‘Don’t Die Hard of a Wasp Bite’ & the baby squirrel tale

This week I was keen to get out on some after work walks and pick up a few more adventure labs if I could. I’d spotted a new series of labs in Ely and a few other intriguing mysteries and multi geocaches, so decided to set off across the Fen roads to the historic city.

 

I started with the new adventure labs called ‘Take your Pic!’, set by Shadyone44. It was a lovely series - a nice length, guided walking tour of the city. They took in some of Ely’s most famous historical landmarks and green spaces, including the cathedral, Jubilee Gardens, the old monastery and the beautiful Cherry Hill Park.

 

Each location page had a nice description, full of interesting facts and history, making you feel like you had a tour guide alongside telling you all the interesting things about each place. I really enjoyed this set of labs and learnt some new things, and there was even a bonus physical cache to collect at the end, which was great as an additional find. 

 

After collecting the labs, I had time to collect a couple of other caches. I thoroughly enjoyed doing Ely City Church multi, and the mystery, ‘Don’t Live Free of Die Hard’. A great idea for getting the final co-ordinates, although it took ages for the penny to drop as to where the clue was! And sadly there was a bit of an incident at the final GZ…more on that in a moment. 

 

I also made a start on the brilliant and innovative mystery cache, also by Shadyone44, ‘Don’t Die Hard with a Vengeance’. The first two stages, replicated an idea from a couple of Shady’s other two caches, that I absolutely loved doing. This one however, is even smarter, and I really am going to bring my nieces 3ft & 4ft back to do it, they will love it. 

 

Sadly, I didn’t manage to get myself to the final to claim the smiley, due to a bit of a calamity at the final of the other Die Hard cache, which I will forever remember as ‘Don’t Die Hard of a Wasp Bite’!

 

Yes, a wretched wasp was buzzing around near the brilliant and huge cache at the final location, and just as I went to return the box it got me right on the arm! God it stung. And the blinking thing wouldn’t let go. I managed to prise it off, swiping at it with my notebook a few times, but the damage was done…the pain was instant and it swelled up very quickly.

 

Off I headed to the nearby supermarket, and after much queuing at the checkouts, I applied a remedy that helped cool it, but it didn’t really take away the pain. In fact, the swelling, stiffness and pain lasted three days. The perils of geocaching eh? I will certainly be a lot more careful in future!

 

But the evening wasn’t without it highs…wasp venom coursing through my veins aside. The three physical caches I did manage to grab around the city, had the final Wonders of the World stamps in them, so I earned the final souvenir.

 

The following evening I had planned another geocaching walk, but as I was watering the pumpkins I discovered quite a surprise. There laying in the longer grass was a tiny baby animal. It was squirming about and appeared to have a long tail and quite large teeth. At first I thought it was a rat and was a bit alarmed, but upon a closer look it was evident it was a baby squirrel. A really cute little thing.

 

I was well aware that something had been gnawing at my pumpkins in recent weeks, but I had no idea it was squirrels. The poor little thing seemed abandoned and I couldn’t work out how he had got there. I decided to leave him for a bit and retreated into the house to see if the mum might return.

 

Almost 45 minutes later and there was no sign of her. Knowing time is of the essence with these things, I place him in a flattish box on a towel, with a hot water bottle underneath and again left him where I’d found him. As a back-up plan, I started to make enquiries with local rescue centres. 

After quite a few calls I finally found a brilliant place in Norfolk that were happy to take him the following day. They advised me that as it was almost dark, the mum was unlikely to now return and to keep the little fella indoors, in a warm, quiet room and take him to the centre as soon as I could the following day.

 

Sadly, despite our best efforts, he didn’t make it. We had checked on him during the evening and each time he seemed ok - moving about - but clearly he wasn’t. I presume he sadly either died of shock or injuries we couldn’t see.

A few days later, I managed to persuade the other half to join me on a fairly short circular walk of 12 caches around Hawstead in Suffolk. Called Hawstead Church & Back, it had been set by Campan51, and it was brilliant. So many carefully crafted custom containers, a huge amount of work had clearly gone into setting it.

We parked up at the church, which was beautiful, and found the first cache just outside the car park. We then set off across the fields collecting each innovative cache and admiring the wildlife, including a field of sunflowers.

 

My favourite cache was the little Buddha. I’ve never seen one like that, it was lovely. Other great caches included a micro attached to a chunk of log, a plastic torch and nanos set into rocks and bricks.

 

About halfway round we came to a lovely river crossing and we were soon in another very pretty village. I realised as I arrived there was a Big Bad John ‘Bridges’ cache nearby and decided to give it a go. To my great delight, I managed to grab it with my tool, without even getting my feet wet! I was thoroughly chuffed…it’s rare I succeed at a BBJ cache.

 

On the final stretch of the walk, I found another very strange looking cache. It appeared to be part of a fuel cap from an older style vehicle or piece of machinery. It was very interesting, and innovative as a log holder. Again, I’ve not seen one like that before.

 

If you like finding caches a bit different to the norm, I highly recommend this series, it was good fun, and so well maintained.

Next week it is all about lab caches - adventure labs to be precise. Yes, the new age of geocaching is upon us and we’ll be finding a few. Until then, stay safe, don’t forget the anti bac.