Showcasing the wildlife of Cavenham Heath in Suffolk

With so many new geocaching series popping up over the summer, I’ve been feeling a little guilty about not having set any new caches for more than a year. Others have clearly made the most of their forced time away from finding caches (during the Spring lockdown), so I’ve set about putting that right during the past couple of weeks.

For the past four years I’ve had a mini series of caches on Cavenham Heath nature reserve, which aimed to fill some of the gaps in Drudgery’s slightly neglected series of 2012. Recently, more of Drudgery’s caches were archived, and some of mine were in need or some TLC, so I decided it was time for a complete refresh.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed a few sunny evenings after work up on the reserve, planning where to put the new caches, and looking at ways to add a few more and include some custom containers. It was lovely to see some of the inhabitants including squirrels, a fox and deer, aswell as a number of birdwatchers and dog walkers.

 

Natural England were once again very helpful at giving consent for the new series, so a big thank you to them. And it went live a few days later.

 

Appropriately themed on wildlife - Frog’s Lodge, Owl’s Lookout and Squirrel’s Seat are just a few of the caches on route - . It should also enable cachers to enjoy a decent walk with a good number of finds along the way. And if anymore of drudgery’s hides are archived, there will obviously be room to add a few more to the series.

I also found time to do some more great geocaching series in Norfolk, Beds and Herts. First up was a trip to Beachamwell for another great Poshrule series. It was a rather humid evening, so I didn’t set any land speed records, but it was a very nice walk, largely off road.

Some pigs on route were desperately trying to find ways to keep cool, taking a very muddy bath in a large puddle.

About half way round I bumped into another a geocacher, Lillianavess, who I’d not met before. We had a nice little chat about some of the trickier hides that lay ahead, before bidding farewell. Always nice to meet new cachers and to see another living soul out on some of these more remote country paths.

 

RYO62’s new Minion series in Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire also got a return visit in the last fortnight. I had two loops still to complete.

Armed with all the co-ordinates from the more than 100 mystery caches – in part thanks to DanngyJGB doing all the jigsaws for me – I set off to try and complete both during a day off from work.

It was another very warm day, so it was hard going at times, but the route was lovely, and there were some really nice custom caches. To set a trail of more than 100 caches is no mean feat, and to create a puzzle for each of those caches, is just incredible, but to also make so many of those caches bespoke and interesting, made it an absolutely fantastic series.

 

Bison’s were disguised with fake leaves; bricks and sticks had small tube inserted; an old piece of floor joist had even been turned into cache; and the golf ball, stuck on some astro turf ontop of a Tupperware box, was just brilliant. Well worthy of all the favourite points it had collected. 

 

Another notable hide was the Congratulations 1000 Heidi Rose cache, which was huge! I’ve not seen a geocache that large for a very long time.

There was of course also a fake snake on route and a hanger – two of RYO62s signature hides. Plus a huge bit of old wood with a log container hidden in it, which to anyone else would like completely innocent. Altogether, I clocked up a brilliant 80 finds.

 

Another walk in Norfolk this time around Barton Bendish Bolero and parts of Boughton, added another 56 smileys to our total.

It was a lengthy, but enjoyable walk, and interestingly, every so often along the route I came across huge blue mounds of rock/gravel. Very strange. Goodness knows where something that colour comes from, or what it’s even used for in rural Norfolk. The things you see when you get out and about caching!

Some new lab caches in Hunstanton, on the Norfolk coast, had also caught my eye recently, so on another day off from work, I persuaded the other half to take a trip to the seaside.

 

The adventure labs were well thought through and took us to some nice little spots along the gardens adjacent to the beach, and didn’t require too much searching to find the answers needed to complete them. Afterwards we picked up a church micro and enjoyed a few games in the arcades.

 

My final caching outing, was to Huntingdonshire - a journey I haven’t made since much earlier this year. There are still so many series in that neck of the woods, just crying out to be found on my map, so it was time to get out there again.

 

I set my sights on MarcusMaximus’ Gidding and Back series. It was certainly a pretty route, through some countryside that I’ve not walked before, but most of the caches were in real need of some TLC. Some were broken, and most had soggy logs. I did my best to replace as many as possible, but I fear by the time the next finder gets to them, my replacements may also be wet.

The route was also a little problematic in a few places, due to deep undergrowth along part of the route, a lot of ditch jumping, and a very badly damaged footbridge. I slightly feared crossing it, seeing how far the missing boards had dropped below it, but braved it in the end.

Of course, it’s clearly not the CO’s fault that the local landowners are not maintaining the footpaths, and to be honest they all added a little entertainment to the day’s adventure and to the tales I’ve told of it since.

 

Next time, I’ll be trying to find the Wonders of the World in HQ’s latest souvenir challenge, and enjoying two caching trips out with my young nieces 3ft and 4ft. Until then stay safe.