Manchester: Home of Oasis, Take That and the Geocoin EU 2019 Mega

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 eventually found the tiny nano.

As we walked to find somewhere to eat, admiring the amazing network of trams, which seem to come along every few minutes, we came across the great virtual ‘Manchester Statues’. 

The one we found was a beautiful copper coloured statue of the suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst standing on a chair. Despite it being quite late, we were able to gather the necessary info with the help of a torch and took a quick selfie with her in the background. 

Up bright and early the next day we headed to a coffee shop for a bit of breakfast. Whilst sipping at a hit chocolate I saw the lab caches had already gone live, so set about solving the 10 culture ones, which could be done from the comfort of a chair, providing it was in central Manchester. 

With a bit of googling I quickly found all the answers to the questions and before long had bagged my very first lab caches. 

Being my first time at a mega I wasn’t  sure what to expect but it was all fairly calm. The queue to get in wasn’t too long and I was delighted to receive my goody bag containing numerous geocoins and travel tags, plus a T Shirt and a mug.

There was a number of stalls inside, some bearing shop names I regularly buy from online, plus a few from overseas that I hadn’t bought from before, but would no doubt in the future. 

Whilst a band played some cheerful tunes, many with a geocaching take on the original, I soon found myself in the far left hand corner looking at the lab cache boards. These were a little more cryptic than the ones I’d solved at the coffee shop earlier and required either a bit of thought or a bit of tech to solve. 

One had just been encrypted with the Caesar Cipher. Another required us to download a scanning app I’d not heard of before in order to scan a dot on the wall and get the information pinging to our phone. Thank goodness for the other half’s slightly newer IPhone, as it just wouldn’t work on mine. 

There was also a field puzzle...one of those mystery wooden boxes. Luckily I had found one just like it a few weeks ago, and seconds later had found the cleverly hidden small draw, and then the mystery peg that allowed me to open the main draw and get the scientists name. 

After finding and then wrangling with an abacus to get another name, we had solved all 10 lab caches in the science category. 

We had a few goes on the Scouts Tombola, where we won two nice custom made caches, before deciding to leave the event in order to solve the final 10 lab caches in the industry category. 

These were set at virtual markers along a two mile route around the city and it not only enabled us to take in some of the brilliant industry history that has been carefully retained in the city, but also grab some other caches along the way. 

What was truly great about the walk, aside from gathering lots of caches, was seeing what an amazing place Manchester really is. The amount of history it has preserved is great to see. 

Aside from all the bright yellow trams, the city has retained many cobbled streets, lots of beautiful old buildings including a pretty opera house and a huge circular library. 

There are also a large number of warehouses, which have been transformed into shops, car parks and bars. In many other cities these beautiful features would be long gone under the wheels of a bulldozer.

First stop was a few yards from the convention centre to grab the locked up cache. Amusingly, despite it being a cunning hide it didn’t take much to spot it as there were quite a few cachers gathered around. 

As we patiently waited to sign the log, of the tiny nano attached to a bike lock, along cane the familiar faces of the Stowmartians. Absolutely lovely to see them. 

The next stop was a similar scenario, more cachers gathered around playing pass the log. And it was a trend that continued for much of the day. Only to be expected really with so many geocachers descending upon Manchester from all over the world. 

At the Sidetracked cache we met a group of Dutch cachers and ended up following them for a few caches by the canal. These included an earthcache and a magnetic under a bench in a pretty park.

At the next church micro - a beautiful church - I bumped into more cachers, from Germany I think and they kindly passed the log to me to sign. 

After a lunch stop at the huge Arndale Centre, we finally found our way our again to grab another Sidetracked cache, this time the War Memorial virtual at Victoria Station. It was good fun, and after collecting a couple of bits of info, and capturing another selfie this time by a historic rail map, we walked to the northern quarter to pick up a few more traditionals. 

Finally, after a divert to China Town for another traditional cache, we were back on the historic Library Walk, outside the stunning library. Another lab cache was grabbed and whilst the other half took a well earned rest at the Cenotaph monument I set off to complete the new Wherigo - The Lost Geocoins.

I absolutely love wherigos, they are my favourite cache type and this one was just brilliant. It took me on a really nice walk down Peter Street taking in the sights of some of the stunning buildings. From the circular library to the pink opera house. As I went I collected Geocoins - very appropriate! 

We finished the day collecting the final lab cache near the railway station and the nearby Sidetracked Earthcache. 

It had been a great weekend. Not only had we attended our first mega event, we had also found our first ever lab caches - 30 in all. 

A big thank you to all the volunteers involved in organising and running such a great mega event and setting all the associated caches. 

We absolutely loved it and thoroughly enjoyed revisiting Manchester. Such a great city and we’ll definitely be back soon!