Adventures of a Bolas Heathen

Isaac and Freya with one of the traditional caches we found

We headed off to London for a long weekend this weekend as it was Isaac’s birthday and we’d also been promising to take Freya to London for ages. We booked a hotel near to Baker Street and off we set.

Friday 6 August 2010

We caught the train to Euston station and travelled the short distance by underground to our hotel to drop our bags off. We then headed off to do some touristy things (and find a few caches!).

By the Houses of Parliament, not far from a virtual cache

First stop was Buckingham Palace, from where we walked down the Mall to Trafalgar Square to bag a new Earthcache at a statue in the square. A bit of an odd place for an Earthcache but great fun nonetheless – there was even a fossil to find in some stone at GZ, which the children really liked.

Us on the London Eye

We then headed down Whitehall to do a virtual cache near the Houses Of Parliament, on the way to a trip on the London Eye. After we’d rode the Eye, we did a few more caches round the Waterloo area before heading over to Victoria for a few more caches, including one outside the old home of Ian Fleming, who was the famous author of the James Bond books.

Saturday 7 August 2010

First stop today was St Paul’s Cathederal as we’d all wanted to climb up to the Whispering Gallery for ages and it seemed like a good time as any to do it. The fact there were lots of Virtual caches in the area might have helped the decision too ;-).

At the very top of St Paul's Cathedral at a virtual cache

From St Paul’s we headed down towards the River Thames for one more Virtual and then the Little Quest cache that represents London. This is a series of caches, one in each county of England, all leading to a final bonus cache hidden somewhere in Lancashire. We’re never ever going to finish the series, but do try and do any from the series if we are near them.

At the top of the monument to the Great Fire of London on Pudding Lane

The last cache of the day was a Virtual at the top of the HUGE monument to the Great Fire of London in Pudding Lane. This is somewhere Freya has wanted to see for ages – in fact ever since she did about it at school.

Sunday 8 August 2010

We were running out of touristy areas with many caches left to find today, so ended up heading off to look round the Tower of London in the morning. We managed to find our way into the City and do a few caches around the area after coming out of the Tower.

At a Sherlock Holmes themed virtual cache near to where we stayed

From there, we headed off to do a webcam cache at Oxford Circus before hitting the shops for a few hours. Just our luck, the wevbcam was down for the few hours we were in the area, so we took a snap of the webcam down image and took our own photo of Isaac at GZ anyway. Thankfully the cache owner has let this stand as a find under the circumstances :-).

Freya with a Beefeater at the Tower of London

The last cache in London was a cache we’d DNF’d on our last trip to the area, just off Regent Street. This time I’d studied the photos on the cache page and we walked until we could match the photos and had an easy find.

Great artwork near to an urban cache near Waterloo

Just time for a visit to the MEGA-HUGE new Apple Store that opened in Covent Garden yesterday (did I say it’s absolutely HUGE? ;-)) and some tea before we had to catch the train home.

A great few days away with lots of things seen and done, but not that many caches found. Then again, we were not expecting to find that many caches as that’s not the main reason we went to London :-).