I've had an interesting year of Geocaching and I actually reached the big FOUR-OH. You can read below what I did. I'm hoping I actually remember the stories behind these as some were so long ago!
The first one of 2015 I found whilst spending time in Holland between Boxing Day 2014 and after New Year. I was staying with Mathijs' family. We happened to have a look on the app to see if there were any local to where we were in Makkum and indeed there was, right by the supermarket. Mathijs and I decided to pop to the supermarket with his mum and have a little search while she was shopping.
It was pretty simple to find.
When Mathijs and I got back to the UK we were on a mission to find more local ones. We saw there was one around the corner from my flat so we went there the weekend after we got back. It was quite cold out but we forced ourselves to go as it was around the corner.
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| Fencey that! |
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| Where's the geocache? |
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| Oh, there it is! |
After finding my 14th cache there was a bit of a break where the weather was quite rainy and temperature was cold. I received an email from Geocaching.com to say that they were celebrating 15 years of geocaching on 2nd May and those who find a cache that day will get a souvenir. The weather was nice so we thought "why not". We had a look at what was around and saw there were a few in Shenley. We tried to find the first cache before this next one but it was missing (we found it later on in the year when it was replaced). Another couple of geocachers were also trying to find it. They had been doing the Shenley loop and recommended we do that at some point. We decided to find the second one we were planning to do that afternoon and the couple had just found that one and said it was a pretty easy one to find. We headed off in the direction of The Old School House and, as they couple had told us, it definitely
was an easy one.
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| Standard cache size and container |
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| The Old School House |
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| Sign to prove it |
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| The souvenir I got after I logged it "found" |
Mathijs and I decided to celebrate 9 months of being together by having a meal at the place where we had our first date drinks - Paradise by way of Kensal Green. It was a really lovely Sunday roast. It was also such a lovely day so we looked up some geocaches for our route back. The first was in Willesden - All Souls Avenue. Mathijs was proud of himself because he found this one.
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| Where could it be? |
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| Is it a pen? No, it's the cache! |
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| Here it is on the map! |
We were on a roll so we decided to find the geocache at Fiveways Corner in Mill Hill.
We parked up and wandered around trying to locate the cache. We had the hint. The hider had actually used a 3D printer to make the container for the cache.
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| Protecting the cache |
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| Where could it be? |
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| Clever container |
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| On the map! |
The following week was also a lovely day. Mathijs had the geocaching bug and insisted we go out again. There were three more geocaches to find around the back of where I live in Parkfields. However, the bridge to get over to Parkfields was closed as they were doing works to it until late October. There's another entrance which meant driving over to the other side of the open space to get to it. We did a lot of walking around trying to find the caches and at one point took a scenic wrong turn.
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| It's got to be here somewhere |
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| We found it! "Hole knot of fun" cache |
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| The bigger picture |
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| Lost but pretty! |
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| What a mess! |
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| Found it! "Golf Ball Graveyard" cache |
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| Lego man! |
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| The third cache of the day is somewhere here |
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| The "Out of bounds" cache |
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| Map including one I'd previously found (the one at the top) |
Geocaching.com promoted its Roadtrip and people had to find caches on 3rd July, We had plans to go to my friends David and Sarah in Archway for dinner. We decided to leave a bit earlier to try and find a cache that was only a minute away from where they lived. We spent ages trying to find it and once we did find it we felt silly as it was fairly obvious.
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| Heavy container and magnetic too |
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| Cache name - "From pillar to post" |
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| Pillar and post |
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| Here it is on the map |
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| My cool souvenir |
This brought the total to 21 geocaches found.
In July, Mathijs and I went to stay with his parents in Holland. I was keen to visit Amsterdam as we hadn't gotten around to it the last time we were there. Obviously, I wanted to find a geocache there and Mathijs (who had decided to create his own Geocaching.com account) wanted his own Netherlands souvenir. We saw there was a geocache near the Anne Frank museum and thought that would be the perfect one to find. The queues were crazy and we thought we'd got there early! We didn't want to stand in the queue all day for the museum so decided to find our cache and wander around the city.
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| "Behind the monument" you say! |
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| Magnetic cache |
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| Anne Frank statue |
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| Where Anne Hid |
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| So many geocaches - so little time - only time for one! |
The next one we found was the one that needed to be replaced in Shenley - this was the day after we got back from Holland on the way back from my parent's annual Summer BBQ (which coincides with my brother's birthday weekend). I've often found Shenley Gate to be a fascinating "building". The geocache isn't actually hiding there but the clue is! From what I remember from history at school is that "gates" were actually "prisons/jail cells".
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The sign says
"Village sign drawn
by Phoebe Young
Year 3 Puffin Class.
Painted by Roy Monk,
local scenic artist. |
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| Shenley Gate which has been "refurbished" to keep it in good condition |
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| "Do well and fear not" |
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| "Be sober. Be vigilant." - a rule I constantly live by ;) |
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| The GPS co-ordinates. |
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| Good sized cache container |
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| Goodies inside |
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| Between the gate and the cache |
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| Orange one (classed as a multi-cache) found. On the map with Old School House one. |
On 15th August it was International Geocaching Day and a souvenir was available to get if a cache was found. Also, as part of the Geocaching.com roadtrip, if you found a "Mystery" cache then you'd get a souvenir for that as well. The point of a Mystery cache (which are the blue points on the maps) is to solve a clue which would then give you the co-ordinates of the cache. This particular cache (Ducks at Dusk) was in Letchmore Heath and involved pictures of ducks on scales. My very clever boyfriend managed to work everything out.
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| Eventually worked it out |
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| Found the footpath |
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| Where could it be? |
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| Bit mucky |
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| SOUVENIR! |
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| Our mystery cache souvenir (Mathijs wore out his thinking cap) |
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| Blue one found! |
Up to 24 found now!
Off to Cyprus we went in September. We looked before heading out of the country to see if there were any Geocaches near where we would be staying. Low and behold - there was! We were on our way back from scuba diving and the instructor dropped us off near the site.
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| The war memorial at the site of "Hermes #2" |
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| So tiny and magnetic |
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| It's all Greek to me |
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| Beautiful sunset caught as we were walking back to the hotel |
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| Paphos! |
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| You can just about see the smiley face on the west coast! |
Unfortunately, there was no Cyprus souvenir. Mathijs will tell you how mortified I was!
The next one I found by myself. I went to Liverpool on a work conference and there was a geocache right out the back of the exhibition centre. I'd been on our stand for so long and needed some fresh air so it was a good excuse to go out there to have a search for it. I spent my whole little break trying to find it and came up with nothing. I went back inside defeated. I tried at lunchtime - still no joy. I went back out in the afternoon determined to find it and it was then I noticed something that didn't seem right so I tested out my theory and came up trumps! VERY clever hide!
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| The ACC in Liverpool |
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| The "Dazzle" ferry on the Mersey designed by Sir Peter Blake as part of WW1 commemorations |
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| Tiny cache! |
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| The view across the Mersey |
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| Quite a few in the Albert Dock and surrounding area |
At this point I'd found 26 geocaches.
On 27th September it was a beautiful day, so much so, I was actually willing to go for a walk and do some geocaching. Mathijs and I decided to do the Shenley Loop and find all of the geocaches in that area. I think we were probably out for about three hours and walked three kilometres. We had 11 caches (or so I thought) and a mystery cache to find.
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| The start of our journey |
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| The signs point the way! |
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| Cache hiding within "The Fallen Giant" #1 |
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| "Where The Trolls Live" #2 |
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| The treasures inside! |
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| "The Chapel" #3 |
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| "The Sculptures" #4 |
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| It's hiding! |
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| "The Pathway" #5 |
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| Mathijs modelling the cache we found |
We walked uphill towards a viewpoint in Shenley which was, funnily enough, where one of my besties, Taryn, lives. Thought we'd give her a call to say we were there but she didn't answer so thought she was out (I found out she wasn't).
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| A good hiding place |
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| "The Viewpoint" #6 |
On the way to the seventh cache, Mathijs saw a tree swing. There is video of him swinging on it but I don't think he'd appreciate me posting it.
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| Tree swinger! |
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| SO clever - this is one of my favourites |
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| "Cow Bank Woods" #7 |
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| "Back of the Houses" #8 |
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Me posing near "The Bottom of Porters Park Drive" #9
Don't want to spoil this one so not posting a close-up |
After finding #9 we looked up #10 but it had disappeared from the list but it had been there in the morning. It had been temporarily disabled as it needed mending so, unfortunately, we had to skip this one until it was replaced.
Onto #11.
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| Mathijs searching for #11 "The Field" |
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| Here it is |
While we were collecting these, there was a clue in each one to help with the twelfth cache - the mystery cache. We solved the clue and worked out the co-ordinates for the mystery cache.
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| The Bonus Cache #12 |
After blitzing the Shenley Loop I ended up at 37 geocaches found. Only three more until the big FOUR-OH! I knew I wanted to find #10 when it was replaced and I knew I wanted to find the 40th on my 36th birthday therefore I needed to find another one before this time.
I was at work and thought to myself, "I wonder if there are new caches near my office". I did a search and there was another in a similar place to one I'd found before in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
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| Near my office - lots of colours! |
I noticed during the following weekend that #10 in the Shenley Loop had been replaced so Mathijs and I made the time to go and find it.
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| Another clever hide. "The Alleyway" #10 |
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| The full Shenley Loop which also includes others I've found in the area |
My 40th cache I wanted to find on my birthday but I also wanted to take my niece, Lexie, out for a few hours. I told her about geocaching but told her it was like a treasure hunt. I looked up caches in the area that were large enough to have things inside them. I went out in the morning to buy something to put in the container to replace anything Lexie may want to remove for herself.
I picked Lexie up and we went to find the "treasure", pretending we were pirates (she wanted to be Captain Seadog) interspersed with singing and "are we nearly there". We parked up and held hands as we crossed the road. I saw where the cache was and went to let go of Lexie's hand to reach for the cache but she gripped it hard and wouldn't let go. She then said to me, "You can't let go, mummy said I'm not allowed to let go of your hand". I replied: "I'm sure mummy won't mind if you let go and don't move as I need both hands to get the treasure". She reluctantly agreed. I got the treasure down and we opened it.
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| Just need to reach it |
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| Lexie pointing out the treasure! |
We opened to box and found loads of "treasure". Lexie found what she wanted - a "gold" medal that says "winner". To this day she doesn't stop going on about her medal!
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| Proud of her treasure |
So, I found my 40th cache with my gorgeous niece (part of my "spend 1 on 1 time with my niece" 40 list item).
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| My 40th cache. |
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| Proof I've found 40! |
So, I've found my 40 geocaches - that didn't take long at all. I can now casually continue to find the geocaches without any pressure. However, I am considering the option to actually hide a few.
If you want to check out my Geocaching profile my username, as you can see above, is RockChick1979. Go to
Geocaching.com.
This is a fun hobby especially on a lovely day of weather. I recommend this to anybody - with or without kids - it's good fun and highly addictive.
