Monday 16 April 2012

Hobditch Hunt

Hobditch Hunt, 40 caches, 9 miles, Ullenhall, Warwickshire 

Hello again,

Posting this a little late, but this is a report on my last caching trip of the Easter break. I had been saving this series for a while now, and with the sun out, it seemed the perfect day to complete it - and bag 40 caches! This highly recommended series took us to the pretty Warwickshire village of Ullenhal, and parked by the church. Unfortunately, little did we know that this super series would sadly be cut short due to a severe head-ache I got at #16. We'd been doing it in numeric order, but decided to push on until the series next looped through Ullenhall again, and at #28 going to #40, and along the road back to the village to #33. Skipped out around 5 caches due to this, and with a head-ache like that it was no surprise that I got a DNF on 4 caches on the series. Oh well, it was still a good day out, and now you know what happened, let me entertain you with my review and account of the series.


A very pretty start to the series, lovely trees in blossom, and plenty of friendly horses about. Even met Dadu13 at one of the caches, and had a good chat until he got back to the car. He warned us that we still had a long walk ahead of us, and some great caches. He also advised us of some cows at #26 (which we ended up DNFing as they were right next to it) Other than the cows, his comments made us even more excited for the rest of this great loop. Short after, we were finding some novel caches, some just placed to make you smile. Others were simply in super spots (like the image above - that's on top of a hill, seems flat though!) and a couple were well sized  - shame they've started to build up tat though! 

Spring was at its best yesterday, with some very cute lambs about. The rest of the series was thoroughly enjoyed, before spirits were brought down after the first of many DNFs of the day. It was here when I started to feel a little ill, but pushed on, before deciding that we weren't going to do all the series at #16. Some stunning views on the way to #20, and before too long we were in the first field of cattle on the series. Very scary, they suddenly started running up to us, and we were trying to stay calm while uncovering the cache - once safe over the fence, I had a fun (you could say) read of other cachers experiences with those very cows - glad our case wasn't quite as scary! 

Some lovely houses on this walk - you can see many people from Birmingham have decided to relocate down here to the countryside, for a weekend retreat, or even a full time home! They were stunning, and shared the same lovely open countryside views that this series did. More cows after a couple more fields, but we survived, and then it was along the road back to Ullenhall, as I continued to suffer with my head-ache. The penultimate cache of the day, "Chicken Run" (can't remember which number - sorry) was the best cache on the series, really made me laugh - superb. 



All to soon it was the end of this fantastic series. A super variation in terrain, in very pleasant countryside, and some great hides - just a shame it all had to be cut short due to illness! Oh well, another reason to come back to this great area. 

Griff Grof

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