An early morning walk from my hotel while I waited for the rest of my family to wake up brought me to this, another old chimney. I’ve really been enjoying discovering these relics of
the industrial history of this part of the city.
Unusual and well-disguised cache container! 😁 First name in a clean new log sheet too; thanks to the CO for maintaining their caches! ❤️ SL, TFTC/GPC. Greetings from Oxfordshire, UK!
My 7-year-old, who’s really interested in skyscrapers, was excited to point this one out to me upon our arrival in Barcelona on Saturday, observing that it looks very similar to
“The Gherkin”/30 St Mary Axe, a highly-recognisable London landmark. He’s right, it does, and it’s a shame he couldn’t join me on
this geocaching expedition but he was still around asleep when I set off.
I stood pretending to wait for a bus for a little while, then quickly found, signed, and replaced the cache. TFTC/GPC!
After failing to find this yesterday, I came back earlier this morning for another
go. Thanks to the hint, I was pretty confident I’d been looking in the right place, and a message from the CO helped confirm this (gracias!).
There are, in my mind, two significant challenges to this cache:
1. It’s a challenging and unusual hiding place and you will need to use the hint. I see from previous logs that some people used the hint… and still got stuck! Got to look
around and see what it could mean. This bit… I got right. In fact, I touched the cache yesterday but just didn’t know it for sure!
2. It’s a busy area in which searching for a geocache… looks a bit suspicious! I came at almost 08:00 yesterday and, probably because it was a weekday, the area had lots of muggles. I
felt self-conscious hunting for the cache and that made it harder. Coming back today an hour earlier made all the difference.
A really sneaky cache good enough to hunt for twice. TFTC/GPC. FP awarded. Greetings from Oxfordshire, UK.
An extended search bore no fruit this morning. Worth help of the hint and an initial survey I was pretty confident in what kind of thing I was looking for, but though i inspected many
candidate hiding places I couldn’t quite find it. Perhaps I’d do better at a less-busy time.
Visiting from Oxford, UK, I woke up early this morning and decided to come out for an explore before my partner and the children got up. A walk through the park brought me to this
delightful piece of industrial history! With the hint, the cache was soon in hand and the log signed. GPC!
I’m on sabbatical from work right now, so I’m hoping to be able to get out to this hashpoint while the kids are at school.
Expedition
After dropping the kids off at school, the geopup/hashhound and I set out for the hashpoint. Coming up the “short side” of the bridleway from Botley would be a shorter walk, but we
opted to park in Cumnor and come up the “long side” of Harcourt Hill to avoid Oxford’s traffic (and the inevitable fee for parking on the city’s side of the hill).
Harcourt Hill (like my village of Stanton Harcourt) doubtless gets its name from the Harcourt Family, who supported William the Conqueror during his conquest of Great Britain back in
1066 and were ultimately granted huge swathes of land around this part of the world in recognition of their loyalty. To this day, you find “Harcourt” in a lot of place names in this
neck of the woods.
The hashpoint was so easy to find, we almost walked right over it: it’s right in the centre of the footpath/bridleway. Even my dog, who often doesn’t like long walks or muddy paths,
didn’t get a chance to complain before we got there. We arrived at 09:35 and took the requisite photos, which can be found below. We also kept a GPS tracklog and vlogged our experience,
all of which you can see below.
I’ve not properly hashed in a long while, so it was great to get back out there!
What’s the point of this crossing? Do rabbits pass very fast through this junction?
View East from the hashpoint (plus dog).
View West from the hashpoint.
Right in the middle of the circle of uncertainty.
Silly grin/silly tongue-sticking-out.
Noticed while on a dog walk that the container looked a little loose, so came by to tighten it up. Noticed that the logbook was missing – muggled? – so replaced that while I was here.
Ready to go!
I solved this puzzle ages ago but when I came to find it the GZ was so full of dubious and disgusting
litter that I didn’t want to go poking around.
I decided to return today for a fresh search, figuring that the recent rains might’ve made it a more pleasant place to explore. I soon found the logbook, loose and damp, sitting alone
on the floor. No sign of the cache container, whatever it once was. SL, and tried to return the book to a sheltered spot in its hiding place as well as
possible but this is urgently in need of CO attention.
A quick and easy cache-and-dash in-between errands. I’ve got gardening gloves; I’ve got supplies to make brunch… and I’ve got ten minutes spare, so I came to find this cache.
Container might enjoy some camo tape or something if it’s not to be mistaken for litter! TFTC.
Today’s the last of three consecutive days that I’ve spent working in Milton Keynes. On each day I’ve taken a short walk while I’ve eaten my lunch to find a nearby geocache. This was
today’s.
After admiring the sculpture I snapped a selfie while I waited for my GPS signal to settle. The coordinates and the hint made the location seem obvious, yet somehow I did three laps of
the hiding place before I reached down to what by all accounts was, indeed, an obvious hiding place!
Muggles weren’t too multitudinous, so I soon had the cache hidden again back in its snug little spot. TFTC!
I’ve been working in Milton Keynes the tail end of this week while my kids attend a ski camp at the X-scape centre. While eating my lunch today I came out for a walk to find this
geocache.
Approaching from the direction of the car park was definitely the right route and I was soon standing at GZ alongside a likely host. I had to search for some time, though, before I
found this surprisingly we’ll-concealed cache.
(I was hindered perhaps by my own eagerness to check the hint, which left me searching several feet lower down than the container eventually turned out to be!)
Found the host easily, but had to wait for a gap in thir lunchtime dog walkers to be able to mount a good search. After checking in a few obvious places I picked something up and there
was the cache!
Took a walk up to the Light Pyramid where I snapped the attached photo of me pointing towards the X-Scape centre, where I’ve been working today (my kids have ski lessons, so I’ve been
sitting in the cafe with my laptop with the exception of this, my lunch break!).
On which note, I’d better go find myself a sandwich! Thanks for bringing me up here, and TFTC.
