. I really must get back to them soon. The find was again very easy and we headed off for a nearby trigpoint. We enjoyed a lovely circular walk with great views, though not too long a walk, which was good in my current state.

We did two more of W&M's CC series, and during the second I managed to smash the screen of the PDA. It's a really cheap one, as I knew this would happen one day. Not to worry, that's what eBay is for. I'll just have to try to resist getting something far more advanced than I really need, as it's bound to end up the same way.

Once we'd stopped for a late lunch and done the next Motorway Mayhem cache, we realized we couldn't finish the series as we needed information from the broken PDA. Doh! Our final cache was Cipher Cache 2, which was a lovely muddy walk to a wooded valley. OK, being chased by 3 horses isn't that much fun (what is it with horses and their attraction to dogs?), but we had great fun crossing a couple of pretty lively streams and the walking stick served another purpose. We found a crossing with stepping stones on the way back and Will decided to put on a bit of a song and dance routine on the way. On the way home we followed a beautiful full moon in a perfectly clear sky. This is a very sharp contrast to today(Sunday) which, as predicted, is terrible.

The owners of There And Back Again have just contacted us to say that the listing details were incorrect. So we're not losing our touch just yet!

A special thanks to Tooey for taking SidAndBob's World Travel Geocoin to Nairn, where I went to primary school. The photos of the school brought back great memories and were far beyond the call of duty.