A much more civilised affair

I got off to a swimming start to the caching week after finding myself by and on the river in Cambridge. 

A work team building away day concluded with a bit of punting on the river Camb in the glorious July sunshine. 

Whilst not like any of my previous punting expeditions - which usually involved being completely drunk, loud music, getting very wet and stuck numerous times as either I or one of my similarly drunk friends tried to show off how brilliant our punting skills were-not - this was a much more civilised affair. 

Three punts, managed by three young lads, who knew exactly what they were doing, so much so that there was barely a bump or a scrape and we actually got to see a decent stretch of the river. 

Afterwards, I decided to make the most of a rare visit (these days) to the city centre and pick up some unfound caches, starting with Babel Fish, just a short walk away on the banks of the Camb.

  

I’d like to say it was an easy find, but I made quite the meal of it, even discovering a nesting pigeon at one point. In the end, a large penny dropped and I realised I was supposed to have done a bit of translating. Minutes later with a good hint in hand, I looked again at a spot I’d previously searched and found the decent sized cache. Phew! 

Upon grabbing a park and ride bus back to my car I decided to find a couple of caches on the more northern edge of the city, before heading for Milton. 

Whilst not always seen as the most attractive village around Cambridge, with a sewage works and the county tip on its doorstep, Milton does have the most beautiful Country Park. And since my last visit two new caches had been published. Setting off on a very nice walk I soon discovered both after a battle with some nettles and a little tree climb.

Back in the trusty four wheeled, red automobile, I grabbed four more caches and dashes including the lovely War Memorial and my Milton nemesis cache...’of your trolley’! 

It’s the third time I’ve attempted to find it. On the first I was thwarted by van driving muggles all parked up in the vicinity of GZ eating their lunch, no doubt bought minutes earlier in the nearby giant Tesco store. The second time, despite going fairly wide of where GZ was on my GPS I still failed to spot it. Third time lucky...and it was! With the coast pretty clear I began to walk the long stretch of wall bending to check each hole...and there are quite a few. Finally about seven metres off from where my GPS said GZ was, I found my ‘off your trolley’ nemesis cache. 

All in all it was a successful couple of hours caching, with nine smileys. 

  

A couple of evenings later I dragged myself out to Cherry Hinton on the eastern edge of Cambridge to clear my head after a busy day at work. 

    

I got off to a poor start spending nearly an hour collecting all the data for the Multi ‘A Chalky Cache’ only to end up with a rather disappointing DNF. I miss calculated the co-ordinates twice, but upon correcting both errors and ending up at a promising GZ, the cache still evaded me. Nevertheless, I got to see two very pretty places, that I never knew existed, and at least I now have the co-ordinates for a return visit when the vegetation dies back.

The rest of the evening was much more successful. During a nice walk a long the high street I soon had several more caches in hand, including the lovely War Memorial and another Sidetracked cache. 

I decided to divert my homeward bound journey via Quy to pick up a few more caches and dashes. These included the nice sized church micro at the pretty village church and two Eastenders themed caches along an appropriately named road. 

  

Next I headed to ‘Small Wood’ just outside Anglesey Abbey. I cheekily pulled up in a farmer’s gateway to save myself a long walk. The road was pretty deserted and no one appeared to be around as I made my way across the road to the little wood. Upon spotting the bridge to cross the ditch, I suddenly realised there was a man in the wood. I momentarily hesitated trying to decide how to now avoid going in without looking like I was avoiding him, when I realised it was none other than fellow cacher TeamTong! Of all the places to bump into a cacher, in what I thought was such a quiet and deserted place.

     

After a quick chat, we began hunting for the cache which had evaded him so far. Thinking through the clue “mind your toes”, I had an instant brain wave and suggested the drain cover. He was puzzled, saying “surely not?” He’d never considered anyone would hide a cache in such a place, but I had seen it done a couple of times before, and low and behold, there it was! After a bit of laugh about it, we headed down the cycle path to the next cache and then bid farewell. 

Back in the car, which fortunately hadn’t been towed away by an angry tractor driver, I decided I had time for one more cache, EPP’s new challenge cache ‘My favourite things’. It was a quick find and neatly rounded off the night with 12 caches found.

The weekend’s caching highlight was a trip out to Melbourn, Meldreth and Kneesworth with the other half. After catching up with some friends we decided to do a couple of short trails and some caches and dashes. We started with Melbourn Mambo a nice circular walk on the edge of the village, which mainly comprised of ‘base of the tree’ type caches, which kept us moving swiftly along in the heat. 

After a nice trip to the nearby garden centre and a couple of caches along the way, we headed to Kneesworth Knocker. It had some more devious hides and inventive caches, starting with a small magnetic cache on a rather long rusty fence! I actually thought there was no way we would find it, but after much feeling, I was finally victorious, finding it by feel, not far from one of the fence uprights. 

The next few caches were thankfully much quicker to find and included a brilliant stick that had a cache stuck in it, and what can only be described as a broom handle, which once unscrewed in the middle revealed the sneakily hidden cache.

As we continued on the walk the other half made another great find...a rather long string of plastic sausages! Cleverly hidden in a road sign pole, as he lifted the lid the sausages just kept on coming, which made me laugh. Eventually there were no more sausages and the cache was in hand on the far end of the string. Clever and entertaining!  

The second from last cache also caused us a few laughs. I headed into the bush to grab it and realising it was a good size, I turned to the other half and said, “great it’s big enough to drop off one of the TBs”, and just at the moment I pulled the lid off and out flew two springy, brightly coloured, plastic tubes, which made me jump! The other half roared with laughter. I really should have known, a classic RYO62 hide, but I just wasn’t expecting it on this trail.

Before heading home we topped off our haul of 31 caches by picking up the Meldreth Meridian cache, which was hidden behind a fantastic monument marking the Meridian line, which was installed at the millennium.

I rounded off the week with an after work trip to Soham to grab eight caches, including some more in Picklepop’s great Star Wars series, a Sidetracked cache and a church micro. It was an enjoyable evening, although rather warm and sticky.

The final cache of the night was in fact the best, The Whelan Boys’ ‘The Darkness’ cache. Located on the fantastic cycle bridge, it could have been a rather tricky find, but as I approached I thought, “it’s got to be in there” and a quick wriggle and a pull and the great magnetic cache was in hand. 

A successful caching week, taking us just 50 caches short of our next big milestone - 5,000 finds! Will we reach it next week? Let’s see!