Mumma Bu - Aladdins Cave

GC1QDC4

Found, like everyone else, as part of the Bu Double!

Wondered why this one isn't hidden in the Very Appealing Obvious Titular Location, but knuckled down to the needle/haystack exercise with a light heart because the weather was tremendous and the poisoned eyes that I woke up with and took me to A&E this morning were beginning to clear up, making me look more Bear Grylls and less Bereaved Girl.

I won't moan about the rating. I'll just mention the rating in a stupidly passive aggressive way instead! The rating didn't help me find it - but the coordinates did! I thought not, initially, but eventually put my trust in them and fingertip-searched from there-out, and found it in minutes. None of the logs helped, and the spoiler of the guy looking for it after dropping it helped Not A Jot! Be warned.

Thanks for the cache.

The Bu's Tunnel of Love

GC1T0F4

Cache number three of Tank's Epic Extreme Weekend 2014 'A', and number 1 today after an hour in Accident and Emergency thanks to either a) an allergic reaction to the eye ointment for conjunctivitis I bought yesterday in Whitchurch, or b) a galloping eye disease contracted from the canal I washed my hands in after completing the 'GeoBEATS' 5/5 there....! Hmm...

This one I wept and blinked my way to along the top of the ridge, then sensibly climbed down to look for the tunnel. Then irritatedly climbed up again to find it! I liked the torch. I don't know if the overall setup used to have more importance than it now does, but the torch makes it look like a toilet chain. I yanked it, rather hoping there'd be a pronounced toilet flushing noise, but no joy there.

Otherwise. A quick open and sign. I'm no fool. ;O)

Thanks for the cache.

15. The GeoBEATS (passing tools).

GC4710B

Disappointed that it really is trivial to cheat on this cache, as by that reckoning you could make any cache a 5/5 just by suggesting people walk on their hands within twenty feet of the cache... That said, if we discount the DNF on this morning's third visit to a 5/5 near Kidderminster, this was cache one on Tank's Tremendous Weekend of Extreme Caches, and I wasn't going to inaugurate THAT with a cache and dash!

So I swung across, making my hands dirtier than I think they've ever been. Which would not be interesting but for the fact that I was scheduled to put eye drops in my evil-looking conjunctival eyes when I got back to the car. So I rinsed them in the canal. That's ok isn't it?! There's no diseases in canals. Like... Weil's Disease. Meh.

Anyway. Lush. Thank you. Why not shove a magnet in it and put it in the middle of the bridge?


Big Dipper - Up an Oak

GC4A1MZ

More of a free-climb than I was expecting. Which made my arborist harness, 60 metre rope, and helmet, look a tad overkill. Still, I'm a MAHOOSIVE wuss about climbing down trees. I'll squirrel up 'em to outer space if necessary, but I'm a huge Jess coming down again, so I towed a rope up and leapt down on a zig-zag. It was there...

Easy find once up. Spotted it from the ground in fact, though I wasn't certain until getting up there. Then a quick sign.

Thanks for the cache.

The Caching Olympics Challenge - GOLD

GC2WN7C


09/02/2014 

I didn't know about this challenge, as I'd been overlooking it on the map, thinking it related to all those olympic rings in the sea....! However, I qualify! Yay! So here's the list, and next time I can justify the petrol from Devon I'll be there!
22/02/2014

Please see the previous log for my proof.

A drive up from Exeter this morning to grab this one and Monkey's Colden 15. Never been here before and it's lovely isn't it?! Not that I was surprised or anything, just that, well, I was... It was unexpected...

A quick and easy find, inevitably. Dropped a TB in the box that wants to get back to Germany. Hopefully it won't sit here too long. No reason to think you need to qualify for this cache to just come and rescue a trackable...!

Thanks for the cache.


Monkeys Colden Challenge 15

GC4FN7T

A long drive from Exeter this morning to basically grab this one that has been haunting my 5/5 map for a while. Arrived at GZ just as the sun was coming up, and spent a bit of time checking I had the correct tree. Not only had the fallen limbs all been cleared away and some of the lower limbs removed/tidied up so that it did not look exactly like the gallery images, but the hint suggested considerable height and, call me an old tree-hugger, but this one just didn't have the height I was expecting.

More on that later.

Anyway, having decided this was definitely the one, I slung a line up high with my patented two-weight throwline strategy for isolating a limb, and quickly climbed as high as was sensible - figuring it would likely be easier to spot from above. "Sensible" on this occasion, meaning 2.5" diameter limbs.

Not to be though. I was all over the place, clawing my way up all of the likely limbs from my high pivot, until eventually I gave up and sent a message to CO. It was dawn, so I wasn't realistically expecting a prompt response, if any, but the inevitable happened that as soon as I'd sent the message I found the cache... up higher. Much higher. A-ha! Today I learned that "high" has two distinct meanings - a) far above the ground, and b) at the very fingertippy far-reaches of the slenderest, weakest, and most terrifying of limbs! And while I undid it with one hand, I needed to prop myself against some ridiculously flimsy bits of tree to enable a bimanual replacement...

Nuts.

As well as being a nice climb, this find was memorable for the lesser spotted woodpecker drilling on one of the floodlights next door. Great! (And stupid)...

CO, incidentally very kindly phoned and texted shortly afterwards, though by that time I was in Gosport hunting another 5/5.

Thanks for a great cache. Deserves the rating in my opinion. Wouldn't fancy it with leaves on.


CHURCH MICRO 5001 : TRURO CATHEDRAL

GC4XP0W

Umbrage! Issue! I'm taking both! So I found it. And it was great. Both locations were great. Never been to the cathedral before, and the final was just lovely - my kind of activity.

However...!

A - Definitely X more than you think it is! Look harder!
B - Agreed. Though a little nerve-wracking...!
C - Are you sure? I think it's Y less...
D - Definitely Z more than you think it is! Even if you round, as you can only round up in my opinion!
E - W more than you think it is, even if you discount the other digit...!
F - Ok.
G - Ok.
H - Ok!

Despite this, and to be honest with an amount of PAFfage, I think it's likely that over a cup of tea and with some common sense, the acquired values could be made to reflect the expected ones. My first coords were in the sea off of Padstow!

Thanks for the great cache. 5/5 #75. Took TB.

(Edited for W, X, Y, Z. Too cluey otherwise.)


Cut Down Cache

GCHBD1

Excellent! Pleased to have found this one so efficiently, having been glancing at it on and off for some months. Today was my first opportunity to be in this neck of the woods, and very satisfyingly I had at last managed to figure out where it is before setting out. The updated coordinates were very helpful...

As it turned out I managed to park exactly in the right place entirely by chance, picked the correct of two routes first time, and spotted the cache straight away despite miscounting the 'landmarks' as I approached. Though... To be honest... I had the log book in my hand for a good five minutes before realising what I was holding...! I VERY nearly made the long journey to check the complementary location over ... There...

Thanks for the great cache. A special one, and a definite favourite.

Hifnal Bridge

GC4DD27

Excellent!

Thanks to CO for the advice regarding how to actually get to GZ, as I b'aint from round yer. Parked at Keiron & Kara's eponymous cache, then failed to find the footpaths marked on my OS map from there to the river, so ended up biking it up the road and past the farm cottages instead. Muddy but pretty. Goldfinches and snowdrops.

Once at GZ the only trouble was the rain and the inevitable lack of pen, so it involved two journeys, but satisfyingly I was bang on the right place straight away and found it exactly where I would have hidden it!

Great cache. Great location. Loved the ex-station. Thanks for the cache. A fave.

(Not my image)

The Somerset Well Rounded Cacher

GC22QHC

Find #2,500.

Summary logs in order! 1/1, 1.5/1...4.5/5, 5/5:

Webcam! Freezing morning. One broken... Mega! Got the difficult corners here... Cache and Dash... Nice series Silly but fun urban multi Just a spoiler. Beautiful... Rock keysafe. 3rd time lucky!... Excellent hide, classic CO... Trickier than expected... Cuckoo's nest at the Mega... Letterbox series on the levels... Event on a steamtrain!... My only wherigo. Hate em.... Midlands Rabbit-based ramble... Hi-viz disguise, 3rd visit... Shorts and nettles... Nice canalside crocodile... Cary Capers. Tough!... More Cary Capers. Tougher!... CITO. More poo than prizes... Say Hi to the donkey... Flash Gordon tree hole... Jessica Rabbit. Nice series.... Great container... Alphabet Puzzle completed... Classic SlowWorms... Radstock. Just for the grid. Why else?!... Silly Pun. Met other cachers... Ropeswing! Great location... More rabbits. Good for grid. Unplanned!... Old Hill Fort... So many rabbits!... Puzzling at Ukulele Festival... Local forest multi... Underground in my pants... 100+ DNF log challenge... 365 day challenge. Got 366 as leap year... Exe view virtual... Rural walkabout... The Aylesbeare 365 reserve stockpile... Introducing Sally to geocaching... Brilliant papercraft puzzle... Clever OS-based puzzle... 3xDNF on same cache challenge... Radstock. Hmm!... Classic local puzzle. Dragons!... Beautiful coastal walk. Ninja cows... Dartmoor woodland with happy kids... Part of the Halo. Whew. Killed bike... Westward Ho! Pirate puddle... Underground picnic... Fungimanforager got me up a tree... Mystical local knowledge Unknown... Difficult decode... Amazing clifftop descent... Lovely Earthcache... Probably the best GZ for beauty... Just for the grid... Hilariously huge 130L barrel... Stood on my roof bars!... Knee-high mud, but not THAT one... First chest-high water leet... Erm... Radstock.... Alphabet challenge. Challenging final... Moor-top night-time lightning storm. Ill-advised!... Joy of Caching. "Is he a baddie, dad?"... Boggy god-hovel... Lots of granite... Tide-dependent, lonely, coastal multi... Monkey Island! Should be 5/5. Excellent. Some nudity involved.... Drag kayak down cliffpath... Another fungimanforager tree-swing... Cornish cipher with clifftop GZ... Spidering along canal bridge girders with an audience... Lynher estuary kayak trip... Drove here just for this... Coastal kayak. Lovely... Terrifying urban lamp-post prusik... THE grid nightmare. Oak Tree. At last... Crumbling cliffs. Endangering Sam again... Little Everest. Big Favourite. Stunning... Low spring tide Severn Estuary mud-stomp.

Wasn't sure which entrance to use so opted for the middle during this morning's break in the storms. A beautiful day to be out and about. Thank you for a great challenge. I'm so glad it's over. You multi-grid fillers can go jump!


Pen and Ceri chased a squirrel, where did it go?

GC45NZR

Up from Devon for a 9:30am meeting near Kiddy and I wasn't sure whether to go for this one or Hifnal Bridge - but it wasn't a long process to decide since this one had fun fun fun written all over it! (No offence Hifnal Bridge - I'll see you next time!)

However, as usual on these trips it meant night caching again. This time, that was an absolute joy - primarily because the tree I decided to spend an hour hunting in was nothing to do with any part of the multi whatsoever, having shot past "that" tree and climbing a nicely shaped and explorable oak tree on the edge of the wood in error...! The climb began by starlight, then dawn broke - with the woodland dawn chorus breaking the otherwise perfect silence, and I came down as the sun just cleared the horizon, casting a fabulous golden wintery light over the field. It was breathtaking.

But I was pretty grumpy about the lack of cache!

Having read all the logs the night before I was certain it would be up one of these two trees, and the one I was up was clearly the more attractive to climbers (though I kept anxiously pointing my headtorch over to its neighbour as I failed to find anything in my tree.....)

Anyway. I climbed right to the top of one tree, rappelled down in various directions to get different lines of sight on both trees, and rummaged in all the holes. Then at 8:30am I really had to go in order not to be late for the meeting. So down I sailed, packed up, and stomped back along the edge of the field only to find that tree looking at me.

It made me cross.

Then I looked inside!

And then I made the decision to "just have a quick reconnaissance of what I now knew to be GZ" in order to be prepped for next time. Aaaaaand, when I got there couldn't resist quickly chucking up a line, setting a rope, flying up, signing, flying down, packing up, and sloshing through the mud to the car. All that took five minutes! Which meant five minutes late and walking into a meeting whilst simultaneously stepping out of my arborist harness with a sheepish grin on my face and muddy trousers.

Re-sult! Thanks for a great cache and a beautiful morning. This is what caching is for me. Your mileage may vary.


Below Above - 165 Eaton Place, Mr Hudson’s Pantry

GC4NHTV

[Log cut and pasted from the one before for the most part.]

(EDIT: Interestingly we found a picture of a boxing match drawing in the quarry on the web, but not the one we found near the cache! The one we found was hard to read so my answer is - the one on the left!")

Below Above - 165 Eaton Place, The Drawing Room

GC4NHV4

Fantastic! It's great to be brought to a new quarry as, as much as I really do love Kingsdown, Monkton Farleigh and Box, this one and the other are just as charming.

Today looked like a ridiculous plan. Sit in a meeting with our financial adviser to hear financial advice such as "try not to flush your salary by driving millions of miles to find tupperware, you berk" while itching to get away to drive from Exeter to Box, bag three caches in quarries, and drive home in time to get the kids from school at 4pm.

Did it. I win. And the icing on the cake was company thanks to antpeng who managed to join me for all three between jobs. Result!

So with these three today that's 70 5/5's and 19 Below-Aboves. I never got a chance to find Secret City, and that will always haunt me.

GC4NHWV, GC4NHV4, GC4NHTV, GC2K97V, GC2GT74, GC2GW7W, GC2GAKA, GC2GAMT, GC45XAE, GC47PTC, GC49MEV, GC4JDG6, GC4JCG5, GC4JEJW, GC47KXJ, GC4P440, GC4JEK6, GC4KVK9, GC4JE47.

Thanks for a tremendous set of caches once again.


Below Above - Don't Drink The Water

GC4JE47

Fifth one of the day for me, and possibly the one that caused the most trouble since we were tired, and had failed to make sense of the route on the survey map before setting out, so had to rely on our flagging wits.

We bumped into Brian and had a good old chin-wag until realising we'd forgotten where we were in all the chat so had to ask him, and he good-naturedly reminded us and left us to it. He sort of appears like the shopkeeper in Mr Ben and disappears just as quickly after sprinkling his magic.

Another goodie. The article referred to at the end of the route info is no longer present. It had to be removed. And so only the symbol is the clue. However if you obey the rules in the instructions there are only a few places to search, and all within a couple of feet of you.

Thanks for a great weekend Mr Magpie.


Below Above - A Tour In Brown's

GC4JEK

Thanks for a great cache!

We totally ran this, being familiar with the lie of the land, the route, and the final location. Then we made a bit of a fist of finding the cache, but I put that down to being extreeeeeemely careful about soot and history.

Not a long log for this. Sorry. We grabbed a few and I'm reluctant to cut and paste it all. Suffice to say it was great as always, and made all the more enjoyable because, inexplicably, the usual entrance entirely failed to live up to its name.


Below Above - The Janitor's Blither

GC4KVK9

We met the Janitor!

That would be an amusing and interesting thing to say were it not for the fact that I've been in here four times in my life I think, and I've met the Janitor every, single, time. Three cheers for all his hard work. The place looks AMAZING today - even more so than usual, and it's not just the bloody expensive torch I'm carrying making it look all shiny and new!

We had a bit of a faff following the instructions and ultimately managed by deciding to do the opposite of what they said to good effect.

In the end the cache container was simply brilliant. An absolutely must-find. We took lots of pictures and will post them in the gallery.

Not.

Thanks for a brilliant cache. Looking forward to more. Come on!

Below Above - The Treacle Mine

GC4P440

Hold on - THAT's not a muddy hole!

We were all business-like and health-and-efficiency today, trying to run four caches simultaneously while re-deciphering and altering the routes willy-nilly to suit our varied and opposing whims. And the first thing we noticed was... it's all so... incredibly... clean! We immediately suspected that Saintly Brian the Eternally Underthanked had taken to driving around the mine in one of these.



We met him. Again. Every time.

He was walking. But still.

Anyway. We treacled around. Better torches than before and a better sense of scale and majesty. And we saw places we'd not seen before, especially when Brian took us on a little tour.

Great cache. Thank you. Email to follow with answers. We assume the answer to question 2 is not allowed to be "miner"...


Below Above - Gruidae

GC47KXJ

Well, we did everything possible to make this as seamless and straightforward as we possibly could including all the relevant surveys, local knowledge, walking it on paper first, kitting up, mystical potions and praying and sacrificing to the God of Clawz.

And off we set: 1.. 17.. 2.. 3.. 4.. 5.. 6.. 8.. 7.. 9.. 10.. A.. C.. B.. @.. 11..

The order doesn't matter. Right?! Hmm.

So when we got to the end - what we thought was the end - having diverted to grab the Earthcaches and the many and varied (and excellent) There and Back Again opencache, we found ourselves to be knackered, overburdened with codes, and failing miserably.

We took a cipher key with us too. Which is VITAL, but not as vital as taking the right one.

And, frankly, from bad planning and timing on my part, I was nursing a turtle for the entire five hours underground - and that's no picnic.

I don't care. It's my story and I'm going to tell it.

So anyway, we had to sacrifice another goat and got there this morning to finish the job. That last bit is a killer. Good luck with it!

Thank you, mysterious stranger, I'm not sure we'd have got there without you.


Below Above - The Ugly Duckling

GC4JEJW

Well we had a plan to knock out Gruidae, Ugly Duckling, Janitor's Blither, Tour of Browns, Uncle Tom Cobley, and all. But we spent the entire day making a meal of Gruidae (and not - yet - finding it!) so I'm glad we nipped off first thing to pick up this one while waiting for party member #3 to arrive in Box. Piece of cake. Been here before. Ran in, rubbish torch, normal clothes, no helmet, found it, signed it, dropped a TB, and left to embark upon the enormous day of Gruiding.

Thanks for the cache.