A slow month for Caching

October has been a funny old month! Neither of us seems particularly worried about Caching at the moment. Maybe it's because we hit 100, so it's all a bit of an anticlimax...

Anyway. We both had Friday and Monday off this weekend, so you'd have thought we'd fit some in right? WRONG! I can't even remember what we did on Friday, but it did NOT involve the GPS...

Saturday we drove up to North Wales to spend the weekend with the family. Normally that would involve grabbing some Caches on the way, but we were so late leaving (as usual) there was no time to research any - I even switched the computer on, but after 10 minutes of trying to navigate geocaching.com I just got cross and switched it off - weird!

Anyway, I decided that maybe schnarff's brother markwj would have some Caches for us to find, so I slung the Caching sack in the car anyway, GPS and all, and found the list from our last marathon trip North, as we had missed out on some of the Motorway Mayhems due to DNFs and lack of time.

Anyway it turned out it was a good job I DID pack the GPS, as a) the M6 was a nightmare so we cut across country (though I think schnarff had a fair idea where we were going anyway) and b) when we turned up markwj pulled out two tupperwares, grinned and said 'Fancy a walk?' :O I had forgotten that he can't hide as he has no GPS to find out the co-ords (yeah, how DOES he find all those Caches????!)

So, we spent Sunday morning clambering up mountains and hiding Caches. I can't complain as the views were stunning!!! He was going to take us to the next nearest Cache, which he had already found previously, but we ran out of time - boooo!

We also set off our PodCacher Migration TB in one of them, as new Caches always get visited!!!

Watched the news on Sunday evening and heard about the fires in SoCal (gosh I'm getting all American listening to PodCacher!) Immediately thought of the PodCacher guys, but didn't realise it was quite so close until I saw a map with San Diego on :O

Monday dawned and we had to leave quite early for a meeting schnarff had arranged (DOH!) Again we were late leaving so the DNF near Conwy was out (Watch the Birdie) As it was we made quite good time, and by Junction 12 I quite fancied a break from driving, so I pulled off the motorway without giving schnarff a chance to complain. I wasn't quite sure where the Cache was, so pulled into the first layby and got the GPS out. DEAD close!

Turned the car round and headed down the lane indicated. It was pretty narrow so we had to go past the spot indicated, but then there was a large grassy verge so we pulled up, although there was a van parked up. It was pretty chilly so I set off with the GPS and left schnarff in the car. The GPS was pointing across the hedge, which didn't help, and all I could hear was rushing water :S. Decided I would have to press on and see if there was a gap to get through, when suddenly I spotted a log (the clue! There were two HUGE logs in the other side of the road - red herrings obviously!) in a hole in the hedge.

Lifted up the log to find the BIGGEST tupperware I have ever seen!!! Took it back to the car (VERY subtle!) and did a major TB swapping session (interesting to later see we were playing TB Tag with studlyone - the UKGeocachers guys!!!) before returning it to its hidey hole!

By the time we got home we were both exhausted, and scharff couldn't face the thought of driving another hour back into the City Centre, so we had a late lunch, and I convinced her to go Caching, if only to place my poor sister's Geocoin which we've had for about a month, having not done much caching, and none in Worcestershire where we were meant to be dropping it!

We had a quick look online, at a couple of new-ish Caches and a puzzle I had solved a while back. Unfortunately it turned out that was a micro, so no good for the coin, and one of the others had been archived :S despite it being part of a 4 cache series with a walk. We figured we'd leave that for another day too - once the owner has sorted out what's going on!

Two new (members only - grrrr!) Caches had turned up a while ago, and were near home and no longer MO. They sounded like they had a decent enough walk to do, so we decided they'd do the trick!

Off we went to Fladbury and found Jubilee Bridge easily enough. The Cache took a little more finding, but was eventually exactly where you'd expect it to be! We left the Scab's coin there, along with another bug, and continued along the path toward the other Cache, only to spot muggles ahead. We'd left the map in the car, but I was convinced it hadn't followed the river bank where this couple were walking. We tried another route, but it turned out to be wrong, so we turned back, and spotted that they were already coming back, so figured we'd just go that way!

Turned out to be right (ish, the path goes directly ACROSS the field, but they were growing turf...) and we eventually found our way to Lucy's Mill. Well worth the walk, a lovely spot, again somewhere we'd never have found without Geocaching! Unfortunately schnarff didn't have her camera with her, so we'll have to come back!

Our first hillviewcachers' finds, and very enjoyable! We're up to 9 for this month now...and not likely to fit too many more in, though lots of new ones seem to be popping up - maybe everyone is less busy now summer is over. Looks like the FTF fights are harder though, as everything is getting grabbed straight away!

Apologies for the long and rambling post...YAWN!