Basketcase Crew and our Adventures.

First trip of the year and one where Ian went solo.

The flight was from Birmingham with Wizz Air for 3 nights.

The flight W6 2218 was scheduled for 17.45pm but had a slight delay so I didn't get to Budapest Airport till just before 10pm. Luckily for me there was a bus (100E) waiting to leave for the city.
The bus was cheap, just 900HUF (£2.25) and took around 30 mins to get to Kalvin Ter, which was nearest Metro to where I was staying.

I stayed at Play apartments with 3 nights costing 100 Euros, I met the landlord Dennis at the property and then took a quick shower before heading out for a beer.

First stop was Hops Beer Bar which was a quirky little bar selling good Craft beers from mainly Scandinavia and Estonia.

Hops Beer Bar

Next I moved on to Brewdog where I was actually disappointed, not with the staff or place but with how quiet it was. I had a nice Stout and then visited Szimpla Kert on way back.

Szimpla Kert is a wonderful Ruin Bar, a place I have visited before with Kate and Ben. I had one drink of First IPA which was average and then called it a night.

Szimpla Kert

Saturday 11th January 2020

I had a bit of a lie in today due to a late night but was still out by 9am. I took a nearby bus to Margaret Island which was a lovely location away from hustle and bustle. I completed a wherigo there and enjoyed views down the Danube river.

Looking down Danube

Margaret Island

NLC # Deluxe - TB Hotel

Next I walked back over the Danube to look for a geocache which was in top ten of most fave points within the city. It was in a Jazz club so I ordered myself a cappuchino and asked for the geocache.

It was a field puzzle but the instructions helped to get it open.

TB Hotel

I carried on walking as next I wanted to visit Tommy Ramones birthplace. I have always liked the Ramones so didn't want to miss this opportunity as we have already visited Johnny Ramones grave near New York.

Vig Theatre

At birthplace of Tommy Ramone

National Bank of Hungary

After reading the plaque at his birthplace I checked to see what caches were close by and I was 100ft from a reverse wherigo..... how about that for luck.

I crossed over road and made a quick find.

Next up I wanted to visit the Shoes on the Danube memorial so headed that way taking in a couple of caches on route.

Virulj Monument

Hungarian Parliament

Shoes on the Danube

Chain bridge

The Shoes on the Danube is a memorial to the jews who were shot into the Danube during World War 2.

After reflecting on such a terrible act I found the geocache and then moved on to another one with high Fave points.

GBGA-05 - Hungarian Academy of Sciences

This was brilliantly done as it was in plain sight once at the right location.

I finished off the walk with a pic at the Hard Rock cafe and then a Virtual geocache.

Monument with the hidden geocache

At Hard Rock Cafe, Budapest

I then headed back to apartment for a relax and shower before heading out for dinner.

View from apartment

The apartment was basic but good for what I wanted and was located next to Budapest Museum. The location was perfect really as it was in between Kalvin Ter and Astoria Metro stations.

After freshening up I took the metro to a Belgian beer bar I had spotted earlier in the day. It was more of a restaurant but I did enjoy having a Chimay Blue there.

Mosselen Belgian beer bar

Beer menu

One of my faves

I decided to move on as I was getting hungry and there was a great looking place not far away.

Hedon Bazilika Taproom is a Beer Hall and had over 30 beers available. The concept is to obtain a card on entrance and then it gets charged as you pour beer and then you settle up at end of night.It is a great idea as you can just have a taste of a beer and choose the one you like the most.

I also had a fantastic beef steak sandwich here.

I enjoyed my time at this bar but decided to head into the Jewish Quarter as it was nearer to my apartment. I had a quick drink there before retiring to bed.

Sunday 12th January 2020

Today my target was to find 3 old Virtual caches. When we were last here in February 2017 we didn't have enough time to find them.

Wekerle apartment park
This is an April 2002 Virtual in the suburbs of Pest. Set on a lovely estate, there are 3 locations you have to visit.

Guardtower
A watchtower put in place in 1844 to stop thieving from the vineyards.

Guardtower

Small Svábhill (Kis Svábhegy)
This had a physical container to it and some fab views.

Lovely views

I used buses and trams to get to all 3 caches without any problems at all. My fave cache of the 3 was the last one. It was an easy hill to climb with some great views.

I returned to apartment after for a shower and change of clothes and then went to a nearby Irish bar to watch Aston Villa take on Manchester City in Premier league.... I left just before half time when Manchester City were winning 3-0. I thought there are better things to do in Budapest sitting in a crappy Irish bar watching my team get hammered haha. Final score was 6-1.

I moved on to a nearby Craft beer bar called Beer Brothers. The beers were great but only disappointment was that the first 2 beers of my choice had just finished.

Finally and to top off the night I went to First Local Craft Beer and Kitchen which was great however most people in there were couples so nobody to chat to.

Beer Brothers

First Craft beer bar and kitchen

There are some really nice craft beer bars in Budapest and unfortunately this was last one of trip as the flight home was tomorrow.

Monday 13th January 2020

I had to check out at Noon so decided on a bit of a lie in and then a bus across city to get one last Virtual Reward.

Neumann János

A statue of a great Mathematician.

To log the cache you had to take a pic in front of the statue.

That was the last of things to do in Budapest as it was time to check out and take bus back to airport.

The Wizz Air flight W6 2217 to Birmingham left at 15:25 and I landed 30 mins ahead of schedule.

Back to Luxembourg

2019-08-17T21:51:00.000+01:00

Saturday 17th August 2019

We have been to Luxembourg a few times now but have never stopped for more than a couple of nights, this time however we stayed for 6 nights.

We took the 4pm shuttle to France and then stayed the night at the Lemon Hotel in Arques, we have stayed here a few times now as it is so cheap but very basic.

We popped into St. Omer for dinner and for one drink. It was nice to revisit this nice town.

Sunday 18th August 2019

After a good nights sleep we headed off to Luxembourg, unfortunately as we got further into Belgium we drove through very heavy rain which made driving hazardous.

We stopped off in L'eglise to do some Geocaching and picked up just over 30 drive by's, we then gave up as the rain came again.

At around 4pm we arrived at Camping Birkelt, our base for the next 6 nights and thankfully we managed to pitch our tent and remain dry.

We stayed on campsite for the rest of the day and enjoyed a beer at the bar.

Monday 19th August 2019

A sunny start to the day so we went to visit Orval Abbey where they brew a Trappist beer.

It was just over a hours drive away back in Belgium and close to French border.

The abbey was very picturesque and had a brewery shop where we picked up a box of ten beers and a chalice for just 20 euros.

Our pitch

Orval Abbey

A lovely court at Orval Abbey

We enjoyed a Virtual and a traditional geocache at the abbey and then did a few drive by's just down the road and taking us into France.

We drove past Basilique Notre-Dame d'Avioth and just had to stop and take a look around. We are so glad we did as it is a beautiful cathedral.

We did a few more caches and then headed back into Luxembourg picking up a late lunch and a bit of shopping on route back to the campsite.

On the evening we took a walk into Larochette, we had a drink there but didn't stay long as the town was very quiet.

Tuesday 20th August 2019

Another nice day and today we are off to do a Lab Cache adventure in Echternach.

The adventure was good but I didn't like that you had to do them in order rather than being able to do the closest one to you, still it only took a hour and we enjoyed it.

We also grabbed a couple of virtual reward caches in the town.

The Basillica

Looking towards the Denzelt

The Denzelt

The river is the border of Luxembourg and Germany

We enjoyed a nice kebab for lunch and then headed off to do some cave caches.

Just a few minutes drive near Berdorf we had picked 3 cave caches to do, we found 2 but failed to find the 3rd one but what a beautiful area we will have to return to again.

On our way

Our favourite one

Kate climbed up here to grab the cache.

We need to return to this one

Lara Croft wannabe

Stunning landscape

The caches were The secret place, Reiberhiel and Hölle which are all worth doing.

Back to the campsite now for a relaxed evening.

Wednesday 21st August 2019

Today, we spent grabbing Virtual Reward caches that were scattered round and also a fab lost place cache.

[CHIPS'11] HAUNTED 2

It was a house where it looked like time had stopped but all the furniture was still in place. We are not sure of the circumstances of the occupants but it was strange to see how it had been left. There was newspapers on the tables from 1994.

We carried on with the Virtual reward caches and ending up at La Chouffe brewery. There was a VR nearby so it mean't we got to visit the shop too.

The La Chouffe VR

The shop

Another couple of Virtuals on route to our campsite and another relaxing evening there planning the next day.

Thursday 22nd August 2019

A beautiful start to the day and it got up to 30 degrees. Today we walked off site to the bus stop and caught the bus to Mersch and then the train to Luxembourg city. An all day transport ticket cost us 4 euros each and it was free for Ben.

This is our first visit to the capital and it won't be our last. Kate and I wondered round together while Ben had a look round on his own so escaped geocaching.

We did quite a few VR caches and also a couple of traditionals before meeting up with Ben at McDonalds.

We thoroughly enjoyed the city despite it being a little too hot for us.

Friday 23rd August 2019

This was a free day for us so we spent the majority of it on site making use of the indoor and outdoor pools. A great way to spend our final day too.

Saturday 24th August 2019

We managed to pack a dry tent as it was another scorcher today, we then headed back slowly to Northern France stopping off at Noel Cuvelier beer shop and then visiting In der Vrede and Bar Bernard.

Then it was off to the Lemon hotel again for an overnight stay and an uneventful drive home.

Camping in the Swiss Alps

2018-08-11T08:14:00.000+01:00

Our main Summer holiday this year is back to Switzerland.

Friday 10th August

After wrapping up at work we headed straight down the country to the Eurotunnel for a late evening crossing to France. We normally take an early morning crossing but this time thought we would try one on the evening and then grab a cheap hotel in France.

We arrived just before 1am at the Lemon Hotel which is as basic as hotels go but did have a fridge in the room meaning we could keep our meat chilled at night. We have taken as much meat as possible to cut down the shopping bill in Switzerland. Hotel cost us 25 euros for the night.

Saturday 11th August

An early start for us as we wanted to drive through Belgium and Luxembourg to reach our destination for 2 nights.
Luxembourg is easily the cheapest country for fuel so we decided to divert this way and also we had our eyes on 2 challenge caches that had not been found yet.

Challenge "le N de matteoanne" The first cache we had to have found 50 Virtual caches to be able to find this one. The cache was a small tree climb and hidden in a nicely constructed fake bird box.

We were pleased that we did actually get a FTF on it.

Challenge "le deuxième E de matteoanne" The second cache we had to have participated in 10 CITO events. This cache was on terra firma and indeed another FTF for us.

It was great to get the FTF's in Belgium and even better as we knew the c/o via Facebook.

We grabbed 2 more caches on our route which were both at Autostops in Belgium and Luxembourg.

We finally arrived at our destination Appart'City Strasbourg Airport near Strasbourg airport in the early evening.

The hotel cost us 110 euros for 2 nights and 5 euros for the parking and it was a nice apartment with another fridge to keep our camping foods chilled.

Originally we were going to get the bus into the city but we arrived later than expected and with lots of roadworks nearby we decided to have an early night and a couple of beers.

Sunday 12th August

Our plans for today were to explore a couple of villages of France. I do a lot of research on our trips and spotted these beautiful villages.

We made a reasonably early start and thought we would head for Riquewihr first.

Riquewihr is a fortified town with beautiful and colourful buildings. We paid 3 euros and parked up for 2 hours.

We all loved our walk around this stunning village, certainly a place that we would recommend to others.

A gateway to the village

Kate outside the walls

Buildings at top of village

Buildings at top of the village

The stunning Clock tower

Very colourful

Amazing architecture

A view up main street

2 hours was enough time for us to see the village and find a couple of Geocaches too.

Our next stop was Kaysersberg.

Kaysersberg is another fortified village in Alsace,France. Both Riquewihr and Kaysersberg are doable in a day as they are so close together.

Walking up from La Weiss river

Main street

Love these buildings

Blue skies too

Happy tourists

Love this village

Lovely shaped too

Street with hills in background.

A pretty sign

Next up we had a quick visit to the bigger town of Ribeauville. It was close enough so we didn't want to miss out. As it was early afternoon we couldn't get a parking space in the town so parked up about 1km down the road but enjoyed the walk up.
Ribeauville was still pretty but we feel it wasn't quite as nice as Riquewihr and Kaysersberg.
We enjoyed a walk through the centre and it was much busier here.

A walk up from parking

Our first views of town

A lovely square

A few shops

A colourful restaurant

Pretty building detail

We have really enjoyed today so we headed back to hotel to relax and prepare for our drive into Switzerland tomorrow.

Monday 13th August

An early start today as we head of to Switzerland for the next 7 nights.

Today started with a bit of rain but didn't stop us from visiting the Statue of Liberty, not the one in NYC of course. This is a copy of Liberty that welcomes you to the birthplace of Auguste Bartholdi who was the creator of the Statue of Liberty.

The rest of our journey was enjoyable, we bypassed the cities of Basil and Bern and drove down the edge of Lake Geneva.

We noticed that there was another cache that had not be found yet so decided to go for that as it was only a 10 minute detour.

As we pulled up at GZ there was a couple of cachers already there but they could not find it so we teamed up with them. We all decided that the co-ords were definitely out as the hint made no sense.

The c/o happened to turn up and gave us a further hint and the sneaky cache was located. The FTF was shared so it was nice to have another FTF.

The FTF team with the c/o

Now off to La Fouly and the campsite.

The last 20 mins of drive climbed up to 1600 metres and the views were spectacular.

We arrived at Camping des Glaciers and were told to go and choose any pitch that was free. We found a perfect pitch.

View on arrival

We managed to get the tent up in the dry but within minutes it began to rain.

Tuesday 14th August

We have still to see the glacier in full and it doesn't look like we will see it today due to the low cloud.

Today we decide to take a drive along St.Bernards Pass and over the border into Italy. We didn't expect to see much scenery but it was relatively clear there and we got some amazing views.

The drive up into Italy was steep with hairpin bends which made Ian a little nervous.

As the altitude here was much higher it was pretty chilly but it didn't stop us from having a good look round before heading slowly back down the mountain into Switzerland.

We said that we should check out the nearest village to La Fouly on the way back and yet again we had a big climb up the mountains before arriving at Champex-Lac.

There was a geocache here so after grabbing lunch we had a lovely walk round the lake finding the clues to enable us to find the cache.

We found the cache and then headed back to campsite and then had a walk into La Fouly before heading back to camp for the night.

Wednesday 15th August

The weather today was stunning, blue skies and bright sunshine. Today we can get a beautiful view of the glacier.

The glacier view from our tent

Today we walked up to Lacs de Fenetre
We covered 750 metres of ascent and descent over a 8 mile round trip. It was hard going for us as we are not used to walking up hills but it was so worth it.

Not far into the hike

Lacs de Fenetre

So stunning

Looking down into the valley

Nearly there

Our prize, the lake

Well done Ben

The scenery looking at the mountain tops, glacier and down the valley was simply stunning expecially with the blue skies surrounding them.

The satisfaction that we felt once we reached the lake made the uphill slog so worth it.

Thursday 16th August

Another gorgeous and sunny day for us to take a drive over the mountains to the big ski resort of Chamonix in France. The trouble with driving over country borders here is that you have to drive up and over mountain passes and although the scenery is stunning it certainly makes it harder to concentrate on driving.
Chamonix is a beautiful town with some great views of Mont Blanc and surrounding mountains.

We tried parking in the town but there were no spaces so parked around 1 km away which was perfect and importantly it was free.
We had a pit stop at mcDonalds for Ben but Kate and I decided to grab a club sandwich from a little cafe. A nice walk round the town picking up a few caches, I being a virtual.

We loved the few hours that we spent here and will definitely return.

A view on route

We made it

Town view

Pointing to Mont Blanc

Snow-capped backdrop

A nice church

Mont Blanc

We spent the rest of the late afternoon / evening with a walk into La Fouly and even a quick pint at a bar. We then played some Table Tennis before retiring at our tent.

Friday 17th August

Today we walked up through the woods on campsite to grab a couple of caches and then picked up our order of fresh bread from reception.

After having bacon sarnies for breakfast we headed for a day out to Montreux.

We parked up by Chillon castle but ourselves and others couldn't see where we had to pay to park. Kate managed to blag free parking by getting a disc enabling us with 3 hours of parking.

It was a couple of miles walk to Montreux and we thought it would be nice to walk on the edge of Lake Geneva to it.
It was a lovely walk with some nice views of the castle and mountains in the background.

Chillon Castle

on the walk

Ben taking five.

I see Montreux

A sculpture

Statue of Freddie

A lovely spot

We walked to the Freddie Mercury statue and then had a McDonalds as a late lunch before walking back to the car.

Back at the campsite we decided to have a walk into La Fouly again and enquire about some activities.

There is a St.Bernard's card which cost us 9CHF each for a day which let's you do a variety of activities for free. So that is tomorrow sorted.

Saturday 18th August

Today is a much more chilled day as we have purchased the St.Bernards's card and have a ride down the mountain on Trotti bikes and a pedalo on the lake. There are other activities you can do for free with the card, including free public transport within the valley.

So after breakfast we parked up in La Fouly and took the chairlift up the mountain. At the top we were given the bikes and down the mountain we came. This was brilliant fun.

Above the lift

Down the valley

Raring to go

We loved this activity that much we booked another go in the afternoon, but first we are off to Lac de Champex for a little walk grabbing a few caches and a hour on a pedalo.
We were hoping to go down the mountain here on the trotti bikes but unfortunately you have to book two days in advance. Something for us to remember for next time.

We took the chairlift up the mountain and the views were stunning as expected.

At top of chair

First views

A neighbouring, green mountain

Looking down the valley

Kate on live video chat with parents

A view of the lake.

We think the St.Bernards card is a bargain. We will probably have it for longer next time.

Now for the pedalo's. There was no queue so we were straight on them.

Ben did a lot of the pedalling

Kate did no pedalling

Lovely

It was a hour of bliss with some lovely views too.

We headed back to campsite and had a late lunch before walking back into La Fouly to go on the Trotti bikes again. This time we set ourselves a time trail and Ian managed to get down the quickest in 14 minutes, Ben took 16 and Kate 24 mins.

A truly marvelous day was rounded off with a beer in the nearby bar.

Sunday 19th August

This week we have had some fantastic weather and today looks set for some more. We are off to Leuk, a lovely little town on the river. We have visited the town before so instead we though we would take in a walk with a few caches on.

The walk took us alongside the river and then looped back after crossing a bridge.

A refreshing waterfall on route

Love these views

Walking along the river

Looping back to start

We found 18 caches in the hot sunshine. I even managed to leave my shades at one of them but thankfully they were still there when we drove back there afterwards.

On the evening we played some more table tennis and then watched a terrific storm up in the mountains.

The storm

Monday 20th August

We have had a fantastic time in Switzerland but unfortunately today we had to pack up and leave. Thankfully we got the tent down dry and then headed off for Colmar in France.

After failing at one parking spot as you had to text from a French sim card, we managed to find metered parking closer to the centre.

France has some lovely towns and villages

Little Venice

A lovely square

Manneken Pis

A busy Colmar

Lovely colours

A quiet street

We spent a couple of hours exploring and finding a cache and ended up having a nice chilled beer before heading to our hotel a couple of miles away.

Tuesday 21st August

Another day of travelling towards home and our next stop is Givet in France. Ian has stopped here before with friends so it was nice to go back.

Once we had checked into our room we walked about a mile into Givet and despite grabbing a handful of caches we enjoyed a good chill out in a couple of bars.

The last bar was near to the river and was in a lovely spot.

Nice building and Clock tower

A typical building

Lovely view across the river

There was not as much to do here as other places so we decided to have a nice early night.

Wednesday 23rd August

Today we are heading to Dunkirk for our last night before home.

Before we left we really wanted to do a High favourited geocache.

Moria: The Return

This was an epic adventure of around 2 hours with a tour walking and squeezing through tunnels. This is a must do geocache.

This bit was easy

Fun times

Here comes Kate

and again!

Another exit

A nice tower

Not fab quality but helps get the gist of things

Love this pic

The cache

We also did a couple of Lost places on our way to Dunkirk, 1 of them was in an old school.

We arrived at our hotel not long before tea. A quick shower later and we walked to a restaurant just a few metres away from us.

Our first blog for such a long time now. In future we will use more pics and less words but if you want any info of anywhere we have visited please get in touch.

To Hell and back

2016-05-07T17:34:00.000+01:00

It was Mid-February and I had noticed that the Viking Event was going to turn to Mega status. I decided to just have a look and see if I could find any cheap flights and by luck I could.
For £60 I managed to get some return flights by Norwegian Air, from London Gatwick to Trondheim.

It was a bonus really as our favourite budget airline happens to be them, due to the free wifi on board, really.
I couldn't get really cheap hotels but fortunately the ones I stayed in were absolutely fantastic.

Friday 6th May 2016

I set off just after 9am as I wanted to grab 10 old caches on route to Gatwick.
Firstly I went to Buckinghamshire to get InterMissendens , a cache published in November 2001.
It was a lovely short walk to some woods situated on a hillside.

Next I went to Swinley forest to do the SP series (Star Post). There are 9 caches which were placed between January and February 2002.
I really enjoyed doing these in the sunshine and it was a nice 5 mile walk.
Car parking cost £2 for 4 hours which is plenty of time.

So with the caching done it was time to park my car at Gatwick South terminal and wait for my 8pm flight to Trondheim.
Taking the 1 hour time difference into account, I arrived at Trondheim at around 11.30pm and a 15 minute walk away was my hotel for the night.
Scandic Hell was a stunning hotel with a lovely reception area, nice rooms and one of the best free breakfasts. I got a great deal of £56 for a single room, which was upgraded to a double.

Saturday 7th May 2016

After grabbing breakfast I had to make sure I got back to the airport to board the first train of the day for a CITO event and to get to Steinkjer for the Mega event.
When I arrived at Steinkjer station I met up with 2 fellow UK cachers as they had very kindly offered to let me cache with them.
Firstly I met Janechick while her friend Disa urq was bagging a cache.

We grabbed a couple of multi's and then headed to the Vikingevent 2016 Mega, which was not far from the town.

The Mega was our 30th to date and first in Scandinavia. I was a bit disappointed to learn that the Lab caches didn't get finished on time and learned after that quite a few were disappointed too.

JC, DU and myself then hit the trails to bag a Letterbox cache and pick up a couple of Trads before returning to the Mega to grab some drinks and a hotdog.
We chatted to Jon Paul who is an organiser of the upcoming Estonia Mega and then I was introduced to a lovely couple who were #1 on finds in Norway, with over 30,000 finds.

After we were replenished we headed back to the car to pick up another Multi and a series of Unknown caches.
JC and DU had solved 3 of them but fortunately for us a group of 5 Norwegian ladies provided us with the final co-ords for the rest of the series.
It was a nice series done as drive bys but circling a lovely lake. Some of the views were spectacular.
The series was about different breeds of dogs and each cache had a picture of the type of dog the cache was name after.

Once the series was completed we grabbed an Earthcache and a couple of other caches on the way to dropping me off at my hotel for the night.

Best Western Steinkjer cost me just under £90 for the night but was so worth it. Included in the price was Free Coffee and waffles from reception area, a free evening buffet and then a free breakfast in the morning. A lovely hotel all round and a place I would highly recommend.

I had a chilled evening stroll after the buffet and grabbed 3 caches before returning to the hotel for a couple of beers... This is where the budget goes out the window in Norway as they cost me £10 a pint!!

Sunday 8th May 2016

After a huge breakfast I got the train I had booked back to the airport. The train journeys are fab and not bad for around £15 each way.

I had around 3 hours before I needed go to departure lounge so I took a 5 mile walk into "Hell" to grab some more caches.

If Hell is as beautiful as the one in Norway then there is nothing to worry about if you have been naughty in life LOL.

I grabbed a few Trads and completed a Wherigo before saying goodbye to Norway until next time.

We have now been to 30 Mega events, oh and we have found our most Northernly cache.

Below is a quick video of a few snaps I took.

Romania, Bulgaria & Bruges

2016-04-02T13:32:00.000+01:00

At the end of January this year I was looking at cheap flights for the Easter Holidays. We wanted to go somewhere we hadn't been before and spotted Bucharest from Birmingham for just under £50 each.... A few minutes later and they were booked.
After a fair bit of planning we were all set to begin a new adventure.

Saturday 2nd April 2016

We flew out from Birmingham at 10am and landed in Bucharest at 3.20pm (Just over 3hr flight and 2 hours time difference).

On our way

On arrival we collected one checked in bag and headed to SixT car rental so we could pick up our car. It cost us £268 for a Skoda Citigo, the reason we paid so much is that we wanted to be all inclusive as some of the roads are in pretty bad condition.

So a quick loading of the car and we were off.

A church on the route

Tonight we would be staying in Bran which is roughly a 2hr30min drive but we did stop on the way to attempt a FTF on a cache. We found it straightaway but it had already been found, however all was not lost as the views from there were fab.

Some views

So back on our way to Bran and hardly any traffic making the journey seem quicker.

We saw quite a few horse and carts

Mountain backdrops

The drive became a lot more scenic once we approached Sinaia, with mountains and market stalls spread across the side of the roads.

We arrived in Bran around 7.30pm and checked into our accommodation for the night Muntele Rece.
Our room was fab and we had a balcony with mountain views. We paid 41 euros for the night which included free parking, wifi and breakfast.

Room with a view

We were keen to just drop our stuff off and explore the village so after a very swift shower we walked down to the village. There was an event celebrating 15 years of Geocaching in Romania so we decided to go and say hello especially as one of our friends' brother was there.

[15 ani Geo in Ro] Asociatia Geocaching Romania We were made very welcome and introduced ourselves to everyone and had a chat with our friends' brother and with the event owner, he even gave us 3 wooden geocoins made especially for the celebration.

We were in need of food so after the event we visited a Pizzeria in the town which had good reviews on Trip Advisor. Trattoria Al Gallo
The pizza was very good and we all ate and had drinks for under £20.

A Romanian beer each

By the time we had finished we decided it would be good to get a reasonably early night as we have lots of travelling to come.

Sunday 3rd April 2016

After a good nights sleep we woke up to a sunny but windy day.
Whilst having breakfast we decided that we had enough time to visit Bran castle before checking out and so we left car at hotel and walked into the village again.

A view of the castle from village

Bran castle often referred to as Dracula's castle, as it fits Bram Stoker's description of Dracula's castle. Admission for the 3 of us was 77 Lei which is only about £15.
We had a good look round and thoroughly enjoyed what it had to offer.

Inside Bran castle

View from the castle

Loved this are above the courtyard

We spent around a hour inside and managed to see everything at our own pace.

Next up was Dracula's Castle, this time it was the geocache. It is the oldest active geocache in Romania and was place in April 2001.

The cache was located at top of hill next to the castle and was reached by climbing over a locked gate and then up a steep path to the top. It was hard work getting up the hill due to steepness and lots of leaves making it slippy but once at the top the cache was soon located.

Some views at the top

More views at the top

Yeah, found it

Ben checking out an open grave hehe

Kate needs a breather

It was a great geocache and the location was fantastic, allowing us to take in some stunning views.
After taking some photos we headed back down clearing up litter as we did for the CITO, we got a bonus icon for doing this.

View of castle on way down.

Back in the village we had a quick walk round the stalls and then headed back to hotel to check out and head back towards Bucharest. Bran is beautiful but we have to come back to the area as there are many other towns we have to visit.

The drive back was great with just a couple of hold ups due to traffic. We took in some lovely scenery and diverted to grab a few geocaches, one of them being a Letterbox.

Scenic drive

Lovely backdrop

We have to go back for longer.

We arrived at our next hotel Charter Airport Hotel Bucharest and just had a quick freshen up before attending an event that we hosted.
The hotel cost us £40 for the night, which included a basic breakfast and parking. I think this was our least favourite hotel of the trip but still good for a night.

After our event we got a taxi to the Arc de Triomphe so that we could grab a few different Geocache icons. We added a Puzzle, a Multi and an Earthcache to our tally.

At an Earthcache

Ben at Arc de Triomphe

By the time we had done these we were pretty tired and headed to the Hard Rock Café for a while before grabbing a taxi back to our hotel as we had the biggest drive of trip tomorrow.

Outside the Hard Rock café

A quick drink by the river while we waited for the taxi and a great day completed.

Cheers

Monday 4th April 2016

An early start today and in the car by 6.30am. We have a big drive today and did the first hour in the dark which I wouldn't really recommend as some of the roads were dreadful.

We had to get to Sofia today but were taking a big diversion to Buzludja, a peak in the Balkan mountains which also hosts the Buzludja monument.

We got to the Romanian / Bulgarian border at around 8am and after paying the toll to cross the bridge it was a short wait to allow cars coming the other way. The bridge road was in terrible condition and a very bumpy ride.

Approaching the border from Romania

We queued here for ten minutes or so

The Toll bridge into Bulgaria

Yay, we made it into Bulgaria

We grabbed a Puzzle cache within a couple of minutes of crossing the border and then carried on collecting a few Trads in different Regions. At the one cache Kate walked across a field to a cache and on the way back a farmer wanted a "Selfie" with her. She said he didn't speak a word of English so would've been fun to hear the communication.

Selfie with a Bulgarian farmer

Farmer's workhorse

The weather today was pretty hot so it was good to get back on the road to cool down and it wasn't long before we were hitting the mountains on our way to Buzludja. We had a quick stop off to grab more drinks and a few snacks as we knew it would be a while before we would find any more shops.

Hitting the last town before Buzludja

Loving the views while driving

After around 6 hours of driving we finally arrived at Buzludja. The last few miles before it were stunning. The Buzludja monument was a must visit for us as we love abandoned buildings and this was about the best one to date.

Buzludja

Completed in 1981, The Buzludja monument was a venue for Bulgaria's socialist party meetings and celebrations. The building is decorated with Communist and Soviet imagery and although it is left to rot since the political changes made in 1989.

Standing by the panel to enter the building

Hammer and Sickle centre piece

To get inside the building we had to squeeze through a panel at the front entrance as you are not supposed to go inside. Once up a couple of flights of stairs in opened out into the most amazing Auditorium.

We all agreed that this was one of the most awesome experiences we have had to date.
Here are a few more pics.

Had to do a selfie

Just like a UFO, I guess

First views of inside

More views

Inside the auditorium

Lots of damage but still great

Stairway to lower floor

The top floor

More artwork

A few of the many windows

At the back of auditorium

Awesome, eh?

View from window of top level

Looking down from the entrance

I reckon we were here at least 60 minutes and could have stayed longer but still had a fair distance left to travel. We grabbed a cache which was only 300ft away and then Kate did some driving while I took a rest.

The driving round these parts was easy as outside the town and cities there was not much on the roads, driving in the big cities however, was a little scary. It was nice to see horse and carts still used on the country roads and even in some of the towns.

Loved driving with the mountains in view

We passed through a few regions on route to Sofia and grabbed one cache in each of them.
Once we reached Sofia we were surprised at just how big it was.

We made it!

The first views of Sofia

Our hotel Hotel Akord was about a 30 minute walk from the Old Town and was great for a couple of nights stay. The free parking was behind a barrier which we were happy about as we were the only car with Romanian plates on.
The hotel cost us 80 euros and we got a free breakfast too.

Hotel Akord

We were keen to get out and see a little of Sofia even though we were all shattered from the long drive so after a beer and a shower we ordered a taxi to Mullighan's Irish bar as we knew we wouldn't be out long.

We had a nice burger meal and a couple of pints of Bulgarian beer in this lovely bar and then the lady at the bar ordered us a taxi back to our hotel and told them to take us back the direct way haha.

I can't remember what time we got to bed but it was no later than 10pm.
We have a lot to look forward to tomorrow as we have a full day in city.

Tuesday 5th April 2016

A bit of a lie in for us today and then had a great breakfast to set us up for the fun ahead.

We took the trolleybus into the city and then onto the Metro system and worked our way round by doing some caches that we had chosen before the trip.

Bus ticket

Metro ticket

Inside a Metro station

The travel system was pretty cheap and effective at 1 Lev a ride, although, as there was not many English speaking people we did not know exactly what to do with bus ticket and ended up being fined for not validating tickets. Kate and I both got fined 20 Lev each and still not sure why.
It seemed that you have to enter ticket into a slot when getting on bus but somehow we didn't see them.
The Metro was easy as you couldn't enter the platforms without entering ticket at the gates.

We started of with a Multi cache The Water Tower which was a simple offset cache.

The Water Tower

Next of we went into the University grounds to complete The Alchemist puzzle, which we had solved at home. The grounds of the university were quite nice.

It was almost 30 degrees today so it was nice to get some sunshine and walk round in shorts. We headed off to do another couple of multi's which were both nice.

Ben enjoying the sunshine.

Start of a nice multi

It was now time to grab the Metro again and head off to do a Wherigo Tourist Guide round Sofia.
We enjoyed the tour and were very relieved to find the final after quite a long search.

As well as the usual sights it was nice to see the home of CSKA Sofia. From the outside it looked disused but very different inside.

Outside stadium

Inside

Looks different to outside

More outside shots

and another outside shot.

After around a 5 mile walk doing the wherigo we were very hot so decided to go and grab some lunch and a couple of drinks at a bar that just happened to have a Letterbox cache.

Giocase Hybrid & Hotel It was nice to be able to have some lunch and grab this very neat cache.
The food was great and the Stella washed it down nicely.

Giocase letterbox cache.

After a well earned rest it was back to it as we picked up more caches and importantly an Earthcache.
It was also nice to grab the first multi cache in Sofia while we took in more of the sights the city had to offer.

Impressive buildings

Old building

Old church

We loved this area

Not far from final of the multi

More fab buildings

Ben keeping out of the sun for a moment

We had a great time looking round and thought we should find another bar close to our event....We were all suffering a bit from walking in the 30 degree heat.

On our way to event.

Ben posing after changing of the guard.

Another beautiful church.

We sat in the Cathedral bar which was in a lovely location overlooking the magnificent cathedral and our event location.

The beautiful cathedral

Our event was small with just a newbie caching team joining us. We found a couple of caches and then called it a day and headed off for our dinner back at the Irish bar.
The heat today has zapped us so we had quite an early night as tomorrow we have a long drive again.

Wednesday 6th April

After another great breakfast we checked out and hit the road. We are of to Mamaia today which is a Black Sea resort in Romania. We planned a few caches as stops so we could pick up as many regions as possible.

Today's journey

The best cache Soul Plane took us to a fab location where there was a full size TU-134 Airliner.
We had a good look round it and then made a quick find on the cache nearby.

Soul Plane

We carried on with the drive with a couple more stops and then headed on to Silistra where we crossed back over the border into Romania.
There wasn't a Toll charge this time as it was a land border.

Back into Romania

All we had was a 10 minute wait and then our passports were handed back to us and we were allowed through.

The road was pretty bumpy for a good hour after we had crossed the border and during that time we were pulled over by the Police. I thought they were going to do me for speeding but luckily it was just a passport check.

On our way again

We had a couple more stops and then it wasn't long before we were on the outskirts of Constanta, which is a city not far from our destination.

Constanta roads were busy and we ended up driving through it after successfully being first to find on a cache. After witnessing some dodgy city driving we were out of the city and almost at Mamaia.

Getting closer

Hello Constanta

Mamaia is a thin strip of land with the Black sea running down the eastern edge. There was only one road through it and it was busy, we were glad to spot our apartment building out straight away.

Yay, we are here

I had booked our apartment Tomis Garden and managed to get it as a free night off hotels.com. It was only £45 normally and we were stunned at how lush these apartments were inside.

We had a quick shower and then went out to explore the area. First stop was a short walk to the beach.

Black sea coast

It was a really lovely beach with great views both ways down the shore. Ben and I had a paddle in the sea and then we went looking for somewhere to eat.

Considering this is one of the main resorts here we were surprised that there was nowhere to eat and hardly any people around.... In the end we decided to get the car and have a drive into town.

The traffic was pretty heavy and to be honest I was shattered so we grabbed a McDonalds and took it back to our apartment and had a lazy evening in comfort.

Thursday 7th April

We had a bit of a lie in today and after enjoying a walk around Luna Park to grab a Letterbox cache we headed of to Casino Constanta.
This was one of the highlights of the trip for us and the reason why we stayed this way.
The casino was an Art Nouveau inspired building but has been left abandoned for a number of years.
All around the building was stunning.

Casino Constanta

Unfortunately nobody is allowed inside now but we knew that before the visit.

After spending a good while there it was time to go to our final location, 2 nights just outside Bucharest.

Here we go again

The drive there was mainly motorway except for a few diversions we took to grab some more Romanian counties. It was good to see more of the countryside too.

A stop off here

Approaching Bucharest and the roads became much busier. Our satnav did it's job but almost took us through the city centre.
We finally arrived at our hotel after being in a big traffic jam.
Avis Hotel was another nice budget hotel, it cost us £83 for the 2 nights and we loved it here.

At hotel

After a chill out and a couple of beers in the hotel we decided that we would have an earlyish night so we didn't venture downtown. We decided to check out the Hard Rock cafe as it was located on a park with a lake nearby.

We got a taxi there and Kate and Ben laughed as I tried to explain where we wanted to go. In the end we managed to get to where we wanted and once there he understood where we mean't.
We did notice that the ID badge on display was not the same as the driver but we were getting out of the cab by then.

So we tried to get in the Hard Rock but it was full due to a live band being on. However there was a cache hidden inside the shop so we managed to complete that.

Hard Rock

The cache inside

By the side of the lake there was a small bar and some tables so we decided to have a couple of drinks there and then head back to the hotel and grab a takeout pizza.

We drank our drinks in a lovely setting and then set about getting a taxi.... what a nightmare that was.

Eventually we got back to our hotel and ordered a pizza to be delivered.

Friday 8th April

So our last full day so we have to hit Bucharest. We were up early and I noticed that if we walked so far then we could attempt another FTF. It was only about a mile to walk and we were chuffed to see that nobody else had found it.... After we had returned the cache ans started walking away we bumped into an American chap with his 2 little kids, he was a bit gutted that we got there first but we had a really nice chat and then moved on.

We walked to the nearest Metro station and took the train to the centre "Victoria Place". The metro was dirt cheap and reliable.

Aviatorilla station

Ben chilling

Geocaching wise all we did was a handful of trads and a Wherigo. The rest of the days was spent exploring the Old Town.

We started in the Parc Unirii area and worked our way through the Old Town, some of the buildings were spectacular.

The rest of today will be in pictures.

Parc Unirii

Loved how the crossed were placed

A lovely coutyard

Lots of bars

Xenofen Street

Yay, Wherigo found

Into the Old Town

Not driving, so we had a few beers

View down the street from bar

Basketcases :)

Lovely buildings

Arc de Triomphe

We had a couple more beers at the bar by the lake and an early evening. Bucharest was fantastic.

Road trip of 1108 miles.

Saturday 9th April

We had an early flight back to Birmingham so dropped of car and took shuttle back to the airport.
The flight went ok but Blue Air were not one of the greatest budget airlines to fly with.

Once back at Birmingham Airport it was straight to Bruges for a night and a Mega Event.

The Eurotunnel was at 4.20pm but we got there early and so took an earlier train, infact we had got to the Mega campsite pitch tent and were in Bruges by 6.30pm Belgian time :)

Back in this lovely city

Stunning square

We went to Delaneys for dinner and washed it down with a pint. We then headed off to one of our fave pubs in Bruges.... The Druid's Cellar. We had arranged to meet our friends from Essex.

We had a great couple of hours catching up with them and arranging to meet the next day.

Ben in Druid's Cellar

Party time with friends and a photobomber

It was drizzling when we left and cold but it didn't take much to nod off to sleep after a day of travelling.

Sunday 10th April

We awoke to lovely sunshine and ice on the tent, it must have been cold through the night.

We were soon up with tent packed away ready for a fun Mega day.

Brugse Beer VI This was our 4th time at this Mega and have to say it gets better and better year after year.

Ben's favourite lab cache

The Lab caches just get better and better and they are Ben's favourites.

We bumped into lots of people that we know from France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany, it was great saying hi whilst enjoying a lovely sunny day.

Another great Lab cache

With our Belgian buddy Danny

After grabbing the Lab caches we went into Bruges with all our friends from Essex to do a Wherigo and a couple of travelling virtuals.

We had a really fantastic time in one of our favourite cities.

How can you tire of Bruges?

Mid afternoon and it was time to say goodbye as we hosted an event just over the border in France.

Our event

It was lovely to meet new friends and also say hi to our friend Des who attended too.

We all had a nice chat and it was time for us to head home and end our fantastic holiday.

Trip of 575 miles

Thanks for reading.

Hoorn Mega NL

2016-03-05T12:04:00.000+00:00

Hoorn Mega NL

Friday 4th March 2016

We set out after tea and travelled through the night to get the best deal.
We purposely arrived early at the Tunnel to try to get an earlier train but at 10pm we were told we had to come back in a hour as we were just too early. That gave us 1 hour to kill so we decided to have a coffee from our flask and then do some drive by's close to the tunnel!

Armed with a torch we did There and Back Again , a small series of 8 caches.

We were due to leave after 2.50am but we were luckily enough to grab an earlier train at 12.15am so our adventures were to start earlier!
The train cost us £60 which we paid for with Tesco Clubcard Vouchers (as always).
Arriving in France at 2am we headed straight towards Hoorn, resting only when we reached a service area near Ghent in Belgium. We managed to grab a two hour sleep. Ben bless him sleeps anywhere and all snuggled up with his duvet and pillows slept from 1am till 9am!
We arrived in Hoorn a little before 9am so decided to complete some challenge caches before the Mega opened. The first being a little challenging being up a tall tree that was not reachable without ladders.

An easy Challenge cache.

Ladders needed for this one.

Fortunately for us Ian had forgotten to take the ladders out of the car, so this cache was soon in hand! We completed a few others then it was time to go to the Mega!

A lovely area, with sunshine.

Hoorns Cache Event 2016
This was our second Mega in 5 days! It was located in a sports hall and appeared to be well organised with no queuing to get in. Our welcome pack quickly obtained and we were in! There were the usual stalls but our mission was to complete the 10 lab caches.

Inside the Mega

We spotted Simon as soon as we walked inside the hall.

Ben with Lackey, Michelle.

The lab caches on this occasion were mainly placed in or around the sports hall with only a couple being a little further, so not too far to walk! We were pleasantly surprised on how quickly we were able to complete these, mainly due to the excellent translation in the program book. We enjoyed the lab caches as Ben was able to join in (and in some cases) solve. With the lab caches completed we had a wonder round and bumped into a few cachers who had attended our event in Amsterdam, Mega organisers who had held an event in Croatia, Fellow campers from the Mega in Luxembourg and the lovely Annie who we camped next to at Essex! This is what we love about Mega's!

Our friends and neighbours at Piratemania 2015.

The final Lab cache.

Ian with Team Jowi after completing last Lab cache.

We were just about to head out when Simon [SouthernTrekker], a UK reviewer and friend said he would join us. The caches were on a newish built housing estate, however the first one was at a windmill - well it wouldn't be Holland otherwise! This neat little hide was soon found! Onwards we went and found a few more traditional caches.

Spot the Ben!

On a little walk.

We especially liked 'The Little Library' we like these in the UK too but it became apparent that in this community there were lots of 'Little Libraries' outside people's houses, all in the same designed little red house!

Little library.

We enjoyed the multi and then went on to complete the letterbox which we struggled with at first. It was time to start heading back towards to Mega and we were discussing how much Simon hates mud.....queue a nice little dilemma! Do we walk around the ditch and get muddy or do we jump over it? Myself and Kate walked around however Simon took the leap and failed! We just happened to have the camera ready!

A leap of faith haha.

We arrived back at the Mega and found the cache outside and the one in the hall, signed the log books and said our goodbyes. By this time we were all pretty exhausted and was ready to head to our hotel which was about 10 mins away.

Kate with Dutch friend and Signal the frog

The Logbook.

Our last photo at Mega. Maybe see you next March.

We were staying at The Petit Nord and on first impressions we were pleased. Although classed as small it has 53 bedrooms and was situated on the High Street.

Our hotel and chatting with Dutch Reaper (kind of like a reviewer)

After a rest and a shower we headed out to explore the town before finding a place to eat. We managed to find a couple of caches before the light began to fail. Unfortunately we didn't see that much of the town but what we did see we liked and will plan to return again.

Hoorn High street.

Ready for a drink and some food we found a local bar that allowed Ben in and they let us order pizza in as they didn't do food, great relief for us as we didn't feel up to walking around trying to find somewhere suitable. After a few drinks with some other UK cachers it was time to head back to the hotel, a short walk back and time for one more beer then bed! An excellent fun filled day for the crew!

A beer with friends.

Sunday 6th March 2016.

Up reasonably early and down to breakfast. The breakfast at The Petit Nord was a pretty average breakfast for 7 euros. With us all fed and watered it was time to head to the CITO, we arrived well before the 11am start and collected a bag and dropped it off at the start time.

Now we had to start making our way back to the tunnel as it is a 4 hour drive. We made a quick stop off near Amsterdam, at a virtual.

Amateur Astronomical Observatory - Vesta this is run by volunteers of the community, so only opens on Friday evenings.

Kate at virtual.

With a bit of time to kill we looked for some caches to do nearer the tunnel and decided to do a couple of short series

Middenweg A series of 15 done as drive by's and then a couple of miles further on to Langs het kanaal a series of 24 alongside the rather large canal nearby.

This passed us at last cache.

That is it, just a couple of hours drive back to the tunnel and onwards to home.
Another great adventure.

Thanks to Kate for doing the write up for this blog x

A Leap Day Mega

2016-02-27T11:03:00.000+00:00

Brno Mega trip Sat 27th to Mon 29th February

We received news that there was an event in Czech Republic's second city Brno and that there was a very good chance that it would go Mega. Ian kept his eye on it and when it got to 300 will attends we decided that it was definitely going to get Mega status sooner rather than later.
It was then that we had a look round for cheap flights and managed to bag some return flights for £32!

There was no looking back, cheap flights and a cheap 4 star hotel in a very cheap city.
It was 5 weeks away which meant plenty of time to plan.

The event gained Mega status not long after we had booked and although we don't like to shout out about achievements it was nice knowing that there wouldn't be many Brits to attend a Mega on a Leap Year Day.

The day soon came round and we had picked a few caches to do on route to Stansted Airport. We wanted to pick up a 2001 cache, a few solved puzzles and then find a nice series.

Saturday 27th February

There was a very light shower of snow as we left home but the rest of the day was dry and quite mild.

The series we had decided to do was the Hauxton Hokey Cokey by Ryo62 so we did some Church Micro and solved puzzle caches first before heading to the parking area to begin the walk.

Hauxton Hokey Cokey
There are 28 caches in the series and around 10 extras that can be collected on route. We found all of the caches without any problems at all and walked the 6 miles in just over 2 hours.
The walk was flat with nice wide tracks and a little bit of pavement walking. There was no mud and no livestock.
It was one of the nicest walks we have done for a bit and we are glad we chose it.

We had to move quickly today as we really wanted to take advantage of being close to another 2001 cache, which is also one of the UK's 100 oldest active caches.

After doing a 2004 cache and a couple of 2006 caches we were on our way to our objective for the journey down.

Bartlow Hills (Historic site)

We love finding old caches and decided after completing the Jasmer Challenge that we would carry on grabbing them when we are somewhere near to them. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to check out the Barrow but we will definitely be back.

That's it, we need to park the car up at Stansted, as we have a flight to catch.

We arrived a little earlier than scheduled at Brno airport which meant that we could grab the earlier bus to the city.
Another bonus was that our hotel was just over the road from the bus station, so a quick check in and freshen up and we were enjoying a few glasses of Starobrno in the bar.

We were staying at the Grand Hotel which cost us a budget £75 for 2 nights with breakfast included.

View of bus station from hotel

A few very cheap drinks later and we were off to bed ready for an early start.

Saturday 28th February

A big day today taking in as many caches as we could but making sure we got the must do caches in and finding all the Lab cache answers.

The Měnín Gate - Lab

Mahen theatre - Lab

In Lužánky Park.

Brno is quite a lot different from Prague but it still has a lovely feel about it and has some nice parks and stunning architecture. The Lab caches and one puzzle cache in particular took us round all of the places of interest.

We set of in the direction of the old town and up out of the inner city to Lužánky Park.
Just North of the Park was the first cache that we really wanted which was at an abandoned football stadium and former home of Zbrojovka Brno FC. The stadium's size did not meet the requirements and in 2001 it played it's last game.

A City Tram.

Not sure what this was.

Basketcase Crew love lost buildings etc and this was a highlight of the trip and the hide was very good too. Opusteny stadion/Abandoned stadium is the name of the cache.

Abandoned Stadium.

From here we headed West across a little, past lots of residential areas and picked up some nice caches too.
One really good cache that is right up there in our favourite ever finds was Brnensky Rohlic.

The cache was in a Telecommunications box and had the key underneath it. Once the box opened you actually think hmm maybe this isn't the cache as you are presented with a board of wiring... Thankfully there was a Geocaching card there so we knew it was safe and the right place.
The wiring board was just another door and behind that was the cache and place for trackables etc.
You have to remember this is an urban cache and it is really mind blowing.

Brnensky Rohlic

We already have all the icons available to us in the Czech Republic so didn't need any new ones but still took in a few and enjoyed doing a Wherigo where at the final you had to stand on a wall to get the cache out the top of a street sign... It was good for a giggle with muggles walking past.

We started to head back to the inner city again now visiting the rest of the Lab caches and seeing some fab locations.

Konecneho square

We loved the Tivoli building in Konecneho square, a fantastic piece of art, there was a trad cache just in front of it.

This was near to a few of the lab caches

Morovy Sloup - Lab

A great place to people watch and admire the buildings.

Old Town Hall

Inside walkway of Old Town Hall

Inside the walkway of the Old town Hall is the famed Brno Dragon

Kasna Parnas - Lab

More great statues

Another statue outside the Cathedral

The Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul (Petrov) - Lab

Slevarna Vankovka
Another really good cache just before heading back to the hotel. We are tired after a longish walk today but this cache really made us smile.
The cache was part of a door bell where the bottom section slides down.

Slevarna Vankovka

Well a wonderful day had and now it was time to retire for an hour or so to get freshened up for a meal and some well earned beers.

Approaching our Brno home - The Grand hotel

We have had a fantastic day exploring Brno and very much looking forward to Mega day tomorrow.

Monday 29th February

So here it is, Leap day has finally arrived and at breakfast we learned that rain was forecast for most of the day. So we best get our skates on then.

We worked it out before we came here that we could get a 12 icon Leap day haul by driving out for a webcam and attending Cito and then picking up a YOSM once back in UK... However we decided that we were going to enjoy the city and we think we made the right decision.

We grabbed a few Trads and then picked up Mysteries, a Multi and a nice Wherigo before heading up the hill to do an Earthcache on the way to an event.

The event was held outside Spilberk Castle and was a great opportunity for the Czech cachers to swap their personalised wooden coins with others. Unfortunately by this time it was now raining but we didn't let that spoil our fun.

Looking down at rainy city from Event.

Logbook

Nice logbook

The last lab cache.

We also grabbed the info for the last lab cache before heading back down to the City to grab a Letterbox.
As the rain was quite relentless by now we decided to buy all day Tram tickets and take a look round and get short cuts to caches. An all day pass costs less than £3.

A tram ticket

Czech Crown notes.

After zipping round on the trams and grabbing a few more caches it was time for the main reason we came here, the Mega.

Leap Day 2016 - Brno
The Mega was located near to the Cathedral, we got there before the scheduled 4pm start as we had some trackables to pick up and wanted to say hello to the man who made this Mega possible.
He thanked us for coming as we thanked him for being main reason to bringing us to this lovely city.

Early at the Mega

4th entry into Mega logbook.

Nice logbook

We then mixed a little and logged the Lab caches before grabbing a couple more caches and then headed back to pick up our bags which our hotel had stored for us.
We had a quick bite to eat and a coffee before getting the bus back to the airport to end our adventure....... Well not quite we did pick up a cache while taking a break on way home from Stansted.

A selection of caches found....No Nano's :)

We had a fantastic weekend and will definitely be going back soon as it is so easy to get back to Vienna and Bratislava from.

Roll on our next trip in 5 weeks....

Piratemania 7

2014-11-28T22:51:00.000+00:00

Thursday 24th July

So after having a couple of days turnaround from our trip down South we were to set sail again to the Piratemania Mega Event.
We had booked the camping a few months ago and will be staying at the Cartmel racecourse for 3 nights.
On our way there of course there would be a few diversions and the plan was to get as many of the nearby virtuals as possible. Due to time restrictions a walk up Scaffell Pike and Helvellyn was out of the question so we still have those virtuals left to do.

So a lovely early start in fantastic weather too, our first port of call was Civic Trust (Cumbria).
A quick virtual just off the M6. This is a drive by and the answer is quickly found. An interesting spot with some great views.

Ben near GZ

Stunning views

Next on the list was quite a big diversion in the opposite direction to Cartmel. We headed East to a virtual just off the A66.

Bridge Stone (Cumbria)
Another drive-by virtual in a nice area. Information was easily obtained and we even met other cachers there who took a pic for us.

The bridge

Onwards a bit more North now but in a westerly direction to one I have been looking forward to for ages. It did not disappoint.

Long Meg [Cumbria]
A stone circle that has been around over 4,500 years.
Well this really was a fantastic area and a big reason as to why we love Geocaching. We may have even converted some muggles from Colorado who were over for a few weeks.

Ben, DS & the circle

Long Meg

That was the last one this side of the M6 and next it is the Lake District woohoo.

Ben and I visited the Lake District 2 years ago for the NW Mega at Cartmel and this time we really wanted to show mummy what she missed out on.

First stop was Keswick and a walk along the lovely Derwent water.

George Hodgson
We had trouble parking at the car park due to it being so busy. It is always busy up here but especially when the weather is as gorgeous as it is today.

We headed down from car park and along side the water, it is a stunning walk with the most spectacular views.

The first view from car park

The information was found quickly enough but luckily we looked in the right place for the answers.

Amazing place

Not far from GZ

A quick walk back the the car and then a very short drive to another fantastic location.

Mirror Image (Cumbria)
Just Ben and I went over to this one so we didn't have to park up properly again. This virtual is supposed to get a great photo across the lake with a Mirror Image effect. Unfortunately we couldn't get that effect today but we were able to answer the simple question to claim the find.

An amazing spot

Ben in his element

That was our last virtual of the day and now for something different - a traditional cache with lots of favourite points.

Cathedral Cavern Cache
Cathedral Cavern is a disused quary which has created a beautiful cavern - the size of a Cathedral - with a spectacular pillar and a marvellous window out to the sky (Taken from the cache page)
Finding the cache was easy but that isn't what this cache is all about, the area is amazing.

Inside the cavern

Through the window.

At the back of the cavern you can clamber over some big rocks and up to reach some tunnels, but a torch is required.

The tunnel

This cache definitely deserves all the fave points it gets and is a place we would definitely return.

So apart from a couple of drive by's it was off to Cartmel to settle in with the fellow campers.

All pitched up and ready to rumble.

We had a relaxing couple of ciders before heading across camp for the BBQ event.
Lots of chat with familiar faces and some new ones before our first day was done, a great day and good to be back at this lovely village.

Friday 25th July

Our first morning and second day in the area. We were going to go up Scaffell Pike today but last night we decided against it due to temperatures getting as high as 30 degrees.
So today we spent around Coniston on an epic adventure.

Pirate's Mystery Trail II
A 6 stage 5/5 in blistering heat, are we up for it? hell yes.
This is one of the best caches we have done with every stage in a fantastic location.
We won't spoil it as it is a cache that you won't regret doing but here is a handful of pictures.

A paddle is in order

Ooh a cave?

Water?

Views

Wow

The treasure

It took us a few hours to complete this but it was worth every single minute. Coniston is a stunning location so lots of pics are necessary.

So just this main cache today but we did grab one more cache and then in the evening headed into Cartmel for an evening get together in the Royal Oak Inn.
It is a lovely pub with a very nice Beer Garden. With this event you could book a burger which was cooked on the BBQ and it went down very well. We enjoyed chatting with friends galore and Ben and Blokieblokes lad played in the little stream in the beer garden.

Back at the campsite afterwards we carried on the chatting and swilled down a couple more Cider's before retiring to bed exhausted from the heat.

Saturday 26th July

It's Mega day

Summer Hols - Minehead / Lynton

2014-09-10T00:34:00.001+01:00

It's about time that we started to blog again after such a long break.
The Summer hols were full of meeting people and seeing many countries within Europe, we even managed to grab a cache or 2.

We kick-started the holidays with a cheap sun holiday to Butlins Minehead and then added a night at the wonderful campsite "Sunny Lyn" in Lynton.

The caching choice for the Saturday was handpicked as we wanted to grab a couple of Virtuals in South Devon, a Webcam and then a few challenge caches.

The Virtuals - Torquay Round Table & Face it, you're stumped! were very easy and were done in no time. It was still nice to drive around the English Riviera though.

Face it, you're stumped!

We moved on to Teignmouth next and did 4 challenges caches based on having so many favourite points and 1 challenge of completing 100+ caches in a day.

The weather was pretty good down south as it was horrendous in the Midlands so it was nice to pop off to an old favourite seaside town - Exmouth.

Last time we were here was not long after we began caching and at that time we had absolutely no idea how to do a Webcam cache. Thankfully nowadays we do haha.
For those who don't know you have to post an image of yourself that appears on a webcam by taking a screenshot from the relevant website, simple really..

"The Hotspot"

"The Hotspot" webcam is finally grabbed 4 years after wondering what to do.
A few drive-by caches now so that we can get back to Butlins for some Ben-time.

All Revved Up.

Ben loves Butlins, as do most kids as there is that much to do. Thankfully he isn't fussed about the night time entertainment so the rest of the night was spent relaxing outside the pub on site.

Sunday was an easy day with a 5/5 and 2 old caches planned, but they were so worth it.
First off was Exe View (Somerset) which was placed in May 2002. We had to take a short walk up a very overgrown path to GZ and it was a simple find. The next one A Winters Tale was a multi placed in July 2003. It was easy enough to get the information but the walk to GZ and then GZ itself was truly fantastic, which is often the case for the older caches.

Next up was the highlight of the day Look into the Light which is a 5/5 puzzle cache.
We are not going to say much about it except for that it definitely needs bookmarking.
Here's a couple of pics:

Look into the Light

By the time we had completed the challenge set and got back to the car it was very warm so we decided to head back so we could grab a couple of Ciders and allow Ben to run around the playground. A perfect way to end the afternoon all round we think.

Monday started off with a huge breakfast before setting off for the lovely Lynton/Lynmouth area. The drive along the coast is just sensational, we did a couple of drive by's on the way and a YOSM in which got Kate appearing on the cache page.

Countisbury Hill YOSM

View from YOSM

Next we carried on to the wonderful campsite Sunny Lyn to pitch our tent before heading off to do a simply wonderful series Hunter's Hike.
The views on this walk really are breathtaking, the walk takes you high above the valley, along the North Devon coastline, up a quiet country lane, down through woodlands and along the river Heddon.

Getting Higher up

At the coast

What a great footpath

Don't get many coastlines better than this.

Into the valley

This is definitely one of the best walks we have done and we were fortunate to have wonderful sunshine the whole way. All 25 caches were found and we all went back to the campsite happy.

Sunny Lyn is one of the best UK campsites we have stayed at. We all enjoyed a nice lazy couple of hours drinking our drinks which we chilled in the river at the end of our pitch.

Chilling the drinks

Pre-water fight

We popped into Lynmouth as we had promised Ben a fish and chip tea and afterwards took a walk in the evening to the nearest pub and had a quick drink there before heading back to the tent.

Chips on the seafront

Lynmouth

Tuesday - Our last day, so after enjoying a Full English breakfast in the site café we packed up the tent before taking in one more series and then heading home.

Yer Tis is another series next to the Hunter's Hike one and another lovely walk was enjoyed. It wasn't quite as scenic but still fantastic to walk in hot sunshine.
We had our first dnf on the trip as we did the walk but it turned out that it was missing so not all bad.

More views on Yer Tis series.

So after a tiring walk in the heat it was time to say goodbye to North Devon and head back home to prepare for our next trip to Piratemania on Thursday.

European Tour

2013-04-13T17:47:00.000+01:00

This was thought up around 5 weeks ago and the aim of the trip was to find 2 Jasmer caches that you can't get in the UK, to find a cache in 6 different countries within 24 hours and to attend a Belgian Mega event. I put a post on the Group Caching trips group on Facebook and within a few days there were 5 of us all comitted to the trip.
We had booked return Ryanair flights from Stansted airport to Maastricht airport in NL for only £20 each.

Day 1
A very early start to the day, Griff (BaggieDave) picked me up and we drove and dropped car off at Mark & Alison's (colonel&crew) house. Alison then drove us all the way to Stansted picking Kev (Lorri-Ann & Kev) up on way. In between Kev's house and Stansted was to be our first country in the bag....the UK of course.

LQ:GTR LONDON - Oakwood Park
I like to pick up a Little Quest cache if I am ever near one and although it wasn't on the route, everyone kindly agreed we could go for it.
We parked up close to an entrance to the park and entered via torchlight, after finding the cache and heading back to the car it was starting to get light.

So with the first country bagged, we had parked up at airport and had a short wait before flying over to NL.
At airport we picked up the hire car but before setting off we all walked over to the nearest cache.

TRAVEL BUG AIRPORT (edition 4.0)
This was conveniently located close to airport entrance and our first ammo can of the trip. The cache was hidden in the ground slightly with camo over the top.

Griff soon finds the cache and NL is in the bag.

So a quick walk back to the car where I volunteered to do all the driving until we got to the Luxembourg cache. Next stop was Germany.
The first cache we went to in Germany we DNF'ed but that was mainly due to not finding it instantly and not being able to translate into English. We moved on slightly down the road to do 2 caches
Nano am Kronenberg & Kronenberg I - Backenzahn, neither of them were as good as the one in NL but we found a good photo opportunity nearby.
So that was our 3rd country in the bag.

Germany just found :)

Our schedule for the day has started well and no time lost with the DNF, it was time for the longest drive so far (which wasn't much) into Luxembourg, via Belgium.
We had to make a quick stop just after we got over the border I was in desperate need of a loo break so we parked by some lovely woods.

Donkelser Wollef
This was one of our 2 Luxembourg caches and another that we could park up alongside. We had no problem with either of the L caches although Mark had to jump up for the other.

Mark with the Wolfman

After these caches Griff took over the driving where we drove back into Belgium to go after one of the two caches that I really wanted.

Geocache
This cache is one of the oldest surviving in the world. It was placed in July 2000 and has the coordinates N 50° 00.000 E 005° 00.000. The cache was in a great location on the edge of some woods. It was another one that was in the ground and covered with a nice shaped piece of wood.

We rejoiced when we found it, it was a fantastic feeling to have yet another old cache in the bag. I had grabbed June 2000 two months ago.

Oh yes GC40 claimed.

So 5 countries ticked off and just France to go.

A short drive and we crossed another border, this time we were in France and at our next port of call in a little town called Givet.
Givet is a lovely little town with the River Meuse running through it. We decided to get out of car and walk to a couple of the caches and then have a celebratory drink.

Cologne 2011 geocaching event Givet France cache 1
This one was my favourite cache in Givet and also the one that meant we had completed our personal challenge of a cache in 6 countries in 24 hours.
This is a short walk to the Grégoire tower - it's an old watch tower which would have been erected in the eleventh century and is situated on the edge of the steep Mount of Hauri. Here you have a magnificent view over the river Meuse, the city of Givet and the fort of Charlemont.

The cache is up there, by the watchtower

Looking down from Watchtower

So a quick drink in the town at a bar called "Cafe de la Place" to celebrate our success. We actually completed the challenge in under 12 hours from first cache to last....

A quick celebratory drink

It was now time to cross over the border again in to Belgium and head towards Aalter of which was our destination for the night. We picked one more cache up on the route and Griff handed over the driving to Kev.

We arrived in Aalter early evening and checked into the Hotel Capitole our base for the night. We had a quick shower and headed into town for a nice meal and a couple of beers before retiring for the night.

Day 2
Griff, Kev & I shared a triple room and decided that we would make an early start in our attempt to grab 100 caches on Mega day,
We woke up at 4am and headed for a series just 20 minutes away.

Langs de oevers
We had roughly 2 hours to grab as many of this 50 cache series as possible. We managed to get 28 of them and a couple of others that were on the route. The majority of them were drive by's but we did have a lot of fun getting to one of them by torchlight....It was really Jungle-like but certainly lots of fun, one of them was up in a tree at the side of a river and #1 of the series had a marvellous "Geocache Maintenance Station". I have certainly never seen anything like it but it was fabulous.

Me up a tree

Geocache Maintenance Station.

So we had 30 caches under our belt and got back to hotel for a quick freshen up and breakfast before heading off for Bruges.

We had decided that we would go and find the hotel for tonights stay and park up closeby and then walk to the Mega event.

Our hotel for the night.

Brugse Beer III

We arrived at the Mega Event and soon spotted cachers from the UK and had a bit of a chat and a small beer. The event was typical of the Mega's back at home and within 30 mins or so it was time to head off and grab some caches so we decided to do some alongside the river on the way back to hotel.

Fellow caching addicts from West Mids.

Kev, Griff and I then decided to grab the car and go and grab as many caches as possible in our quest to grab 100 on Mega day.

Down the riverside

The river

Snif
A series of 9 caches and a bonus over 1.8 miles.
There was some lovely woodland to the side of us and all caches were nice quick finds. We got around the walk in 40 minutes as we were on a mission.

Bones
A series of 14 caches and a bonus over 2.3 miles.
Another easy walk along tracks down the edges of fields. The caches were easy to find and to get the bonus coords you had to match up bones of the body to get final coords for the bonus.
The bonus was yet another Ammo can hidden below ground level.
55 minutes later and this series was in the bag too.

De legende
A series of 12 caches and a bonus over 3 miles.
An easy walk along tracks at the side of fields, with some nice woodland threw in as well. All caches were found no problem and the bonus was yet another ammo can hidden under ground level.

These 3 walks have been fantastic and great to do them in another country on the hottest day of the year so far. We rewarded ourselves with a thickshake from McDonalds and then headed on over to some of the newly published caches and did them as drive by's until we hit 100 for the day.

We then headed back to hotel for a quick wash and then set off to meet Mark & Alison at an Indian Restaurant in the city centre.

Beautiful Bruges

The Main Square

We had a very enjoyable meal and then Kev, Griff & I said we would do a few more caches and have a few beers.

3 - 0.5 L of Stella for 21 euros......ouch.

We had one beer in main square but due to the cost we decided to move on and hit another couple of bars. We managed a few more caches before deciding we had a little too much to drink to do anymore.

Oh dear, look who is trolleyed :)

At the end of the night (around 3am) we had to get a taxi back to hotel as none of us had waypointed where it was.

Day 3
We had an early start today as we had a big day of driving to do, so after eating a big breakfast it was time to check out of the hotel. As we were putting our stuff into the car we bumped into our geobuddies from the West Mids again....small world!
We had a quick chat in the rain and then Mark drove us to our first cache of the day.

Tjilp, tjilp

Another old cache this one which ticked a square on the Jasmer grid, this one being placed in May 2001.
This one was one we had looked at before the trip as all around the cache were ditches with water in, fortunately with the aid of Google Earth we took the correct approach and one small leap from Mark and cache was in hand.

We did another old cache which I already had the M/Y for and then headed for the highlight of the day and 1 of the 2 most sought after caches of the trip.

The ditch Mark jumped to get cache.

G'ebbes
A March 2001 cache in a National Park of Netherlands. It really is a beautiful woodland and such a fantastic location to be brought to. We parked up in main car park and took a half a mile walk through the woods. The cache was easy to find and it really put us all on a high, this for me is what caching is all about.

March 2001 ticked on Jasmer grid.

Some of the woodland.

We all returned to the car in high spirits and quite excited about the next cache too.
The drive wasn't far compared with what we had drove already and I took over the driving again for a while.

Pegasus Bridge

Pegasus bridge was used in the epic war film "The Bridge too far", it is a virtual cache with an easy question to answer to claim it. The bridge was fantastic and situated in the city of Arnhem in the Netherlands.

Pegasus bridge.

All of our itinery was now done so we were off to our final hotel of the break in the town of Valkenburg.
Valkenburg was a lovely town and I think took us all by surprise. It was a shame that we didn't get to spend more time here but obviously with our strict schedule this was not possible.

Our hotel in Valkenburg

Valkenburg as night falls

In the town

Griff getting planking all wrong

We had a drink at bar with the lovely owner before heading into the town to seek out a Dutch restaurant. We had a lovely meal swilled down with a couple of beers before heading off to do our last caching of the trip.

Day 4
We got up early for the 30 minute drive back to Maastricht airport for our flight back to Stansted and the end of our epic trip.

The End.

Totals for weekend:
6 countries
3 Jasmers
1 Mega Event
132 Smilies

Chelmsford and back

2013-03-02T09:35:00.000+00:00

Last August I booked a Travelodge room to do the CBN series after recommendations from friends.
Coming up to the weekend we knew that a fair few caches had gone missing and it was in need of maintenance on others too. So myself. Kev (Lorri-Ann & Kev), Ash [Monki] & James (pfaffabouters) contacted the c/o's and agreed to do the maintenance for them.

The Chelmer and Blackwater Navigation Series

http://coord.info/GC21RZV

A series of 110 caches over approximately a 14 mile walk along the canal. There are other caches on route and a few with a slight diversion.

Today. Myself, Ash & James met up with Kev by #110 and then all jumped into Kev's car to get to #1. There is free car parking close by, so we left Kev's car here to pick up once getting back to the other end.

We were greeted by caching friends Mel & Ray who I have met twice before with both times being at Piratemania. They assembled a table together and gave us all coffee & biscuits before sending us on our way to start the walk.

At the start of the walk

Looking away from cache #1

The walk was very nice which we all enjoyed but it was a shame due to the state of all the caches, we had to replace logs at almost all of them and there were many more missing than we anticipated.

Low tide I guess

There we lots of boats moored up.

I think we would have all been gutted had we not agreed to do the maintenance as it really is a lovely walk. It can get very muddy in places but today we hardly encountered any.
The weather was good with no rain at all and a perfect and comfortable temperature to walk at.

A lock on the route.

We passed lots of weirs

At least now the series is fully maintained and I believe that Mel & Ray are hoping to adopt the series which was originally theirs.

Kev & Ash looking for a cache

Still smiling

Lovely area

Once getting back to first car we drove back to start of series and said our farewells to Kev before setting off to Southend on Sea for some fish and chips. We stopped off at a couple of Church Micro's on the way and then bagged another challenge cache from the Little Quest series.

LQ:ESSEX - West Wood Ho!
Set in West Woods was the latest LQ cache to be added to my collection, I think thats 21 found so far.
We parked up opposite and entered the pitch black woods. It's so much fun caching in woods at night but unfortunately we didn't hear any strange noises to scare us. We bagged one cache on the way to this one but struggled with this at first and had to resort to a spoiler pic.
After a few minutes James spotted the tree it was hidden in and Ash made the retrieval.

So back to the car and off to Southend on Sea where we had fish and chips and grabbed a handful of seafront caches.
We were all pretty tired after that as we had walked around 20 miles today in total, so we headed back to Chelmsford to our room for the night.

We all slept really well but were all well zonked from a hectic day. We hit McD's for breakfast and decided to grab a couple more Church Micro's and then hit a couple of series on the route home.
We settled on doing 2 of Isaakwilsons in which we could do without moving the car.

Lowick and Back
Lowick and Back is a series of 35 caches set along Bridleways, Public footpaths, Byways & quiet country lanes. There is also a Church Micro that can be picked up in Lowick.
If the series was done on its own it is approx 5.5 miles.

Off we go again

Lyveden and Back
Lyveden and Back is a series loop of 36 caches (plus 6 other caches en-route), starting at the historic Lyveden New Bield, taking you around Lyveden way towards Wadenhoe,before returning you through Fermyn Woods to Lyveden once more.
If doing series on its own it is just under 7 miles.

We began the walk at #13 Lowick and back and took the very muddy route in reverse order to #5 before joining the Lyveden and Back series at #17.
Lyveden and back was hardly muddy at all and really is a fantastic walk. We all agreed that this is one of the nicest walks we have done over this way. We resumed the walk from #17 going round in normal order and just diverted as necessary.

Lyveden New Bield

Lowick Church

It was great seeing Lyveden New Bield, a National Trust property on the walk and the woods were really nice....I love the woodland bits on a trail.
We carried on around series and after completing #16 we rejoined the much muddier Lowick and back.
As we hit the last straight back to the car we caught up with Brigstock Dolphins and had some nice geochat, we even dnf'ed a cache together.
Upon returning back to the car at around 4pm we decided enough was enough and had a nice drive back home.

I very much enjoyed the weekend and despite 4 dnf's today, we still found a total of over 200 caches this weekend.

Being Posh again

2013-02-26T22:35:00.001+00:00

So another Saturday is here and today myself, Emma, James, Kev & Griff are heading off to Peterborough....for a change!
James had set a challenge as he required 152 smilies to hit his 7,000th find. To do this everyone in attendance had to break there personal best and some of it would have to be in the dark.
Emma and James began the day before us by grabbing a series of 13 drive by's.

Griff picked me up at 5.15am and we met up with the others for a 7am start, we took in 3 series and any other cache on route.
The 3 series were Nassington Nobble by poshrule and Nassington and Back & Yarwell and Back by isaakwilson.

We knew we had to keep the pace at lightening speed so as soon as cache was found the finder signed the log whilst the others carried on to next cache. The ground was quite hard at first due to the cold snap we have been having but as we neared the end of the walk it was very muddy.

Griff after a find

It snowed lightly for most of the walk and was pretty cold. We grabbed most of the caches but due to being in a hurry today due to James's need of 152, we did dnf a few. We don't usually allow only one minute to find a cache.

Hint: base of tree

We had solved a few puzzle caches prior to the day and had mixed results regarding finding them. We found one, dnf'ed one and didn't attempt the other ....this was due to being told by other cachers that it wasn't there.

Camera shy Emma, caught in the act.

We bumped into gazooks,Ursus Bear and Postie Grum on the walk and had some nice geochat. Infact the one puzzle cache we did manage to find was in their hands hehe.

A diversion

The River Nene

All of the series were in very nice countryside, alongside the Nene and a nice Nature Reserve.
Thanks to Isaak and Paul for setting the caches.

We normally have a pub break at the end of main walk but today it was different, we had all amassed over 100 by now and it was cache and dash time all the way to an event in Peterborough itself.
Amazingly we found every single cache on the way there which is pretty unusual when on a tight schedule.
We arrived at Beachie's Birthday Bash & Cutedeadkitty's Carnival at around 4pm, 4 hours after it started but 1 hour before it finished. We promptly ordered food and had a drink before hitting a small series in the park opposite.
The Peterborough cachers were very welcoming and the hosts did a fantastic job. Paul (poshrule) even hung on to say hello to us.

Kev checking out the menu

He's a great bloke....poshrule

Haha I caught Emma before she covered her face up.

After grabbing the nearby caches we returned to pub for pudding and a coffee before saying goodbye to Kev, leaving the 4 of us to grab as many cache and dashes as possible.

I returned home at 2am bagging my pb of 173 smilies. Griff, Emma & James all had more than me which meant that James had hit his milestone of 7,000. Well done mate.

A break in Ireland

2013-02-16T10:20:00.000+00:00

At the start of January Jules and I discussed going over to Ireland to seek out the first cache placed in Europe. Within a couple of days of the initial discussion the flights and Travelodge rooms were booked. It all became real very quickly and enabled a few weeks to do some careful planning and to pick out some nice caches to help us with the Jasmer challenge. We also handpicked other caches with lots of favourite points and decided to get to them all it would be best to hire a car.

Day one
I met up with Jules at the services at M42 J2 at 6am for a 8am Ryanair flight bound for Dublin. Once at Dublin Airport we picked up our hire car for the few days and headed for Bray, where we had a full Irish breakfast to set us up nicely for the day ahead.

Europe's First
http://coord.info/GC43

We parked up at car park at bottom of Bray's Head and off we went in search of what we wanted most of all ... Europe's First! There was one cache we walked past on the way and we found that no problems and soon we were arriving at GZ for Europe's First.

The view of the sea and landscape from here really is stunning and a great place to be brought to find a cache. We had to clamber the last few feet up to the cache and spotted the camo instantly, we took the camo off and YAY we had found the first cache place in Europe.

Jules at Europe's First

Wow what a feeling

We were so chuffed and couldn't stop smiling, all the other caches this weekend will be an added bonus. After a couple of minutes reading the logbook we got back down to the path and carried on along for 2 caches which would pose much more of a challenge.

The Wanderer & Brunel's Folly These 2 caches were both 4.5 Terrain, with The Wanderer being a puzzle. We solved it at home very quickly and today was the day where we just didn't know whether we would be upto the challenge of making our way down a cliff.
We soon arrived at the waypoint to begin our descent and both knew that due to no rain or ice that this would be doable,

On our way down

We both managed to get down no problems at all and once down both caches were found quickly.

On the way to Brunel's Folly

At Brunel's Folly

The ascent back up to the path was just as comfortable as the descent, we were really chuffed with ourselves so decided to go back along path for a walk upto Bray's Head.

Bray Head We walked up the path from the car park to this one, it was quite hard going due to uneven rocks and lots of mud but it was so worth it. We witnessed some fabulous views, the best so far.

Had a quick breather on way up to check out views

Almost there

Once we were at the top it wasn't far to the cache so we took in the scenery first and then made a quick find at GZ.

View from the top

So we made it to the top and found the cache, so now it was back down a different way so that we could pick up a Letterbox Hybrid..... The Old Eagle's Nest

There once used to be a chairlift here, carrying people from the car park to a cafe/ ballroom near the top of the hill. It took us a while to spot the old framework but once spotted you can't miss it.

Old chairlift

We had no problems finding the cache in another lovely spot.
It was time now to get back to car park but we had time for one more ..... Raheenaclig Chapel
which was the remains of an old church.

So we had some great caches and the county of Wicklow bagged, it was time for a short drive to grab a cache placed in July 2002.

Films About Ghosts This was placed near a lovely tower on the edge of Carrickgollogan forest.
It was a lovely walk through the forest to get to by the tower and then 200ft or so of gorse to get through to GZ. The area was fab with nice views and the cache was a nice big ammo can.

The cache

The tower

Next up was another county, the county of Kildare.
The Haunted Lock This was a cache and dash really as we parked by the lock and walked down a couple of hundred feet for a quick find.

Back to the car and time for another old cache for the Jasmer challenge. This time the cache was placed on New years day 2002.
The Summit This cache is set in the lovely Howth around a quarry. We were lucky to be able to park pretty close to this one as we knew we did not have a great deal of daylight left.
There were some great views form here although it was a bit misty at sea.

View from the Summit cache

So back on the road and a couple of drive by's on the way to a nearby virtual. On the cache page for the virtual the c/o won't give away on what you will find there, but I guessed by the title of the cache....
The Black Rose was placed on 1st Sept 2003 so good for the Jasmer Challenge, even though I had already got this month. This for me was a must do as the title straightaway told me it was something to do with Phil Lynott, the late singer of Thin Lizzy.
Well it was infact his resting place and there is a fantastic memorial to him. It was obviously quite sad but also very exciting at the same time.
We parked up right outside the cemetery gates and walked down to the bottom, you could spot it from a distance by the size, compared to the others.

The Black Rose

A shot with my GPSr

By the time we left it was almost dark and we had just one more cache on the agenda before booking in at our hotel. So we left the lovely Howth and headed for Bull Island.

Pandora's box This cache was handpicked due to all the favourite points it had.
We parked up in the dark and grabbed our torches for a short walk to this one. On our way there were a group of kids barbecuing sausages, they smelled so yummy....probably even more so as we were hungry by now.
It didn't take long to get to GZ and within a few seconds we found what we were looking for.

Jules with the unopened cache

This was not a straightforward open the cache and sign the logbook however as a great deal of work had gone into creating this cache. Jules played around with it and after a couple of minutes the solved light had come on and a gentle push on the lid and the cache was open YAY.

With the opened cache.

I love caches like this and it's easy to see why there are so many favourite points. We did one more close by cache and then headed back to the car.

Off to the Travelodge in Ballymun now which was a short drive away. We checked in, I had room 417 and Jules had room 306. We had a swift shower and then met up in reception before getting the bus into Dublin for dinner. The bus cost us 2.30 each way.

We went to Chaplains bar which did a Pizza and a pint for 10 euro's. It was a lovely bar and the Bulmer's on draught was good as was the Mexican pizza I had.
It was a good way to wind down and chat about our epic first day in Ireland.

Jules & Mel supping some Bulmers

Oops Mel has had too much to drink

We were aware of the time and didn't want to miss the last bus back to hotel so we had a walk over the Liffey towards our bus stop but on the way we took in 2 more caches.

Stiffy By The Liffey Another virtual cache giving us both another month on the Jasmer challenge, this being March 2003.

Stiffy by the Liffey

Gardiner's Treat A webcam cache just a short distance away from the Stiffy. Mrs BCC and Soapy Chickens spotted us on the webcam back at home and took a screenshot for us. This was only the 2nd webcam cache I have done.

That's it, day one is over we got the bus back to hotel...Jules went to her room and I had 10 minutes on the internet and a swift pint at the bar. A fantastic first day.

Day 2
I recieved a text to say Jules would be 10 mins late as she had overslept but hey we are on holiday too. We met in reception again and took lift down to the underground car park and then headed off to McD's for a quick breakfast and milkshake.

Then we were off up the motorway for some more handpicked caches. We had grabbed 2 counties yesterday day time and grabbed the 3rd on the night (Dublin). Our first cache today was to bring us our 4th county Cavan....... however Jules spotted a cache on the way that sounded interesting so we stopped off there first.

Athlumley Was the ruins of an old church and castle, it really was a lovely area. Jules did well to pick this one and we were really glad that we came here.

The castle

and church

One more stop off on the way and then back on track with agenda

Mullagh Lake This was the longest drive of the trip but still wasn't too far away. We parked up at side of lake and strolled over the short distance and Jules made a swift find. YAY that's Cavan in the bag.

Next on the list was another one for the Jasmer challenge.

Gernonstown Cache Placed in May 2002, this was yet another must do and boy am I glad that we did.
We parked up on a lane and walked down a slope to the area we needed to be. It was all fenced off but we could get over a stone stile.
The area we found was fantastic, it was another remains of an old church just hidden away from everything....Geocaching certainly takes you to some pretty amazing places.

Still in one piece

Outside view

Chilling on the stile

In all the excitement we almost forgot that there was a cache to be found, but a quick search by Jules revealed the cache.
This cache was our first in County Meath and our 5th county..

Next it was straight off to go and grab our 6th and final county of the trip.

Townley Hall - Passage Grave Just into the county of Louth was this quick drive by, but whilst we were here we carried on a little further to do a challenge cache.
Bring Back The Cache Challenge To qualify for this cache you have to resusitate a cache that hasn't been found for at least a year. Jules and I both qualified for this so why not go and get it?
Well I am glad we did as it was in some lovely woodland.

So County Louth is now coloured in, so we headed back into Meath and Slane.
We drove past Slane Castle and down into the very picturesque village of Slane.

Slane Castle

Battle of the Boyne Another cache here needed for our Jasmers, this one was placed in November 2001. We parked up the hill and walked down into Slane, we admired the weir on one side of the road and took the footpath alongside the river on the other.
It was a nice walk along here and popular with others. Jules soon found the cache and I sucessfully covered her up away from any prying muggles.
We walked back along the path and up the hill again to take in one more cache before returning to our hire car.

Slane from by car

More of Slane

We stopped off for a couple of caches on the way back to our hotel, where we had showers and then hit Dublin city centre for some more caching.

We did a handful of caches in the centre but the ones that stood out the most for me was:

The Guinness Logbook Of Records.
This brought us to outside the Guinness brewery, it was great to see the buildings and the lovely cobbled streets, even the street names were written in Guinness colours.

Dublin's famous export

The cache was close to above picture and found easily.

Castle Rock
Now this really was a hidden gem...In the heart of the city yet away from the hustle and bustle, we couldn't even hear any city noise.
The castle gardens are a definite must visit and if it wasn't for this cache we would never have known about it.

Artwork, castle & gardens

Signing the logbook

Jules again was the one to find the cache, definitely my fave city centre cache.

It was time now to visit The Porterhouse for dinner and a few pints of Bulmers.

inside The Porterhouse

We had a fab time in this bar and both had pie and chips for dinner. So another night coming to a close so it was time to get bus back to hotel where I popped in bar to have a pint of the black stuff.

Molly Malone

Day 3
So the last and final day is here, our flight back is at 2.30pm so we don't have time to do too much.
We decided to cut time down by having another breakfast at McD's and then heading over to St.Annes park to do a few caches over there.

We did 8 caches in total and dnf'ed one in probably the nicest area. It was our first and only dnf of the trip.

A stroll towards the pool.

This fantastic structure was near to our dnf

The last photo of our trip

St.Annes park wasn't part of the original plans, we decided to do it on our last night. I am so glad we did as it was such a beautiful park.
So off we go to refill the hire car and drop it off on way to the airport.
Dublin is a must visit place and Ireland has so much to offer.

43 caches were found on this trip, 6 counties and 6 Jasmer months completed. The first cache placed in Europe was also in the bag.

LCT series

2013-02-09T19:57:00.000+00:00

An early start today for a trek over to Llangollen in Wales to do a series that's recently caught the eye. It was snowing when I awoke at 4.45am but was not sticking but by the time Paul (Blokiebloke) turned up it had turned to rain. We headed on over to Griff's (BaggieDave) house as he kindly said he would do the driving today.
We met up with James (Pfaffabouters) & Emma (Shorty Pfaffabouter) at McDonalds, Shrewsbury for breakfast and then we headed off to park one car at the near end of the series.
James parked his car and then we headed off to start the series after grabbing a few drive by's on the way.

LCT series

http://coord.info/GC3Z4Z0

A lovely walk along the canal being approximately 14 miles in length. There are 84 caches in the series but with there are also others on the route. It took us just over 7 hours car to car but we did take a couple of diversions with one being a walk into Llangollen.
We started off with a multi and then hit the series proper. Right from the very first cache we knew that the c/o had made a lot of effort in camo'ing the caches but after the first couple we knew what to look for, but muggles would have no idea.

The weather was foggy but we were very lucky and didn't feel any rain at all during the walk

There were quite a few muggles on the canal today and a few took a genuine interest in what we were doing, some I personally spoke to myself even asked what the website was and wrote it down with the intention of joining.

The view between caches 1 & 2

We're well on our way.

We were on a roll and by the time we got to Llangollen town we decided to divert for a couple of caches and a quick coffee break. Llangollen was lovely, it was great to see the railway next to the river and we even had a glimpse of Thomas the Tank Engine and all gave him a wave.

Thomas

The River Dee

After the drink we headed back to the canal and after a short while we arrived and walked over the Pontsycyllte Aqueduct, this was definately one of the highlights of this caching trip as it is the longest and highest aquaduct in Britain.

Walking along the aquaduct

View from aquaduct

We did a great little puzzle cache which final GZ was in the vicinity of Aquaduct.... Coin Exchange and then we carried on with the canal caches.

After finding many more caches and then encountering our only 2 dnf's of the series we soon arrived at Chirk tunnel which was 421m long and as it exits goes straight into Chirk aquaduct. There was a cache inside the tunnel ... Tunnel Vision fortunately for us, we made a very quick find indeed.

View of tunnel after we exited.

Chirk Aquaduct

So onwards with the last few caches in which we also found our 100th of the day, we entered back into England shortly before returning to the other car.

Back to England

So back at the car were 5 weary cachers, we decided to grab some more caches on route back to other car and then went for a celebratory drink in a pub in Llangollen. We then did a couple more caches in the town and paid a visit to a lovely Fish and chip shop before returning to our cars and making our separate ways.

Paul, Griff and I had one more swift drink and decided that we should try to beat Griff's pb of 118 in a day, which we successfully achieved.

Thanks to all the great company on the day and to the cache owners for bringing us over this way.

Total caches bagged today is 122.

Back to Devizes

2012-10-20T13:21:00.000+01:00

I mentioned to [monki] a couple of weeks ago that there was an event down Devizes and did he fancy it, well a few days later whilst being out on the Brewood Bonanza trail he announced he was up for it and so did Lime Candy.
Walking wood also showed an interest in coming so that was it....Devizes here we come.

[monki] picked myself and Lime Candy up from her abode at 7am and we picked Walking Wood up near M5 J6. We stopped off for brekkie at McD's and then hit the first series of the day shortly after 9am.

Stan’s Sausage Series by Stanthews

http://coord.info/GC2ZEVC

Stan's Sausage series is approx 7 miles with 35 caches, there is also a little bridge cache that can be picked up enroute. The series is in a figure of 8 so it can be done in two smaller rings if prefered.
The series is mainly flat but there is a bit of an incline between #25 and #28. Most of the tracks and paths across fields were under water and/or very muddy but it is October after all and besides mud is fun.

A good start to the day.

WW signing the logbook.

This was a nice walk with all the caches being easy to find. The mud obviously slowed the pace down, but there's no fun in rushing.

A laugh a minute today :)

Dry rather than wet mud hehe.

So 36 caches out of 36 found and time to move on to the next series of the day.

The Westbrook and Chittoe Ring by Stanthews

http://coord.info/GC1W3WA

The Westbrook and Chittoe Ring is a series of 21 caches with #21 being the bonus cache, there are also 2 little bridges caches on or slightly off route.
The terrain today was very muddy and slippy in places and more inclines than previous series.
Unfortunately I had to quit series after #6 as I was feeling unwell.
I went to rest in car while the others completed this nice series, when I get chance to get back down this way I will be sure to do #7 onwards.

The others finished the series and moved the car to grab the bonus cache and then we all headed off to the nearby event.

The Wiltshire Event #27 by Stanthews

http://coord.info/GC3XB96

Surprisingly by the time we got to the event I was feeling a fair bit better but have a feeling that was mainly due to the hospitality we received, from the moment we entered the room Stan the host looked after us.

I wonder if event is here?.

We had some good geochat with Stan and Celia & Ron aka Ailec Nor and then the south reviewer Southerntrekker came over and we had a good chat with him too.
It was also great to have Stowford Press on draught so I had a couple of those while Walking Wood & Lime Candy sampled the beers.

Chilled out nicely.

As we had completed Stan's Sausage series earlier in the day we decided that we should all have sausage and chips, so it was good to sit at a table to eat and wash it down with another drink.
We laughed and chatted away with new friends Celia, Ron and Stan and Stan even serenaded us before we had to call it a day and head for home.

Some fab new friends.

Smiles all round. Picture by Ron (Ailec Nor)

Back to Poshville

2012-10-06T12:25:00.000+01:00

The time has come for yet another visit to a land we call Poshville. Why do we call it Poshville?....well thats because of all the great trails laid down by the c/o Poshrule aka Paul.

This trip included my partner in crime Jules of the Bedfords, Ash [Monki] and Nikki (BlueNora) who were with me on the 151 trip, Griff aka Dave (BaggieDave), James (Pfaffabouters) and Emma (Shorty Pfaffabouter).....the last 3 just down for the day whilst the rest of us were staying in the Premier Inn at Norman Cross.

We met up at 8am at a McDonalds near Kettering and after a drink and bite to eat we headed off to first planned series of the day.

Old Weston Outback

http://coord.info/GC306TB

The Old Weston Outback is a walk of under 6 miles taking in footpaths, bridleways and quiet lanes. There are 26 caches plus one other enroute and two others with a slight diversion.

There are no hills on the walk and no stiles as far as I can remember, we didn't come across any cattle either which is always a bonus.

The walk started of with a walk through a recently ploughed field, so by the time we got to the other side we had all grown a few inches in height.

Team Adix

It was a long slog through this huge field.

Here's the blue skies we ordered.

I think our group size was just right and it was nice to get to chat to everyone at some point and of course there was plenty of banter , the friendly type of course.

We clocked up just over 6.5 miles with the diversions and were then back at our cars for a food / drinks break...

Buckworth Blitz

http://coord.info/GC31C1N

So a quick few minutes drive and we were parking up ready to begin our second series of the day.

The Buckworth Blitz is a walk of 31 caches plus 1 more enroute, it clocks up just over 6 miles on footpaths and country lanes..... there were no cattle on this route.

We had a few more freshly ploughed fields to cross on this series but they didn't produce as much clod (is clod a word?) on our boots.

Loving the sunshine

Another cache in the bag!

So another enjoyable walk over and surprisngly it's much warmer than forecast, it's so much more fun caching in the sunshine.

Buckworth church

The church micro was a little off the route (even though the church wasn't) so we drove to it on the way to next series.

Broughton Bananarama by poshrule

http://coord.info/GC3WGXT

The Broughton Bananarama is a walk of approx 7.5 miles with 36 caches and 4 more on route. The going is easy with flat footpaths and byways, there are just a few stiles towards the end.

I think this was personally my favourite walk of the day and it was a bonus to finish it in daylight which I think none of us expected.

Sign at start of walk.

An alpaca taking interest in us.

We did meet another caching team during the walk but to be honest they weren't fussed about stopping and chatting.... a shame really as we are all very sociable.

Mr Pfaffabouter and shorty

Almost done yay.

We arrived back at the parking in full daylight even though it wouldn't last long before it disappeared.
We said goodbye to Dave, James and Emma and then made our way to the Premier Inn at Norman's Cross for the night
Another day with over 100 caches in the bag.

So after a nice meal at a pub and an earlyish night it was back on the trail again today.

I had noted 2 series that could be walked together as a kind of figure of eight. The walk was just over 8 miles and reeled in 40 smilies.

Ailsworth Amble by poshrule

http://coord.info/GC39F3C

The Ailsworth Amble is a walk of 20 caches with 1 other on the route.

Castor Canter by poshrule

http://coord.info/GC2WC6P

The Castor Canter is a series of 15 cache's with 4 others available within the route. The walk is just under 5 miles if done on its own.

Both of the series combined made it an ideal length of walk as we all wanted to be back home in the midlands at a sensible time.
For Trig loers there is one on the way round.

Bagging the small trigpoint.

It is warmer than Jules makes it look haha.

Well once back at the car we decided that was it and we would now go separate ways. Nikki wanted a cache in Lincolnshire and Jules and I wanted to get LQ Cambs and LQ Rutland.

Jules and I headed for LQ Cambs first but stopped for a few drive by's on the way.

LQ:CAMBS - The Green Man by The Klever Boys

A lovely area of open green land with a lovely church and some fantastic trees. It is really a cache and dash but in a picturesque place.

Seen from cache site.

Next stop was a quick drive by and then onto another Little Quest cache.

LQ:RUTLAND - Luffa's Ham by Jonovich

The route to the cache takes you through a church yard & past the beautiful parish church, over an old stone stile, across a field and down to the River Chater.
The cache container is a lovely big ammo can.

We did one last cache near by and then headed home.
Yet another fantastic time was had by all.......

Total smilies bagged over weekend = 158

The Lovely Dovedale

2012-09-29T08:30:00.000+01:00

Today was somewhere we have wanted to go to for a while and better still the forecast looks good again.
We arrived at main car park at 8am only to find it doesn't open until 9am doh. So we decided to park on side of road and do an earthcache first and then reposition car onto car park.

SOTL - Thorpe Cloud by PopUpPirate

We walked along the river and then around the back of the hill following the path up to the top. We saw a couple of groups of ramblers way below us as we were almost at the top and then as we reached summit we were almost blown over by the wind hehe.

On our way

A shot from a few feet up the steep side.

Some crazy woman on the stones

Despite the wind it was great to be up here and look down at the lovely green scenery. There were a few questions to answer and a couple of pics to take and then we decided to take a much more direct route to the car.

It's a long way to roll down!

Me with knoll behind me.

Lovely blue skies as we approach car.

Back down on low ground and £2.50 later we were parked up ready to walk down the river to Milldale and back down the other side.
The walk is spectacular and as I said earlier it is one we have wanted to do for a while.
We grabbed the first trad of the day before the stepping stones, unfortunately lid was cracked and log was not very signable.

Our first of a handful of trads today.

Down by the riverside

A bit of a walk to next cache

Jules in awe of what we can see.

It was quite a walk to the next cache but it was great as we had more time to take in the beauty of the area. There were some lovely rock faces down the sides of the river and we even passed a few climbers who were certainly making the most of the weather.

Further along we chatted to a couple of walkers for a couple of minutes and whilst chatting I spotted a lovely rock archway....perfect for a photo with tripod.

Natural beauty at its best.

We did another couple of earthcaches next, the first one being Lionshead rock mimetolith by pete37038 which was a rock which looked like the picture of a lions head, but we thought we saw lions head in a different rock haha.

Me near Lionshead earthcache

A nice pointed rock.

The rocks around here are fantastic though and next on the journey was SOTL - Dove Holes by PopUpPirate .

The dove holes

Me in front of Dove Holes.

The Dove Holes are impressive caves which are created by water wearing out the soft limestone cliffs.
There were a fair few people at the Dove Holes when we arrived so we only took a couple of quick pics and answered questions the best we could.

We then carried on along the river until we arrived at the lovely little village of Milldale.

Milldale

Whilst in Milldale there was a little shop selling food so we both had a nice warm pasty and a soup and then sat on wall at side of river. It was really lovely to sit down and enjoy watching the river flow.
Before we moved on we had to put our waterproofs on as it had started to rain and the sky looked full of it, but within a few minutes it had all blown over and the blue skies were back.

We headed up the road and connected with the footpath which was to take us to our next cache and then we had to somehow find our way to the next one but there was no logical way without back tracking.
We decided to just follow the arrow and what a mistake that was.... but being the adventurous pair that we are, we eventually got down to the path we needed and then DNF'ed the next cache doh.

It levelled out a bit

YAY more blue skies

The walking was a tad more difficult this side of the river but added a great deal of fun to the walk.
We could see the Dove Holes again and picked up a couple more caches as we approached the bridge to cross back over the river.

The Dove holes with someone climbing across the ceiling.

We had fun here getting through

Almost back

There was just one more cache before we arrived back at the car for a cup of coffee and to see where we needed to go next...

Robbers' Safe House by chramm

Whilst we were down Wales a week ago Jules picked up a TB that wanted to go back to this cache, so of course we obliged and had a great day out in Dovedale too.

We did a couple of Baggiewhite caches on journey home to round off another perfect day.

Total smilies bagged today = 11

A trip to Wales.

2012-09-23T08:07:00.000+01:00

Well it seems a while ago that I booked a cheap travelodge room at M4 Swansea, infact I was going on my own up until a week or so before when my caching buddy Jules announced that she had managed to get a reasonably cheap room too.
The reason I chose Swansea area was just for Mumbles Lighthouse Island but as usual we added a few more on so we could collect the oldest cache in Wales and to colour in all the lower counties.

I picked Jules up around 6.30am on an already beautiful, sunny day. We arrived at parking for first walk of the day at 8.20am.

The First in Wales by The Gecko's

Jules had chose this cache for us to do as it was the first cache placed in Wales, it was placed on 17 Feb 2001.
On the way to it there was a YOSM that we picked up, it was a lovely walk high up on top of the hill.

Blorenge YOSM

The views were fantastic when some early morning fog disappeared, this walk in lovely countryside with great views is what Geocaching is all about.
When we arrived at GZ after just over a miles walk, we were greeted by lots of rocks and underneath those rocks was (yes, you guessed it!) the geocache.

YAY Jules with the cache.

It took us ages to find but just as I began lining everything up with the spoiler pic, Jules had found it yay....... a nice big ammo can.

View from cache.

We then moved on to a park which should help us colour in South Glamorgan on our maps.

Caedelyn Park by Teaonesugar

A short walk around the boundary of some playing fields. There are 4 caches available but unfortunately we could not find one of them.
The park was ery busy with kids playing football but it was a huge distraction for us and enabled us to search for them no problem at all.

We moved on after the DNF and this time we did a fair few caches as drive by's on the way to Porthcawl where we wanted to do a cache which was close to the shore.

The Secret Diary of the Cacher's Tales by The Pacman Clan

We parked up close to the start of the path as possible and took in a couple of caches on the way in to this one. What attracted us to this one was the fact that you could make your own story up about the cache experience....We do enjoy doing things that are different from the norm.

Looking towards Porthcawl.

It was nice to be walking on the edge of the beach in lovely sunshine, the walk to the cache and back was less than 2 miles but so glad we chose to do it.

Not far from GZ.

We had a few minutes sit down while Jules ate something and then we moved on back to the car.
A few more drive by's later and we arrived to do a well favourited series but after looking at first 3 caches we gave up.... 2 weren't there and 1 was just lid and pencil only.
I won't name the series as it's obviously normally a great series.

So next stop was a pub called the Copper Penny in Port Talbot where we both had a voucher for a free drink....It was good to stop and chill which I think is a first for us...

Next we decided to head of to the cache which was the original reason for this trip.

Mumbles lighthouse island by golden pig

We parked up at car park on main road above seafront and made our way down to this one. This cache is tidal and low tide today was at 5.20pm..... we arrived at parking just after that time.

It was a nice walk down to the beach and we even walked straight past a cache as we wanted to get this on first.
It was then over the rocks and then up Lighthouse Island. Cache was easy to locate and while we signed the log we also took in some of the fantastic views on offer from here.
A great cache.

Swansea over there!

Wow, simply stunning.

On the way back there was a slight diversion to another cache that was a must do. We had read up beforehand and there was lots of fave points, so whilst back on the rocks it was time for a bit of climbing....

Seal View by sdh1412

It was a bit of a trick climb up at the bottom but once so far up it was no problem at all. The views up here yet again were stunning and offered the best shot of the lighthouse.

Mumbles lighthouse.

The cache was also found quickly, this really is everything great about geocaching!

One last cache by the pier and then it was time to head off to the travelodge and grab our rooms, luckily as it was quiet we had rooms away from motorway noise and right next to each other.

We had decided to get ready and then head off to the nearest Wetherspoons for tea, it was absolutely rammed but we only waited 30 mins or so for food so not bad.

So a fab days caching comes to an end, it was a shame we pulled out on one series but we were so disheartened that caches weren't there.....

Sunday morning and an overcast start, a bit different to the lovely day yesterday. We grabbed a McD's breakfast and then hit the road picking up drive by's on the way home.
I had to be home for 1pm to join family in celebration of my dad's 70th birthday.

Another fantastic time caching and another 30 smilies in the bag.

Upper Arley

2012-09-16T17:09:00.000+01:00

Well Mrs.BCC was away for the weekend on a school reunion and Ben was staying at his cousins, so I had another day out caching this weekend.
It was a later than usual start as Jules had to do some stuff and I struggled to get ready with lots to do.
At around 11.20am Jules picked me up and we headed of towards Arley for the afternoon.

We did stop off on the way to bag a couple of caches Maisie Moo & JessieGoat. Both were found quickly and were right next to each other.

Kara n Keirons Upper Arley loop by blokiebloke

http://coord.info/GC3TQ53

A walk of around 5 miles taking in some lovely countryside along the river, reservoir and woods. There were 16 caches in the series plus a fair few more close by and on route.

We parked up on main carpark at side of river and paid £1 for the whole day, which is fantastic value.
We soon had first cache in hand as it was on the car park and then while Jules bought a pasty to scoff we decided to pop over the bridge to bag 2 on the other side which weren't in the series.

In front of Arley station.

We soon bagged A Ferry Nice Place! & Kara n Kierons SVR sidetracked, Arley and then had our photos taken at Arley station.

Back over the bridge and we were soon on PF at side of river and picking up more of the series. Paul (blokiebloke) does have some nice hides.

Some dodgy people in the woods.

The weather was gorgeous yet again and it was so lovely round by Trimpley reservoir. One of the caches here was on a bench so it was also a good excuse to have a drinks break and admire the lovely reservoir and blue skies.

Trimpley Reservoir

Severn Valley Railway.

As we left the reservoir area we had to cross the railway but had to hang on and admire the steam train going past first, this really is a lovely walk with lots of different settings.

Along the trail we also picked up Root to Lou's Loot & Simply Trimpley.

Some local cachers we bumped into

Jules needed the caches in the woods in which I had already found last year and whilst looking for those we bumped into cachers Cybermoley and Ace of Paynes, we had some quick geochat and then parted ways. Once exiting the woods it was through the last of the footpaths and on to the Arboretum where the series finished.

This walk really is lovely, we made it a lot longer by adding bits on but the kids will have a lot of fun doing this.

Total smilies bagged by myself today = 24

A day in Cranborne

2012-09-15T07:28:00.000+01:00

Out for the day with Griff aka Dave (BaggieDave) and James (Pfaffabouters). Dave picked us up from my house at 6.30am and we arrived by Cranborne church at 9am. We had a quick bite to eat whilst putting boots on and we hit the trail 10 mins later.

Cranborne Chase Circular by KPFB

http://coord.info/GC3EEXH

The Cranborne Chase Circular is a walk of under 15 miles taking in 95 caches plus a few others enroute. The route is mostly on footpaths and bridleways but there are a couple of short sections on country lanes so take care. We didn't come across many stiles at all which was very welcome.

Nice blue skies.

We started off by getting info for multi and then discovered the final GZ was between caches 1 & 2. So onwards with the series and no problems with any of the caches, I think we were probably lucky on how quickly we found a couple of them as it really could've been so different.

On our way to this series we did notice a couple of potential cachers and once reading a couple of the logbooks we realised that we were indeed following someone, but by #20 we had caught them up and said a quick hello.

At #22 there is a tree climb which certainly added a bit of spice to the walk, James and I went up but as James was higher up he soon spotted it...... we enjoyed that one.

James up the tree.

Hang on, i'm coming up too!

We were moving quickly and clocking up 2.4 mph, which by our standards is very good.

Half way round the walk in Sixpenny Handley we hit another multi but before we completed it we decided to make a slight diversion from series and visit the pub for a swift one.

What we saw ahead of us.

Loved this walk.

The second half of the walk began with the final GZ of the multi and then we had a bit of uphill walking which took us a bit by surprise, infact we struggled a little but think that was mainly due to it being the hottest time of the day.

I only wanted to do a few caches!

By the time we got to the car, which was 6.5 hours later......we had 98 smilies in the bag.

We decided we should reward ourselves in the pub next to where we were parked with a drink or 2.
While we were here we decided we were going to do another series close by which should pull in another 9 smilies.

Walk in the Countryside by DizzyPair

http://coord.info/GC3B2XV

A linear walk of under 3 miles (there and back) down a bridlepath through some lovely woods.

We really enjoyed this walk in the shade as we were all pretty hot and a little tired from the pace we had walked at.

A rarity happened on this walk in the fact that Griff found most of the caches...this never normally happens....don't let on that we let him though hehehe.

Is that Griff really finding a cache?

Once we were back at the car we stood on 107 smilies and decided that we would just grab a few drive bys on the way home. We also diverted slightly to grab a thickshake from McD's each.

I had a wonderful day in good company and loved the walking....we got back home with 116 smilies each

A marathon series in Cheltenham.

2012-09-01T20:28:00.000+01:00

Well what a hectic week its been, I won't go into too much details but I have been in and out of Eye Clinic this week. I was due to either attend a camping event in Notts or take Ben to Butlins, however due to a bit of laser on Friday I was unable to drive.
Dave and Shan had been planning this day for a month or so and I said that I may go but it was doubtful, however with the kind offer of being picked up and brought back home, it was just the tonic I needed.

I set the alarm for 4.30am and was picked up at 5.30am and then it was off to Frankley services so the others could bag a cache.
Today there was Shan (the Griswalds n dogs) Dave (BaggieDave), Paul (Blokiebloke) and myself.

The Cheltenham Circular Caching Challenge

http://coord.info/GC3MVDB

The Cheltenham Circular Caching Challenge (CCCC) is a walk of over 26 miles with more than 100 caches to grab on the way. The first half is quite hard going in places due to ascent and mud and the second half is completely flat.
The trail starts and ends close to Cheltenham racecourse taking in some great views along the way.

We dropped Shans car off in Churchdown as a get out clause 3/4 of the way round the circuit and then drove on to some parking opposite the racecourse where the adventure began.

The Racecourse.

The first 5 miles were nice and easy but the next 7 miles were a bit up and down with a steep bit between miles 7 and 8. After mile 12 is was almost totally flat.

We had a big task today considering how many miles we had to walk and how many times we would have to stop to look for caches but as always there was lots of pranking each other and it was right from the off.

Dave was in contact with a couple of the c/o's beforehand and during the day. He had agreed to do maintenance and replace caches that were definately not there.....We teased Dave a bit and made believe he was on the phone to an imaginary friend, I think in the end he pretty much believed it. Poor bloke!

On the up!

This bit ended the climb, we were shattered.

Most of the caches were easy to find but towards the end of the walk we did DNF a few but think it was possibly more down to our tiredness and lack of light.

Lovely blue sky

Further on in the series we bumped into the c/o DanDruff, it was very nice to meet her and we had a nice chat before finishing off this epic marathon.

Another excellent day in great company, smilies bagged was 112 by myself, but the others found more as I had already found some.

A walk from Macc

2012-08-26T20:22:00.000+01:00

5.50am Sunday morning and off I go to pick up Jules and head off to meet up with James (Pfaffabouters). We pop into McD's on route so I can grab a coffee and then 5 mins up road we park up on side off road in Kidsgrove.
This is where James leaves his car and we all jump in mine for a 25 minute drive north to Macclesfield where we park up on side of the canal.
The task is simple....we walk from my car to James's car.

KT Power by KhoomThropp

http://coord.info/GC3RFZP

A walk of around 15 miles entirely along the Macclesfield canal. There are 110 caches in the series and another 7 that you walk past.
The first couple of hours of the walk had us all putting on and taking off waterproofs, the showers were only light but we didnt fancy getting soaked if it turned heavy.
After that all waterproofs were taken off and stayed off for the rest of the walk.

James at start of walk.

Sunny and no rain yay!

The walk was easy as there were no stiles to negotiate and it was dead flat, the company was fun as always.
If you are in the area or fancy an easy 100 smilies in a day, then this is the series. It took us just over 8.5 hours to reach second car and that was with a diversion to a shop near Congleton station.

Mow Cop castle in background.

While we walked along the canal Jules and I both reached milestones of 2,500 and 8,000, it was nice to share milestones together.

So with the series over we did a few drive by's on the way to the cache of the day which Jules and I needed for our d/t grids...

Amateur Rock Climbing Cache by Khoomfay

This is a D3.5/T5 cache which was fun as it was a bit different to anything else we had done today.
We had to climb up a sheer rockface but fortunately there is already a rope in place which made getting up and down much easier haha.
Once on top the cache was hidden in a small area and after a little help we soon had it found.

Looking down from the top.

On my way back down.

Our day had now come to a close unfortunately, we had hoped to go to Luds church but ran out of time again. Today James and Jules both got a personal best and Jules and I got milestones.

In total 122 smilies were bagged

Concrete Jungle

2012-08-19T14:49:00.000+01:00

A couple of days ago I had noticed my caching buddy Shan had posted a message on the west mids facebook Geocaching group regarding a meet up to do this new series.
So this Sunday morning at 5am (3.30am get up) we met up at the wrekin.

Concrete Jungle by nozi parker

http://coord.info/GC3QJK0

The Concrete Jungle is a series of 60 caches through Steeraway , Little Wenlock and Huntington, covering just over 10 miles.
I met up with B.B.B., BaggieDave, the Griswalds 'n' dogs, shropshire seekers and StevethemobileDJ. We parked up between caches 45 and 46 and made 45 our first cache of the day as we worked around in reverse order.

The first cache container was so heavy it made us wonder how Nozi had got them all in situ....it must've taken ages, from cache #44 - #36 on it was a long straight path through 2 woods to the road.

This one took us a few minutes to locate.

It was kind of straightforward down to about cache #11, going through fields and footpaths but after that boy did it change, in places it was make your own path there as the paths just couldn't be seen as I guess they hadn't been used for so long.

Amazing area.

Allun of the Shropshire Seekers had to leave just before the "jungle" experience, so he has all that to come .

No PAF required!

Overall it was a great walk with some really nice containers and the company as ever was really good.
I do have some great caching buddies.

After saying goodbye just as the heavens open I decided to grab a couple of driveby's on way home. Smilies bagged today = 62

A Mega Weekend in Cartmel

2012-08-09T10:24:00.000+01:00

Ben and I had a nice week down Cornwall and spent 1 night at home before being picked up by caching partner Jules for 3 nights camping at the NW UK Mega.
We managed to get all our stuff into Jules's cache mobile and set off around 10.20am, it was a sunny day and the forecast looked very promising for the whole of the weekend.

Jules had handpicked a few caches to do en route to the mega, which would also give herself a break from driving....good thinking eh?

First stop off of the day was for Jules's d/t grid.

Puzzlecache by Jamisaro
As the cache title says this was a puzzle cache with a d/t of 4.5/3. We needed teamwork in solving this at home and then there were a few more stages to do in the field. All in all the walk from car and back was just over a mile and it was nice to find the final and be able to get inside to grab cache.

Next up was my fave mainly due to it being a 5/5.

Two Tunnel Adventure by The Magna Defender
We managed to park up with 0.3 of a mile for this one and all donned our wellies and torches. Once at the tunnel entrances we could see what was required and Jules and Ben did a bit of crawling along the wooden planks, while I decided to wade through the water. Both ways were effective but I was at GZ first., the cache was easily spotted once there and our names were addes to logbook.

Making my way back to Ben & Jules.

The water came up to the middle of my thighs and on the way back to car we all had a giggle as my wellies were making funny squelching noises, great fun this one and a fave point awarded by me.

My little man on way back.

Next up was another cache needed for the d/t grid of Jules.

Motorway Madness (Literally!) by The Magna Defender
This was a 1/4.5 and needed by Jules.
We parked up not too far from GZ and crossed a field of cattle on the way to GZ.
Once we got there we were extremely surprised to bump into the Webbies who had just started searching.
The cache is hidden under a bridge on a ledge but it is not reachable without specialist equipment, this is where Ben came in. I hoisted him up and cache was in hand straightaway woohoo.

Next it was off to a little side event.....

Mega2012: Welcome Cuppa in Cumbria
We parked outside coffee shop and quickly attended event and then did a little walk alongside the canal bagging another 5 caches.

Another cache bagged.

Next stop was Cartmel Racecourse, which was where we were going to be camping for the next 3 nights.

We arrived at our destination late afternoon and once our pitch was found, we erected tent while Ben had a look around the site. We then hit Grange over Sands and grabbed something from the chippy for tea.

During the evening we met up with the Red Trolls and attended the nightcache event....
Mega2012: On the Trail of the Pendle Witch
It was due to start at 9pm but there was that many that turned up to do it that it was around 10pm when we set out.

Loads of cachers awaiting the nightcache, including CEO Jeremy Irish

We were told a story by Muttoneer (C/O of Werewolf) and then we had to head into the woods and follow various steps. We struggled on a few steps but so did everyone else, but it was good fun.
Ben got stuck in boggy land and his croc got stuck....he was covered in mud.

By the time we got back it was late so Jules and I had a drink outside tent while Ben went to bed.

Friday 10th August

A lovely sunny start to our first full day in Cartmel, apparently some had already been here a week and said it was a mud bath at start of the week. The important thing is that the groundis dry and weather scorching.

Some neighbours from Leipzig, Cornwall, Devon & Scotland.

We had breakfast and chatted to German lady who camped in front of us, we were going where she had already been but we weren't able to do as much due to Ben's little legs.

So first on the agenda today was the village of Coniston....

Views through windscreen.

South Lakes Webcam Coniston (Cumbria).
I tried to take a screenshot of us on webcam with my laptop but I couldn't get a signal, so I had to phone up Kate who done it for us from home.
This was both mine and Julia's first webcam cache so it was nice to grab a new icon.

We then repositioned car not too far away on the car park for Coniston Old Man.... We wouldve liked to have got to the top but it was pretty hot and Ben would've struggled and whinged a tad.

PF Sign on car park.

The views from the car park were stunning. I jumped out car to open and close gate to let car through and then took a couple of pics while Jules parked car.

WOW I love it here.

Lovely view on a hot day.

We all got booted up and put on plenty of sun cream and took up lots of fluids as we made our way to the first cache.

Took the path up behind Ben.

LQ:Cumbria - Old Man's Bell
We just couldn't come all the way to the Lakes without picking up the Little Quest cache, could we?
We followed the path up to the Bell passing a young female adder on way, I would put pic up but its not brill. We got to the Col and then took a steepish path up the grass bank towards GZ. From here you could see mine shafts in the background.
At the top of the grass bank we stop for a quick drink and a bite to eat before carrying on the short distance to the cache.

Just chillin'

At GZ there was other cachers, we could hear the geokid of the group from a fair distance as he had knocked his head on the rocks. I tried to help diffuse the situation by going in for the cache.
We took the required info and headed back towards main path.

As Ben was beginning to feel it a little we decided to just do 3 more caches which were all at the same altitude we were at and less than a mile in total. All 3 were standard trads but tucked away nicely.

Ben searching wrong area.

Once we were back at the car we took a look at the map and decided that it would be nice to take Ben to a park for being good and better still it was on the shores of Lake Windermere.

Fell Foot Park by Bog Bears
This is a series of 6 caches set in Fell Foot Park. The caches take you around Fell Foot Park, along the shore of Lake Windermere and through the meadow.

We parked up and straightaway spotted cachers next to us, with one being Liane's (CacheHopper) sister..It was nice to meet her and hubby.

The reason they were there is that amazingly there were some caches for us to find. But first thing to do was go and find the cafe so that I could treat us to an ice cream each. The English Lakes ice cream is so so nice yum yum.

Ben with his twister lolly.

We then took a slow walk along the shore of the lake and picked up the caches en route. We have certainly been blessed with the weather this weekend.

A really nice flat park for Ben.

All 6 of the caches were easy finds and once complete Ben had a good 20 mins or so on adventure playground.....He certainly deserved it.

My boy in the playground.

After playtime it was back to campsite for a wind down and tea, followed by an event on site.

Mega Camping 2012: The Mega Rodeo
Ben was excited as his friends had arrived meaning he had a bit more freedom around the campsite.
It had took the Dibboids and Soapy Chickens 6 hours to make the journey up the M6 but now they were here woohoo.

The Rodeo was fun with lots of games going on but I spent alot of the time chatting to friends and making new ones.

The Mega Rodeo.

By 10pm Ben was tired from the days adventures so it was time to close day two....

Saturday 11th August
Well todays the day and it's finally here. A nice breakfast and then a quick tidy up and it was time for the 500ft walk to the centrepiece of the weekend.

North West England 2012 - The 5th Annual UK Mega
As we walked in it was a smooth collecting of our registration packs.... In our packs were a name badge each with name and caching team on and a cache container complete with pencil, rubber, logbooks and camo bag, what a nice touch that was. I think when I hide mine I will name it after this mega.

We carried on in to the grounds which consisted of lots of outside stalls and then a huge tent with lots of other stalls in.

Early arrivals inside the huge tent.

We had a look around the big tent first and whilst in there dropped off some trackables. The stalls in here were the usual type, with friends Saza36 on the UK Mega 2013 stall......did we mention that the 6th annual Mega will be coming to the midlands!!!

It was time to go outside for a bit to enjoy the sunshine and watch the opening ceremony. Muttoneer did a great job of Opening the event and Jeremy Irish (CEO of groundspeak) said hi himself.
We had a good luck round and chatted to lots of friends who had come up for the day, Ben really enjoyed the attention too.

This is without any shadow of doubt the best annual Mega I have attended. (ok this was only my second annual one, the other 2 were Piratemania IV and V) The effort that has been put in by the committee, the ouside feel to it, the location and the weather.....WOW!!

It was also great bumping into another lackey... Foxfire and also meeting Jeremy Irish again and also grabbing a couple of free trackables off them.

Ben with the lovely Foxfire.

Jules with Jeremy Irish.

After all the fun we popped back to the tent for a quick drink and then walked a small series from there.

A Mega Ramble
Eleven caches placed along an easy 5km circuit from Cartmel Race Course along some nice footpaths through the fantastic Furness countryside.
We really enjoyed the series which was put together with the Mega Event in mind. It was also funny to see the various polite notices from Landowners telling Geocachers which way to go...

I rock at colour coordination....Ben you look fab x

After the walk we had showers and then went for a walk into the lovely Cartmel village. We fancied a pub meal so went into first pub we got to and I got us drinks in while we looked at the menu.
The menu didn't give much choice and was a bit dear for what we had in mind, so we decided to go the shop and buy some tea to make back at tent.

Cartmel here we come!

A cool Ben pose.

We had a chilled night back at the tent as the Dibboids and Soapy Chickens had gone out, but it was a nice way to see the last night in Cartmel out.

Sunday 12th August
So the final day and some more dry weather to take the tent down. We all said our goodbyes to a fabulous weekend here in Cartmel and headed back home.

Jules was not finished though and had a couple more caches for us to do, which broke up the journey nicely.

Terraform by The Magna Defender
This is a D2/T4.5 cache which Jules needs for her D/T grid. We parked up and walked around 1.5 miles there and back over moorland for this one, I really expected Ben not to enjoy it, but he did....He even found the cache haha.
We were glad to get back to the car just as a heavy shower kicked in.

Where's the gate gone?

Next and not far away was a totally different cache, mainly as it was up in a tree.

Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants by Metal Eddie (adopted by TMD)
Another for Jules's grid, this time its a D2/T5.
We parked up nearby and then just followed the needle, it took us down a slippy muddy bank so we hugged trees to help us get down. Once we made it down to the bottom (a path!) we spotted the tree straightaway.
So without further ado, I took Jules foot and lifted her up so she could grab the cache.

I gotcha!

What an end to a brilliant weekend.

In total this weekend yielded 36 smilies.