Walking in Warwickshire

Hi,

As some of you may know I really enjoy caches set by Wrighty. So, as you can imagine, it was a nice surprise to spot that he had a series called 'Wrighty's Warwickshire Walk' I had never really noticed! We decided to complete the walk today, in the sunshine.

WWW and part of the WeeW series, 14 caches, 5/6 miles, near Weethley, Warwickshire.

The walk took us through some very pleasant countryside, although the paths were certainly muddy to begin with. Of course, this is expected at this time of year, and it was no where near as muddy as our walk last week! It was an added bonus to be able to pick up some of the WeeW caches along the way, and these had been recently maintained which made them all the better!

Unfortunately, we got a DNF on WWW #1. The hint stated that the cache was near to a bridge, yet there wasn't one at GZ which threw us a little. I decided to read the recent logs, and noticed that the previous two finders had found it on the floor within the mud. We looked around for a little, both in the obvious places and on the ground around us, but we came away empty handed. One of the recent finders said they had replaced it within a tree, yet the next said they found it on the ground, so we decided to move on to avoid looking for a needle in a haystack. However, I later realised that these cachers had been caching together, thus the cache must have been in a tree - I shouldn't have dismissed the idea! A very annoying DNF; we'll be back!

Very pleasant Warwickshire countryside

Luckily the next few caches didn't cause us any trouble, although we also DNFed GC5WCTX, which was part of the WeeW series. The countryside was very pleasant and we were soon walking uphill through a ploughed field - you can imagine what our boots were like by the time we got to the other side. I tried to clean them in a puddle, but it was a little deeper than anticipated - which made us laugh!

Some fantastic views began to emerge, as expected from any good Wrighty walk. We found the final WeeW cache of the day as we continued towards the picturesque church ahead of us; unfortunately we decided to skip the Church Micro as there were people in the church when we passed by. We thought we had seen the best of the views, but once we crossed the road and joined another footpath the camera came out again as they were truly stunning, especially under the sunshine. Nice to have a change in terrain too, as it was no longer as muddy and we were soon walking on a lovely path through the Ragley estate, finding more Wrighty caches.

Some of the great views

All too soon, the walk was over and we were back at the car. It was a great route, taking us through some very pleasant countryside, with some nice views and great caches. It's a shame about the DNFs, but the good thing, as with all DNFs, is that it's another reason to come back.

Griff Grof

Caching in South Gloucestershire

Hello!

This is my first post of 2016, so I'd like to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

I hadn't been caching since the CacheWalker Twinew event a couple of weeks ago. That was an enjoyable but wet experience, it's a shame that it's the second CacheWalker Twixmas/Twinew event to see the rain - the sun has shone for the others. Let's hope the weather's better for this year's event.

We fancied visiting a new area today; I noticed the 'Toy Story' series, which is in a part of South Gloucestershire we had not been to before.

Toy Story series, 10 miles, 39 caches, Tytherington, South Glos

It was unusually warm today due to the tropical air mass which was blown up to the UK. Unfortunately it wasn't sunny, but at least it was dry, unlike the day of the CacheWalker event! Our first find was a Church Micro; in fact, today was the day for finding caches from several nationwide series'. Overall, I found 5 Little Bridges, 2 Fine Pair's and 2 Church Micro's. Several of these were incorporated into the Toy Story series whilst a couple were extras.

St. James, Tytherington - opposite the first Church Micro of the day.

We were soon out on the trail; the footpaths were incredibly muddy and the ground was generally waterlogged, which meant that walking was difficult to begin with. However, we soon got used to it and some stretches were better than others. Luckily, we had good boots and gaters on - essential if you too decide to complete this series during the winter!

What I loved about it was the thought that went into the caches. There were hardly any Micros, and the Small/Regular caches were very well stocked. In fact, some were extremely generous in size whilst others were ingenious, with GC5ERP1 particularly coming to mind - it was one of those caches where you instantly decide they're deserving of a favourite point!

Everything was going well until #17, where the cache was quickly spotted at the base of an oak prior to a swarm of bees, or even wasps, emerging from the tree hollow. I was surprised that no one had mentioned the fact that there is a nest in any of the previous logs, so we reckon the cacher ahead of us must have unintentionally disturbed them earlier. I'm sure that you'll agree that it is odd to see bees/wasps at this time of year!

There were various Multi's to complete throughout the walk and none of these were too difficult, which was a relief. We were soon walking along some pleasant tracks and country lanes finding more caches before it was time to calculate the coordinates for the Bonus. We had missed a value in one of the caches and we tried our best but the coords we came up with weren't logical. After tweaking them we thought we had a more likely location, and the cache was found - it was huge, and the twist within was a great surprise!

Nice views on the way back to Tytherington

It was then back to Tytherington, concluding a pleasant walk through some quiet countryside, finding some good caches along the way. Overall, a nice series which was made even more fun by its theme. We reckon that a lot of the fields will be filled with livestock in the summer, but we only encountered one field, with sheep, today. Looking forward to doing more long walks this year; in fact, I've already got the next one planned.

Unfortunately, life continues to get in the way of Geocaching, so it might be a case of finding a couple of special caches closer to home over the next couple of weeks - which is just as good!

Griff Grof