Taking a trip down Geocaching Memory Lane
As any geocacher worth their salt will know, this year Geocaching is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
So many great activities and events were planned to take place, but sadly so many have bitten the dust, as Covid-19 has swept around the world forcing us all to live completely differently.
However, it was great to see that the postponed souvenir challenge, Memory Lane could now get underway, albeit with a hugely extended finish date. Usually, we get a matter of weeks to complete these challenges, but this one was now available for 6 months, to enable all cachers, everywhere to take part.
Seeing what we had to do, I giggled slightly, knowing I’d probably complete it within days not months...and I did. On my first weekend out all of the souvenirs appeared on my profile and this is how I did it.
Memory Lane souvenirs were awarded on a points basis, with certain types of cache earning more points. For example, a found mystery cache earned 7 points, whilst a standard cache gave 5 points.
Armed with this useful information I decided to do a brand new trail entirely composed of mystery caches - Jane Chick’s Jiggy Jive series in Norfolk.
Recently published, the series formed a nice bit of geoart on the caching map in the shape of a blue J and I was eager to turn it yellow.
The puzzles were all jigsaws, featuring the familiar faces of local geocachers out on their expeditions with Jane. And once solved each required a bit of googling to get a word for the checker, which then unlocked the real co-ordinates to each cache. A clever idea and a bit of a twist on the now well used jigsaw puzzle idea for mystery caches.
At this point, I enlisted the help of fellow geocachers team DannyJGB, who love solving a good jigsaw puzzle and soon the co-ordinates were coming through thick and fast.
Saturday finally arrived and with a nice circular walk all mapped out on my geocaching app, I set off for the first one.
The roads were still quiet post lockdown, which was great as it made the journey so much shorter.
I soon arrived at a gate to collect the first cache in the series, but really hadn’t got my cacher eyes in. It took me a few minutes to spot it and when I eventually did I somehow managed to drop the lid as I retrieved the log.
Oh heck, not a good start! And what’s worse, you always think they’ll be down by your feet, and easy to find again, but no! It was nowhere to be seen. After 10 minutes of fumbling about in a small clump of grass around the gate post, there was still no sign of it. Completely baffled as to where it could have gone, I took a step back to think and there it was right under my foot, doh!
Needless to say I was glad to be on my way again, crossing the field and climbing over the next stile.
Next up was a cache at a pretty church in the estate grounds, and I was soon on quiet country roads for much of the rest of the route. More caches came thick and fast, many of which were custom containers including birds attached to tubes, a small hanging bird house and a pretty red letterbox.
Back at the main road I diverted off to grab the war memorial cache and a mystery and had the opportunity to drop off a TB I’d picked up in the US which had been languishing in the bottom of my bag for some time, due to lockdown.
Back on the trail, more great cache and hides followed including a hen in a stump and a very glittery hanging pot.
I was finally on the hone straight when I heard a bit of rumbling. At first I thought it was just a noisy lorry on the main road, but in actual fact it was a huge storm. Whilst I’d been admiring the beautiful countryside to my left, with the sun beaming down, to my right the sky was filled with huge black clouds as the storm approached.
It was the second “oh heck” moment of the trail. I quickly signed the log of the penultimate cache and got moving quick. The final cache was in hand and I picked up the pace, almost into a run in order to get back to the car.
The car was just in sight as the heavens opened! Luckily I did t get too wet, but decided to call it a day and head home, rather than wait out the storm.
The following day the weather was looking just as unreliable, but I was keen to get my parents dog out for a walk, as the poor thing hadn’t been out on a proper walk for ages, with one of them now in a cafe home and the other shielding from the virus.
Bobby’s favourite place for a walk was the forest. In the past, my mum and I had gone for lots of walks in the forests around Thetford with Bobby, and a new series in the woods at West Harling was the perfect destination.
Set by Rilks it was a decent sized circular walk, but as rain was threatening again we decided just to do the middle section.
The first few caches were mainly micros and nanos hidden next to and in gate posts, which gave me enough points to pick up the final Memory Lane souvenir.
As we continued our walk it wasn’t long before we started to find some much more inventive caches. The first was a fantastic cache, a short wood post which fitted perfectly within a hole in a lump of concrete, and looked like just an old discarded base to a fence post.
As I pulled out the post, I then realised it had hinges on it and opened it up to reveal the log container inside! Just brilliant. Such a clever custom cache.
The next was another brilliant custom container - a wooden log - which had been cleverly placed into a hole in a branch, making it look like it was just part of the tree. A genius idea.
And a bit further along I came almost unstuck by a pale green reptile tied to a branch, which blended in so well it took me ages to spot.
Custom pine cones and more logs followed, and a cache hidden in a hole surrounded by moss almost stumped me. There was also an incredibly high one, 15ft up, but with the aid of a very long branch laying nearby, I was able to grab it and replace it without any tree climbing.
For the most part the rain held off, and Bobby had thoroughly enjoyed the walk. I returned him to my dad completely exhausted...he apparently slept for most of the evening.
My next caching trip was a short one, whilst I was visiting fellow cachers and family members team DannyJGB.
After a nice lunch we decided to head off to find the recently published Fordham church micro. It was a mystery cache and DannyJGB had kindly solved the jigsaw puzzle, so it was only right we went to collect it together.
At GZ it was a brilliant hide. I stood back to give 3ft and 4ft a chance to find it and they soon unveiled the very cleverly hidden log container on a sign.
We wandered a bit further so they could grab some other caches that I’d found on my previous trips, but they hadn’t discovered until now. Then, it was back to base camp for some board games and dinner.
I’ll finish with our nice trip out to Rattlesden in Suffolk after work. The longer light nights meant we could get out after six for a few caches and we thoroughly enjoyed a wander around the pretty village.
There were some nice sized containers from a trail that had been set recently, and a few other micros. We finished by collecting a few caches and dashes.
Next week, we’re in the line of fire in Wereham; discovering Burwell’s history; and using the grey matter to solve some rather cryptic new puzzles in Fulbourn.
