Day 1 – Challenge caches and a challenging hill!

I headed to Sussex with Andy750x on the Friday and we decided to set ourselves a mini challenge. As we had 85 puzzles lined up to get, we thought we’d aim to grab 100 puzzles for the trip so first we stopped off in Kent to find the Assiduous Cacher Challenge caches. I’d worked out a long while ago that we qualified for 17 out of 20 of the challenges, so that was good enough for me to justify a nice morning walk around Scadbury Nature Reserve, where they were all hidden.

Entering the Reserve

The reserve was an absolutely beautiful place to walk around and was reasonably quiet in the morning. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and there were many butterflies all around. It had been quite a mission trying to work out which challenges we qualified for, however, it was well worth it for the beautiful walk through the bluebell-filled woods.

The reserve was full of pretty bluebells

The caches were relatively easy to find, apart from a couple which required some keen eyes. On route we bumped into a muggle who asked if we were looking for fungus (Hehe, haven’t heard that one before) and a lovely muggle lady who knew what we were doing and told us that she had found one of the geocaches in the reserve and always checks it’s still in place when she walks past.

After all that challenge caching, it was time for a rest on a conveniently shaped tree before heading off to Sussex.

Taking a break

We met up at Tottingham Totter #31 in Fulking with stones2005. Mrs. Stones2005 had spotted the 8 miler as a nice walk to do. She wasn’t wrong, but as the cache description mentioned “nice views” that could only mean one thing… a giant hill!!! We parked the car and looked up to see what was in store for us. The cache we started at was an excellent starting point as it meant we would conquer the hill, have an easy walk for the rest of the series and then finish at the pub! At the beginning here there was also a very nice little spring.

A beautiful spring at the start of the walk

We then climbed the hill past the National Trust sign and through a herd of cows. Eek! I’d usually be really scared of them, but it looked like a popular walking route so they didn’t bother me too much.

I didn’t notice someone had removed the ‘L’ until I looked at the photo I’d taken. Lol!

Moooooooove out the way!

Soon (after a bit of huffing and puffing) we were at the top and could admire the amazing views whilst we found the series’ earthcache.

Mrs. Stones2005 at the earthcache

Great views on a fine day.

As we looped around to the end we spotted the hill that we had climbed previously. I imagine if we started at #01 that spotting the hill would cause me to cry “Oh no, we don’t have to climb that, do we???” So I was very glad it was already out of the way!

It was good to know that we’ve already climbed the hill!!!

After a quick stop off at the pub for a cider as a reward we headed off to Blacklands Farm where we were camping for the weekend to find the rest of Team Essex already pitched up and saving our spot so we could huddle around the camp fire and plan our route to scoop up the puzzles!

We definitely needed a Firepit to keep warm!

Day 2 – V for Victory!

We were up super early on Saturday morning as there was an 8am Flash mob for May the 4th around where the Olympic rings puzzles were placed. We all gathered around Lindfield Common for a quick piccie before we headed off on our adventure.

Cachers gathering on Lindfield Common

The slight issue with the Olympic “rings” caches was that once solved, they weren’t very…well… “ring-like” and although a couple of the colours made for nice walks, the rest were very scattered. We had planned the best order to do them all though and as the weather forecast wasn’t looking very promising for the afternoon we tackled the walks in the morning.

The rest were picked up during short walks and cache and dashes. We found a very good use for little Cass though as when finding caches for the black ring he was able to sneak into gaps and under bridges to grab the caches for us!

Little Cass gets into the places where big Cass can’t!

One of the nicest sights of the Olympic Rings series was seeing the 450m long Ouse Valley viaduct. It was absolutely massive.

Ouse Valley Viaduct

The olympic rings caches took nearly the entire day to complete, way longer than we had anticipated. There was a really nice reward at the end though as by grabbing the bonus caches from each of the rings we had the coordinates that we needed to find the Bronze, Silver, and Gold medal caches. Each of these were big containers at fantastic, well planned locations. I’d love to show you a few of the piccies, but I’d probably be giving it away. Here’s one of the containers though…

The bronze medal cache

Although the medal caches were nice rewards on their own for the hours spent puzzling and hours spent dashing around the area, we made our own reward as well by visiting the appropriately named pub, “The Victory Inn” for a celebratory pint to finish the day… or not…

A victory for Team Essex!!!

Whilst sat enjoying our drinks we decided that we would properly finish the day by also finishing the BHQM puzzles. We were all completely knackered, but after refuelling we headed off to finish the already long day with 18 finds and 1 DNF, however I was able to replace the missing cache that we DNF’ed with the cache owners permission making it 86 puzzle cache finds in a day!!! WOW! It was very late when we got back to the campsite, but we were safe in the knowledge that our epic mission was complete. I definitely think we won a gold medal for our massive team effort!!!

Day 3 – Winding down

After our very busy couple of days caching we teamed up with Helennbrian to do a few short series whilst the rest of the team tackled the fabulous Devils Dyke. We had already walked that series so we left them to complete it.

We started off with Retreat Walk, a 2.7 mile walk for 17 caches before heading off to do West Hoathly Wander which took us past Philpots quarry. Both were lovely walks and far more relaxing than the day before’s hectic run around!!!

Very cute donkeys on the Retreat Walk

Elton Cass models a nice bit of swag from one of the caches

The marker stone for Philpots quarry

We finished the day with a few church micros and a long rest at the pub.

Day 4 – Packing up

And so it was the last day of our trip away Packing up is always the worst bit, especially when you’re feeling pretty tired after lots of walking! There was time for one last series though, and after the tent was packed away we chose Wineham Wonder as it was only a short walk from the campsite. This series took us for a lovely walk along the river on the hottest day of our trip. The hides were a little different from easily hidden film cans, so a few had us guessing for a little while, but we managed to find all of the caches on the series which were enabled. 6 miles later and we were back at the camp site ready to head off home.

There were a few nice weirs along the walk

The path ran alongside the river for most of the journey back to camp

Awwww, little goslings on the way back to camp

In the absence of Little Cass, Yorkie63 got under the bridge whilst Alfie tried to help!

There was time for one last cache though. Stones2005 had visited Church Micro 111 before and said it was a really lovely Church. We headed there on the way home to find St Hugh’s Charterhouse monastery. It was absolutely beautiful and a fantastic cache to finish the trip on!

St Hughes from near GZ

A close up of the Monastery

I just want to say a big thank you to all my friends in Team Essex who made the weekend trip very special. It was great being able to grab the Olympic Rings and BHQM puzzles together and great to have such a mega caching trip. I’ve been snowed under with uni assignments recently and haven’t been able to get out to do much caching nor had any time to tile the bathroom! It was lovely to spend so much time with such lovely people. The caches were just an added bonus.

Day One – Four countries in a day

We met up at the Euro Tunnel at 5am in the morning (!) and thankfully all made it there with time to spare to pick up our first cache of the day: End of the Wall which started off our mission for the day to find caches in 4 countries. We then boarded the Euro Tunnel for a smooth ride across to Calais.

On the Euro tunnel

Jen of Hollyncharlie had planned a nice little itinerary for our journey through France to Brugge where we were able to stop off for a few nice caches. One of the first took us to the Ghyvelde Fossil Dunes where we had the chance to stretch our legs and grab an earthcache and a traditional on the last remaining fossil dunes in Europe.

There were many sheep and lambs on the dunes

View of the large fossil dunes

At ‘La dune fossile de Ghyvelde’ earthcache

This was an interesting spot to stop at because at the beginning of the path was the Belgium and France border. After grabbing our French caches it was then time to head off to Belgium for our 3rd country.

Doggywalker in Belgium whilst Yorkie63 stays in France

One of the chosen caches was in a particularly interesting location: Part of the film set for ‘In Vlaamse Velden’ (‘In Flanders Fields’) where a battlefield had been constructed. We could spot this in the distance whilst searching for the cache.

A film set for ‘In Vlaamse Velden’

As rain clouds closed in on us we headed to a cache hidden at a very nice monument which was constructed to remember the Battle in 1914 to recapture the village of “Ramskapelle” from the Germans.

A monument for the battle to recapture “Ramskapelle” from the Germans in 1914

Remains of the buildings near GZ

Our morning Belgium caching was cut short as the rain decided to pour down on us. So we headed to The Netherlands for our 4th and final country for the day. We headed into town for an hour or so to grab a couple of caches before stopping at a lovely little cafe for lunch. Mission Accomplished!

Unsuspicious?

Well you can’t go to Holland and not see a Windmill!

We headed back to Belgium and to our hotel in Brugge. After a quick check in and spruce up it was time to hit the town and hunt down the beer caches.

Our stroll into Brugge was along the lovely canal. We were able to pick up a few caches as we walked to the centre. Geheimzinnige rustplaats was a particularly nice cache as it was placed in a secret garden in the city which we wouldn’t have known about had it not been for the cache.

Lovely graffiti lines the subway in Brugge on our walk in to the centre

Now, at this point I should probably mention that as well as following an arrow we were also following a Brugge beer guide of the best bars in the city (hehe). Our first stop was Snuffel backpacker hostel. Now, I must admit on first impressions I wasn’t keen on the place, but after I spotted how cheap the beer was there really wasn’t much to complain about! This gave me my first opportunity to sample cherry beer and raspberry beer. Wow! It was amazing!

Hanging out in the Hostel

Mmmmm… Cherry beer!!!

We carried on to another cache before heading to another bar, ‘t Poatersgat (“Monks hole”). As soon as I saw the entrance I knew we just had to go inside and have a look! It was like heading into a secret underground lair.

Down into the Monks Hole!

Here we sampled banana beer and forest fruit beer. Both very nice. Now, we were of course in Brugge for the caching, but we’re only mere mortals and were also there to eat and drink as well! However, our little bar trip was soon over and we were back to caching as we headed to the BB3: Meet ‘n Greet event. At least here we were able to combine the caching with the beer as there was a little bar in the corner.

At the Meet and Greet

Day Two – Wherigo’s? Yeah they’re easy, I wrote the book blog…

Overnight some of the bright members of Team Essex had decided we should attempt to hire out bikes and cycle around the city for the caches. It turned out to be a brilliant idea and we headed to the hire place to borrow 15 bikes!!! After a bit of haggling the chap at the hire place agreed to allow us to have the bikes for an extra hour, so we were sorted until 4pm. We all lined up ready for the Team Essex bicycle race!!!

Bicycle Race

We weren’t completely au fait with the Brugge road laws, but nobody died so I guess we did alright. The general idea was to try and stick to the red paths (Which went well) and not cross the road when you’re not meant to (Which didn’t go quite so well! Lol!) and stop every now and then for a cache. Zoete Inval was a particularly nice one to find as it was a ‘large’ cache in a very urban location.

STOP! Time for a cache

Next we headed to attempt The City Gates Bike Race wherigo. There was a nice family version of this or a harder athletic version. These were particularly interesting wherigos as they had a time limit. Both were 9km routes, but the family version allowed 60 minutes to complete it, and the athletic version allowed 30 minutes. Easy, eh? We started off with the family version which took us along a lovely track past many of Brugge’s windmills along the canal. Soon after we started foxscout, tazzy1234 and Riskt4ker decided they had what it takes to try the athletic version and headed back to the start to give it a go!

Yorkie63 and lemontom race ahead

Andy750x races on to the next zone

The rest of Team Essex are in hot persuit

One of the many Windmills along the Wherigo ride

We made it to zone 22 of 26 when our family version of the cartridge timed out on all our GPS. Oh dear. Our detours for other caches, and some stalling at road junctions meant that we hadn’t done enough to get the Wherigo to release the coordinates. In the meantime the rest of Team Essex had also been timed out from doing the Athletic version. We decided to spread out and have a hunt for the cache in some likely locations, as all good cachers do. Unfortunately we didn’t find the cache we were looking for, but instead found a mysterious container with a handwritten note inside which was signed by one other group of cachers before us! I wonder what it was!

This cache is still a mystery!

We headed to a nearby bar on route whilst the valiant foxscout, tazzy1234, and riskt4ker had another bash at getting the coordinates out of the wherigos. Sadly it didn’t end well. The GPS they were trying to do the family version on had crashed and lost everything, and the athletic version had timed out when they were only 400ft from the last zone. What a disaster. Eventually we all ended up at the bar, we were all particularly impressed with Riskt4ker’s 16 mile bike ride Whilst at the bar I decided to ask a “local” if he could translate our mysterious cache note. In a broad Northern accent he replied “It says, ‘Deirdre get your knickers down’” and chuckled away. The bloody English get everywhere!

A well deserved rest after the massive bike ride

Yorkie63 and Simon of Hollyncharlie didn’t want to give up on the wherigo and with some encouragement from the team tried again to get the wherigo coordinates to appear. It was third time lucky and with the coordinates for the family version, Team Essex were all able to find the actual cache after a long day of trying. Hooray!!!!!!

After resting our saddle-sore bodies for a bit we headed back into Brugge for the evening. There was one cache that we just had to try to find as it had 183 favourite points. It was Stairway to…. So off we all went to GZ, surprised that Riskt4ker could make it after the 20 mile bike ride earlier. This took us to a lovely little spot along the river.

Prisoners at ‘Stairway to…’

Beautiful views along the canal

The next stop was another earthcache, Stad gebouwd met Crinoiden where we found a water pump covered in fossils.

Thankfully the fountain didn’t work

The rest of our evening included plenty of beer and a trip to The Druids Cellar before heading back to the hotel for our well deserved rest. Riskt4ker deserving it most after his 50 mile bike ride earlier…

Day Three – MEGA!

In the morning we headed to the MEGA event. It was very busy and we entered the main hall where we handed in our registration forms and then queued to get our GPS loaded up with all of the new caches that had been released.

Entering the MEGA

Queuing to log the MEGA

The next building was where all of the trackables were being held. In here was a giant trackable ammo can and giant trackable chair. Suffice to say we didn’t pick these up to take home!!!!!

A giant ammo can!

Take a seat!

Because when you’re caching in a big group you have to look the part, we all had Team Essex T-shirts which we were wearing for the MEGA event. We all lined up and a nice lady took our mug shot to mark the occasion.

Team Essex!!!

Just in case we forget who we are!

We also all had personalised TB’s ready for a TB race from Brugge to Essex. One slight problem was that myself and Andy750x slightly… erm… forgot to bring our. Whoops! I guess we’re not going to win now then. Lol!

Something missing?

Many new caches were released for the event and as the nice Brugge MEGA people had loaded up our GPS with them we were ready to go and headed off to do some of the nearby series combining some walking with driving to the new GZ locations. You definitely couldn’t miss Team Essex hunting for the caches though in our distinct bright red T-Shirts!!!

The hunt is on

Yorkie63 delivers the goods

The area that the new caches were hidden around seemed very religious. There were little shelters along the cache routes which had religious statues and paraphernalia inside of them. One even had a bed inside. I think if we had this sort of thing back at home it’d get vandalised in an instant!

Awwww, such angels

A bed for the night in case we miss the train!

One of the series took us around Ruddervoorde and Waardamme where the street were lined with very well decorated cows. The caches weren’t hidden on the cows but were near them.

Much better to cache near these than the ones in the Meadows!

Fancy a ride?

BB3 – Jachtkoe was a particularly tricky hide and we were all there for a good 10 minutes trying to find it. Clever foxscout did get it in the end, but we attracted some muggle attention during the search!!!

Hunting for a rather tricky cache

An onlooking muggle

After completing a few more series our trip in Brugge was over and we headed back to Calais to catch the Euro Tunnel home. I had an absolutely brilliant weekend Geocaching with Team Essex and we had great fun. The highlight for me was probably our frantic biking around Brugge as even through we had a few failures with the Wherigo we had such fun attempting it. I’m just glad that I didn’t bike the 100 miles that Riskt4ker did.

Happy caching!!!

Macros provide a way of automating GSAK, however require that you write code to create them – something that terrifies a lot of people! The Master Macro Index provides some great macros written by the community. Personally, I don’t spend much time writing big hefty macros, however there are a couple of quick and dirty ones which I have created that I often use with filters when quickly loading my GPS up for a caching trip (Particularly useful if you’re caching whilst on holiday)

When I’m heading off caching I will load the GPS up with a good thousand or so caches. Maybe I’ll be going for a walk around a series, maybe I’ll be hoping to quickly stop off and grab a cache as a drive-by as I see it appear. When Geocaching the best thing to do is check the cache description, check the logs to make sure everything is ok, etc. but let’s be honest… We don’t always do that. We end up hunting for 10 minutes for a cache only to realise it’s disabled or has a string of 5 DNFs on it or we go looking for a place to park for what looks like a “cache and dash” only to find it’s on a footpath that passes along a motorway.

The following macros modify the title field of the cache so that you can instantly see on your GPS if a cache is missing, disabled, a cache and dash or has a lot of favourite points. Just those useful little things when you’ve not done a lot of planning and want to see cache information instantly.

Creating a macro

Creating a Macro is simple, fire up GSAK, click the ‘Macro’ menu and then ‘Edit/Create’

Create a macro using the GSAK Macro menu

Type in your macro code (Or in this case copy and paste the code at the bottom of this blog entry) and then click File –> Install

Installing a new macro

GSAK will then prompt you. Select ‘Install the macro’

GSAK prompts you to install the macro

Your new macro will appear in your macros list (Macros –> Run/Manage…)

The macro displays in the list

What the macros do…

Most of the macros are very simple. They append 3 letters to the beginning of a cache name depending on the macro that is run. BEFORE you run one of these macros you MUST have a filter set otherwise it will change all of your caches in the database! I’ve outlined which filter to set for each macro. If we were going to run the ‘Label as disabled’ macro we would first run a filter that only displays the disabled caches in our database.

The cache names have DIS_ at the beginning. UserData2 is also populated with DIS

The macros also populate the UserData2 field. Why? Look what happens if that cache is updated in the database:

The cache name is reset when a cache is updated, but UserData2 remains unchanged

We can run a filter to grab all those caches which are marked as DIS in the userdata2 filed, but not DIS in the cache title so that we can run the macro again and update those that have been wiped over by a refresh:

This filter returns those caches with DIS in the UserData2 field, but not in the cache title

This filter will return just the cache that hasn’t been marked with DIS in the title, but has got DIS in the UserData2 field.

Only the “stray” disabled cache is returned by this filter

We could then run the ‘Label as disabled’ macro again and it would update this cache to match the other disabled ones. We do it this way to prevent having a cache labeled DIS_DIS_DIS_Cachename if some don’t get updated when others do.

Here’s how the caches on our GPS will look once we’ve tweaked them:

The titles now include more information about the cache

Does that make sense? I hope so! Here’s how to do it yourself…

Just one more thing before you run them…

These macros are quick and dirty. I usually create a new database first and populate it with caches in the area that I’m heading to before quickly running the macros and then loading the caches onto my GPS. It’s up to you if you want to run them on your main database (If you maintain one, that is). Any changes that they make can be easily removed when you update the caches in the database.

Label a cache as a ‘Cache and dash’

Set this filter

Set the ‘Park and grab’ attribute to ‘Yes’

Enter this macro code

#*******************************************
# MacVersion = 1.0
# MacDescription = Label as CnD
# MacAuthor = http://geocass.wordpress.com
#*******************************************
GOTO position=top
WHILE not ($_EOL)
$d_Name = "CnD_" + $d_Name
$d_User2= "CnD"
GOTO position=next
ENDWHILE


Run the macro to get:

Cache and dash results

Label a cache as a ‘Disabled’

Set this filter:

Set this filter to display only disabled caches

Enter this macro code:

#*******************************************
# MacVersion = 1.0
# MacDescription = Label as Disabled
# MacAuthor = http://geocass.wordpress.com
#*******************************************
GOTO position=top
WHILE not ($_EOL)
$d_Name = "DIS_" + $d_Name
$d_User2= "DIS"
GOTO position=next
ENDWHILE


Run the macro to get:

Notice that as we are appending our text to cache names we have CnD_DIS_ for some

Label a cache as ‘missing’

Set this filter:

Set this filter to show those caches which are likely to be missing. At the same time you may also like to make sure you’re filtering for ‘Available’ caches only so that you don’t get disabled ones in your results as we will have used the disabled macro to mark those already.

Enter this macro code:

#*******************************************
# MacVersion = 1.0
# MacDescription = Label as missing
# MacAuthor = http://geocass.wordpress.com
#*******************************************
GOTO position=top
WHILE not ($_EOL)
$d_Name = "MIS_" + $d_Name
$d_User2= "MIS"
GOTO position=next
ENDWHILE


Run the macro to get:

Caches with 3 or more DNFs in the last 3 logs are marked as missing

Label a cache as a ‘favourite’

Set this filter:

We’ve set the filter so that only caches with 10 or more favourite points are shown. You could change this number to anything you like however.

#*******************************************
# MacVersion = 1.0
# MacDescription = Label with favourite points
# MacAuthor = http://geocass.wordpress.com
#*******************************************
GOTO position=top
WHILE not ($_EOL)
$d_Name = "f" + NumToStr($d_FavPoints) +"_" +$d_name
GOTO position=next
ENDWHILE


Run the macro to get:

The caches are marked as f## where ## shows the number of favourite points for that cache

I’m confused. What?

Just have a play. Create a test database with a bunch of caches in, run the macros against that and you’ll soon get a good feel for how these little macros work. Otherwise, you know where I am! Drop a comment below and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can!

Although visiting the quarries for the 3rd and 4th times, I still enjoy the underground exploration very much. As always, I enjoyed sliding through a section of one of the quarries through a section called “The Letterbox” which meant sliding head first on my belly down a mud slide. Dave of The Wombles grabbed a picture of me doing it this time around and has kindly said I can add it to my blog entry:

Me sliding through the letterbox about to travel down the mud slide

Although I had found The White Bird three times before, this time was quite special as inside the cache was a Signature Womble! For those of you who don’t know what one of those is, in order to find Wombles Signature cache you need to get lucky and find 2 signature wombles which are randomly distributed in caches around the area. One womble will have the Northings on the tag, and the other will have the Westings. There are many wombles around the area so you have to hope that you don’t find two Northings for example! It was a bigger surprise because we were with the CO and womble distributor at the time as well, and he had no part in putting the womble in the cache! I grabbed the womble and hoped that one day I would find the other womble somewhere so that I could get the cache coords.

After our underground escapades I headed with BareClawz to find his 1000th find. He’d been sitting patiently on 999 cache finds knowing that I had planned a very special secret cache to celebrate his milestone. The cache was ‘Knock Knock‘ which has 50 favorite points and was suggested by a few cachers as a worthy milestone cache. It definitely didn’t disappoint! I’m afraid I can’t show any pictures, or talk about it as I would spoil it for others, however I’ll say that it’s an amazing, very clever cache. I have no idea how it works, and have never seen anything like it before!!! I’ll also say that if anyone is in the Wiltshire area, this cache is a must do!!!

There was also a big bonus to BareClawz getting his 1000th find on this cache… As the Tupperware box magically appeared there was a womble nose pressed up inside peering out at us!!! Could it be the half that we needed, or would it be the same coords as we already had? We got massively lucky and it was indeed the womble that we needed! We had been extremely lucky to find two on the same day!

The signature wombles riding with BareClawz’s 1000 achievement coin.

The following day we decided to try and find the Wombles Signature cache as we were fortunate enough to have kidnapped two signature wombles and we headed off to find it. On our way there however, we stopped off for a couple of other caches including Shrewton Mystery which was hidden near an old bunker. There were two entrances down, however unfortunately neither had a ladder so I couldn’t go wombling just yet!

Unfortunately these two entrances had no ladder

Shrewton bunker

It was then on to the Wombles Signature Cache. We had to march through some very swampy ground to get to it and jump a couple of streams as well due to the recent rain and flooding making the ground very hard to navigate. However when we found the cache it was well worth it! It was huge and full of swag!

Our signature wombles meet the one already in the cache

A HUGE geocoin inside the cache

I took with me an Orinoco womble back pack which I put on. Jumping the streams to get back with a womble strapped to my back was pretty amusing!!!

Whilst in the area we also had a go at 802.11b WiFi, a cache also owned by The Wombles. This cache certainly appealed to my inner Geek as you needed something capable of picking up a wifi signal to get the coords. To my surprise this worked very well on my phone. The cache itself, however, was much more stubborn and took a great deal of looking and a fair bit of help from the CO in order to locate it. It would have been a lot easier if the area wasn’t totally flooded though. It was great to find such a geeky cache. There are quite a few Wifi caches in this country, although I believe this was the first. A list of some Wifi caches can be found here including one in Essex and one in Somerset.

The following day we visited caching friends The Wobbly Club so that my Orinoco could meet their womble, Bungo which is also a TB. We also met their Scruff-Bags TB who was dressed up for Christmas complete with Reindeer suit and flashing antlers.

Bungo and Orinoco reunited

Scruff-bags the Reindeer

All in all, a fantastic trip down the Wiltshire, some fantastic caches and some lovely company to go along with it.

Stanwick Lakes

I arrived pretty early when there were very few cachers around, however met up with fellow punctual Essex cachers andy750x, BEASTMARSTA, Original Red Hen and Foxscout. We decided to waste some time by heading for a cache that was already hidden nearby, however whilst we were busy hunting for it BEASTMARSTA received notifications for caches that were published for the event. We decided to try for a few FTFs as they were only 0.25 miles from where we were hunting.

We rushed to Guardian of the Swamp and were not only delighted to see a blank logbook, but also to see such a fantastic container. Wow!

Our first FTF

We also grabbed Marriage From Hell as an FTF before deciding not to get greedy and head back ready to register for the event. You can imagine how surprised we all were when we were very nearly standing on a bridge across a river when an earthcache was published at it! We quickly gathered and worked out the answer and took a photo. I quickly emailed the CO our answers and we were delighted to be told that we were indeed FTF on the earthcache.

Rivers of Blood FTF!

At the event there were many cachers who looked really scary, some even had costumes on! There were some fabulously dressed cachers in Team Essex including Helennbrian’s whole family and infinson and co who looked absolutely amazing.

A scary family!!!

Mad as a hatter!!!!

There were many caches placed for the event with a variety of traditionals, multis, puzzles, and even a Wherigo. As well as a “day series” of caches, there were also promises of a really good “night series” that we had to look forward to.

Team Essex researching clues for the Wherigo

I ended up caching in a huge “Team Essex” mob with Helennbrian + co, Yorkie63/MammaD + Co, Hollyncharlie, Infinson + Co, BigBadJohn, Tazzy1234, PeCeH, Doggywalker, Andy750x, BEASTMARSTA, Foxscout, Kris&Co, and a few others. It was great fun, especially as some people stayed dressed up for the caching. One of the many great cache containers was a big snake. We’ve found small snakes before, but never anything quite this impressive before.

Crowding around Snake in the grass

Assault & Battree was a great multi which involved us needing to complete an assault course. With all of the children, however, we stayed firmly on the ground and sent the kids up to count how many bolts there were on the aparatus, and what the number was inside one of the crawling tunnels! They had great fun!

How many bolts?

Stuck!

Chucky jumps over the wall

A glowing ghost

After finishing the big day cache series we headed into the carpark where Masterchef 2011 runner-up Yorkie63 (And MammaD) cooked us all paella in a huge pan. Afterwards we all enjoyed cakes, nibbles, and two giant trifles that andy750x had created!

Masterchef

After a lovely lunch (after which we could all barely walk!) we headed off to do the rest of the day caches. We started off with an older cache, Stanwick Lakes – Hide and Seek that was hidden at a bird hide. We chose the perfect time to search for it, as a few minutes after we got there, there was a massive hailstorm!!! We all huddle under the hide for shelter…

Huddling under for shelter

As we waited for the storm to pass we suddenly heard a creeking noise near by. A spooky old haunted house creeking in the wind? No! The tree just a few meters from us all ready to break. Suddenly there was a massive crack and it collapsed across the path. Yikes!

Timber!!!

The storm finally passed and some clever cacher found the tricky cache that we were all trying very hard to hunt out. It was a very tricky one. After that we embarked on a long walk around to get the rest of the caches, and a quick run back to the event in time for the fancy dress competition. A quick drink warmed us up in preparation for the next installment of the event… The night caching series!!!

The coords for the night caches were released at 7pm and we all frantically tapped them into our GPS. If I were a caching superhero, my super power would be manually inputting coordinates into my GPS at lightning speed! Yorkie63 has told me that I tap coords into my GPS like teenagers text on their mobile phones. Lol! After a few seconds I had all of the waypoints in and we were ready to head off for the most amazing night caching experience and the most amazing cache hides…

A scary skeleton cache

Dracula is looking after the cache

Dare we take the treat from the Witch’s bowl?

The night series was a real hoot!

Coffin cache

Anybody want to swap some swag?

Haunted House!

The Haunted house monster actually moved his arms and groaned and many of the spooky creatures made scary noises. It was absolutely fabulous! It was a long day however and we finished off back at the cafe for refreshments before heading home around 11pm. By this time everyone had taken their costumes off, but some how most of us looked like the living dead after such a long day with so much walking and caching. It was an amazing day and I know everyone that I was caching with had a super time. For me, the best bit wasn’t just the amazing hides, but the opportunity to cache with the lovely people I’ve met whilst geocaching over the past few years. Thanks everybody!

I can’t wait until next year when I wonder if there will be even more MEGA events to keep us busy???

So, you can download it from here.

The guide covers setting up GSAK, loading PQs, sorting and filtering, exporting data, database management, adding data to cache data, using the GSAK 8 API, installing and running macros, and a few useful macro suggestions.

An example of a couple of pages in the guide

Enjoy! Do feel free to drop me any questions or comments below this post!

Saturday 11th August

The Fallen Monarch/The White Bird

We left home early on the Saturday morning and arrived in the area around mid day just in time to meet the CO and to stop at The Swan pub near by. As the pub is in the area near the quarries the inside was impressively decorated with old tools which hung from the walls.

Old miners tools hanging up in The Swan

As Foxscout and The Black Rabbit hadn’t done underground caching before, we started with the two caches that Andy and I had visited on our previous trip, The White Bird and The Fallen Monarch. I’d consider these the easiest ones to start off with. It was a pleasure to revisit the quarries even though we had already found the caches. This time around however, I had my DSLR camera rather than a point and shoot which meant the photos I took were illuminated a lot better. It was in fact our previous trip down into the quarries that had inspired me to get a bit more serious about my photography and upgrade my camera so I was hoping for a good opportunity to test my new skills. We were also joined by “Brian”, a chap who spends a lot of time looking after the quarries by tidying them and cleaning graffiti off of the walls (With a spoon!) He knew the quarries very well so he was able to point out artifacts and parts of the quarries that we hadn’t noticed before.

Soon we had navigated through the the tighter crawling sections of the quarry and were into the heart of it. Having 5 head torches on the go helped illuminate the area so that we could spot the treasures better.

And we’re in! (Photo © Foxscout)

Army graffiti at one of the end workings

Some of the old mining relics that were found inside

Hitler, perhaps?

The famous train painting. Interesting because trains weren’t used in this quarry

An interesting calcite formation, or the jaws of a dragon?

I was also able to get a bit closer to some of the beautiful puddles of cave pearls that covered parts of the floor. The cave pearls in these puddles are formed when a small grain of sand gets rotated in the water (The drips from the ceiling) it spins around getting coated evenly with other grains and slowly turns into a pearl. Beautiful!

Cave Pearls

Although a couple of sections of the quarry include tight crawls, on the whole it’s a massive area to walk around. It’s unbelievable how much of the stone has been cut away and how many man hours it would have cost to achieve something on this scale!

Passing along the major passage (Photo © Foxscout)

After our first part of the exploration, we were treated to another look at the old crane that’s still left in this quarry. Still an amazing sight!

The crane!

And a spooky hook!

We continued our journey from there and very soon Foxscout and The Black Rabbit were able to claim their first Geocache find on The Fallen Monarch.

Foxscout signing the log (Photo © Foxscout)

And then it was time for the real fun to begin! Bareclawz said he’d take us off route to experience “The letterbox” which was a tiny slot which was the entrance to the world’s best slide… A mud slide!!! Bareclawz went first and told us to come down head first. I couldn’t resist and there were many screams of joy and much giggling from me! It was brilliant and possibly my favorite moment of the weekend!!! We emerged through a tiny narrow slot which I was convinced I wouldn’t fit through, but I tried and it was fine after a little bit of wiggling!

I made it through! (Photo © Foxscout)

Out comes Foxscout… (Photo © Foxscout)

And The Black Rabbit (Photo © Foxscout)

Andy had passed on the slot and went another way around to meet us at The White Bird cache to reward Foxscout and The Black Rabbit with their second find for the day!!!

We emerged from the quarry and were immediately hit by an explosion of hot air. It was so beautifully cool inside the quarry that we looked forward to getting into the next one for another cool down! For the time being, however we took a break at the pub in the sunshine and had a chance to review just how muddy we managed to get! Lol! Can you spot the dirtiest girl?!?!?!

Time to leave (Photo © Foxscout)

I’m not sure how I managed to get *that* dirty in comparison to everyone else!

Mind the Trains/Multi 1

After our huge success with The White Bird and The Fallen Monarch, it was time to attempt Multi 1 and Mind the Trains. Last time we headed to attempt this quarry on the first afternoon after our DNFs on the other caches. We looked at the entrance and decided that it was too much of a squeeze. Andy thought that there was no way he’d be able to get through! Well, you know what they say? If at first you don’t succeed… Bareclawz slid through the gap to inspire us with confidence so I promptly followed keeping my fingers crossed that Andy would make it, and he did! He was shortly followed by Foxscout and The Black Rabbit and the hardest part was over. The quarry opened up into its massive chambers ready for exploration!

In we go…

We attempted Mind The Trains first. I guided our party with Bareclawz behind giving hints if we took the wrong turning. In comparison to the previous quarry this one was a real labyrinth. There were hundreds of old mining relics in the other quarry, but nowhere near as many as in this one. This however had its own gems and it was nice to be in unfamiliar territory discovering new treasures.

Can you see the face in the rock?

The remains of a mining truck

Cave pearls pool

We were very lucky and were able to find the Mind The Trains cache pretty quickly before bracing ourselves to find the more difficult Multi 1.

Got it! (Photo © Foxscout)

In this quarry there are also remains of the Stables where horses used to be kept. The rails that can be seen along the ground are not train tracks, but actually wagon tracks for those which the horses used to pull along.

Entrance to the stables

The rails

We soon dropped down into “Devil’s Chamber”, as it’s called on the survey! A huge area with satanic graffiti on the walls and a dinosaur which had moved in recently.

You know you’re in ‘Devil’s Chamber’…

Roar!

We also passed by some crane remains, but nothing nearly as impressive as the crane at The Fallen Monarch.

Remains of a crane

Whilst we were passing through the quarry and stopping to admire it, Brian was busy removing graffiti from the walls using his trusty spoon! He does a great job of looking after it and preserving the way the quarry used to look for visitors to enjoy.

Cleaning the graffiti off

In this quarry we were treated to masses of stalactites hanging from the ceiling, it was quite incredible how many there were and they covered a huge portion of the roof.

Stalactites have formed on the ceiling

There were very few tools down in the quarry, however we did spot a few nice collections lying around.

A few old tools

I think perhaps the most impressive thing in the quarry is the blue pool. It wasn’t on the cache route, however the CO kindly took us to see it. We couldn’t believe the colour, and floating on top were two ducks. A nice touch! It used to be full of stones, but another caver cleared it out so it’s now just clear and beautiful.

The beautiful blue pool!

Along with all of these treasures was an ammo can! As cachers, we’re quite used to finding these around, however not quite this rusty and not often this size

A different kind of ammo can!

It was then off for a look at the “Ferret Cage” where “Brown used to keep his ferrets in 1899″ as was written on the wall next to it.

Doing the honors… (Photo © Foxscout)

He obviously got trapped on his way back to Devil’s Chamber

There was one last treasure to find: The cache! Thankfully it wasn’t too much hard work and Foxscout spotted it very quickly. It was then off for one last detour to the amazing cascading troughs. Although the front trough was cloudy, the back two were clear and full of perfectly good drinking water.

Cascading troughs

Our mission was complete. It was just a case of getting up the steep slope and then through the tight hole to get out…

Foxscout makes a break for the exit

Time for a squeeze (Photo © Foxscout)

Out I come… (Photo © Foxscout)

Andy just about fitted! (Photo © Foxscout)

When we emerged from the quarry it was quite dark outside and nearly 9pm! I couldn’t believe how time had flown, we completely lost track with all of the exploring. It was then off to the campsite to quickly pitch up the tent in the dark and grab some food, before recharging our batteries for the bigger adventure the following day: The massive Box quarry!!!

Sunday 12th August

On Sunday morning it rained and there was a massive thunderstorm! Underground adventures were the perfect plan… however we first had to take a wet tent down! Eventually we managed to get everything packed away in time with a few minutes to spare to stop off at The Steps to show Foxscout the cache and have a better look at the old Ammunitions depot.

Another peek down the steps

Do you ever get the feeling you’re being watched?

Peering through the tunnel

We resisted the urge to walk down the tunnel past the old conveyor belt. Apparently there is nothing down there so we heading off to another pub to meet Bareclawz for our final exploration for the weekend and our final cache, Multi 2. We suited up and off we went…

Ready to explore

Andy opening up!

This wasn’t going to be easy. The surveyed length for the central area of Box that we would be routing around today is over 30km, and that’s just a third of it! Getting lost in here could be very dangerous and my team mates had lots to fear as I was doing the routing again. Being navigationally challenged I took everyone down the wrong route as soon as we were through the entrance. After a few hints from Bareclawz I finally got us back on track and we followed the route through the quarry. There was one particular thing in the quarry that I was looking forward: The Cathedral! This is probably the most famous feature of the quarry and as we approached we could see a glimmer of light shining through. I’d seen photos of the Cathedral online, but nothing prepared me for what it was like in real life. This unusual quarry was formed because it was worked by hand and hauled through the vertical shaft between 1830 to 1850 as the surrounding quarry owners wouldn’t allow access to the stone via their workings. This left the chamber at around 40ft wide, 200ft long, and 80-90ft high!

The stunning cathedral

And just to put it into perspective, those are actually people!!!!

These shots were so worth carrying a tripod 2.5 miles through the quarry! (I’m saying this on behalf of Andy, the packhorse! ) and were so worth getting my expensive, shiny camera all dusty and dirty (It’s OK, it cleaned up alright!) I was delighted at how they turned out and that all of my recent photography studying had paid off! After taking some time to admire the Cathedral it was time to move on. There were quite a few sections where we had to clamber over rocks in this quarry, however very few sections that we needed to crawl through.

Navigating one of the many rock falls

Box is absolutely smothered in graffiti. Many different colour arrows marking routes that people have set, along with the usual drawings you’d expect from kids that had been down there! The old graffiti, however was brilliant and a real treat to see.

Graffiti of an old couple

Admiring the graffiti

Just over half way around we arrived at “Robots” so called because of the little brick characters that have been constructed in the area. I say little… actually one is pretty HUGE!!!! It’s also a good spot to stop for a picnic, which we did.

Daddy robot!

And some babies

Another impressive feature were the stone steps which lead up towards an unstable ladder. We didn’t take a trip up them though!

The stone steps

Let’s not forget what we were down in the quarry for though, a cache! We followed our route carefully and eventually ended up in a likely location!

That was our 3rd 5d/5t for the weekend, and the 5th 5d/5t for Foxscout and The Black Rabbit. What an achievement! All that was left was to get out!!! We carried on through a section which the MoD had used. There were strong brick pillars and impressive bricked walls along this section as well as a mighty fine air shaft.

On the way to the exit (we hope…)

Through the narrower brick walls

Another clamber over deads

The arch

About 3 hours after we entered we finally reached the Exit. It was a welcome sight, however left me feeling quite sad that this amazing experience was over once again!

We made it!!!!!

I’m trying not to think of it as the end though, but just the beginning. Sure, all of the Geocaches here are found, but our visit to these quarries opened up a whole new world of exploration to me, one that I never thought I’d be able to do. It’s not about the caches anymore, I’d happily visit these quarries a hundred more times if just to spot the things I’ve missed (And have another go on the mud slide!!!) Before I found the Below Above series we had only visited a small tin mine in Exmoor, a small quarry, a disused railway tunnel and a few ROC posts, now I have an entire Bookmark list of Underground caches to work through! There are some great underground adventures and caches that I’m really looking forward to, but after all of this there’s one thing I am pretty sure of: I will never find another Geocache nor have a Geocaching experience that is as good as this one. I’m convinced that these are the best caches in the country! I am of course open to suggestions and challenges if someone knows of some which may be better. I’ve been trying to think which of the caches and which of the quarries are my very favorite, but I don’t think I can choose. The Fallen Monarch/The White Bird are full of artifacts and feel like a real journey into the past. The quarry that’s home to Mind the Trains/Multi 1 has so many fun little gems to see: The cascading troughs, ferret cage, and the beautiful blue pool. The quarry that’s home to Multi 2 is just colossal! You could spend weeks exploring it and still not see all of the treasures. It’s definitely the quarry that I’d like to re-visit, especially as I have read that the northern area of the quarry is home to many old artifacts! All together they are the perfect set, and it was the perfect weekend. I’d like to say a massive thank you to Foxscout and The Black Rabbit for being so brave and accompanying us on this trip even though they hadn’t done underground caching before. And a huge thanks to Bareclawz, the CO, for giving up his weekend to take us around. If he hadn’t been there I think we would still be down inside Box trying to find the exit!!! Lol!

Even though we’ve dealt with the unfinished business and found the remaining 3 Below Above caches I’m still not satisfied (Typical woman!? ) and I do want to go back and look around again. I’m a lot more confident with my caving/underground exploring abilities after completing the series, and if anyone wants to go and find those caches then I’d happily come along as company, just give me a shout!

Now, it’s back to wading through nettles and brambles to find caches!!!

On July 28th we stayed close to home, but decided to travel from Essex to Suffolk. We were tempted by a series around Belchamp Water, Belchamp Water Circular.

We were pleasantly surprised by the series as the paths were brilliant, unlike some of the overgrown areas that we usually experience on summer caching trips. I’d even go as far to say that we could have walked the series wearing shorts! The paths were well marked and well cut, and an absolute pleasure to use.

Through the fields

The series passed near the grand Belchamp hall, which I went to take a look at. There was the sound of peacocks coming from the gardens as we hunted for a nearby cache.

Belchamp Hall

I’d looked on Geograph before we decided to attempt the series and I was pleased to see we’d be passing by an excellent photo opportunity at Jessie’s Birthday Cache, “Belchamp Folly” which was built purely to be an eyecacher from Belchamp Hall. We’d spotted the folly in the distance when we found Folly View along the road before starting the walk. Close up, however the folly was far more magnificent!

View of the folly

Belchamp folly

Looking up

After completing the series we stayed in the area and picked up a few drive-by caches. There was one in particular that we were glad that we stopped off for, The survey boys’ boat race No.2. The cache was hidden near a bridge, and just as we were about to jump over the bridge to get to GZ, we spotted a snake! He was curled up and resting just down the side of the bridge!

Grass snake taking a rest!

It stayed there whilst I went and grabbed the cache, but when I climbed back over the fence and jumped down onto the bridge he must have felt the vibrations as he slithered off shortly after that. I’ve only ever seen a live snake out in the wild once before, so it was a nice thing to see!

We finished off the day with the Sewer Badgers series before heading home.

Northamptonshire

On Saturday 4th August we headed to Northamptonshire for two series that looked extremely tight on the map, Benefield Gallivant, and Causin’ to the wind. Each series has 20 caches and is joined to make a figure of 8. My GPS measured the route as 6.32 miles, which is an incredibly short distance for 40 caches!

The series started out with a very nice tarmac’ed path that passed through two fields, quite a surprise.

A wonderful path

Some of the other areas on the walk were boggy and muddy, but on the whole it wasn’t bad at all and we even bumped into a couple of other cachers who were doing it in the opposite direction, dakar4x4 and FreeWillCachers. Once of the nicest sections of the walk was when we passed through a field of wild flowers with bees and butterflies buzzing all around.

Through the wild flowers

After lunch we headed off for some drive-by’s with the plan to do another series after that, however the rain stopped that and we continued with just drive-by’s. One of the nicest caches that we stopped for was The Round House which was a lock up built around the 1700′s. You could see the small vents in the top of the building. Unfortunately we couldn’t find the cache, but it was at least a nice place to find.

The Round House

We finished the day with 64 finds, a really enjoyable day of caching, despite a fair bit of rain!

Docking the ship

We pitched our tent up at the campsite late on Friday morning next to fellow Essex cachers mel-ray and happycabbage who had arrived at about the same time as us and soon cracked on with the piratey tent decorations!

The good ship Cassandy

It wasn’t long before we were joined by more of the Essex crew with Hollyncharlie, yorkie63, risktak4r, bigbadjohn1402, tazzy1234, unobtainium, and geotrowel turning up shortly afterwards with most of them pitching their tents along our row so we were all together. With many people arriving after work the camp site was soon packed and heaving with cachers, pirate flags, and some very uniquely decorated tents/motor homes!

Just a small sample of flags!

Dead man’s caravan?

Mel-ray had a very nicely decorated tent with a very piratey table with chocolates for the kids and a bottle of rum (Not for the kids!)

The booty!

And there was one particular original decoration which made me laugh!

Hehe!

Before the night was out two pirate captains were elected to represent the red team and the blue team. Geotrowel was the red captain, so naturally we swore allegiance to him and all donned red bands around our wrists to show which team we were on. It was the job of the captain to get as many pirates on his team as possible to earn dubloons and be the winning team. I did a little bit of recruiting handing out a few bands, but Yorkie63 did a lot more and forced those who wanted to join our crew to stand on one leg with their finger in their ear and swear allegiance to the red team! Hehe!

Getting all dressed up!

The following day was the actual event. We all woke early to get our costumes on and tart ourselves up to look like pirates. It was absolutely brilliant! Those who dressed up had gone to so much effort and looked absolutely fabulous. Let me introduce you to some of the red crew…

Here be t’HappyCabbage Corsairs. They may look friendly, but they’re The most untrustworthy pirates in t’East. Don’t let t’ little pirate distract you. HappyCabbage will go for t’throat with his muskets, whilst t’little one stabs ye in t’belly and chubby bear bites at your ankles…

The happycabbage crew

Here be Captain GT keeping all t’red banded pirates in line. Cross him and ye be thrown out to sea with only one destination: Davy Jones’ Locker…

Geotrowel, the red captain!

This be yorkie63, t’most experienced musket wieldin’ pirate that ever lived. Legend be that he sin’le-handely wiped out t’ whole crew o’ t’ once mightiest vessel that ever sailed t’ seven seas. You’ll often see him plunderin’ grog wit his lad, Riskt4ker and hound Admiral Alfie who has jaws as sharp as sharks teeth!

Beware Yorkie63!

Don’t let the cute puppy dog eyes fool you, it’s just a devilish ploy

This be t’ scurvy ridden couple Cassandy. When t’ swashbucklin’ lass isn’t busy writin’ ships logs she be sneakin’ into port and robbin’ booty and grog while t’ lad steers t’ getaway ship launchin’ t’ six pounders on any landlubber in t’ way.

A couple of fearsome familiar looking pirates!

Here be mel-ray. Ye can’t trust these here salty sea dogs. T’ lass makes t’ most divine cakes you’ve ever tasted in all t’ seven seas, but they’re layered with poison. Fall for t’ cakes and you’ll be chopped up with t’ lad’s cutlas and thrown in tomorrow’s stew. Say “I’m shovin’ off” t’ all your booty!

Don’t be fooled by the smiles, these pirates should be feared!

They didn’t call this pirate bigbadjohn for nothin’. He was once t’ most fearsome pirate that ever lived, but he got sent t’ pay a visit t’ Davy Jones. He didn’t go away for good and still haunts his ship which be rumored t’ still sail around t’ black rocks. If you see tazzy1234, his faithful parrot then you’ll know he’s lurkin’ near by and your days be numbered!

Bigbadjohn1234 will be hiding in the shadows…

Last but not least, t’ most feared pirate alive t’ sail in these waters: Evie o’ t’ Hollyncharlie crew! Mum and dad be busy down below steerin’ t’ ship whilst t’ Junior Captain shouts her orders and directions. Armed with 27 six pounders and a crew o’ 300 deadly pirates she has no mercy for any ships that cross her course. If thar be treaaye near by, then it soon be in her grasp!

Pirate Evie before boarding her ship

Captain’s mate!

And after boarding!

Time for treasure hunting!

After we’d all signed in and registered our attendance for the MEGA it was time to head off in search of not-so-buried treasure on the 8 mile loop that had been set with 24 caches. We stayed in our pirate gear and I soon realised why I don’t normally cache in fishnet tights and a skirt: Grass seeds get embedded in the fishnet holes and are very spikey, and skirts are great for flashing your bloomers at everyone whilst climbing stiles (Don’t worry, I was wearing shorts underneath! Lol!)

Signing the log whilst Andy does his best teapot impression…

It was a pretty nice series, although a lot of the paths were obviously not very well walked so we had a few tricky sections that we had to tackle, but it wasn’t bad at all. There were lots of stiles though and with hundreds of pirates out searching for treasure there were quite a few queues to get over them.

There be pirates on the horizon…

Single file

This sheep is particularly fond of pirates!

There were a few sections where we crossed the road, through the village, and past a garden centre. It was great to see some of the muggle’s faces as yet more pirates passed through!

Pirate collision!

It was a boiling hot day and I got very sunburned (Just in case I didn’t realise everyone I bumped in to pointed it out to me! Lol!). Back at camp it was time to relax and recharge ready for the evening…

Evening Entertainment

After stripping off the pirate costumes to cool down in the afternoon it was time to become a pirate once again and pull together all of the Essex pirates for a lovely group shot as everyone looked so great fearsome!

The Essex pirates!!! Everyone say Arrrrrrgh!

Even the fruit and veg got dressed up!

There was a section of the camp site fenced off for barbequing, however we stayed at the tent and had ours. It’s a good job we did as all of the BBQs caused a huge amount of smoke!!!

Smokey!

There were a few games that went on throughout the night. The kids played “Captain Says” and were impressively obedient when told to run around the camp site, salute, lay on their back, do a “sick turtle”, etc.

The kids playing “Captain says”

And then it was time for the adult game: Chili eating! I sat this one out, but Yorkie63, Bigbadjohn, Risktak4r and Tazzy1234 were brave and ate a mild chili and a birds eye (or two!) after using the trick with milk to line their mouths before, and cool down the fires afterwards. They earned a fair few Dubloons for the red team. Well done guys!

It’s chili eating time!!!

Ready for a warm up!

Chili faces!

The BBQs soon stopped smoking and it started to get dark. The prizes were given out for best dressed pirates, tent, and vehicle. Mel-ray had one of the 7 tents that won “Best dressed tent” and quite rightly so hollyncharlie won “Best Dressed Vehicle” for Evie’s pimped up pram. The dubloons were all counted and obviously the read team won. The greatest pirate team in all the land! When it got dark we were treated to a mini firework display as a few fires burnt on into the night.

Fireworks to end the evening

Still drinking grog

Initiation

Yawn! Sunday 22nd July and the Essex crew were all rudely awoken by a domestic going on between two cachers in one of the tents in front. It was like the blooming Jeremy Kyle show. A lot of those camping in the area had been awake for a few hours whilst the drunken couple sorted out their differences blatantly ignoring the fact that tents don’t have walls! It was the woman screaming and slapping the man that woke me at about 5:30am! I’m the grumpiest person in the world if I don’t get enough sleep, or get woken up abruptly, but the shouting and screaming was actually pretty amusing as we learned about some of the couple’s more intimate secrets. It was very annoying, but we all did what all good British pirates do – sat down and had a cup of tea! Hehe! Eventually security turned up and they disappeared leaving us all tired and grumpy!

After packing the tent away it was time to head into Ashbourne for the 12:00 Initiation event in the centre. All of us pirates gathered in the streets.

Invading Ashbourne

A bottle of rum was placed on a table with a “Free rum! Take me” sign on. It really wasn’t long before a muggle decided to seize the bottle and begin his initiation into the pirate clan!

The moment we’ve been waiting for…

Drink, drink, drink…

Showered with gifts! Can’t be bad!

The muggle was a really good sport and happy stood for plenty of photographs and gift showering. It was great fun! We left the piratey fun behind and headed home, stopping off for a pub lunch and a visit to Kirby Muxloe castle which unexpectedly just happened to be right next to the pub.

Kirby Muxloe

Piratemania V was a cracking event. Easily the best event that we have attended. Pirates are absolutely the best characters to dress up as and the amount of work and organisation put in by Mark (PopupPirate) and Leanne to get the event together for a fifth time was so impressive. It’s amazing how big the event has grown since the first one, Piratemania 2008. We owe them a massive thank you for a cracking weekend, and a big thank you to all our Essex caching friends for great company for the entire weekend. I can’t wait for next year’s Piratemania and the excuse to buy more Pirate gear!

There’s just one thing left to say: “Arrrrrrgh! Happy caching plundering“

We parked at the Bradwell-On-Sea marina on Sunday morning and headed off for a 11 mile walk to bag the 55 caches on the eastern loop of St. Peter’s Way.

The eastern loop. 55 caches over 11 miles.

The walk started off taking us along the path along the shore. There were plenty of boats out to sea, obviously the owners had also decided to make the most of the short burst of sunshine too!

Just up from Bradwell Marina

Although a bit muddy and slippery in places, the path was relatively easy to walk. A nice change from some of the over grown nettle patches and uncut rapeseed fields that we’ve had to navigate over the previous month or so. The views out to sea made it all that more enjoyable.

The fishermen managed to catch a boat! Hehe!

Along the shore

The barges out from Maldon

Heading towards the wind turbines

There was also plenty of wildlife along the walk. There was a bird observatory and a few areas of nature reserve. We were also pleasantly surprised to see a plant infested with orange and black striped caterpillars, I’d not seen caterpillars quite like this before. It turned out they were Cinnabar moth larvae, the blue and red beautiful moths that we saw a couple of around the area.

Mediterranean gulls (I think!)

Cinnabar moth larvae enjoying some Ragwort!

The real highlight of the walk was St Peter’s Chapel, a tiny Saxon chapel built in 654 AD which was also at the site of a Roman fort. We ventured inside to have a better look. It felt truly magical inside with the beams of light shining through the tiny windows onto the pews.

St Peter’s Chapel

Inside the chapel

And a bit lower

The caches were mostly easy finds, and mostly film cannisters. It was quite simply a lovely walk. We were glad that we didn’t do it on the day of the camping event in a mob with others because we would have whizzed past quickly whilst chatting and not been able to absorb the lovely scenery and spend so long at the chapel. All good things come to an end though (My feet were thankful for that!) and we were soon back at Bradwell Marina.

Docked in Bradwell Marina

And a few of the smaller boats!!!