Adventures of a Bolas Heathen

Chirk railway bridge viewed from Chirk Aquaduct. The railway bridge was deliberately built higher so as to make it look more superior to the canal.

On Saturday I had only intended to do a few caches after I’d dropped Isaac off at school as we’d planned a proper day out caching on Sunday. In the end it turned into quite a bit more than a few caches and took quite a lot of the day!

Lovely wild meadow on the Perry Bridges caches

I headed off along the A5 to tackle the 9 new Perry Bridges caches first. These are all set at bridges along the River Perry in the Oswestry area, some being driveby’s and some being walks down over fields to more remote foot bridges.

The beautiful methodist church in Chirk

Nothing too taxing here and all were nice quick finds, with some of them being in really pretty spots. I was having a great time and decided to carry on caching and head towards Chirk in North Wales as that’s where the next nearest caches were.

Walking along Chirk Aquaduct - I'm a few hundred feet up at this point!

On the way to Chirk I stopped off for a quick find on a Pirates Of Shropshire caches. In Chirk I started with a quick Church Micro before setting off on foot over the magnificent Chirk Viaduct. This is a HUGE structure, designed by Thomas Telford and both scenic and an extremely impressive feat of engineering. One end is in England and one in Wales so you walk to a different country along the way :-).

Croeso I Cymru - the Welsh end of Chirk Aquaduct

Welcome to England - the English end of the Chirk Aquaduct

A few more quick caches round Chirk followed, with my favourite being in this lovely bluebell carpeted woodland near to Chirk Castle. After I’d done in Chirk I dropped back into England to head off to the Pink Wellie series. This is a set of 9 caches in the middle of nowhere and all involving some kind of physical challenge e.g. wading, climbing trees, screambling up slippery banks.

The massive chocolate factory in Chirk

I came a cropper at the first one as it was nowhere to be seen. I’d even crawled down the badger track under the hedge and into a culvert by the road as intended but still could not spot the cache. I gave up and moved onto the next one, which involved taking off my walking boots, rolling up my pants and wading over a river under a roadbridge to get the cache – great fun :-).

Traditional church in Chirk town centre

The rest of the series were equally as good – the main thing being having to do something a bit different on each one to get the smiley. On the way round I passed a wedding party just coming out of the church in the village of Duddleston.

I don't own any wellies (especially not pink ones!) so had to wade barefoot to get the cache

After this, I went off to look for the new Tetchill Tour caches, all set around the small village of Tetchill. On the way I grabbed two drive-by’s, both of which I’m still wondering about as they were both at the side of a nonedescript stretch of road. Why put a cache there?

Lovely canal on part of the Tetchill Tour

The Tetchill caches were a nice walk and some fun hides. By now I really should start heading for home but could not resist picking off the few drive-by’s between Ellesmere and Whitchurch as they have been on my closest to home not found list for way too long.

Friendly cows on the Tetchill Tour

One of the drive-by’s had the part co-ords for a nearby puzzle cache that has been out for 4 months now, but never found. I had a quick look and the other part of the co-ords were in a cache about 6 miles to the north of where I was, so off I set.

Old water pump in Tetchill - there's a cache in it too!

With the full co-ords for the unfound cache, I plotted them on my GPSr and realised they were (sort of) on my way home. What better way to end the day than with a FTF, which is just what I did :-). A very satisfying end to a great day on what has been the hottest day of the year.

On the way to my FTF (I won't say which canal it is though ;-))

37 finds in some beautiful and unspoilt countryside.