Appreciating Geocache hiders and a trip to Walton-on-the-Naze

As you’ll have read in my last blog, I recently set a few new geocaches around Barrow in Suffolk, along with a new adventure lab series. However, it was only the other day that I realised I had been awarded the 2022 hider souvenir after they went live. It’s the first time I’ve seen this souvenir and I think it’s a great idea for rewarding those who invest so much of their time in setting caches for the enjoyment of others to find. 

As I’ve mentioned in my blog before, being a Geocache hider these days – during the pandemic and post pandemic – hasn’t been the most rewarding experience. The pandemic seemed to bring with it a massive surge in newbie Geocachers, many of whom sadly didn’t learn the social etiquette of Geocaching and who often had little to no comprehension of the efforts hiders go to, to place and maintain Geocaches for them find. 

The most annoying of these newbie faux pas was that many of them hadn’t learnt what type of log to use, and in the case of several of my caches, were just slapping a ‘needs maintenance’ log on them, when they couldn’t find them. Every time It happened I would go out to check on the cache, only to find - 99% of the time - that it was still there. 

Log posts by newbies had also become more and more demolralising as a hider. Brief logs like ‘too many nettles’, and just a ‘TFTC’ were a little soul destroying to read, and did not inspire me to invest lots of my time in setting and maintaining more Geocaches.

 

However, the latest attempts by Geocaching HQ to reward hiders, like the new hider souvenir, and to educate new cachers on how to play the game and write better logs, do seem to be helping. 

In recent months I’ve seen slightly better logs on some of my caches and not as many ‘needs maintenance’ logs on caches, which really don’t need maintenance! 

Hopefully Geocaching HQ will keep up the momentum, and develop other ways to educate newbies and reward hiders for their efforts – maybe even membership discounts for those hiding a certain number of Geocaches every year or gifts/rewards for those who place caches that get large numbers of favourite points.

 

Hiders are vital to the game, it wouldn’t exist without them, and I’ve noticed quite a severe drop in the number of new Geocaches being published over the past year…especially in my part of the world.  A little appreciation – like the new hider souvenir - goes a long way. I hope it continues to be awarded in future years.

 

Switching from hiding to finding Geocaches - I’ve recently been out on a couple of enjoyable Geocaching trips. The first was to Walton-on-the-Naze on the Essex coast. 

The other half fancied a day trip to the seaside and keen to avoid the ridiculous crowds and traffic chaos around the honey pot coastal resorts of North Norfolk, we decided to head to this much quieter resort.

 

I’d never visited before and I honestly don’t know why, it really didn’t take much longer to get too than Felixstowe and the roads weren’t crowded at all. It was great to wander along the different tiered promenades and to see the beautifully painted beach huts and the huge pier!

 

The pier is apparently the third longest in the UK and it really is impressive! A must see if you get the opportunity. The huge building on top of it , is impressive in itself, but then when you see how much further the pier carries on out to sea beyond the building…well it really is an amazing feat of engineering.

 

Of course, we didn’t just go to see the pier, we went for the Geocaching and there are some great hides and caches to find.  We decided to start with the nice adventure lab series, ‘A Wander Around Walton’s History’. 

It was a lovely series that took us to some interesting historical spots including The Old Lifeboat House, The Bath House and The Round Gardens. It was also nice to have a bonus cache to find at the end, which was a clever little custom that blended into its surroundings well.

 

We picked up a number of traditionals as well, and some of these were rather unique. One of my favourites was ‘The Walton Wanderer’, which was hidden amongst dozens of shells and rocks cemented into a rocky garden area. It took us a good 20 minutes to spot it, because it was a clever handmade shell cache, with log container inside that blended in so well amongst the other shells.

 

Another great hide was ‘Happy Day’s – Sun, Sea and Sand’, a cache that was made to look like a stopper in a metal rail. I failed to spot it, but the other half soon did!

 

We rounded of a lovely day out with the obligatory seaside meal of fish and chips and whilst munching our way through them in the car, we met a rather cheeky Seagull, who was not getting off the bonnet of my car until he got a bit of fish. And of course he did in the end!   

My next Geocaching day out was to South Cambridgeshire/North Essex to grab more caches in the EHB series. Set by Munsterrr, it really is an epic series. With 325 caches altogether, it has taken me many visits to complete its various sections, sometimes on foot and some parts by car.

 

My latest visit was to complete some of the loops around Langley and it was another thoroughly enjoyable trip. In addition to finding many traditional caches in the EHB series, I also picked up a few others on route including A Fine Pair cache, Church Micros and a Little Bridge’s cache.

 

I also picked up one on the brilliant Langley Loop series called ‘I’ll take the low road’, which was a particularly inventive cache inside the top of a post, which really did look like the real top of the post.

I also stopped to take the short walk to ‘Devizes – A head stort’ - a terrain 4 cache. I have quite a few gaps on my terrain grid, as I’m not the greatest tree climber and I don’t have a water floatation device, but this one didn’t need either…just the ability to cross a very steep sided ditch! 

I was slightly ill equipped as I only had my trainers on, but I decided to just go for it and slid down the slipperly, steep bank on my bum. I tried my hardest not to end up in the water as I leapt across, but unfortunately did end up with one rather muddy foot.

 

The cache was excellent, and well worth the effort to get to it – I do like an ammo can and this one was great. It was also a fairly old cache, having been placed back in 2002, so it was nice to add it to my Jasmer Grid too. 

Altogether I bagged 60 caches, not bad for a few hours out on the trails. Big thanks again to Munsterrr for setting and maintaining such a huge series.

 

That’s it for this time. More caching tales next week, which will include another trip to Norfolk, finding my first ever Snag the Tag and grabbing a cache or two whilst watching my niece play football.