I was in these woods anyway, seeking GC10N80 (which, incidentally, is one of
the best geocaches I’ve ever logged and well worth the attention of anybody ‘caching in this part if the world) and figured I’d come hunt for this cache too.
A quick find; my geosense spotted a candidate hiding place right from the main path, and I turned out to be right.
Cache contents are in somewhat poor condition: logbook has soaked and dried again into a slab of papier-mache and was challenging to sign!
I’m on a family holiday, staying over in Catbrook, and I have a holiday tradition of getting up early (before the kids are up!) to come out on geocaching jaunts.
I very nearly didn’t consider this at all. It’s fake location, nestled amongst challenge caches (which I have no interest in whatsoever), made me initially suspect it would be another
of the same. It’s only a lucky coincidence I clicked on it at all!
(Maybe that’s why this cache had no finds in 2025? Such a shame!)
But I’m glad I did. I puzzled over the riddle for a little while before the “odd line out” made me think of something. So confident was I in the resulting coordinates that I didn’t even
visit the special web page to double-check, which meant I missed out on the object hint until I was in the field and needed one! This, in turn, was pretty satisfying!
I saved this cache for my second morning’s outing: free one on which I didn’t bring the dog (for whose little legs this hike might have been too intense). This was the right choice. I
had to ford a flooded and frozen path by moonlight near Cleddon before a visit to the waterfalls (and the associated
cache) then pressed on up into the woods to uncover this cache, which has sat alone and undisturbed for, what… 20 months?
The view from near the GZ is fantastic.
It’s in fine condition and in an absolutely postcard-perfect spot. The sun was at long last creating the hills on the far side of the valley as I signed my name and returned the box to
its hiding spot. I really regret that this cache doesn’t see more footfall, and I hope that this effusive log (and the accompanying Favourite Point) might go some way to helping rectify
that situation!
TFTC. It’s one of the best I’ve ever found. If I could award it two FPs I would!
Hiked over from Catbrook on the way to a cache up Pen Y Fan and stopped by these beautiful waterfalls on the way. So glad I did! I’d originally planned to seek this cache on my return
journey but I’ve got to say: it looked extra spectacular by the light of the full supermoon.
And as a bonus(?) I spent long enough hunting for the cache that I got to see it in daylight too!
The primary problem came from the fact that the path that the cache is nearest… is closed! Apparently a tree has fallen somewhere and rendered it unsafe, though that’s probably a long
way from where the cache is hidden.
The secondary problem was that I didn’t read the sign. I just saw the fence, assumed that what I was looking at wasn’t the (closed) path but something completely out of bounds, and
focused my search exclusively elsewhere. My GPSr had been fritzy all morning, so being “out” by 10-15m didn’t seem like a big deal.
It was only when I was considering returning during daylight hours that I stopped to read the sign and realised where the hinted path was: it’d been right in front of me the whole time!
I quickly skirted the blockade and found the cache, then took the time – having already bypassed the fence – to snap a happy selfie by the falls in the early light.
The geohound and I walked over from Catbrook this morning “the long way” – over the hill and woods, finding a couple of caches along the way – to this cache.
From both the cache type and my GPSr’s map data I fully expected to find a post box here alongside the (decrepit) red phone box, but it’s nowhere to be seen! Has it perhaps been
removed?
The dog and I spent a little while looking for the promised postbox, without success.
In any case, the hint reassured me that I was in the right place and my geosense told me where to look. A disappointingly tiny cache container (where a larger one could have probably
been placed) was soon found, caked in mud, and replaced as-found.
The geopup and I absolutely chose the right time to come up here on this wintery morning. The sun’s ascent over the valley whenever we escape the cover of the woods is absolutely
spectacular.
Happy New Year! The geopup and I, on holiday from West Oxfordshire and staying nearby, came out for a morning walk in the ice and snow today.
Our little Frenchie’s tiny legs made the work of climbing the stiles on this path a little challenging, but with persistence we were treated to a wonderful view of the sun broaching the
horizon over the valley at the North end of School Wood.
Soon the cairn was in sight, and what a brilliant spot for a cache! Signed log, and dropped a travel bug that’s come
all the way from Texas to continue its journey. FP awarded for bringing us out this way.
Over the Christmas break I dug out my old HTC Vive VR gear, which I got way back in the Spring of 2016. Graphics card technology having come a long
way1,
it was now relatively simple to set up a fully-working “holodeck” in our living room with only a slight risk to the baubles on the Christmas tree.
For our younger child, this was his first experience of “roomscale VR”, which I maintain is the most magical thing about this specific kind of augmented
reality. Six degrees of freedom for your head and each of your hands provides the critical level of immersion, for me.
And you know what: this ten-year-old hardware of mine still holds up and is still awesome!2
The kids and I have spent a few days dipping in and out of classics like theBlu, Beat Saber, Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator, Raw Data,
and (in my case3)
Half-Life: Alyx.
It doesn’t feel too heavy, but this first edition Vive sure is a big beast, isn’t it?
I’m moderately excited by the upcoming Steam Frame with its skinny headset, balanced weight, high-bandwidth
wireless connectivity, foveated streaming, and built-in PC for basic gaming… but what’s with those controllers? Using AA batteries instead of a built-in rechargeable one feels like a
step backwards, and the lack of a thumb “trackpad” seems a little limiting too. I’ll be waiting to see the reviews, thanks.
When I looked back at my blog to double-check that my Vive really is a decade old, I was reminded that I got it in the same month at Three
Rings‘ 2016 hackathon, then called “DevCamp”, near Tintern4.
This amused me, because I’m returning to Tintern this year, too, although on family holiday rather than Three Rings business. Maybe I’ll visit on a third occasion in
another decade’s time, following another round of VR gaming?
Footnotes
1 The then-high-end graphics card I used to use to drive this rig got replaced
many years ago… and then that replacement card in turn got replaced recently, at which point it became a hand-me-down for our media centre PC in the living room.
2 I’ve had the Vive hooked-up in the office since our house move in 2020, but there’s rarely been space for roomscale play there: just an occasional bit of Elite: Dangerous at my desk…
which is still a good application of VR, but not remotely the same thing as being able to stand up and move around!
3 I figure Alyx be a little scary/intense for the kids, but I could be
wrong. I think the biggest demonstration of how immersive the game can be in VR is the moment when you see how somebody can watch it played on the big screen and be fine but as soon
as they’re in the headset and a combine zombie has you pinned-down in a railway carriage and it’s suddenly way too much!
4 Where, while doing a little geocaching, I messed-up a bonus cache’s coordinate
calculation, realised my mistake, brute-forced the possible answers, narrowed it down to two… and then picked the wrong one and fell off a cliff.
A quick and damp scramble from the footpath above brought my right to the cache. SL, TFTC. Container seal has perished and logbook pretty wet; signable, but only barely.
Came out for a walk with my Ruth and the kids. While Ruth sat on a rock and the kids went with their uncle up to explore a small cave above, I
broke from the path to find this cache. QEF in the second host I looked at.
Took travel bug to move along, signed log, then went to retrieve the kids. TFTC.
A local landowner has (controversially) decided to start enforcing their ownership of the land
surrounding the lake at Dix Pit, and has erected new fences and private property signs to deter trespassers. So this evening, the geopup and I took a walk to the GZ to check that it’s
still an achievable find.
Good news! It’s certainly still possible (though sometimes boggy, in the winter!) to get to The Devil’s Quoits and log this virtual while using only the permitted footpaths, whether
coming from either the North or the South.
You might find that your map hasn’t yet been updated to reflect the approved routes, but you shouldn’t struggle to get here. Just stick to the path and you’ll find the GZ. (And once
I’ve seen how the local controversy resolves itself I’ll be sure to submit updates to OpenStreetMap to accurately reflect the eventual state of the paths around here!)
Very easy find for the kids and I after a delightful visit to the Tram Museum. We went to the coordinates and instantly saw the cache! SL, TFTC, and greetings from Oxfordshire, UK.
Found after an embarrassingly long hunt! After reading the hint I quickly spotted the correct hiding spot, but said to myself “no, it surely can’t be there” and moved on. Only
on my third time walking past it did I think to actually try it, and sure enough, there it was! SL, TFTC, and greetings from Oxfordshire, UK!
