Haltwhistle - Day 5

The fifth day of our stay in Haltwhistle and we decided to get out of the terrible cottage we'd rented again.

After a look at some maps we thought it would be nice to go for a walk around Talkin Tarn which is located just south of Brampton in Cumbria. The tarn is a kettle hole lake formed about 10,000 years ago by glaciers but today it's a countty park. Rowing boats can be hired from a boat house which also has a tea room and there are walks all the way around the tarn.

It was too cold and wet for rowing today so we donned our gear and headed off in search of a number of caches hidden around the park. The first cache we came to had us a bit puzzled as the coordinates took us to a road track just beside a building. Noting that this was an education centre Mrs SC rechecked the cache details only to discover the cache type was an event and had happened a month previously.

Next up was It's a Bugs Life which was a short but pleasant walk through the wood from the boat house. It was an easy find and so we moved on to A bit of Blarney? which was place for the event we'd missed which was on St Patricks day. Again this was a simple enough find and we passed a great wood carving of a dog which the kids loved. We also spotted a red squirrel, the only one of the whole holiday!

The next cache Wood you believe it? was some distance off the path around the tarn in the far corner of a field and was just sitting there under some long grass. It wasn't difficult to find, however getting back out of the field had us stumped. In the end we had to return to the place we'd entered as everywhere else was protected by a barbed wire fence. I think the name of the cache must refer to the fact that this field has been planted with little saplings of all different types of tree. What I liked about this was that they seem to have been randomly mixed and placed and aren't in straight lines like most planted woods.

By the time we'd reached Talcan Tjorn we were soaked, the light rain had turned into a downpour and the kids were moaning. So after an easy find (despite clever camouflage) Mrs SC and Super Kid took the direct route back to the car whilst myself and Super Girlie went off in search of the final cache). Thankfully the long named cache I'll have a C for Challenge please, Bob didn't take as long to find and so we got back to the car not long after the others.

After a spot of lunch in the car we decided to head to the Roman Army Museum near Greenhead but on the way managed to pass another couple of caches. The first of these was Ridge View was was basically a huge tree stump at the side of the road. A quick cache and dash and we were on our way again. The second was Remembrance Day 1 which was another road side cache which took Mrs SC all of 10 seconds to find.

The Roman Army Museum was a big hit with the kids (and us) and ended the day nicely.