Fishing for caches and an evening well spent in Wells

It’s been a few weeks since we’ve been able to hit the Geocaching trails, owing to the fact I’ve been laid up on the sofa after a recent op. Luckily, all went well and I mended pretty quickly, so finally after 3 weeks of watching way too much daytime TV, writing a new ad lab and solving a few mystery caches, I was finally ready to escape the house and get out on my next Geocaching adventure.  

Our first was to the North Norfolk coast, where we decided to venture along from the busy tourist hot spot of Cromer and do a nice series at Kelling. 

It was a nice walk out of the village and into a nearby woodland and then across fairly dry tracks to the beach and back again. 

Sadly, the weather wasn’t great. Big black clouds loomed over us for half the walk and the wind was bitterly cold. We very nearly made it all the way round before the heavens opened and soaked us, but weather aside, it was a nice series, and just the right length, as I was still supposed to be taking it easy.   

 

There were some lovely customs along the route including a colourful gnome, an inventive stick man, fir cones, fake grass, a bird house and a rat. My favourite was the cute green caterpillar at the end of the walk, he definitely had to have an FP.  

It was also nice to collect Norfolk’s oldest cache on route – I wasn’t even aware it was here until we came across it on our walk, so that was an added bonus.  

 

Back at the car and keen to find a hot brew to warm up, we headed across country to the pretty town of Holt. Not somewhere I’ve visited before, but it is a lovely place and we soon found a nice little coffee shop to warm up in. 

Afterwards we went for a stroll to pick up the lab caches around the town, which took us to some interesting historical places. 

We also found a few traditionals including two church micros. The hide in the metal post at the large Church was very good. Blends in well.  

There’s a surprising number of multi caches in Holt, and I would have loved to have done them all, but we just didn’t have time. However, we did collect the information for ‘The Great Fire of Holt’, as it was along the ad lab route, and learnt a great deal about the devastating fire in the town. A really interesting multi, although sadly we couldn’t find the final cache on our visit, but will return for it another time. 

 

We finished the day by taking a trip along the coast to Wells-next-to-Sea, one of my favourite places in Norfolk.  We stopped for a few caches and dashes along the way and finally arrived just in time for tea. 

Wells was surprisingly quiet, perhaps owing to the fact it was a week day out of school holidays. It was actually really nice to be able to wander around without the hundreds of tourists that descend upon it. Goodness knows how the locals cope with it all. 

 

After the obligatory seaside fish and chip dinner, we set about completing the new adventure labs ‘A Day Well Spent in Wells’ set by Palmer28. 

We thoroughly enjoyed our wander around the town, which took us to the Old Lifeboat House, and nearby memorial, and the town’s most imposing landmark, The Granary. We also managed to pick up a couple of traditional caches along the route, before it was time to head home…collecting a couple more caches and dashes on route.  

 

My next Geocaching day out was a solo one to Litlington in Hertfordshire. Once again, Ryo62 had been very busy setting more Geocaching series in the area so I decided to do the boot shaped Litlington Labyrinth series.  

 

Shortly after setting off I realised parts of the route looked rather familiar, and I started to remember the nice walk I’d done here three or four years ago. It was great to return. 

As always, on an RYO62 series, the caches were all spotted pretty quickly, thanks to the great hints and great coordinates. 

There were some nice hides and some nice customs, including a number of RYO62 specials – chunks of breeze block and bricks cleverly hiding nano logs, a coat hanger and a bug clinging to specimen tube.  

 

About halfway round I took a short diversion to grab a few in the ‘I’ve got yer hooked series’. A clever idea for a series, which largely involved retrieving the out of reach caches ideally with a long hook…but in my case with whatever long stick was lurking nearby. 

A few gave me some problems, being rather vertically challenged at just 5ft tall, but I managed to retrieve and return all those I looked for. It was good fun, and a nice to walk around the edge of the chalk pit.  

 

I also managed to pick up the long solved mystery cache Chalk This Up Ashwell on my walk. It was great to be in the right place for it and what a great sized cache! I don’t find many that big. 

 

After a very enjoyable walk, I decided to jump back in the car and grab a few caches and dashes. They included four in RYO62’s brilliant ‘Congratulations…’ series, two War Memorials, and a Church Micro. Altogether I collected 42 smileys, my best caching day for a while.  

 

That’s it for this time! Next week we’ll be out and about in Essex, exploring one of its quieter coastal resorts and picking up more caches in the epic EHB series. See you then.