‘Mud, mud, glorious mud’...on the hunt for more of the doomed dozen

As the weekend arrived there was none of the usual map searching and indecision as to where I should go caching, my destiny was clear...another trip west!

Yes, with six unfound series’ still to go on Poshrule’s doomed dozen list, I hopped into the trusty red German car and headed towards Peterborough - Clopton to be exact.

Yet again it was a nice circular walk, partly on quiet roads and not too long, as fortunately I hadn’t got up that early. Realistically there was only about three hours of daylight left by the time I arrived, so I walked as quickly as I could. 

Most caches were found without a hitch, and it was actually only the very last cache that particularly stumped me. 

After a lot of back and forth I finally found a white film pot, a bit squashed under a stone. Strangely, the last logs were a couple of years old, so I may have signed an old cache, but failing to find anything else, I logged it as found. 

The light was starting to go as I arrived back at the car, but there was just enough time to grab some caches and dashes in the ‘On your bike’ series as I made my way back to the A14.

One was particularly intriguing. A DNF was the last log and quite some time ago, but after rummaging around in a pile of rubble I eventually found another rather squashed film pot, much to my delight. 

The log was dry, even though the lid had fallen off, and I smuggley signed it to claim the smiley. I do love it when I succeed where others have failed. Well don’t we all really ;-) 

The following weekend I was back out in the Fens around Peterborough, this time to complete the Stilton Swag and Yaxley Yippee trails.

The weather was good but there had been an awful lot of rain during the week, including the night before. As usual I was well prepared (not!) kitted out in jeans and trainers - a decision I quickly came to regret as I experienced first hand just how waterlogged this part of the world can get!

Just 15 minutes into the nice Stilton circular I found myself kriss crossing my way over a very boggy field. In the end I gave up trying to avoid the huge pools of water and accepted I would be spending the day in sopping wet shoes and socks! 

Fortunately, the caches came thick and fast and were on the whole easy to grab. And I appreciated the steep downhill road stretch back into the village. 

After a snack back at the car I decided there was enough daylight hours left to go for the Yaxley Yippee series up the road. 

Parking up in a nice residential street, I quickly made my first two finds, before heading up a narrow path to a horse paddock. And that’s where the real fun of the day started!

Good god I have never seen so much mud! As I tried to navigate  myself through it to the first gate I could see a couple of ladies clad in horse riding gear trying to grab a horse. 

The younger lady on the other side of the gate asked me to wait a minute as the horse had apparently escaped the paddock and they needed to recapture her. 

I replied “Of course, no problem”. I’m afraid horses and I don’t mix after a nasty horse riding accident at a holiday park when I was younger, which ended up with a very bloody nose...mine of course, not the horse’s. Hence I was quite happy to stand well back and wait, gradually sinking into the muddy mire around me.

After a few minutes the second lady shouted, “All fine, go ahead”, and she opened the gate for me. Sticking as close to the fence line as I could, where the ground was a little firmer, I made my way past them, thanking them for opening the gate as I passed. 

Keen not to loiter in case the horse managed to get free again, I hurriedly made my way through the foot deep mud, nearly losing my balance and trainers several times. 

Finally, I reached the gate at the other end of the paddock, where the next cache was located. However, I decided not to try and grab it, with the two ladies still standing not far behind me.

After leaving the paddock I was happy to be on a slightly firmer field path, so the next couple of finds were swiftly picked up. 

Unfortunately, I made a bit of a wrong turn as I headed for number six, and only discovered my error a good few minutes after walking along the side of a second field. As I almost reached the cache, I realised I couldn’t actually get to it  as it was on the other side of a rather sizeable ditch! 

Tens minutes of backtracking later and the cache was in hand, but I’d lost a good 20 minutes of daylight and the sun was starting to set. 

Quickening my pace to an almost Olympic standard speed walk, I grabbed cache after cache, racing to get back to the main road before it was completely dark. 

Fortunately, I just made it and began the walk back to the car along the cycle way, which was well lit by the orange glowing street lamps.

I managed to grab the final caches in the series with the aid of my phone torch, and was rather proud to have ticked two more of the doomed dozen off my list. 

Next week...we make the final push to claim as many of the remaining caches soon to be archived. Until then...happy caching!