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Stafford, Stoke, Whitchurch and a FTF near Warrington

Posted in General, tagged , , , , on August 6, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Isaac with a cache near to Stoke On Trent

Isaac with a cache near to Stoke On Trent

We don’t usually do much caching in the week but with the school holidays on, we inevitably end up finding a few.

4th August 2010

Isaac and Mrs Bolas Heathens had a few errands to run in Stafford and Stoke, so stopped off to find a quick three caches. Not much to report from what I hear apart from 3 easy finds.

5th August 2010

I had an hour spare just after dinner so decided to head out and pick off our closest cache to home – a cache by RAF Tern Hill, an active airfield and army barracks. I was a bit apprehensive about the cache given it’s proximity to MOD land and the very real risk of armed guards wondering what the heck I was up to. Thankfully it was an easy find, but it was (just about) on MOD land which is not allowed. I see now a Reviewer has archived the cache, which all things considered is very much the right thing to do. The last thing we want is our hobby coming under scrutiny for all the wrong reasons.

Me with one of the caches in Whitchurch

Me with one of the caches in Whitchurch

I was enjoying myself so decided to head off to Whitchurch to clear up the (quite a) few new caches that had spriung up recently in the area. On the way I picked up a straggler cache near Malpas in Cheshire that we’d been meaning to do for ages.

Not much to report on the Whitchurch caches apart from lots of very tricky and camo’d micros in ivy (not our favourite type of find at all). Two of them do stand out though as they were decent sized boxes full of decent swaps and hidden in nice locations.

Our FTF in a very dark Warrington

Our FTF in a very dark Warrington

I’d been working on a puzzle cache called Blank Canvas just to the south of Warrington on and off for the last few days and just after tea today I had a flash of inspiration on the final part of the puzzle and the cache co-ords were then revealed. I’d not normally drive just over an hour for FTF but given how many people are currently working on the same puzzle, I could not resist.

A quick call to Allun from the Shropshire Seeekers to see if he wanted to tag along and we were on our way. By the time we had arrived it was dark, so out came the torches for the walk over the fields to GZ. The cache was an easy find and we were delighted to see we were FTF :-).

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Blog Catch-Up

Posted in General, tagged , , , on July 23, 2010| 2 Comments »

Our 10,000th find at WEREWOLF, somewhere on a remote moor in Yorkshire

Our 10,000th find at WEREWOLF, somewhere on a remote moor in Yorkshire

We’ve been really busy with other things the last few weeks so have not had time to keep our Blog as up to date as we’d liked.

Instead of just missing the period out, we’ve put together a slideshow of some of our exploits instead. Notable things that happened during the period:

  • Isaac went caching with his Grandparents, while they were judging churchyards around Staffordshire (don’t ask! :-)).
  • We found our 10,000 cache at WEREWOLF
  • Started on the new LEGEND Letterbox caches in Lancashire with the Hurstwood and Widdop sections.

Anyway, here is the slideshow…

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An event cache in Warrington

Posted in General, tagged on March 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Isaac with our one cache find of the day

On Sunday we planned to attend the NW Caching Monthly Meet at Winwick, near Ikea just north of Warrington.

We were running behind all morning due to putting the clocks forward an hour last night, so arrived at the event a bit later than planned. Not a problem though and we had a great time. The quiz was really tricky but we managed to answer some of the questions and were really surprised to find we’d won (we never normally win anything!). Our prize was a lovely unactivated NW Caching geocoin :-).

On the way home from the event I’d spotted a cache and dash on the way to the M6 so we headed off for that. A nice easy find was had, but the cache itself was not that quick to do as a dual carriageway got it in the way and took us a bit out of our way. All part of the fun though.

We then headed off home having had a great time meeting lots of old friends :-).

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A quick cache while in Warrington

Posted in General, tagged on December 22, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Freya with the cache

Today we were in Warrington delivering Christmas presents to various relatives. By the time we’d done our rounds it was getting late but there was just time for one cache.

We decided to head home via the M6 rather than our usual route of the A49, so a quick drive-by near Grappenhall looked perfect. The lane the cache was on was very icy and there was a sign saying the lane was closed, but the Jeep had no problems getting to GZ.

Myself and Freya jumped out and Freya found the cache instantly (that’s my girl :-)). After we’d done with the cache, we managed to find somewhere to turn round and we were soon on our way home.

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A trip to Warrington and a few caches, plus a FTF near home

Posted in General, tagged , on June 20, 2009| Leave a Comment »

On Friday, Mrs Bolas Heathens had booked us in for a health check at the Bupa hospital at Stretton, near Warrington. Naturally I had spotted a few easy to get caches for the way home – it would have been rude not to ;-).

Just as we arrived at the hospital, I did a quick check of emails and spotted a new cache had been published 1.9 miles from home. Typical – no chance of a FTF dash for me today!

After I’d finished my bit at the hospital, I dashed off into Warrington to get my hands on a new iPhone 3G(S). On the way back, I stopped at the Morrisons in Stockton Heath to walk down the cycle path by the side of the Manchester Ship Canal for a quick cache. A nice easy find and a really nice spot too (a lot better than I’m making it sound).

After I’d picked Mrs Bolas Heathens up at the hospital, we set off home, via a few drive-by’s. Nothing much to report with the caches apart from all being nice easy finds. I did wonder at one on the outskirts of Northwich, which was hidden on a Post Box as it seemed a bit pointless, but hey, a smiley is a smiley :-).

When we arrived home, I dropped Mrs Bolas Heathens off and dashed off to the potential FTF as I saw it still had not had a find logged on it.

It was in a place we’d scouted out for a potential hide ages ago but never got round to doing anything about it. I parked up and was soon at GZ for stage 1. The hint did not mean anything to me, but I soon spotted the nicely hidden micro anyway.

I won’t tell you what was in the micro, but the penny dropped quickly and off I set for the final cache. Another quick find and a nice big ammo box too. Better still, I was FTF :-).

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A clear-out of Mid Cheshire

Posted in General, tagged , on December 28, 2008| Leave a Comment »


After the last few days festivities, we fancied some longer walks and nice scenery. Lots of new caches to find in Mid-Cheshire, many of which we’d been past numerous times when visiting friends and family in Warrington.

On the way, we stopped for a quick drive-by near the old Calverley WW2 disused airfield. Nice and easy as it’s a lot more exposed in Winter.

Next stop was the Cuddington area, where there were quite a few new caches to find.

As we were approaching the first one, we got stuck in a line of vintage tractors going very slowly up the A49. We thought we’d be ok as we were about to turn off, but as luck would have it (or not as the case may be), they all turned down the same lane as us! Finding the cache was tricky as we had to time it in between passing tractors on the track – apparently there were 130 of them in total!

The next cache was a HUGE ammo box that was very well hidden considering it’s size. We then set off for a nice multi with a very original way of hiding the final co-ords at the first stage. I won’t say any more here as I don’t want to ruin it for future finders, but rest assured it’s a good one.

A few caches later and we were parking up at the Vale Royal Golf Club, for a very nice walk in the woods alongside the River Weaver. An absolutely fabulous place for caches.

We then got to find Caravan Of Love near Bartington. This one has been bugging us as it beeps at us on TomTom every time we go past on the A49 but it would take too long to do if Mrs Bolas Heathens is waiting in the car for us. Today it was just Isaac and myself so no problems with a longer walk.

We were intending to head over to Chester but the lure of three new Pieman caches at Tabley Mere near Knutsford proved too much to resist. We’d missed the deadline for the prizes in the cache but that’s ok as I always feel awkward about accepting FTF presents, let alone one worth potentially quite a bit.

The first of the three was a nice easy Traditional over the other side of the field from where we parked. When we opened this one up and saw the instructions for the start of the second cache we realised we’d be in for some fun on this one. What a great idea – wish we’d have thought of it.

After a bit of trickery and a stage or two later, we had the details we needed to actually find the final cache (it was a two part multi). Not as simple as just going to some stated co-ords, but not too bad after a bit of lateral thinking. This was our favourite of the three caches here.

We then had the last cache to do and this was more straightforward, but still great fun. A nice quick find of a bigger ammo box at the end too.

It was starting to go dark by now, so we thought we’d head down to Crewe to pick off a lone cache we needed to find there, before heading over to Alsager to clear up the newer caches there.

The Crewe one was nice and easy but we had fun and games in Alsager. One of the caches was themed around a local cacher’s dog walk and we made a right mess of it as one of the clues was ambiguous and guess what, we took the wrong answer. After realising the cache could not be where we though it was, we had to PAF twice to pin down the area we needed to be in (it’s trickier to see in the dark, that’s our exucse). It was then an easy find.

On the way home from there, we stopped at one last cache which was on a bridge over the M6 and you had to take a photo of yourself in some dressing up gear that was in the cache. Luckily Isaac was keen so I did not need to make a fool of myself (although the passing motorists would not have seen us as it was dark).

19 finds in total, but lots of really good walking and some fab caches.

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Christmas deliveries in Warrington

Posted in General, tagged on December 24, 2008| Leave a Comment »

We’ve got a lot of family in the Warrington area (both my parents were from there) and so we had our annual trip to the area, delivering Christmas goodies yesterday. It would have been rude not to try and find some of the newer caches in the area while we were there ;-).

The first one we tried was in some woods and we were short on time as we had to meet my sister, so after an initial scout around, we had to give up for now. After that, it was a nice walk to an easy find of a puzzle cache, followed by two drive-by’s.

After visiting my parents grave, we had to go to my cousin’s in Birchwood so stopped to find the two remaining Warrington Sidetracked caches on the way (both easy finds).

We then returned to the Cheshire side of the Ship Canal and had some lunch in a nice pub. Just a few more quick caches and we were back at the woods for the cache we could not find on the way to Warrington. This time without time constraints it was a quick find and we were on the A49 going home.

Isn’t it typical that when you are up against the clock trying to find a cache, you never find it. When you have more time, you can relax and the finding comes a lot more naturally.

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Frustrated geocacher!

Posted in General, tagged on November 14, 2008| Leave a Comment »

On Thursday, we had to go to my Uncle George’s funeral in Grappenhall, near Warrington.

As you do, I’d checked which caches we have not found nearby and downloaded them to the Oregon. I did not know if we’d have time to find any of them but you never know…

By the time we got there, we had to go straight to the church so as not to be late. I knew there was a cache by the canal on the road into the village and sure enough, we drove past it on the way. I resisted stopping to find it as being late for funeral’s is not nice.

After the funeral, we headed off in the funeral procession to the crematorium at Walton. We passed the cache again – I could literally see where it was likely to be as we drove past.

As we approached the crem, I could also see where one of the Walton towpath caches we needed to find was, but did not have time to stop for that either. Hmmmm…

After the crem, we headed off for the do at a pub near Grappenhall and you guessed it, we passed the cache again, but did not have time to stop.

After the do, there was absolutely no way we were going home without finding the cache as it had frustrated me all day. Thankfully it was an easy find and we were soon on our way, very happy to have found it.

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