Stepping into the future, but still haunted by the past

Not too many years ago I used to call Cambridge my home, and knew every inch of the city. I’d whiled away drunken evenings in its pubs and clubs, seeing names come and go, and even worked in one for a few insane months. 

I’d studied and worked in the city including one of it’s biggest city centre stores and on the daily newspaper. I’d splashed about on the river with friends and relaxed with a pint of cider or two by the millpond. I’d lived in various houses in the centre and the outskirts, and traversed most roads by foot, bike or car at some time or another. 

Yet, just six years after emigrating to the countryside the city I once knew so well has radically changed. And is still changing! I honestly don’t recognise some parts anymore. 

Aside from the new Trumpington Meadows suburb and the huge redevelopment of the railway station area, there is an even newer development...Eddington! I had never heard of it until some new caches recently popped up on my map called the ‘Eddington series’! 

Intrigued to find out more I decided to head there after work. After a 40 minute battle to get across the city by car, (that’s one thing that never changes, the Cambridge traffic!) I finally arrived at Madingley Park and Ride. 

      

  

As I got out of the car, I felt completely lost. I didn’t recognise a thing! As I began to wander about finding the variety of clever hides and innovative caches, I felt like I had stepped into a future universe.

Fields and old university buildings have been replaced by futuristic looking high rise housing blocks. Sadly all flat roofed. I’ve no idea why that particular 60s archeological style is back in fashion. But aside from that unenviable feature the development, which is only partially complete, with its little winding roads, paved town square and huge parkland looks very appealing. It’s even got its own Sainsbury’s. 

One of the best caches of the night happened to be on the parkland, a clever post attachment that looks like it’s always been there. This one was particularly well made with wooden pins on the top half that neatly slotted into four holes in the bottom. 

Another great find was the long solved mystery cache, Fine Ants! A puzzle with a slight play on words, say it quickly enough and you’ll get the theme! Anyway, it was a lovely little diversion to head off and pick it up at long last. 

  

As the weekend arrived, so did the rain! After two solid months of barely a drop, and my pumpkins crying out for a good shower, finally their prayers were answered. Sadly, it happened to be the one and only night I had been praying for sunshine as we were off to Newmarket races, to see some band called Plan B, for my brothers birthday. 

    

I’d actually been dreading it as I’ve not heard great things about the place recently, and as a result have stopped our twice yearly visits. However, perhaps the rain dampened down the young wildlings as the atmosphere was happy and often comical as rain drenched race goers, wearing their Sunday best, ran in and out of buildings each time the rain stopped or started. 

I even had an amusing encounter with one hat wearing chap who tried to take cover under my tiny umbrella. He enquired if my boyfriend would mind, I soon put him straight that it was ‘husband’. That always works...he soon fled!

Anyway back to caching...so as the rain kept on coming I spent most of Saturday indoors solving a few puzzles, but eventually ventured out  to Red Lodge to grab the new Village Hall cache, neatly filling a calendar gap.

A day later I was out solo again as the other half was glued to the box for yet another sporting event finale...some big bike ride in France.

  

After doing a bit of maintenance on a couple of caches in our WITWs series, and returning some il-bought online items to one of my favourite chain stores in central Bury, I headed to Morton Hall to grab three new caches. All were quick, easy finds so I decided to head onto Stanton, to pick up two caches I’d failed to find on the Stanton Saunter, and to have a go at the Wherigo ‘The Lost Treasure of Stanton’.

  

Now I know I love Wherigos, but this one was brilliant and I highly recommend it to any other cacher who might be visiting the village. Ok so it does take an hour, so not great for those just wanting numbers, but it was so much fun. 

I met a whole variety of village characters and using fake money bought a variety of goods on the way round, in order to get each villager to tell me the secrets of the lost treasure. Finally, after a decent walk - taking in some great landmarks including the village church, pub and the beautiful windmill - I found the treasure! And boy was it heavy! Loved the walk, the sightseeing and the brilliant final cache.

Our final smileys this week were gathered in East Anglia’s premier seaside town, Great Yarmouth. Both of us had decided to take a much needed day off and head to the coast. After failing to win more than a handful of key rings in the amusements we decided to grab a few caches on our way to the town centre. 

The first took us to the site of where an airship had fallen from the sky, destroying a few buildings in its wake. An interesting spot from a historical point of view and the other half soon found the tiny cache on a rather large metal gate.

Minutes later we were discovering some of Yarmouth’s modern art installations not far from the river in order to gather the information required for an earthcache. Interestingly one is a solid stone sofa, made from Portland stone and was a great place to have a rest and study it’s geology.

Soon we were heading along the historical riverside admiring an array of former port buildings all steeped in history, that we never knew existed. Sadly most of our trips to the town had always been spent in the more touristy hot spots - the beach, amusements and town centre. 

It was long before we arrived at the old gaol to tackle the multi cache here. Another fascinating piece of history, if a little gruesome, that we never knew was here. We soon had the no.s in hand and headed off to GZ passing another historical spot on the way, the old priory. I rarely do multi caches, but I’m very glad we did this one.

To complete our trip we decided to head to Burgh Castle to complete another Wherigo. Another landmark I’d never visited and it’s sheer size and age was impressive.  

The Wherigo was a like having our own little tour guide, taking us to each of the castle’s key features and highlighting interesting facts from its long history. At each stop we had to input some answers to questions, and whilst that function didn’t quite work on our phone, as the actual question never appeared, just the three answer options, we actually had more fun trying to guess what the question was! The end cache was huge, always nice to find something larger than a micro! 

We also picked up a couple of other caches on route and a minion TB, which we will be moving on soon. 

Until next week, poopaye, as the Minions would say!