It’s shoes & socks off time for the annual Geocaching paddle

Temperatures really rocketed this week and as I worked on through the Covid-19 crisis at my little desk at home, with none of the luxuries of the office i.e. air con, I was increasingly desperate to find ways to keep cool. 

It was definitely time to get out the paddling pool, for a bit of feet cooling relief during my lunch breaks. Although various other household residents also decided to make the most of it. The kitty pictured below, thought it was a giant drinking fountain! 

So what else do you do when it’s 30 odd degrees? Go for a nice long caching walk in Norfolk! Yep that’s exactly what I did. 

This week I headed to West Dereham to do another Poshrule walk. It actually wasn’t too long, but boy it was humid. And to make matters worse I definitely hadn’t taken enough drinks! 

But it was a really nice stroll mainly along quiet country roads. There were quite a few hills, which I wasn’t expecting, but some lovely quick easy finds all the way around. 

Not long into the walk as I stuck my head into a hedge, I suddenly heard a van pull up behind me. I spun around a bit unsure whether I was about to be kidnapped and was very relieved to see the familiar friendly faces of the flamingos saying hello. 

They’d already completed the circuit, and were just heading home. It was nice to have a chat, and a quick catch up on all things Geocaching, having not seen anyone from the local caching world for some time. 

It wasn’t long before they were starting to cause a bit of a jam, with vehicles suddenly appearing from all directions, on what had been a deserted country road, so we bid farewelll and I continued on my walk. 

After returning along a nice straight stretch through a pretty village, I decided there was enough time to grab a few by car. The side tracked cache by the pretty river was a great scenic spot. And the church micro not far away was another quick find - really pretty church tower. 

As I’m a little behind on my blogging I’m going to rattle through a few other trails I’ve recently visited, giving some of the highlights.

A mid week caching trip to Milton Country Park and Girton gave me a chance to pick up some of the newer caches around the beautiful country park.

I then had time to do a small walk in Girton, which had some brilliant custom caches. A small tuft of grass hide under a bench was hard to spot, as was a small sprig of ivy. The huge log, which swung open to reveal the tiny log container, was just brilliant. 

Another after work trip saw me picking up caches around Troston, Honington, Fakenham Magna, and Euston. 

A couple of woodland hides were just great, including a string of tiny buckets up a tree - the log container was of course in the top one - and another in the roots of a large tree, which was overlooked by a giant carved wooden hare! The hare wasn’t part of the geocache, but nice to find as part of the walk. 

But the best cache of the night was one of Big Bad John’s infamous ‘Bridges’ hides. Hidden under a road bridge crossing a stream near Euston, it was shoes and socks off time - there’s always at least one a year requiring a paddle! 

The water was a little chilly, but once in the stream and under the tiny bridge I soon found the little cache. Definitely a fun adventure. 

I also spent a pleasant Sunday picking up some of the caches on the new One in a Minion series near Dunton in Bedfordshire. It was another great RYO62 series, with lots of quick and easy finds on a pleasant walk. 

Great caches included RYO62’s custom breeze block and brick containers and caches camouflaged by ivy. 

A little bird house in a woodland section of the walk was also very cute and got a well earned FP from me.

There were a few caches by other COs on route well worthy of a mention, including a slightly challenging little bridges hide, a flying pig and a huge ammo box under another footbridge. 

I finished the day picking up 19 caches and dashes, making it a pretty successful trip in terms of smileys earned. 

Finally, I took the other half out to Weeting to grab some caches on the new Linnet & Shadow’s Forest Hack Revisited series. 

Once again the CO had put a huge amount of work into the series, with some fantastic custom caches, along with some truly evil hides.

The water pipe was great fun, and the other half inventively made use of an old coke can to help us pour in enough water.

I was sent up the tree climb...never a good idea as I have absolutely no head for heights. I almost had a coronary getting down, which the other half found hilarious and instead of helping me to get down just kept telling me I was barely 6ft up...it felt like 30!

We ended up skipping a few of the trickier hides as it was getting pretty late - we didn’t finish until nearly 8.30pm, and the other half was desperate to get home for his fish & chips! But I’m looking forward to returning soon to find the rest. 

And I hear the elusive number 18, difficulty 5 cache, which dozens of cachers have spent hours upon hours trying to find since publication, has finally been found!  

Next time, we’ll be finding more Minions, taking a trip to the seaside and publishing a new series of caches...our first in nearly two years. In the meantime, I’m off to buy an electric fan!