The Great Escape: escaping Ipswich, football fever, & a forest fire

So the nation has gone a little bonkers this week as England got off to their best start in a World Cup since before I was born (all of 18 years ago...I wish)!

Meanwhile temperatures outside the pubs and tv lounges has reached fever pitch...a whopping 30 degrees in some places...so much so that the thought of climbing into the trusty four-wheeled red box to go caching really hasn’t appealed. 

Nevertheless, I’ve made a few meagre attempts this week to keep up with my favourite hobby and keep fit ready for the challenges of ‘Hidden Creatures’! 

I kicked off with a lovely evening out on the Lavenham Walks series with the other half. I know I always say it, but this really was a beautiful walk with incredibly diverse scenery. From dense woodland and a cool winding stream, to a humid tropical jungle paradise and a hot dusty wheat-lined farm track, this series has it all.

  

The caches were diverse too, with scatterings of customs, mixed in with micros, small and regular Tupperware boxes. There were even a few tricky hides. 

The cache by the stream, which hasn’t been found in well over a year, sadly proved to much of a challenge for us. We were hoping to resus it, but despite an extensive 20 minute search above and below, we failed to find it.

As we carried on through the woodland part of the walk, other caches were much more easily found, including a great fly cache, that aside from its size, did look realistic and blended in well. 

After the fly we decided to have a rest on one of the many benches along the route - well a sit down. It wasn’t quite as restful as we’d hoped as a little animal was making quite an eerie, strange noise nearby, which quickly had us up on our feet and moving along at speed again.  

Soon we had the beautiful old railway bridge in our sights and had entered what was the old railway line valley. But there was no time to stop and admire the old platform, which still remains, no it was a scramble up the steep slope for me where I uncovered the next custom cache, a delightful Rat! Thank god his claws weren’t real, and thank god it wasn’t wet. I pretty much slid back down on my bum even in the dry warm weather! 

Onwards we went,under the bridge and battled our way through the Amazon jungle, with the steep tree laden valley either side of us. Whilst the terrain was a little challenging at times, it really was lovely to step into this tropical paradise. 

More caches were soon in hand as we re-entered the woodland and unearthed a frog...plastic of course. And after a few more well hidden caches, we did an about turn and began heading back to Lavenham along a much easier going, farm track. 

With a little time to spare before dusk, we decided to complete the multi at the stunning church. Featuring one of the most impressive towers I’ve come across and beautifully shaped round bushes, either side of the walkway to the main entrance, that would have been more at home in a stately garden than a churchyard, we soon had the numbers required for the final GZ. Relieved it wasn’t too far away, we headed off to find the secret gate and the clever bison on a fishing wire hide.

In recent months I’ve been taking a bit of a break from trying to solve puzzle caches. With over 200 now on the ‘solved, but not yet found list’, and one a month being archived, my enthusiasm for solving new mysteries has slightly waned. But when the opportunity arose to join the latest craze to sweep the country - an escape room - I couldn’t resist.  

With the other half, one of the ‘bluegizmos’, and my non caching brother in tow, we headed to Ipswich for an hour of mind boggling fun. Locks, keys, combinations, coded messages hidden compartments and secret radio messages tried and tested our puzzle solving skills. And after 57 minutes of desperate code cracking we finally managed to escape ‘Ipswich Escape Room’.   

Whilst we might have escaped ‘Ipswich’ we didn’t quite manage to escape the football! In need of refreshment we headed to nearby Felixstowe for a spot of lunch, and ended up in a restaurant slightly besotted with the ‘England’ team...the flags were certainly flying! 

But it wasn’t long before I made my next escape of the day, leaving the lads to the beer and footie, to head off with one of the bluegizmos to find a sneaky cache just outside a popular caravan park. I also picked up a TB, which is always nice, as they seem to be few and far between these days. 

Thanks to CaptSlogg’s caching event the following day I managed to escape another England game. Leaving the other half to nurse his hangover in front of the box, I headed to the popular Santon Downham picnic area for the Mardle 44 event. 

As I arrived i was greeted by a large number of cars and day trippers all out with their picnic baskets and young sprogs, enjoying the summer sun. A little concerned I might struggle to find the cacher event amongst so many people, my worries were short lived. It was hard to miss the brightly coloured gazebo, adorned with bunting, tables of cakes, an easel holding up a map and a motley crew of people sporting walking boots and rucksacks...definitely cachers! 

As I headed over, I was greeted by the lovely Stowmartians and their cute little Westie, and by CaptSlogg and his very detailed map of his new circuit. Boy has he been busy! A quick sign of the event log and a TB drop, I soon set about putting names to new faces, finally getting the chance to meet Beastmarsta and Picklepop. 

After the obligatory group photo, I bid farewell and headed off to find a few caches on CaptSlogg’s new trail, starting with a great hide at the information board. Minutes later another cache was in hand. But that’s where my caching antics ended for the day. Upon hearing that part of the forest nearby was on fire, and with the hot midday sun beating down, I decided to call it a day and return another time to complete the exciting new series.

Of course I can’t sign off this week without a quick mention of the great new HQ challenge ‘Hidden Creatures’. We’re very excited at the prospect of finding some of the world’s most allusive mythical creatures and earning 10 new souvenirs. 

Just 100 finds required to get all of the souvenirs - no problem...cough cough! Can we do it? In the words of the other half’s idol, none other than the much esteemed, highly respected, ‘Bob The Builder’...”Yes We Can”!