Haltwhistle - Day 3

Day Three of our Easter break in Haltwhistle and the kids wanted to go egg rolling, so while they were busy boiling eggs and decorating them I headed out on my own to bag a few caches at another stretch of Hadrians Wall.

Parking roadside at Caw Gap I first headed East up a steep climb in search of Bogle Hole - Caw Gap. This is supposedly the goblins hollow and a haunt of evil little folk. Today however there weren't any little folk in sight just dozens of people out walking the wall. In Scotland, when we go out walking we go for the peace and tranquillity of being out in the open away from the crowds for a while. It doesn't seem to be the case in Northumberland as everywhere we go there aren't just a couple of people around there are dozens!

By the time I reached this first cache of the day I was close to tears. My poor old legs were like jelly and my foot which I'd hurt before the holiday and had bandaged up was aching. The cache was a quick find but once I'd signed it I had to wait for ages for a gap in the muggles to put it back in it's hidey hole.

Cache two was further on eastwards which was made doubly difficult as this stretch of the wall goes up and down like a yoyo. Eventually I reach the given coordinates and started looking for The Clayton Wall which turned out to be quite simple. No problems returning the cache this time so it was quickly logged and I returned west towards the car.

West of the road where I'd parked the path was a little easier. After stopping to admire the ruined outlines of a watchtower I moved on to look for Thorny Doors. This was another cache which was only tricky due to the vast number of muggles wandering past in both directions. Job done it was back to the car and back to the house.

In the afternoon we decided to visit the Allen Banks and Staward Gorge woodland which is owned by the National Trust and not very far from Haltwhistle. En-route however we took a detour to visit a tiny village called Beltingham. This turned out to be a beautiful little place with the most picturesque church and graveyard we've ever seen. In these are several large yew trees but by far the most impressive was the one hidden around the other side of the church. Held together by large iron brackets this collossus of a tree was what I'd been hoping to see when we visited Fortingale in Perthshire last October. This one wasn't just few stumps of rotten remains however!

The tree was also the location for a multicache called The Ancient Yew of Beltingham for which we had to make a couple of observations in order to solve a given formula. Once solved we then had the final coordinates of the cache and despite a steep scramble, lots of undergrowth and a stream to traverse we soon had the cache in hand!

Eventually we reached the Allen Banks car park located in the old walled gardens of Ridley Hall. Much to the girls delight there was another Easter egg hunt on here so we signed the girls up and went off in search of rabbits paw signs, clues and of course some more caches!

More information about this location can be found on the NT website including the history of the site (see the History link on the left navigation) http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/allen-banks-and-staward-gorge/

First of the three caches here was Near the Knuckle. This was further down the gorge than the egg hunt reached so I split off from the rest of the family. This was an extremely pleasant walk and by the time I reached the coordinates given I'd managed to escape the crowds and at last had some peace and quiet. Now to find the cache which I'd remembered was somewhere on the steep slope down from the path. After a while searching without success whilst trying not to slip to my death in the gorge below I decided to have another look at the clue. This was a good idea as there were quite clear instructions detailing how to locate the cache which I hadn't followed. In the end the find was quite simple but one part of the clue could keep some people puzzled for a while, luckily I'd come across a couple of similar clues before so got it right away.

This cache was located at the site of a summer house, the floor of which was made from sheep knuckle bones (thus the cache name). Farther up the path towards the car park there is a newer summer house with a beautiful wooden book built onto the table. This contains a history of the site and is a lovely thing to have there.

From the cache I headed downhill via a twisting, turning wooden stairway down a lovely little valley to the river below and then headed back upstream to a suspension footbridge. Once on the other side I headed up although finding the best route was tricky. Eventually I reached the top of the slope and then had to trudge back downstream to find The root of it. This was another easy find in a quiet part of the forest and I decided it would be a good place to leave a new trackable. Good luck Davy the Dino!

My final target was Bush Tucker Trial - 2008 which took me back upstream and even farther uphill to a small but gorgeous tarn in the midst of the forest. It wasn't until I reach here that I remembered this was a multicache which meant I'd have at least another stage to find. Luckily upon checking the cache details there was only one other stage and not a whole set. It was at this point I got a call from Mrs SC to say they were back at the car and when would I be back. I assured her I'd be back soon... hmmm not quite accurate!

Finding the first cache was quite trickly. The clue said it was in a Rhododendron root, however they were everywhere and it was a little further away from where the hint suggested. The coordinates for the final cache were in the log of the first box so armed with these I set off however I lost all phone signal and so was working without maps. I was really tired by now so I ended up walking in a straight line following the arrow on the GPS. A small tip for anyone who might think about doing this in the future, don't!!

Finally, I reached the cache after quite some distance through dense undergrowth and down a very steep slope. Thankfully the cache tub was fairly large and was full of goodies which cheered me up so after making some swaps and signing the log I started on the long walk headed back to the car.

I was an hour and a half late but found everyone in a surprisingly good mood. The kids were eating easter egg whilst watching a DVD and I think Mrs SC had had a sleep. I on the other hand was exhausted and could hardly stand up, I was drenched with sweat and pretty dirty... but I had fun and in the end that's matters!

Haltwhistle - Day 2

Day two of our Easter break staying in Haltwhistle and we headed along Hadrians Wall a little to Housesteads and the National Trust owned fort. To the Romans this was known as Vercovicium but today it is simply called Housesteads. The fort was built into the wall with construction starting in AD124 just two years after the wall itself and in it's day it would have housed a regiment of 800 to 1000 men.

Whilst Mrs SC had the kids engrossed in an Easter Egg hunt organised by the NT I nipped off to collect two caches, one in each direction along the wall from the fort. The first of these was called 100 Years of Scouting which I'm sure could have been placed somewhere with more relevance to the title but it was a pleasant short walk over to it and an easy find.

After heading back to the fort and checking in with the rest of the Super Collectors I sneaked away again this time in the opposite direction in search of a cache with the more appropriate name of Housesteads. Again this was a simple find but was made a bit more difficult by the sheer number of walkers.

After a spot of lunch at the visitors centre we decided to head to the Steel Rigg car park further along the wall and spent the afternoon walking to the Sycamore Gap and back. There were four caches along this stretch and we found them all. First up was Win(d)shields Crags which unsurprisingly was located at the Winshields Crags. This should have been our second cache but when we got to the first cache there were people at it (other cachers we think) so we decided to leave it for the way back.

Our next target Crag Lough was at the far end of our walk and the famous Sycamore Gap. Here a solitary sycamore tree has found a sheltered position in a gap between the Crags. The cache was located some way off the wall but next to the Roman military road. It was here that Mrs SC decided to release her own TB. Good luck Fidget the Cat!

On the way back we also collected On the Other Side and Time Capsule the first of which was again away from the wall. The latter was at the foot of the Crags and for some reason had a Doctor Who theme.

Another good day out and some caches along the way. Back to home for a rest and day three.

Haltwhistle - Day 1

Last week we were away on our Easter break and stayed in a little town called Haltwhistle. The towns claim to fame is that it's at the centre of Britain although a look at a map quickly shows this to be untrue, however it's a nice little place and we enjoyed our stay (despite the appalling cottage we rented).

As with most of our holidays since we started Geocaching we spent a fair bit of time out and about but tried to keep the caching to places we wanted to go rather than going to places for caches. In the end we managed to log 43 caches and brought four trackables north.

On our first day out we started with a visit to Cawfields Quarry which is located right next to Milecastle 42 on Hadrians Wall. Here there are two caches and we logged both. The first Cawfields Quarry was a traditional cache (despite being marked as a Letterbox Hybrid) and was an easy find next to the Quarry. The other was our second Earthcache Cawfields Great Whin Sill. This involved noting down some information from the boards provided on site, taking photos of the Whin Sill (rock wall) at the quarry, making an observation and then mailing these to the cache owner. The Quarry itself is quite pretty with a nice pond in front of the striking rock face and the proximity to Hadrians Wall and Milecastle 42 meant this was a two for one location!

In the afternoon of the same day we visited Vindolanda which is an ongoing archaeological dig at the site of a Roman Fort and town. This was very interesting and there was a good guided tour of the site. The kids seemed to enjoy the tour as much as us. Just outwith the site myself and the kids went for a wander in order to collect Vindolanda View. This was easier than we made it seem as the GPS jumped around. 

On the way home we made another couple of stops to bag two more caches. The first of these was The Long Stone. On the map this appeared to be maybe 100 metres off the side of the road but when we got there we realised it was also 100 metres (or more) up! This cache was located at the top of a rather steep hill. Not detered by the wind and cold, me and Super Girlie donned our gear and headed off with not a path in sight and headed straight up to the top. The stone itself is some type of standing stone but of what age I'm unsure. The cache was located right at it and we decided to leave a new TB there for the next person brave (or daft) enough to go up there! Good luck Lou the Ewe! Really proud of Super Girlie for not only attempting this climb but also making it look easy!

The final cache of the day was Crinkledykes which is drive-by at a 19th century limekiln. This was quite an impressive structure and sits right at the side of the road. The cache was quite tricky to spot and although I usually let the kids find the caches even if I spot them first I was so pleased to finally spot this one that there was no way they were getting the glory!

First day over we headed back for some dinner and a rest before more adventures on day two!

AMAZO Flashmob

On the 1st April we attended our very first Geocaching event The AMAZO Farewell Flash Mob. This was held in Glasgow's George Square and was supposed to last for 5 mins with everyone appearing out of nowhere, standing in the shape of a smiley face, and then disappearing again. In reality it all took a little longer and moved around the square as AMAZO (the organiser) negotiated with a friend via his mobile phone until we were positioned for the best picture via a webcam located somewhere within the City Chambers.

This was a really well attended event which took everyone by surprise and as a result the room booked in the Counting House bar for afterwards was a little small. This was eased slightly when everyone with kids was thrown out so we've no idea what happened later on in the evening but I'm sure it was messy!

Nonetheless we really enjoyed the event as we'd been unsure as to what to expect. In the end it turns out other cachers as pretty normal people after all!

As well as the event which counts as a cache, we managed to sign the log of three travelling caches;

• Cuckoo Cache (could be anywhere)
• Hitchhiker 42 (Cached in Duchal Dilemma)
• Keep it Moving

These are seemingly extremely rare and for these three to be in the same place at the same time was pretty cool. I'm not sure how many TB's we managed to sign but it was only about a quarter of those which were logged as being at the event yet was still a lot. We also launched a new TB of our own at the event, good luck Chopper Charles!

A good event and hopefully the first of many.

Muirshiel by Night

After tackling the night cache in Spier's Old School Grounds the kids have been begging to do another one. So seeing as it was the start of their school holidays we reckoned it'd be fine for them to have a late license tonight and headed off at about 9pm to tackle Leap Night - Werechicken's Dare!. By 10pm we had reached the Muirshiel visitors centre, shaken, rattled and rolled after a very bumpy drive. No wonder the place was deserted, noone in there right mind would come up here... except us cachers! Mrs SC wants to know why on earth they have speed bumps as there was no way anyone would go faster than about 2 MPH for fear of wrecking their car.

After their enthusiasm and excitement the kids then decided they didn't want to do it after all as it was too dark and scary. After some persuasion we set off with new high powered LED torches and soon found the starting point. We were expecting this to be another crawl through the undergrowth (like Spier's) but instead we found ourselves on a nicely maintained forest path (pity the road wasn't this well maintained!!).

I'm not sure if it was just down to having better torches this week but we found this trail much easier to follow and less of a challenge and were surprised to reach the final GZ fairly quickly.

Super Kid continued on her lucky streak by finding the cache but she let her big sister Super Girlie open it. The box was stuffed to the gunnels with swag so they made a swap each leaving a parrot and a toy tree. We also launched another new TB on his travels, good luck Sailor Sydney!

We then took our time wandering back down to the car as we weren't looking forward to the bumpy drive back down to Lochwinnoch. On the way we noticed that there wasn't any sound in the woods tonight, no animals or birds at all... maybe the Werechicken had eaten them all!!

As Easy As....

I really hate puzzle caches with a vengeance, but for some reason I find myself desperately trying to solve them. A couple of weeks ago a new one As Easy As.... was published by one of our Geo-buddies Chenks and after avoiding it for as long as I could I eventually had a look a few days ago. For the next couple of days I racked my brain for the answer.

Finally when the answer came it turned out to be so easy that the kids could even solve it!

Tonight we decided to head out on our bikes as it was nice and sunny and although we were actually heading to a local play park we ended up visiting the coordinates of the cache too. The cache itself was found by Super Kid (5) and she was thrilled to find a bike bell in the swaps. This was the first time she'd been out on her bike without stabilisers on and completely amazed us by cycling all the way from our house in Lawthorn to the cache and back. What a superstar!! Luckily I had my bike toolkit with me so managed to use the screw driver in that to fit it to her bike at the GZ. Ting ting ting she went all the way home!!

I can't really tell you much more about this one as it is a puzzle cache after all but we had a lovely cycle and decided it should get a favourite point if for no other reason than the lovely path it is located on.

Spier's at Night

We've been wanting to try a night cache trail for a while now after watching a video of one on YouTube so when we saw that Amazo had set one out in Spier's Old School Ground near Beith we just had to have a go. The cache is called Leap Night - The Ghost of Spiers, but we didn't tell the kids that or they wouldn't have got out of the car!

We'd already been out for a few hours and had collected five caches already before going for a curry whilst waiting for it to get dark. When we got to Spier's it was dark, very dark but there were four of us and we had four torches so we thought this would be easy. Oh how wrong!!

Night caches are simply trails through an area which can be followed using a torch at night. A series of tiny reflectors are pinned to trees which mark the way to go. Once at the first tree you shine your torch around and look for the next reflector shining back at you, walk to it and then repeat. When you reach a tree with two reflectors or whatever code the cache owner has set you then hunt for the cache.

We managed to pick up the trail easily enough which starts right at the entrance to the park but after a couple more reflectors were were up to our waists in undergrowth and fallen branches. I'm sure there would have been easy routes around all this but in the pitch darkness it's hard to pick out easy routes so we ended up just ploughing through it all in a straight line.

After a while we reached a nice little circular garden but at this point despite hunting we just couldn't see any more reflectors. We were ready to give up when Super Girlie said she could see one way off in the woods. We looked where she was pointing but couldn't see a thing but let her guide us and sure enough there it was.

As were were following the next section of the trail we managed to disturb some type of bird with a flurry of flapping wings as it tried to get away. I'm not sure which was more frightened, the bird or the screaming kids!

After many more reflectors which took us on a long winding trail around the park we discovered the glowing embers of a fire which gave off a nice smell and some welcome heat and shortly after that we reached the last reflectors and found the cache. Log signed, swaps made we decided to leave another new TB, good luck Punky Panda!

It was only then that we realised that we had no idea where abouts in the park we were. We had been following the reflectors we hadn't been using the GPS. We didn't even know in which direction the entrance to the park was.

In all I think this took us just over an hour but we did get stuck for a while at the circular garden. This turned out to be down to some missing reflectors which have now been replaced. We thoroughly enjoyed following the trail and even just being out in the woods at night was fun. We now can't wait to try Amazo's other night cache trail in Muirshiel Park.

Broadstone

After a detour in Barrmill to grab a couple of caches we finally made it to the first cache on our planned list for the evening. This was a cache named Emily of TKG at Broadstone castle but there was no sign of Emily nor Broadstone castle. It's located at the side of a quite country road but we parked a little too far along the road and had to backtrack on foot to reach the GZ. We then had to work out how to get into the cache is it was behind a wire fence. Once in we spotted the cache right away but the cache container was empty aside from the log. We remedied this by leaving a TB we've been carrying around for a while which has been too big to fit in any caches we've visited.

Mirryn's Arran View was next and Mrs SC and Super Girlie jumped out to find it while myself and Super Kid stayed in the car. Five minutes later they were still hunting so we got out to give them a hand and found it right away. Mrs SC wasn't best pleased! We launched a new TB on it's travels here too, good luck Flutterby Butterfly!

Our last target before going for dinner was Broadstone Kiln. This lies in a small strip of forest which has unfortunatley been used as a rubbish dump by some inconsiderate idiots (have they never heard of a council tip??). We entered the wood by crawling through the fence as we couldn't see another way in and found ourselves right in front of the old Limekilns. There were much much bigger than we'd imagined  and really quite impressive. We found the cache quite easily after a bit of a scramble but had to take care as there are very steep drops into the remains of the old limestone quarries.

Three more caches found (5 so far this evening) and we were getting hungry so we headed off to the Torranyard for a curry and a rest before coming back to attempt the night cache at Spier's Old School Grounds.

Barmill

After a lovely sunny Saturday we decided to head out for dinner and to bag a few caches too. Our plan was to visit some caches to the East of Beith, head to the Torranyard for a curry and then go back up to Beith to have a  try at Amazo's night cache in the Spier's Old School grounds.

On our way to Beith we found ourselves driving through Barrmill and Mrs SC (who was on the GPS) announced that we were about to drive right past a cache so we pulled over and headed off in search of it. This cache wasn't on our list for the evening so we knew nothing about it. We've driven through Barrmill hundreds of times but never knew there was a park.

The cache is located near to the Vale burn, thus the cache title It's Available but despite a good hunt I couldn't find it. Mrs SC had opted to direct the search from above whilst the kids had disappeared into the small playpark. I was ready to give up when the kids finally decided they wanted to come and help and wouldn't you know it they found the cache in 10 seconds flat. This is a nice little park but make sure you visit the hidden valley and follow the lovely nature trail which has been built through it with interesting homemade water features.

At the top of Ginger hill behind the park lay our next cache which again wasn't on the list for the evening. Deid Man's Plantin lies at the far side of a field which looking at the previous logs can get a bit muddy. On our visit however it was fine but it's quite lumpy underfoot due to the field being used for cows. The GZ is at the location a mass grave where 42 Cholera victims were buried in 1829. There's little evidence of this today aside for the trees which were apparently planted at the same time. Super Kid found this one and was pleased as punch.

This was an unplanned visit to this park which we knew nothing about but we really enjoyed it. The nature walk especially is lovely and the kids found it very interesting.

Mothers Day in Dundonald

We've not been out caching much recently for various reasons. There were things on at the weekends, we've all been ill at different times and on top of that we sold the van so I had no transport to get out solo caching on Saturday mornings. All well again and a new car parked outside and we were good to go so at Mrs SC's suggestion (no nagging from me, honest...) we decided to head out for some caching after taking the dreaded mother in law out for lunch ;-)

After a quick scan of the maps Dundonald was picked (mostly at random) and off we set. First up was Back to the 80's.....Walls Come Tumbling Down! which is located just along the road at the Hillhouse Quarry. This was an easy one to find but the road was a bit scary (although the kids seemed oblivious to the danger). One cache down and a stern telling off later and we set off again.

Next came Auld Auchans View (GC239RK) which is located near the impressive ruins of Auchans House. This was another easy find and we decided this would be a great place to release our second travel bug Age of Aquarius. This bug was given to me for my 40th Birthday and is heading South. The "Auld" in the cache title and the "40th" are just a coincidence... I hope.

Back in the car and off we went again. We'll need to make a few more visits to Dundonald as we drove right past a few more caches but we were heading for the castle, the kids love castles (or is that me??). Our next cache was to be the puzzle cache at the castle itself and aptly named Dundonald Castle. This involved solving a number of clues the answers to which are to be found around the outside of the castle itself. Thankfully there were none which required entry to the castle as it is closed to the public until 1st April.

The kids loved this one solving all the puzzles themselves. After plugging the coords into the formula given we went in search of the cache itself. Upon reaching the GZ we had a chuckle as both the kids actually lifted the cache container and put it down again claiming the couldn't find it. Can't give too much more away but we liked the container a lot.

Puzzle cache done, we decided that as it was such a lovely day we'd head into the dark dingy woods to find the Teals Walk trail. This consists of five caches, each of which has part of the coordinates to a final bonus cache. On the way we noticed that we were passing a couple of other caches so we went looking for them too. These were both part of the Never Never Land series. Never Never Land III was first and it was pretty obvious someone was going to have to cross the river. Luckily there were a couple of fallen trees, unluckily it was me who had to cross them.

Never Never Land IV was next which we reached by crossing over a sodden playing field. This one was located at a footbridge and we spent a while looking under rocks, in the undergrowth and I even crawled under the bridge. We were ready to give up when I spotted something in full view and sent the kids to investigate. Sure enough it was the cache.

Teals Walk trail itself was a very well thought out series in a loop around the forest to the West of the castle. All but one of the caches were straightforward and the kids did most of the searching and finding. Along the route we found ourselves back at Auchans House which is at the Western end of the loop. Number four in the series took us a while to find and was only found through sheer perseverance and a bit of luck. The location isn't ideal and I think a fair bit of damage has been done by people turning over rocks in their hunt for the cache and not replacing them. Someone has also vandalised a tree to add an extra hint. This really isn't a good hide and there are loads of places nearby where the cache could have been hidden which would not have resulted in these problems. This is a great series but this stage really lets it down I'm afraid.

Five caches found and we plugged the collected figures together and came up with coordinates for the bonus cache. Oddly this was back the way we had come. After double and triple checking our figures it was decided that I would head back and get it and Mrs SC and the kids would head back to the car and pick me up at Auchans House. Half way back to the coords we'd calculated I had a feeling our figures were wrong and when I got there I found myself in the middle of bracken and hawthorn trees. I had a good look around but quickly came to the conclusion that I wasn't in the right place. So, tired and disappointed I headed back and met the rest of the Super Collectors at our rendevous point.

I'm really not sure how we got the figures wrong but looking at the numbers I think I've now worked out where the cache will be. The annoying thing is that if I'm right Mrs SC and the kids actually walked right past it on the way back to the car.

Teals Walk #1
Teals Walk #2
Teals Walk #3 
Teals Walk #4 
Teals Walk #5 

All in all a great day out with the full SC clan and a grand total of 10 caches found. The failure to find the final cache just means we have an excuse to go back to the Castle which we'll do after it opens for the season on the 1st April. Can't wait!