The lost phone saga & other tales!

This week we bring you the tale of three counties - from water pipes in Cambs, to getting lost in Saffron Walden Town Hall, to actually losing an Iphone in Herts...

We start on a sunny evening in Cambridge at the picturesque Cherry Hinton Country Park. Famed for hosting the annual Cambridge Folk Festival, it is also home to a number of caches, which we haven’t found. So after finishing work, still in my work clothes, I decided to try and grab a few more smileys.

The first cache was one that had alluded us on a previous visit, but this time I was determined to find it. Other found it logs mentioned the co-ordinates as being a bit out so I focused on potential trees further away from where the GPS was pointing. After a 20 minute search I finally found it tucked into a tree about 12 metres out. 

The next was rather high up in a tree and required a tool to reach it, fortunately I had just the thing, but unfortunately I stood in a dog turd whilst retrieving it...that was my only complaint about this park, not enough popping and scooping for my liking!

Anyway, cache three was the brilliant water pipe. Unlike others we’ve done, it only required 500ml of water, which easily fitted into my ruck sack. Sadly the cache retrieval mechanism wasn’t working properly, possibly due to the fact previous cachers had placed coins in the cache weighing it down. But I got my handy tool out again and the cache was soon retrieved.

A few days later we were back out to grab some caches around Steeple Bumpstead in Essex. In addition to a few individual caches we completed the lovely Semi Circles with JB series. The walk had some fantastic views across the Essex countryside and there were some great hides along the way.

Varying in difficulty from very quick easy finds, to those that required more thought, persistence and the occasional nettle sting mean’t we just about finished the series and collected a solved mystery cache from our ‘solved but not yet found’ list, before nightfall...but only just!  

On Saturday I ventured out to Essex again, this time to visit the historic town of Saffron Walden, whilst the other half recovered from a murder mystery evening, where he consumed one to many pints!

Although, not far from home this was only the second time I’ve visited the pretty town. My goal: to fulfill another one of my Wherigo quests, the ‘Saffron Walden Town Trail’ Wherigo created by local cachers Cassandy.  

  

It proved to be an educational Wherigo, a lot less taxing than others I’ve completed, in that I didn’t have to hunt for too much information or keep inputting data. It was perfect for tourists (like me) who knew very little about the town, as it featured lots of great information about all the must see historical sites - very like having your own personal tour guide!

Whilst doing the Wherigo I also decided to try and complete the two multis, which probably wasn’t my best idea as I was having to switch from the Wherigo app to the geocaching app and back again every few minutes, just to make sure I wasn’t missing a destination on either. But combing them probably saved me a good km or so of walking as the routes overlapped in several places. 

The multis were great fun. I loved wandering around the gardens and maze whilst completing ‘Bridge End Gardens’. And searching for the final of ‘Welcome to Walden’ had me completely baffled! I ended up wandering the corridors of the Town Hall looking for the ammo can behind doors and other objects. As the entire building is covered by CCTV I  half expected to see myself on Anglia News this week, under the headline...”have you seen this woman...she is wanted for trespassing on council property, and acting suspiciously!”    

For others following in my footsteps...it’s not in the Town Hall, but it is indoors, in a location more in keeping with the cache theme and it is a brilliant final cache! 

I’d like to say the following day’s caching pursuits were less dramatic, but that would be a lie. The trip started well. We’d planned a lovely afternoon collecting caches in the Sandon Sloth series in Hertfordshire set by RYO62.

It was another wonderful walk along pretty country lanes, and the caches were creative and fun to find. So many potential favourites. I even had the other half in stitches when I discovered a snake wrapped around a cache and jumped and screamed! Turns out it wasn’t real, but it really did look like the real thing.  

     

Other great caches included a cleverly crafted screw in a gatepost, a bird box and various micros in logs. We finished the walk with the Fine Pair multi, doing a quick cache and dash at the final GZ, as we were eager to get home for a well deserved BBQ. However, what should have been a nice relaxing evening turned into quite the ordeal...

15 minutes after arriving home, after a 50 minute drive, I couldn’t find my phone. A quick check on the ‘find my phone tool’ and the full horror of what I’d done suddenly hit me! My phone was 40 odd miles away, still in Sandon! Yes, I’d left the blinking thing on top of the sign at the multi final! 

What followed was a frantic 50 minute drive back to Sandon - constantly checking to see if the phone was on the move at all. We arrived to find it exactly where I had left it.  Huge relief! And very very lucky! 

Needless to say our BBQ plans were slightly delayed and we ended up tucking into a chicken leg just as the sun set.  Not quite the relaxing hot summer evening we’d planned, but I learnt a valuable lesson...let the other half grab the caches and dashes. Apparently he has more common sense than me, and would never leave his phone behind, or so he told me several dozen times during the 50 minute trip home!

On that note I’m off to purchase phone insurance...I think it might be cheaper than my next diesel bill!