More Saints caches - Rutland

Saturday 13th February
We hadn’t planned a walk today but decided at the last minute to go to Rutland to finish off last weeks caches. We drove to Preston and walked up to the co-ordinates we had solved last week after finding "Neat Stripe" cache. The co-ordinates were actually on a bit of private land that the farmer had put up a notice saying keep out. We will inform the cache owner when we get home. We were a bit worried but we hunted around and John spotted the cache. We thought we would just find the coin needed for the puzzle but it turned out to be a bracelet of buttons with more co-ordinates on. We had trouble reading one of the numbers but followed the direction and eventually found a footpath where we found the coin stuck to a tree. After getting back to the car we drove to Morcott and parked. This was to find "Ninja Host" - the next Saints cache. We crossed the road and walked down beside a wood along a wide footpath. We were near the cache but were on the wrong side of the stream, but we eventually found a bridge. The cache was near a disused railway. We hunted for a while and found a couple of red herrings, one saying "nope" and the other "a helping hand". We eventually found the cache in one of the first places I had looked! We took the blessing and walked to find the coin. We got to a bridge and hunted around and I got down and looked under, after several looks I suddenly saw the coin hanging in front of my face. That's 5 Saints caches found now. A few more trips to Rutland will be needed to finish this off. We returned to the car and drove to Braunston in Rutland to complete a puzzle that is part of another series of puzzle caches called Curse of the Black Cat. we had walked about 12km on our hunts today.

Prestwold

Thursday 11th February
After a bit of shopping in Loughborough we drove to Prestwold and found a small cache that had been set during the Caravan club rally last year. It requested that cachers log whether they are caravanners -so we can tick that one off! We then drove on to Rempstone and parked in the layby opposite the church. We walked across a footpath and after about 1km we came across a graveyard. It was quite surreal to see a graveyard in the middle of nowhere in the snow. We walked back to the car and then down the A60 for a bit to a footpath which went across a very muddy field. We then walked alongside a stream to find Borderline and Rockers cache 1. Although there was still quite a bit of snow along the path it was very warm in the sun. We walked back to the car after a short 7 km.

Rutland -Saints caches

Saturday 6th February
There are a series of caches on Geocaching.com which are very fiendish puzzles. We solved and found a couple of the caches a few weeks ago but having solved a few more we decided on another trip to Rutland. Finding the cache is usually easy (having found where to go) but it is following the instructions included in the cache which causes the problems. We had found "Hobnail Staith" -St Botolphs a few weeks ago but had struggled with finding the hidden coin that gives extra information. So today we started off by visiting Wardley and taking a walk down the muddy lane to find the coin that we missed two weeks ago. The cache owner had told us that it was still in place we went to the co-ordinates and I spotted it straight away this time. We noted the details and returned to the car. We then drove to Ridlington to do the next cache – “Neat Stripe and Apian Lust”. For this we had to find some information in the church and then add it to the co-ordinates we had worked out at home. These led us to Preston, which we had visited a few weeks ago. We followed the footpath and found the cache. We took a copy of the Saints Blessing and tried to work out where to go to complete the puzzle. It had us foxed, so we drove to Lyddington to find some lunch and see if we could solve the puzzle. We had no luck with the puzzle but did have a nice lunch at the Old White Hart. We then walked to the hiding place of the third Saints puzzle "CatsFire". I had solved the location for this yesterday, but we did not have co-ordinates,just a rough location. We chose what we hoped was the correct direction, and walked down the lane towards Thorpe on the Water, we knew we were looking for a footpath and a stile, 1.15 miles from Bedes house! We found a footpath and a stile and hunted for the cache but no luck. We nearly gave up but decided to follow the footpath a bit further. We crossed the river Welland which was very full; the foot bridge vibrating with the force of the water as we waked over it, and then spotted another stile a bit further on. Bingo – we found the cache. This time we knew what we were doing with the additional clues – 2 vials of herbs, that we had to identify and then use to gain the co-ordinates for the last bit of the puzzle. We headed back to Lyddington and off on another footpath, which we slipped and slid along as it was very thick with mud. After a bit of a hunt we found the last bit of the puzzle. We have now solved 4 out of 8 of the Saints puzzles and have collected information from 3 of them. It was getting late so we headed home, leaving the 5th puzzle for our next visit. As soon as we got home we managed to solve the clues from Neat stripe, so that will be found on our next visit too. We had walked 9km on our various trips today.

Dunstall circular

Monday 1st February
No work today so we decided to do the Dunstall circular cache walk. We drove to Barton under Needwood, parked and set off for the first stage of the walk. We spent a bit of time looking for the first cache unsuccessfully (we found out it was archived when we got home), and then set off across the field towards the next cache,which was very small, but hidden in plain sight,but well disguised. We then headed towards the woods where we found another cache. It was very slippery here as the ground was icy so we walked carefully down the slope and out into a meadow. We followed the path across the field with views of a lovely house and church on the opposite side and emerged at the Old Hall farm which was having a lot of work carried out; scaffolders and builders everywhere. We left the farm track and emerged onto the road which we followed to Dunstall, where we found a cache near a well; it was a stone lion but the water in the trough was frozen solid today.

From here we followed the path along field edges to Highlands Park, another large house covered in scaffolding and then headed back along a path towards Sprinks Bank farm. We struggled with finding a cache here but John braved the hawthorn and found it. We found the next cache under a bridge, to the sound of barking dogs, and then headed away from the farm to emerge at the other end of Dunstall, where we went to have a look at the church which had very impressive stonework inside the church. We followed a bridleway through the woods, past the lake (which was frozen) and eventually arrived back at Barton under Needwood. We found two police officers by our car, because they said it was causing an obstruction. It wasn’t our car causing the problem but all the mummy’s picking up their darlings from school who were parked opposite!

Belper, Derbyshire

Saturday 30th January
It was a nice day so we decided on a Peak district walk. We drove to Belper and parked in the market place. It was lovely and warm as we left the car so we wondered if we needed coats, but took them just in case. We walked up the Butts and then onto a rough lane leading out of Belper. We stopped to find a cache in a field containing a nice horse called Partridge (or that’s what it said on his stable, any way). He munched on his hay whilst we hunted. We then continued up the hill and found another cache. It was the first of a series where we had to collect the numbers from the cache to find a final cache at the end of the walk. We got to the end of the lane, crossed the road and walked onto a track that went past a reservoir and then past a farm, across a field and through farm stables. There were several horses in the field but they ignored us. We ended up in the corner of a field where we had a cup of coffee and then went for a short diversion along a footpath that was along a disused railway and under a tunnel under the A38. It was an interesting path, the sleepers and tracks were still in place. John will map it on OSM when we get home. We walked back onto our route and followed the path through a lovely bit of woodland and over a stream. We emerged into Holbrook. There was a nice pub here – the Dead Poets which served very good beer but no food. We had a bag of crisps and ate our sandwiches in an alcove near a roaring fire. It was very cosy and we had to drag ourselves away to carry on with our walk. We walked along the road and then joined a farm track that led back towards Belper. It was bitterly cold now but we found a few more caches and completed the sums needed to get the co-ordinates for the final cache. Unfortunately my PDA decided it was too cold so stopped working and we were unable to get the co-ordinates to put in the GPS. We will have to come back to find that cache another time. We had found 12 geocaches and walked 10 km.