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2 * 10 Years! Events and caching our way from Sheffield to Manchester

Posted in General, tagged 10 Years, Manchester, Sheffield on May 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

L.S. Lowry signs the logbook (or is he sketching some matchstick men and matchstick cats and dogs ;-))

After an excellent evening watching Kiss at the Sheffield Arena last night, Isaac and myself planned to cache our way over to the 10 Years! Manchester, UK event which was due to be held in Manchester city centre.

The only cache left between us and the M1 was a called called Phoenix, set by this huge state of a phoenix. Try as we might we could not spot the nano so reluctantly gave up and headed northwards on the M1 instead.

Peak District moorland views

I’ve done the Woodhead Pass drive between Sheffield and Manchester many times in the past and was telling Isaac it should be really nice, with lots of great Peak District views along the way. We’d run a caches along a route Pocket Query last night so had a selection of caches to think about stopping for.

Time was a bit tight, so we just stuck to the drive-by’s and cache and dashes, although we’d have loved to go for a longer walk on the moors in this stunning, yet desolate scenery.

Isaac looks for one of the moorland caches

As we were coming down off the tops on the Manchester side we stopped to clear up a DNF from ages ago at Tintwistle. It took us a few moments to find the cache but what a fantastic hide. If you’ve not done it already, get over to Arnfield Lane – Benchmark – you won’t be disappointed.

The next cache was also a really nice one as it it set not far from where the famous painter L.S. Lowry used to live and in a little park area with a statue of Lowry sat on a bench sketching. See the photo below – we even managed to get him to draw a picture on the cache log ;-).

Isaac with L.S. Lowry

Once in the city centre we walked over to where the Shambles used to be and the pub that the event was at. We had a great time at the event meeting lots of old friends and quite a few newer cachers we’d not yet met but seen in many a logbook.

On the way home after the event we picked off the nearest two caches as they were (sort of ;-)) on the way.

At the 10 Years! Manchester, UK event

Once home, we had a lovely Sunday roast dinner before I met up with Allun from the Shropshire Seekers to drive up to the 10 Years! Christleton, Chester, UK event. On the way we picked up two caches that had been set for the event and another cache that was very close to the pub.

Another excellent and well organised event followed. We had a great time and hope to start coming back to the regular events that are held at this pub. It’s been way too long since we went to the last one!

Great public art near a cache in Salford

Not a great day in terms of numbers with only 13 finds, but two of them had unique 10 Years! icons and were really good fun. A great day out :-).

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Caching our way to Sheffield to see Kiss at the Sheffield Arena

Posted in General, tagged Chesterfield, Hoyland, Sheffield on May 2, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Kiss make a very impressive entrance at the Sheffield Arena

On Saturday Isaac and myself were off to see Kiss open their Sonic Boom Over Europe tour at the Sheffield Arena and so opted to do some caches beforehand.

We’d spotted a series of 11 caches just to the south of Chesterfield which looked to be a nice walk and would be a good change to stretch our legs after the drive over from Shropshire. We parked by the last one in the series and then set off to do the series backwards, going from cache 12 down to 1 (why do a series in the intended order when you don’t have to ;-)).

The Five Pits Trail - part of our walk around the Chesterfield caches

A really lovely walk ensued and we were soon back at the place we’d parked the Jeep. We found all the caches bar one which looked to be missing.

We then headed off to the M1 through Sheffield and onwards to Hoyland near Barnsley, where there looked to be enough caches to keep us busy for the rest of the day. On the way off the motorway we picked off a quick cache we spotted on TomTom as we drove past.

Old farm building on our walk

Our first target was a series of 5 caches around an industrial estate on the north side of Hoyland. All nice and quick finds, with the only thing of note that one of the caches appeared to be missing a container (although it might be intentional as it’s hidden under cover).

We then picked off a quick cache at Elsecar station before heading down to this wonderful heritage centre full of old machinery and trains. It looked really nice and we’d have loved to have a look round, but there were to many caches nearby to find ;-).

Old canal taken over by wildlife

We got the bikes out of the Jeep and set off to find the caches, which were mainly set along this disused canal. A really lovely area for caching round here with tons of wildlife making the old canal it’s home. All the caches were nice and easy. Once we got to the end of the caches along the canal, we back-tracked to the heritage centre and headed off up the hill for the final 3 caches in the series.

Little did we know but an absolute treat awaited us as we closed in on the next cache. We came round the corner in these woods to a whole hidden glade full of bluebells. What a really nice surprise :-).

The lovely (and unexpected!) bluebell glade

After we got back to the Jeep we needed to start thinking about heading into Sheffield, but not before a few more quick caches. Nothing much of note here apart from seeing an ice-cream van near to one of the caches, so we stopped for a well-deserved break and nice ice-cream in the afternoon sun.

Once back in Sheffield we checked into our hotel, which was right over the road from the Arena. After a nice meal in the restaurant we had an hour to spare so popped out in the Jeep to grab a quick 4 urban caches. All were well placed and in interesting spots (not something you get with every urban cache!).

Sheffield urban caching: a fabulous flowing barrel statue

With 35 finds for the day, we got changed and headed off to an absolutely fabulous night being entertained by Kiss and their support group Taking Dawn. What a perfect end to a really fun day’s caching :-).

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