The angry bird incident & the best series of the year so far

As my week off work drew to a close I had just Saturday and Sunday left for some caching adventures. 

My nieces 3ft and 4ft were up for an adventure, aka team DannyJGB - well almost the whole team, one part was off playing golf with my fairweather caching partner. 

Keen not to venture to far from home we decided to head for the new circular walk ‘Flossies Dozen’ near Soham.

Set by the legendary Eco Puffins Parents, it has replaced their previous Flossies Walk series which followed a similar route. 

Grabbing coats and boots from the car...the weathermen had got it wrong again, rain was definitely on the way...we set off along a very quiet country road to collect our first cache.

In order to limit some of the arguments that sometimes ensue on these trips with my lovely nieces, 4ft navigated us to the first cache, whilst 3ft ducked under the trees to make the retrieve. It was a quick find and after a quick switch over of  navigator and retriever roles, before we knew it we were at the second cache. 

It was one of EPPs sneakier hides - a piece of grey guttering wrapped around a sign post - so it fooled poor 4ft, as it did blend in very well.

As we headed onto the field track more great caches and hides followed. A magnetic snail, a well camouflaged bison tube, and a huge homemade cache in a log. 

After finding and signing number 8 we suddenly found that little 3ft had attracted some unwanted attention from a rather large, angry bird. We have no idea what she did to upset it, maybe it just didn’t like the cat on the front of her pink fluffy jumper, but it just wouldn’t stop following her. 

She had been marching ahead of us, GPS in hand keen to get to the location of the next cache, when the bird appeared out of nowhere. As it pursued her, it kept diving towards her and squawking very loudly. Completely unphased by it all 3ft carried on walking whilst the rest of us laughed at the amusing scene before us. We can only imagine it had a nest nearby and saw 3ft as a threat...or at least the cat on her jumper! 

After grabbing the next cache the bird finally disappeared so we stopped for a snack as little legs seemed to be getting a bit tired, even though we’d barely walked a km. 

20 minutes later we were on our way again and soon found a sneaky rock cache, hidden by a huge ditch, and a ‘hanger cache’, which literally was a hanger...a coat hanger.

The next cache stumped us for a bit, and as we searched in and around a fir tree, the heavens opened! As rain poured down, we suddenly spotted the cache to our great relief, and quickly scrawled our names on the log book before hurrying up the track towards the road and the car. 

Fortunately, there was just one more cache to go, and it was a really quick find, enabling us to run for the shelter of the car. 

We found all 12 caches in the series and had thoroughly enjoyed the walk and all the caches and hides. It was just the right length for the youngsters, and was an entertaining adventure throughout. 

The following day, the sun was out so I headed for another new series near Lawshall in Suffolk. 

Set by SusieandMaisy along 2.6 miles of pretty countryside, it turned out to be one of the best series that I’ve done this year. The bespoke design and careful placement of so many of the caches made them an absolute joy to find. One blended in so well I actually thought it was real!

First up was the trusty fake turf cache, which blended in well amongst the long grass at the base of a post. Next a cleverly hidden Tupperware box, camouflage by a veil of fake ivy, in amongst real ivy. It was that clever it actually took me a few minutes to spot it!

Number 4 was a nice large box, which I managed to get my hands on once I’d forced myself through a tiny gap in the hedge. 

Skipping ahead to number 6, I discovered a very unique field puzzle. It looked like a wooden bird box, but it wasn’t. First task was to retrieve the magic wand and get my mitts on a metal ball. Next I had to pop the ball into a hole and then using a little shunt mechanism the cache door should have swung open. 

It didn’t quite work first or second time, but it was third time lucky. Out popped the log book container much to my relief. Such a brilliant custom crafted field puzzle. 

The next hide was a simple bison, but it was so well camouflaged that it took a minute or two to spot. As I waded through long grass to the next cache I spotted lots of pretty butterflies and moths, which flew up as I walked by.

Arriving at GZ I spied a birds nest and as I got closer it looked like there were eggs in it. Very excited, I hurriedly got my camera out of my bag to get a photo, but seconds later was laughing...the nest was the cache and the egg, the log holder! Doh! It was a brilliant cache. Not seen one like it before.

Number 9 was equally brilliant. It was a large box hidden in a huge fallen tree, but when I opened it to my dismay I found a bag of keys and a second box which was padlocked! I thought I might be here a while as I tried to find the correct key to open the box, but luckily a bit of clever deduction meant it was the third one I tried.

A pine cone, a nano and another micro followed, and soon I was back at the car. A total of 13 caches were grabbed, all a delight to find, being well crafted and placed to blend into their surroundings. I highly recommend this series to those who enjoy finding more creative caches. 

Right back to work for me...but next week I’ll be playing detective in a bid to crack the 'Mystery at the Museum' case and complete the latest HQ souvenir challenge.