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!