The geopup struggles to understand why I sometimes insist on stopping our walks to go and poke around in the nearby trees, and this time was no exception. The hint could refer to one of
several hiding places, and like a previous cacher I worried for a moment that the hiding place might have been destroyed by some recent logging work in this area, but nope: it’s still
here! It was a little more-challenging to retreieve than it perhaps was originally, though, as a pile of branches has been placed between the path and the hiding place, but we found it
in the end then pushed on across the road, waving to some friendly cyclists as we did so.
Another excellent bit of camoflage here, on what has so-far appeared to be a well-loved but well-maintained series. The geopup and I went back and forth a few times before we found the
correct host, but soon had the cache in hand. TFTC.
Unfortunately, my dedicated GPSr had been left turned-on after my last geocaching/geohashing/whatever expedition, and I hadn’t realised
until I was just setting off this morning. I tried to charge it in the car but it didn’t take on enough battery to make it worthwhile to bring it out, so I was working from my phone
(whose GPSr is… adequate… usually), and my watch (whose GPSr is good, but whose user
interface for caching is pretty pants).
But luckily for this cache at least my geosense brought me to exactly the right spot, and I quickly saw something that looked out of place. Imagine my delight when I pulled on it and
the cache was in my hand. Fantastic stuff, TFTC.
The time before last that I was in Goring – the first of my now-three visits – was for a birthday/garden party on 24 June 2018. My eldest – then only four
years old – was getting a little bored of the grown-up conversations going on and I provided a distraction by taking her out to find GLW5FKG9 and GLW5EFV2 (the latter of
which has since been archived).
I enjoyed the camoflage on this cache, but little did I know that it would be a theme throughout many of the caches in this series! FP awarded
anyway, because it delighted me at the time. TFTC.
The last time I was in Goring was on 9 June 2022, when I cycled here via Eynsham, Abingdon, and Didcot. I enjoyed a meal at at Whale Inn in Streatley, then meandered down into Goring in
order to catch a tran part of the way home (I was feeling lazy). Another easy find here. TFTC.
Ignoring times that I’ve passed-through, I’ve only ever visited Goring twice before. It’s time to rectify that! This morning, the dog and I drove down from Stanton Harcourt (near
Witney), parked up, and begun our attempts at the first half of the WAG trail (along with a couple of others along the way).
Starting as we mean to continue, this was a very quick first find. TFTC.
Enjoyed solving this puzzle, although possibly not 100% in the way the author intended (I spotted some mathematical quirks that gave me a shortcut/cut down the number of possibilities
for matching first and surnames!). Now I just need to find an excuse to get over to the GZ and find it! (No idea how soon that’ll be,
though!)
No luck here this morning for the geopup and I. The undergrowth has come through incredibly thick your summer, and we had to work hard to hunt in likely locations. (The hint didn’t help
much, as it wasn’t entirely clear which direction it assumed we were coming from, but the GPSr good looked good so I figure we were on the
right spot.) Strangely, we did find a bauble (pictured) – did somebody decorate these woods for Christmas, I wonder?
Easy find while out on a dog walk. Not been out this side of the wood before! Might have struggled to find the GZ were it not for the
remnants of a “geo trail” through the dense undergrowth, which was thick enough that the pooch’s little legs couldn’t take her the last 5 metres and I had to press on alone. Soon,
though, the cache was in hand and I was able to return to my four-legged furry friend and continue on our way. TFTC!
I find myself in Cropredy but once a year, at most, and for the obvious reason. The festival atmosphere, not to mention the hordes of revellers, does not in general bode well for a
successful geocaching expedition! But I’ve persisted, mostly by virtue of being an early riser than most of the partygoers and inclined towards a swift morning constitutional (as mentioned here), and I’ve gradually picked off each of the local caches bar this one and a multi that’s somewhat incompatible with the festival.
This time last year I came very near to this GZ while hunting for GC9GK2V “Mr
Impossible”, but it was coming close to the time I anticipated that the kids would wake up and demand breakfast, so I turned around before reaching “Leslie”. This year I’ve pressed
directly on to this cache, thankful for the cool damp air through which my brisk walk took me compared to last year’s saunalike heat.
As others have noted, the cache container has seen better days but it’s still just about holding together (insert your own joke about aging folk rockers here). Regardless, a delightful
morning walk before a day of music. SL, TFTC.
I managed to log most of the local geocaches during last year’s Fairport by getting up early each morning (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7),
while the other revellers were still nursing their hangovers, but I wasn’t able to retrieve this muddle-laden one. This year I had better luck and the kids, dog and I soon had it in
hand. SL, TNLN, TFTC!
I wasn’t supposed to be here. I was supposed to be on the Isle of Man with my partner, celebrating our 0x10th anniversary. But
this week’s been a week of disasters: my partner lost her job, our plane to the Isle of Man got cancelled, and then I got sick (most-likely, I got to catch airport germs from people I
got to sit next to on an aircraft which was then cancelled before it had a chance to take off). So mostly this week I’ve been sat at home playing video games.
But the dog needed a walk, and my partner needed to go to the supermarket, so I had her drop me and the geopooch off in West Witney to find the hashpoint and then walk to meet them
after she’d collected the shopping. I couldn’t find my GPSr, so I used my phone, and it was reporting low accuracy until I rebooted it, by which time I’d walked past the hashpoint and had to
double-back, much to the doggo’s confusion.
I reached the hashpoint at 14:16 BST (and probably a few points before than, owing to my navigation failure). I needed to stand
very close to the fence to get within the circle of uncertainty, but at least I didn’t have to reach through and into the school grounds.
Found with Ruth after coming out to explore the spectacular Roman villa. We’d supposed to have been out of the Isle of Man celebrating our
anniversary, but our ‘plane got cancelled, so we’ve opted for staying at home and doing local cycling expeditions instead. SL, TFTC.
Well this was a challenge! The woods threw off my GPS, but I’d brought a backup device so I averaged between them and found a likely GZ.
The dog and I did an increasingly large spiral, checking all the obvious hiding spots, to no avail. Returning to our start point we began another pass, and something caught my eye! It
was the cache!
A few things had made it challenging:
I put the coordinates 13m from where the CO does. Could be the woods, but I’m not the first to say about this distance.
This cache is by no means a “regular”. It’s not even a “small”. It would fit inside a 35mm film canister, which in my mind makes it clearly a “micro”!
It wasn’t in the hiding place indicated by the hint! I found in on the ground, beneath leaf litter, with thanks to my energetic leaf-kicking geohound!
Signed log and returned cache to the nearest hiding spot that fits the hint, hopefully others will find it more easily than we did! TFTC from
Demmy the Dog and I!
Maintenance check while walking the dog. Cleared some overgrown plants, but watch out because the nearby nettles ate still a little fierce (cache can be retrieved without a sting
though!). Cache itself intact and healthy.
