Caching Tales

About 25 years ago I visited Manchester, one of the UK’s most famous cities...thanks to premier league football, music legends Oasis & Take That and TV’s longest running soap Corrie.  This weekend I finally returned thanks to geocaching and achieved a couple of geocaching firsts. Yes the EU’s mega event ‘Geocoin Fest’ was back in Great Britain and being held at the Manchester Convention Centre. We decided to drive up the afternoon before so we could make the most of the Saturday. Making a quick stop at a services to grab the cache ‘I always wondered...’. After finding a car park and checking into our city centre hotel, just a two minute walk from the Mega event venue, we set off to find a couple of late evening caches.  Whilst travelling up I’d spotted the new Mega event mystery cache on the map so had put together the jigsaw of the event logo and soon had the numbers.  GZ perhaps wasn’t the nicest place for a cache, but we eventual...

This year I took part in my first ever CITO event and it was a very rewarding experience. Knowing I was doing some good to clean up the environment, albeit a very small part of the British countryside, was very satisfying.  Sadly, in a day and age where everything is disposable and we have a throw away culture, there is more rubbish littering our beautiful world than even a million CITO events could possibly clean up.  And this week I came face to face with the harsh reality of how some people think it’s fine to just throw anything and everything, wherever they like.  I’d set out on RYO62s two series around Guilden Morden - the Gallop and the Giddy Up. The first stretch of the walk was up a tree lined country track, heading out of the village, but within minutes of starting the walk I began to see a trail of discarded sewing equipment.  As I followed the trail of buttons, bundles of elastic and clothing fasteners I soon found the broken sewing box...

When I started caching I began to feel a great sense of well being and happiness that I hadn’t felt since I was a child. And I believe it was very much due to the fact I was getting outdoors, walking and exploring the natural environment.  Getting outside and seeing a whole host of wildlife, climbing trees and getting stung by nettles, were all things I hadn’t done since I was little. Over the years mine and everyone    else’s world has been filled with more and more high tech gadgets, online services, and labour saving devices that mean we barely need to leave the house!  We no longer need to go out and do the food shop as everyone delivers. And catching up with friends is no longer an outing to the pub, they’re all available almost 24/7 on social media, Skype, FaceTime etc etc! Many experts now believe as a result we’re rapidly becoming more socially isolated and definitely less fit! So why go for a walk when you’ve got thousands of on...