Turning the frowns upside down & the mysterious black beast!

This week aside from publishing our biggest series to-date we’ve also found time to grab a few caches and surpass 4700 finds.

A mini milestone I know, compared to some of the achievements of other local cachers, but as all new cachers eventually discover, caching becomes more of a challenge once you pass the thousand mark and find you need to travel further afield to grab each new cache. Hence, every one hundred new finds, is a small celebration for us.

However, that said, every so often caching is made a little easier by the publication of a few new local caches saving travel time and enabling us to pick up some after work. 

This was exactly the case with our first trip out this week. Three green dots at Stetchworth and Saxon Street had appeared on the map a little while ago, amongst the sea of yellow smileys, and it was time to go and get them.

Despite being clothed in my smartish clobber, I decided to grab them on my way home from work. Sporting my platform shoes - rather than my usual trainers - actually proved advantageous, as one of the caches was placed over 6ft up! Usually at just 5ft in height I struggle to reach the high hides, but this one was easily grabbed, signed and returned. 

The following evening I was back out with one member of DannyJGB to grab some more unfound new caches around Wicken near Soham. The lighter evenings meant we had plenty of time to solve a couple of multis, by the infamous Ecopuffinparents, both of which had interesting caches at the final GZs. 

We also had quite a laugh trying to work out the answers to our first War Memorial Earthcache. Before rounding off our visit with a drink at the local pub, which was full of burly blokes cheering on England v Nigeria. At least I think it was them - we were too busy gossiping about complete rubbish to take much notice!

The weekend was more than eventful. My dad’s urgent hospital  admission left my two siblings and I with the job of entertaining our mum, who sadly suffers from dementia - terrible disease, which really should get a higher profile than it currently does. 

After picking her up Saturday morning it was a question of ‘how do I entertain her?’ In the past she had enjoyed our caching trips so I decided to get her out and about on a lovely walk at Wicken Bonhunt in Essex, whilst the other half stayed at home and washed my mum and dads smalls...much to his delight! 

It was an interesting walk through beautiful countryside and whilst my mum tagged along several metres behind me, mostly in her own little world, I began collecting the caches. 

   

There were some really good hides and I was delighted to find some of the caches that previous finders had failed to spot. I’m not entirely sure my mum knew exactly what was going on, and when she started telling me she could see people behind us or crossing the track in front of us, I got a little spooked out, but we finally finished with only two dnfs. 
 

Before heading home we paid a visit to Newport to grab a Sidetracked cache and to have a go at the interesting Wherigo - ‘Postman’s Nightmare’ by Wps go caching. And it did almost become a nightmare! 

  

It was different to other Wherigos I had done but we soon had it sussed and only needed to refer to the hint once to find the final number. However, when we calculated the final GZ and headed off to search the ‘fence’ it quickly became apparent that we were not in the right place! 

We knew the ‘fence’ was linked to a house, but I had an awful feeling we were searching the fence of the wrong house as it didn’t match the hint! Upon realising my error I moved off quickly, completely embarrassed, and decided it was time to go home. I will definitely return and try again soon. 

The following day, was the much anticipated visit of Norwegian 80s pop icons A-Ha to Cambridge! My favourite band of all time, I couldn’t miss an opportunity to see them live again and in my home town! And they didn’t disappoint. Just brilliant! 

Still high on ‘Scoundrel Days’ and ‘Take on Me’ we decided to grab the Museum of Technology cache, especially as it was muggle free at 10.30 at night on a Sunday. It was previously a dnf for us, but despite the darkness, we quickly located it this time, signed the log and returned it, turning another blue frown upside down. 

My final trip out this week was a solo one to Lakenheath and Brandon, again to find some new caches and to rectify two previous dnfs. The new cache at Lakenheath was a quick find, and I soon arrived in Brandon to turn another sad blue face into a yellow smiley... how did I miss that last time?  

The next was also a previous dnf and nothing was going to stop me finding it! No...not even a large, black, long tailed beast..."what the heck was that?!"  

 
As I headed towards GZ I really did get the fright of my life as what I can only describe as a panther crossed the path a little ahead of me. If I’d of been in the fens I’d of been forgiven for thinking I’d just seen the Fen Puma or Black Shuck, but this was the Brecks, surely it couldn’t be a panther or some other wild cat?!

Sadly no photo to prove it either way, but after it had gone, I cautiously carried on to GZ.

On arriving I was confronted by another scary sight...a sea of nettles! Oh crumbs! My No.1 caching foe at this time of the year. No chance I thought, but armed with Wolf Captain’s recent photo of GZ I began nettle wading and after a 15 minute search the cache was in hand. Very happy...another frown had been turned upside down. I finished the evening with a nice quick Sidetracked cache by GCZ team at Brandon Station - always nice to grab another one of those. 

Before I sign off for this week, I have to mention some of the entertaining logs we’ve received so far on our new WITWs trail. Numerous local cachers have already visited and battled it’s foes and natural wonders! From trampling through neck high nettles in shorts, to tip toeing past Adders, to ripping trousers on brambles and revealing more than planned, the logs to-date have not only proved amusing but also very rewarding! 

It’s so nice to read about other cachers’ experiences of completing our series, and it's always much appreciated to receive nice comments and favourite points. I’ve also learnt that I don’t know the difference between a Sycamore tree and a Walnut tree and my GPS doesn’t always give the most accurate co-ordinates! But those issues aside, we’re thrilled so many have visited, enjoyed it, and have not been put off by the 1.5km cache free stretch.

Thanks again for all the FPs and lovely logs, we really do appreciate them.