Dan Q
This checkin to GC5DC7H Friedensbrücke reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Superb cache, my favourite in Vienna so far. Love the design; I might try to make one like this back in Oxfordshire, UK upon my return! FP awarded.
Coordinates put me exactly where I needed to be. Fortunately I had exactly what I needed to retrieve the cache: it’s something I always carry when I’m caching anyway!
TFTC!
This checkin to GCM8CB Urania reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
I’ve been in Vienna for a week to meet work colleagues, and today – our meetings at an end and still with a few hours before my plane leaves – I decided to come out and find some local geocaches.
At the GZ there were lots of good hiding places so I reached over and around. In a few seconds my fingers touched the cache. Great!
But then – disaster! As others have observed, the magnets in this cache aren’t the strongest and it bounced free. It fell a long, long way! I rushed across the road and down to the lower level to grab it. Luckily the cache container was unharmed, so I signed the log as I carried it back to up its hiding place. What an adventure!
FP awarded for the cool container and hiding place, and for the fun story you helped me tell. Greetings from Oxfordshire, UK. TFTC!
This checkin to GC97PZV 1 BH reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Finishing my morning walk where, perhaps, I should have started it with the first cache in this enjoyable series. Took a while for a good GPSr fix and I walked up and down the path a few times before spotting the container. But then – disaster – this replaced cache has a brand new log book… and I’ve dropped my caching pencil somewhere between the last cache and this one. Unable to sign log, but hopefully attached picture showing CO’s replacement message will suffice.
TFTC, and the series in general. So glad to be able to take this lovely walk from Fairlawns this year. FP awarded here for the series in general.
This checkin to GC6J5MV Church Micro 9613...West Hanney reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Had to stand around looking inconspicuous for a while before the geopup and I could retrieve this cache from its hiding place. There’s a lot going on this morning, presumably in anticipation of a Remembrance Sunday service at the church later. The bench across the road provided us with a place to sit and sign while we waited for an opportunity to return it. Amazingly picturesque spot for a lovely cache. FP awarded. TFTC!
This checkin to GC5PPFT Ssssshhhh it's a ....... reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
I’ve been working in Witney one day every week or two lately, but somehow I’ve never managed to sync up my work times with the hours that this building is accessible! Or, when I do, I’m in a hurry and don’t have time to stop and hunt!
This morning, though, the stars aligned and I was able to get to the GZ. The cache was pretty much where I expected based on the coordinates and the hint, but still took a minute out two to lay hands on. Soon, though, I was quietly sitting and reading past log entries.
SL TFTC! FP awarded for sheer awesome.
This checkin to GC90RH3 Tiny Log Book reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
This morning two men from the council turned up at my door and asked if they could borrow my driveway to park their vehicle. We got chatting, and it turned out that they were going to be working on footpath maintenance nearby. Realising where they meant, I asked for more information about their work: their plan was to remove the footbridge which acts as the home to this geocache, and replace it with a new one a couple of metres over in order to bring the path in-line with its “correct” location!
So I wandered out with them and removed the geocache before they got started on removing the bridge. I might be able to replace it after the new bridge is built, but – based on their description of the new bridge – it might need to be a different design of cache, so for now I’m archiving this one. This is perhaps my happiest cache-archiving ever.
I confirmed that this team weren’t the bridge inspection team who wrote a lovely log in a cache of mine hidden under a different bridge in this area, but they said that they do occasionally find caches as part of their work and try to return them as-they-found-them. Delightful conversation.
This checkin to GC8R613 NANOBLITZ Sound FX reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
I had to give up on the trail to Deansford Lane: too muddy for my boots! Instead heading East, I found this delightfully noisy cache! Bit of a stretch to reach but managed in the end, and honestly spent longer retrieving the log than hunting for the cache. Genius, FP awarded.
This checkin to GC8R5WH NANOBLITZ Like a Rat up a Pipe reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
First place I looked, but I still squeaked with delight to see the cache container! There were many options for my stop-and-cache plan on today’s journey, but I’m already glad I chose here: these caches are awesome, and that’s coming from somebody who normally hates nanos. FP awarded.
This checkin to GC8W7QW Forgotten Bridge reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Took a late hike out here for a maintenance checkup before winter: make sure the waterproof seal is good etc. Really creepy to walk out here alone in the night fog, silent except for the occasional startling loud bellow of a rutting muntjack!
All is good here, and I was delighted to find in the logbook perhaps my favourite ever log entry in a geocache I own… it’s from the Oxfordshire County Council Countryside Access Team!
This checkin to GC944X7 Pop! Bang! Crack! Goes the Christmas Cracker reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
The second of the caches in this series that I found in between errands, this afternoon, was probably the easiest, because the hiding place reminds me distinctly of one of my own hides! This one, though, enjoys some excellent Christmas theming, for which a FP is due. TFTC!
This checkin to GC7JRT4 Preston Docks - Oh Buoy! reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
What an excellent cache container! I immediately spotted it but then disregarded it when I couldn’t see an obvious ingress. My sister Sarah, though, whom I’m visiting in Preston, tried touching it a different way and soon discovered how to get at the cache. Log almost full – space only for one or two more entries.
Excellent cache. FP awarded. TFTC.
This checkin to GC98N5T Tar Lakes/South Leigh Loop #12 Clockwork Orange reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
As I worked my way to this, the third cache in my tour for today, I realised that my local sparrowhawk – who lives up a tree behind my house in Sutton – seemed to be following me. I’d seen him atop a couple of telegraph poles earlier on and I’d heard him screech a few times, and when I looked up I saw that he was still above me. Perhaps he’d decided to come on this expedition too?
One of the things that I love most about this series is the diversity of quirky and unusual cache containers, of which this was no exception. I was also pleased to find a fresh, clean log sheet, and added my name as the first on the list. TFTC, and FP for the surprise!
We’ve missed out on or delayed a number of trips and holidays over the last year and a half for, you know, pandemic-related reasons. So this summer, in addition to our trip to Lichfield, we arranged a series of back-to-back expeditions.
The first leg of our holiday saw us spend a long weekend at Alton Towers, staying over at one of their themed hotels in between days at the water park and theme park:
The second leg of our holiday took us to a log cabin in the Darwin Forest Country Park for a week:
Kicking off the second week of our holiday, we crossed the Pennines to Preston to hang out with my family (with the exception of JTA, who had work to do back in Oxfordshire that he needed to return to):
Ruth and I then left the kids with my mother and sisters for a few days to take an “anniversary mini-break” of glamping in the gorgeous Forest of Bowland:
(If you’re interested in Steve Taylor’s bathtub-carrying virtual-Everest expedition, here’s his Facebook page and JustGiving profile.)
The children, back in Preston, were apparently having a whale of a time:
The plan from this point was simple: Ruth and I would return to Preston for a few days, hang out with my family some more, and eventually make a leisurely return to Oxfordshire. But it wasn’t to be…
I got a “ping”. What that means is that my phone was in close proximity to somebody else’s phone on 29 August and that other person subsequently tested positive for COVID-19.
My risk from this contact is exceptionally low. There’s only one place that my phone was in close proximity to the phone of anybody else outside of my immediate family, that day, and it’s when I left it in a locker at the swimming pool near our cabin in the Darwin Forest. Also, of course, I’d been double-jabbed for a month and a half and I’m more-cautious than most about contact, distance, mask usage etc. But my family are, for their own (good) reasons, more-cautious still, so self-isolating at Preston didn’t look like a possibility for us.
As soon as I got the notification we redirected to the nearest testing facility and both got swabs done. 8 days after possible exposure we ought to have a detectable viral load, if we’ve been infected. But, of course, the tests take a day or so to process, so we still needed to do a socially-distanced pickup of the kids and all their stuff from Preston and turn tail for Oxfordshire immediately, cutting our trip short.
The results would turn up negative, and subsequent tests would confirm that the “ping” was a false positive. And in an ironic twist, heading straight home actually put us closer to an actual COVID case as Ruth’s brother Owen turned out to have contracted the bug at almost exactly the same time and had, while we’d been travelling down the motorway, been working on isolating himself in an annex of the “North wing” of our house for the duration of his quarantine.
Thanks to negative tests and quick action in quarantining Owen, Ruth and JTA were still able to undertake the next part of this three-week holiday period and take their anniversary break (which technically should be later in the year, but who knows what the situation will be by then?) to Berwick-upon-Tweed. That’s their story to tell, if they want to, but the kids and I had fun in their absence:
Finally, Ruth and JTA returned from their mini-break and we got to do a few things together as a family again before our extended holiday drew to a close:
Tomorrow I’m back at work, and after 23 days “off” I’m honestly not sure I remember what I do for a living any more. Something to do with the Internet, right? Maybe ecommerce?
I’m sure it’ll all come right back to me, at least by the time I’ve read through all the messages and notifications that doubtless await me (I’ve been especially good at the discipline, this break, of not looking at work notifications while I’ve been on holiday; I’m pretty proud of myself.)
But looking back, it’s been a hell of a three weeks. After a year and a half of being pretty-well confined to one place, doing a “grand tour” of so many destinations as a family and getting to do so many new and exciting things has made the break feel even longer than it was. It seems like it must have been months since I last had a Zoom meeting with a work colleague!
For now, though, it’s time to try to get the old brain back into work mode and get back to making the Web a better place!
This checkin to GC98N1P Tar Lakes/South Leigh Loop #5 LOST reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
Like all the other caches on this trail, the coordinates for this were spot on and I was delighted and surprised to find a most-excellent themed cache. The container was a little hard to open: perhaps there’s an emergency lever somewhere on the inside that I just couldn’t see? ;-) FP awarded. TFTC.
This checkin to GC98MZC Tar Lakes/South Leigh Loop #2 Four Weddings reflects a geocaching.com log entry. See more of Dan's cache logs.
I spent a long time looking in all the wrong places before I finally… swung around… to the right way of thinking. Brilliant hiding place, FP awarded.
I’d figured that this path, being listed as a bridleway, would be suitable for my bike: i.e. relatively broad and flat, no stiles, etc. I was partially right, and the path soon became a little bumpy for my mostly road-going bike, but it worked out.