Rain or shine: A lot of caching, dashing and splashing!

The weather forecast was pretty gloomy for the next week or so, but that wasn’t going to stop me getting out caching.

The Saturday afternoon was a bit chilly, but the sun had made it out so I headed off to grab another Poshrule series just off the A14, this time around Titchmarsh.

The Titchmarsh Trackable series was another with its card firmly marked, and with just days left to grab it before it disappeared forever I set off from the quiet village. 

First up was the nice fine pair cache, which after a bit of fumbling about was in hand. The first two caches on the series were quickly grabbed, followed by a Little Bridges cache. Before I knew it I was out on a nice walk, along the very quiet country roads. 

The trail had a few tricker hides early on - across water logged ditches! They certainly added to the adventure, as I tried to stretch my little legs across without getting too wet. I think the occasional passing cyclist probably got an interesting view of me straddled across some of the deeper ditches, but politely smiled and said hi as they flew past. 

A few parts of the walk were uphill - that was tough going but after all the exercise in recent weeks, I managed to haul myself onwards. And there were a couple of nice rock caches, plus a well hidden Tupperware box, big enough for a bit of TB dropping.

Before I knew it I was on the familiar turf of Clopton and after a quick sit down and a snack I made the return trip to Titchmarsh. 

Parts of the walk back were a bit muddy and boggy, but it was nice to be back on the country tracks again, skirting fieldside edges, as the sun beamed down.

As I reached the village, I had one more cache to go and it took a few minutes to spot. ‘It’s always the last one of the day, isn’t it’! But after a bit of ducking and diving around the footpath sign it was in hand.

The following week the weather had really turned. It was cold, windy and rather wet! But with pretty much no time left to grab the final caches on Poshrule’s ‘soon to be archived’ list I ventured out. 

I decided to try and spend the day caching and dashing as much as possible in order to stay dry so had my sights firmly set on Le tour de Haddon! 

The series was all along fairly quiet roads with good places to stop for the most part, and was thoroughly enjoyable despite the torrential rain. 

The other half drove whilst I leapt in and out to grab each cache, getting wetter and wetter every time. 

Fortunately, most didn’t take long to spot and the other half kept himself entertained and warm inside the car, whilst I rooted around outside, by listening to the footie on the radio. 

The route through all the little villages was really nice and I would love to have walked it on a nice summer’s day, but it was still good fun. 

We finished the whole series in just over two and a half hours, picking up almost all of the 57 caches in the series and a few extras. 

Next we headed towards Stilton to pick up a few individual drive bys including the interestingly named ‘Cheese Rolling Country’ - I’d love to see that - and the lovely ‘Mighty 8th Glatton’ war memorial, which was impressive.

The days light was starting to fade fast, but we decided on one final push, to grab as many caches as we could on the Connington Criterium series.

As we set off along the quite road through the village and out the other side we hadn’t quite appreciated how narrow the road was to become. It was definitely more ideal for bikes than cars and another series that I would much preferred to walked in warmer weather.

Luckily, we only came head to head with one other car, and managed to find enough verge to pull onto, to let them pass. And because it was so quiet for the most part, the other half just stopped in the middle of the little road rather than trying to keep finding somewhere to pull off every time.

It was pretty dark by the time we reappeared onto the A1 feeder road so we decided not to grab the final few in the series located along it. We had already achieved more smileys than most of our other caching days - 77 caches in total - so headed for home to dry off and warm up. Well I did as I was soaked to the skin. The other half was dry as a bone, l having spent the whole afternoon behind the wheel, with the heating on full. 

Next week it’s time for a bit of owner cache maintenance and some puzzle solving. So I’m off to dust the cobwebs off my cipher decoders and puzzle book!