Stowe

After so many months of grotty weather, finally a nice sunny warm day. Off we went to Stowe School to check on little Tarquin. No, not really :). We don’t have a little Tarquin at Stowe (or any other school, posh or otherwise), we just went to Stowe gardens for a walk around. For those not in the know, Stowe has possibly the best landscaped gardens in England and, in The New Inn, the first tourist hotel.

We had a really enjoyable time and I even managed to get a couple of photographs with hardly any people in them.

One drawback of the glorious weather was the large number of people who’d had the same idea as us.  Also, as the only “proper” geocacher in my family, I was somewhat outnumbered when it came to taking advantage of the situation and searching out some of the Stowe cache series. I was however able to look for a couple…

Well what did you expect?

The first one I attempted turned out to be impossible. Approaching the approximate location with my part-time geocaching daughter we soon realised that there were many cachers looking for the same one. What was amusing was that they obviously hadn’t read the cache page properly. The cache is (apparently) hidden in the Ha-Ha and clearly none of the idiots looking up trees or rummaging in the bushes had any idea what a Ha-Ha was. I say “apparently” because there were so many of them milling about that I felt searching for the cache would prove impossible and would probably compromise its location to cachers and muggles alike. We decided on a strategic withdrawal. I’m sure I’ll be able to come back another day when it is quieter.

Anyway, I was determined not to leave Stowe without at least one find, so on our walk back to the car I stopped to retrieve Stowe: Roadside. This being the main route in and out from the car park meant a constant stream of people and dogs, so even bagging this one undetected took some doing. Still, at least I didn’t go home without a smiley.

Oh, and Skye had a lovely time. She even had her own chair in the cafe.

Crufts

Well I was really looking forward to watching Channel4’s coverage of Crufts this evening. Today was Terrier Day. Unfortunately the programme makers decided to whizz past the terrier group and we didn’t get a sniff at a Westie. Even Skye was disappointed.

Back to the Chilterns

I had another chip away at the Chiltern Hundreds on Tuesday. I decided I would try to complete the bits of the Chesham Ring which I hadn’t yet done before moving on to the next ring. In case you aren’t familiar with it,  the Chiltern Hundreds series is conveniently divided into 3 – The largest (49 caches) is the Chesham Ring. The other two are the Asheridge Ring (33 caches) and the Chartridge Ring (27 caches). Now, if you are any good at arithmetic you’ll have realised that makes 109 caches rather than the 100. Actually there are 110 because the good doctor has also set a bonus and the extra ones are there in case some are out of action or simply not found. There’s more info on this website.

Anyway, I parked at Chesham Station and set off to CH001 with Skye. As you can probably tell I haven’t been doing the ring in numerical order; actually I started at number 9 some time ago and have been working my way round in an anti-clockwise direction. CH001 was an easy find but I had been anxiously watching the darkening sky and at that point it started raining heavily. Rather than carry on we dashed back to the car and took shelter until the rain eased; we took the opportunity to eat some of our rations. Afterwards we set off again towards a short run of caches (Nos. 47, 45, 44 & 43). That involved walking around an ornamental park lake and Skye got great pleasure from watching the geese jump into the water as she approached them 🙂

After that, it was simply a matter of walking from one end of the park to the other. Finding the caches was not difficult, the main problem was traversing a very slippery grass slope. I was sure that I was going to slide uncontrollably and end up on my arse but my luck held. By now the rain had stopped and I was optimistic about the next part of the trail. We retraced our steps, stopping at No. 49 (yes I know!) before collecting the car and driving to our second parking spot.

With the sun now out (sort of) off we went along a decent metalled footpath. Unfortunately I couldn’t find one cache, I think because of fallen trees etc., and another I couldn’t even look for because, as we approached GZ, so did about a dozen dog-walkers. Turns out this was a convenient place for the locals to take their dogs and they were all taking advantage of the dry spell. Normally I’d have stooged around for a few minutes until the coast was clear but I could see this wasn’t going to work today. Ho hum. Onwards and upwards!

We set off in the opposite direction, away from habitation and into the countryside. Unfortunately the path was a) uphill, b) very muddy and c) underwater. I hoped that conditions would improve with the increase in elevation so we pressed on, finding the next two caches easily. After we found the first cache the path got worse, the Council had started what their sign said were “Footpath Improvements” – they had excavated the path out to a depth of about a foot and then abandoned the site, leaving their plant behind and what amounted to a shallow river. By this point I was carrying Skye over the worst bits in a vain effort to prevent her getting too muddy. Some hope! Then it started raining again (not that it made any difference to the amount of surface water), by now we were struggling to make headway along the path. At the GZ of the last CH cache we had aimed to find, the path was completely submerged and there was no sign of the expected hiding place. I carried Skye a bit further until we reached the junction with Bottom Lane which I had always intended to use as our return route. This path had a totally different character – the surface had been washed away to reveal a gravel bed, it still had water running along it so as we made our way uphill once more it was like walking along the bed of a stream. Thankfully my walking boots actually turned out to be waterproof. Which was nice. En route we picked up the Captain Jack cache I had planned on getting.

After that it was just a question of getting back to where we’d left the car. Overall I was pretty satisfied with the day’s outing, 10 finds and 2 DNFs.

And when we got home, Skye had a much needed bath. 🙂

Three long years, Man and Cacher

Just checked. Three years ago on 7th November 2010 I found my first geocache. The two I found today take me up to 997 finds – not a blistering performance but, as they say, it’s not about the numbers.

Except that it is, a bit. I had hoped to make it to 1,000 before the third anniversary but I have been busy doing other stuff. At any rate, that milestone isn’t far off now.

So, what have I learnt from geocaching? It has given me the impetus to get out in the countryside more than previously, plus Skye our Westie gets more interesting walks. That there are loads of interesting places I knew nothing about, some of which are on my doorstep. That I’ve made friends with some friendly local cachers. That it’s a great use for all that multi-billion dollar satellite technology. That people who don’t get caching think we are slightly mad.

If you are interested in my caching stats you can look at them on my website.

And here’s the cache page of my first find: A Different Approach to Recycling.

Meanwhile…

So, Mavericks is now on 2 of the Macs. I like the changes; pleased to see the back of the “faux” leather on the calendar app, etc., although I haven’t yet formed an opinion on the changes to Pages or Numbers. I’ve also held off setting up Keychain on iCloud. Call me old fashioned, I still find it somewhat unsettling to store all my logon credentials on someone else’s server.

I haven’t been out geocaching much. Whenever there’s been a day of decent weather it has coincided with some other activity. In fact my last find was about 10 days ago and that was mainly because it was a new cache very close to home and Skye needed a decent walk.

Meanwhile… emboldened by my success with tiling the kitchen floor, I have embarked on the next stage of the project – tiling the walls. This, as they say, is why we drink.

The Chiltern Hundred

So, today I took time off from hacking tiles off the kitchen wall and did a spot of caching. I just worked out that I hadn’t been caching for 14 days, which just shows how busy I’ve been doing other, more important, things.

My general plan, if you could call it that, is that when I do go caching I concentrate on drsolly’s Chiltern Hundred series. I’ve been gradually chipping away at it so this afternoon Skye and I went over there and did a few more. I found 7, DNF’d 1 and Skye had a good walk.

Kitchen works, old people and taxi demands notwithstanding, I hope to get back to do some more a lot sooner than in 14 day’s time.

Staying at Audley End

Last week we spent a few days at Audley End. We didn’t stay in the main house:

We stayed in the gate house – Cambridge Lodge:

The gate house was lovely. They’d kept it as much in period as possible, although we did have a modern kitchen and bathroom. But no internet. This fact was met with dismay by my family but we created our own WiFi LAN by tethering the iPhones. Skye wasn’t at all bothered by the lack of an internet connection and made herself at home…

Audley End House was magnificent, as were the grounds. During WW2, the house was used by the military to train Polish SOE operatives before they were parachuted into occupied Poland. There is still plenty of evidence of this:

and a simple memorial to those who lost their lives.

During the day, the house was open to the public and was pretty busy. The best bit for us was once the gates were shut and we had the grounds to ourselves to walk, explore or have a picnic on the lawn.

Mid-morning, it’s getting busy:

6pm and they’ve all gone !

The grounds had some lovely outbuildings and other interesting places:

While we were there I did manage a few caches. There was a nearby Harry Potter-based puzzle series, I’d solved all the puzzles before we went but I only had time to find 3 of them. Within about 60 Metres of our house there was a micro which had been DNFd by 6 of the last 7 cachers so I felt duty bound to find it. It turned out to be a really “nasty” ICT but after a couple of attempts I found it. I felt pretty chuffed at that so I think I did enough, considering I was on a family holiday.

Around Studham

On Tuesday I took Skye on a walk around Studham. We bagged 14 caches.

Apart from Skye chasing a Pheasant (why do they run away from you in a straight line instead of diving into a hedge or, better still, flying away?)  the walk was mostly uneventful. At the penultimate cache we did have a bit of excitement.

The cache involved a detour off the path and us clambering over a fallen tree and through some undergrowth. Getting back out again was slightly tricky, getting Skye to jump over the tree and push through brambles etc. We made a bit of a meal of it, what with me telling Skye which way to go and telling her to stop while I extricated myself from tangling undergrowth, etc. As we emerged, on the other side of the path stood an old man. His appearance reminded me of the crooked man in the nursery rhyme and he seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see him. “I wondered what was going to come out of there”, he said, then “Was you asleep in there?” which I thought a bit strange. I decided to avoid an explanation about geocaching and said something about having to extricate my dog from the bushes! He seemed to accept that and we made good our escape.

Overall a good caching trip and Skye enjoyed herself – she had a nap in the Freelander on the way home. 🙂

Outstanding in the field

On an altogether more pleasant note, today I went geocaching with my older daughter & our “Geo-dog”. We had a really enjoyable walk, out standing in the cornfields in the sunshine. We found some caches (8) and the dog found some new and exciting smells.

Plus we stopped off for a Maccy D on the way home.

And my total now stands at 640.

Mud

Today I took some time off Olympic spectating and went to Hockeridge woods with #2 daughter and Skye. We had already decided Skye needed/deserved a decent walk as she’d been confined to barracks while we all watched the Olympics. Not being one to pass up the chance to do a spot of Geocaching, I reckoned that it would be OK to try to rectify one of my earlier DNFs at the same time.

I parked my sparkly clean Freelander in the usual place and we set off. Found the cache without too much trouble and, as we’d done it so quickly, we decided to try for a couple more nearby. This required a bit of a hike across the woodland. Now, for those who don’t know, the tracks in Hockeridge get very wet, very soggy and very muddy; then since they are mostly covered by the trees, the sun never gets much chance to work its magic so they stay that way. By the time we’d found the caches and sploshed our way back along various fire breaks and tracks, Skye was very much a two-tone dog, sporting a white upper half and a very wet and muddy undercarriage.

On returning to the car we carefully installed her in the back and headed home to give her an essential bath. Of course, having parked in a muddy lane, by the time we got home the Freelander was covered in mud as well, although that will have to wait for another day.