August: It’s quality not quantity that matters!

Our cache count was definitely down this month. Having lacked the time, energy or enthusiasm to venture out on some of the long film pot series walks, we didn’t even make 130 finds. Yet, as the old, old saying goes, it’s quality not quantity that matters and never was a truer word spoken. We’ve had some really memorable finds and caching experiences this month thanks to some incredibly creative COs.


First up was the brilliant Fairytale Fiasco series. We got another two under our belts - ‘Snow White’ & ‘The Princess & the Frog’ - leaving just one to find before we can grab the final! Luckily the field puzzles at GZ weren’t quite as fiendish as ‘Big Bad Wolflets’, although, I did make rather a meal of what should have been a simple solve on ‘Snow White’. It literally just fell open in the end. Luckily the other half wasn’t around to laugh at how daft I’d been, and I was thrilled to meet the occupants...four cute golden dwarfs. 


Speaking of field puzzles, how can we forget the brilliant cache at the final of ‘The Legend that Was...’, a long solved puzzle near Ely. We were twisting and turning for quite a while, but finally the log was in hand. 


We collected a further 8 puzzles in a bid to reduce our ‘solved not found list’ including ‘I can’t do a Puzzle cache’, RAF Witchford War Memorial and another Euler puzzle in Cambridge. And we finally completed the Star Wars series at Soham, finding the brilliant bonus cache...and we got a great surprise when we opened it.


After  a year and a half of staring blankly at the barcodes on ‘Fear the Reaper’, the mystery was finally solved with the help of a Shady lady and I enjoyed my triumphant walk to GZ to collect it, despite it being rather whiffy at times!

Also, much to my delight a new FF puzzle was published - no.23 ‘It’s gone again’! Two nights staring at that rather blank cache page followed, but eventually the lightbulb moment came and I spotted what was needed! Being second to find was great, and I was able to return the favour to a Shady lady and give her a nudge on this one. 

I also picked up more Harry Potter themed caches, whilst on a solo trip to Sutton and got myself along to the Sutton Bi-annual event to catch up with some familiar local cachers.


We celebrated International Geocaching Day by collecting the last in the local skull series. And after winning a Treasure X trackable in Geocaching HQs brand new promotion, we decided to share our excitement with fellow cachers by placing a ‘Treasure X’ themed cache up the road. The first 25 finders were rewarded with a promotional Green X sticker. 

  
But possibly the most memorable moment of August was finally getting the smiley for the elusive four stage multi, ‘Ecole pour les Chevaux’, on Newmarket Heath. We’ve definitely never spent so long on one cache...4 hours in total over two years! Boy were we glad to finally retrieve the cache, and with it not having been found in a very long time, it was nice to add another resus cache to our list. 


Other great trips out included collecting a number of unfound caches in Brandon, Granchester, Soham, Landbeach and Witchford. And I finished off the month by completing one of my longest walks in a while around Alconbury, Upton and Alconbury Weston. It was a lovely walk, despite being chased by some rather large rain clouds and thunderstorms for much of the day.


Roll on September, when hopefully we’ll have some Caching Tales from slightly further afield. 

Total Finds: 127

Mysteries: 9
Multis: 8
Earthcaches: 1
Letterboxes: 1
Events: 1


Hides: 1

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Adventure labs: a new era for geocaching or just a passing fad?

Image
Every time I’ve opened the adventure lab app recently on my phone there seem to be more and more green balloons popping up on the local map. Just over a year ago there were just a handful of adventure labs in the East of England, today there are dozens, as creative cachers everywhere clamber to get the opportunity to create one.   Traditionally, lab caches were mostly only available at Mega events. Last autumn, after more than four years of geocaching, I still hadn’t found a single lab cache, but suddenly had the opportunity at the EU Geocoin mega event in Manchester. There were 30 to be found, and some were incredibly innovative, testing new tech, whilst others were a tour of the city or general knowledge quiz questions.   Since the arrival of the dedicated Adventure Lab App, more and more lab cache creator credits have been dished out. Consequently, just a year later I have now found more than 128 lab caches.     What’s interesting about this fast growi...
Read more

Meeting the characters of Dynasty land

Image
The week started with a trip out with the other half to find the cast of Dynasty!   Ok, not quite! We didn’t actually travel to Denver, Colorado in the US, where the famous 80s soap was set, but to the village in Norfolk of the same name.  There may not have been any shoulder pads, quarrelling families, oil rigs or UFOs in sight - yes in one ludicrous Dynasty episode, one of the cast was picked up by a UFO, which is possibly why the soap met its end soon after - but we did meet some equally colourful characters as we traversed the banks of the stunning river and admired the huge sluice gates.  The other half had come along for the walk, eager to escape the confines of home, but also because I’d promised we’d pop to the coast after our walk, for a paddle and some fish and chips.  Parking was great, with a free car park right near the giant sluice gates, and we were soon heading up the tow path towards Downham Market on Poshrule’s Denver Downham Doodah series.  Ca...
Read more

Cornwall Part 2: The Mouse Hole and a rare Webcam cache

Image
Now halfway through our Cornish Geocaching adventures,  it was finally time to visit some tourist hotspots!  Whilst we had both enjoyed getting away from all the touristy chaos of Cornwall on our earlier adventures, we decided to spend some time seeing one of our favourite Cornish locations, St Michael’s Mount.  Located in the beautiful Mounts Bay, the castle, set high up on a rocky island, and only reachable by crossing the causeway at low tide, or by taking a boat, really is a must see for anyone visiting Cornwall. And the nearby pubs in Marizon are amongst our favourites in Cornwall.  The other half was keen to walk around the castle again and I’d spotted some new caches to do on the island so we set off for Marizon. The tide was just going out as we arrived, so we didn’t have long to wait until we could cross the long cobbled causeway.  Interestingly, the pandemic has brought a change here, in who can now access the island. Gone are the days of just being ab...
Read more