Meeting old friends and Peterborough’s ghosts

A friend of mine has been busy building a new business and as part of that he asked me to test out the navigation features of a new app. Quite excited to be one of the first to try it, I headed to Newmarket High Street after work this week, to test it out.

After some fun playing around with it, I had enough time to grab a couple of caches nearby. Just around the corner was the newish Church micro All Saints, and I made a swift find of the tiny micro at GZ. 


I then headed up the High Street to pick up the multi ‘I-Spy History Ghost Signs’. I’d enjoyed collecting the numbers for this one a few weeks back during a shopping trip to the town with my mum. It was nice to return today to claim the cache at the final GZ and it’s such a great idea for a new series. There are so many of these old manufacturing and shop signs build into the walls of old buildings throughout our towns, but I have to admit, these days I rarely take much notice of them.


As the weekend arrived I had just one goal - to attend a Cache Carnival Celebration event! There had been a local one, but unfortunately it was in the middle of the day on my birthday, and I’d already made other plans. Hence over the past week I’d been scouring the geocache map for others I could attend, but many were a fair old distance away. 


Then I spotted it...a Celebration event in Peterborough! It was a city I’d wanted to go caching in for some time, as it boasts a large number of Wherigos - my favourite type of cache. So the trip would be even more worthwhile.

Having parked on the edge of the city centre it wasn’t long before I emerged through an alley onto one of the city’s main shopping streets and just metres away from the start of the brilliant ‘Ghostly Peterborough’ Wherigo. 


Set by Beach_hut it took me on a brilliant walk around some of the town’s most infamous tourist attractions, telling me ghostly tales at each location. 

I got off to a slightly slow start, as I just couldn’t spot the info I needed to input...but got there in the end. 


Next stop was the stunning Cathedral and after snapping a few photos I soon found the Roman Numerals required to move on. The walk continued through the town to shops, hotels, the museum and the railway station.


As I went I also remembered to collect a few traditional caches, many with an 80s theme, as well as the ‘Hunky Chunky Almonds’ mystery cache. I’d solved it earlier in the week without too much trouble, thanks to being a huge chocolate lover, and I soon had the cache at the final GZ. 


As I finished the Wherigo, I suddenly realised time had ticked by rather fast and I needed to get to the event quickly. I left collecting the final cache for the Wherigo until afterwards and headed for the lovely Portuguese restaurant where the event was being held. 

As I arrived I suddenly realised it was being hosted by Geopatinha! I’d met this lively cacher just over a year ago on a wild night caching trip around a huge country park in Wellingborough. And as I greeted him and reminded him of where we’d met before, it turned out that just minutes earlier he’d been regaling the story of the whole Wellingborough adventure to some of the other attendees. 


Whilst at the event I spent quite a bit of time chatting to Ges Anderson who had also been on the infamous night caching adventure, and frankly without whom we might all have still been there...this cacher certainly knows his binary code.

I also met Beach_hut for the second time and told them about the fun I’d just had doing their Wherigo. Mr Beach_hut also gave me a few basic tips on how to create one, as I would love to, but having looked at the Wherigo builder tool once or twice, I’ve been slightly put off trying. 

After a couple of drinks and lots of great caching stories swapped, I said goodbye and headed off to pick up the final cache for the Wherigo. At GZ it took me a few minutes to spot, as it had slipped out of the tree, but finally I had it in hand and was admiring the appropriately themed log container. 

A great afternoon out and seconds after logging the event up popped the Celebration souvenir. I finally had the complete set, and just in the nick of time, as the three week Cache Carnival drew to a close.

Roll on the double Easter bank holiday weekend (yes I’m rather behind with my blogging again!) and two very successful caching trips...more on those next time. 

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