A Saturday trip down to the Midlands gave me the opportunity to do drive by caches all the way home, in theory there were about 80 caches I could do that just involved criss-crossing the motorway by the nearest roads, but the amount of time taken up by each one was obviously going to determine how many I could do before it got too late and too dark to do any more
21st August 2010 – Bromsgrove Trolley Dash Number One GC2BWQY – cache #710
Being an hour late starting back didn’t help my trip any, it was just gone 4pm before I started at this cache, an easy find in the car park of Morrison’s in Bromsgrove, loads of people about and I was concerned at one point when I had retrieved the cache that the Security Guard was heading my way, as it was he just walked right past and went into the Petrol Station, allowing me to replace the cache and leave.
21st August 2010 – Hopwood Services, M42 Jn 2 GC1WJ0J – cache #711
Onto the M42 and a junction up the road to get to Hopwood Park Services, which was the last time I was on the motorway for a while as I started my criss-crossing. The services have a Public Footpath running from it and a cache hidden just at the start of the path
21st August 2010 – The Unfortunate Street Names Set: 1 (Pestilence) GCYF91 – cache #712
A couple of hundred yards up the road from the Services is an old disused road which is now a bridleway and about 3 inches deep in gravel, making it very difficult to walk along ! The cache was hidden byhind a hawthorn bush in a hedge, prickly and nettles to move before the cache could be got to.
21st August 2010 – Birmingham 9 … GC11A48 – cache #713
An easy find, the “Birmingham 9” refers to a milepost behind which the cache is hidden, the only downside is that the milepost is in full view of the house across the road !
21st August 2010 – M42 Motorway Madness – Running out of Bridges? GC1R2GR – cache #714
For a while after it was a case of drive down the road then take the first turning East along to the next road which crosses the Motorway, stop by the bridge and find the cache… this first one was hidden in plain view, hanging from the fence wire, though in a place where no-one but cachers were ever likely to be looking.
21st August 2010 – M42 Motorway Madness – L.G.R. GC1JN39 – cache #715
A bridge over the motorway and a magnetised cache hidden in the barrier… a cache style that became familiar over the next few hours !
21st August 2010 – M42 Motorway Mayhem – Not Strangled! GC1RFAG – cache #716
This was horrible, a cache hidden in a drainage pipe in the middle of the tunnel under the motorway, wet and slimy, I felt like I needed disinfecting when I had finished, all I had to hand was a KFC lemon scented wipe, so that had to do… possibly my least favourite of the 700 odd caches I had found at the time.
21st August 2010 – Motorway Mayhem – M42 Junction 3 GC1BZ2J – cache #717
Another magnetic cache in a barrier, though this time on a bridge over a dual carriageway about half a mile from the motorway
21st August 2010 – SideTracked – Wood End GC16ZGQ – cache #718
An easy find as the hint tells you exactly where the cache is, hidden behind a red phone box
21st August 2010 – Bills Wood End Lane GC2AZ5Y – cache #719
This one had me confused for a while, it’s down a lane where the ditches at the side are full of litter and fly tipped rubbish, I pulled in to a little patch at the side of the road where you can park and under the trees my GPS was teling me it was on the other side of the road in amongst the shrubbery and rubbish, I couldn’t find anything and was giving up and coming back to the car when I spotted the cache hide about 2 feet from my car wheel. I liked the hide, so much so that I picked up a similarly cut piece of tree to make my own copy !
21st August 2010 – Sidetracked – The Lakes GC2A8W6 – cache #720
Another straightforward find where the hint tells you exactly where to go so all you need to do is lift the covering stone to reveal the cache
21st August 2010 – Busy Busy GC1CMM5 – cache #721
Back to the bridges over the motorway and a magnetic cache hidden in the barrier
21st August 2010 – M42 Motorway Madness – M42/M40 Two to view again. GC1J2B1 – cache #722
Another motorway bridge, another magnetic cache hidden in the barrier
21st August 2010 – M42 Motorway Madness – M42/M40 Two to view GC1H2BP – cache #723
And again a motorway bridge, and a magnetic cache hidden in the barrier
21st August 2010 – Busy Busy Up Above GC1D0W9 – cache #724
A road under the motorway for this cache, and a load of rubbish in the banking at the side of the road where the cache was located, a few logs had reported that it had been hard to find the cache, but it was a familiar fake stone which seemed out of place where it was so was easy to spot
21st August 2010 – M42 Motorway Madness. It’s very Busy around here! GC1H764 – cache #725
Another magnetic cache in the armco
21st August 2010 – Dorridge Dingle GC2B79X – cache #726
A magnetic 35mm film cannister (for a change) this time stuck on the back of a “Give Way” sign, the trouble is it’s about 9feet up in the air so you have to jump to get it
21st August 2010 – M42 Motorway Mayhem – Still Not Strangled! GC1RFBH – cache #727
Hidden in the armco, but at least not a magnetic fim cannister this time
21st August 2010 – 3rd time lucky GC29XD0 – cache #728
By now I’d been caching about 3 hours, found 19 caches but effectively only travelled all of 17 miles of the 145 back home, so I decided it was time to move along a bit and so I got onto the motorway and drove along to my turn-off missing out many potential caches along the way… I will be back down again to do some more another day.
So just off the motorway on the A446 up towards Lichfield is a road that now goes nowhere having been cut by the M6 Toll road, and on the side of this this nowhere road is a cache… hidden in the roots of a tree covered by a rock.
21st August 2010 – Gone Past Withy Woods GC1FD7D – cache #729
This cache is at the end of a path popular with dog walkers, well I assume that’s what the owners of the two cars parked at the end of the path were doing, the cache itself is clipped onto a wire and hidden in the vegetation.
21st August 2010 – Withy Wood Surrounded – The Last GC1FZ9E – cache #730
It was getting a bit gloomy by now, this cache wasn’t too hard to find though, hidden in the roots of a tree, in a ditch, on another road that now goes nowhere as it’s cut by the M6 Toll Road
21st August 2010 – MotorwayMayhem M6 Toll – Toll View 8 GC1GM7H – cache #731
Fortunately I had the foresight to bring a torch ! as it was too dark to see this cache without it. The cache does not resemble the description anymore, it’s hidden in the armco, but is not magnetic and is on the other side of the road to the given co-ordinates, but an easy find with a torch to light the way.
21st August 2010 – Sophies Meow GC26YRD – cache #732
Back on familiar ground, this cache being part of a new series placed along the canal within a mile of my friend Angel78’s former residence, so I have driven and walked past here many times.
The cache is hidden in the hedge at the side of the towpath and was easy enough to find with the torch… the only trouble was that it had been raining around here and the path down to the towpath was slippery and as I was going down my feet went out from underneath me and I slammed down onto the ground winding myself (and getting rather muddy in places)
21st August 2010 – Micky’s Bubble GC2AWCQ – cache #733
Another one of the new canal bank series, this time hidden by the side of a large concrete block… though I’m not sure what the concrete block is for
21st August 2010 – Molly’s Yap GC2AWCK – cache #734
The third of this canal bank series is hidden in the bottom of the hedge at the side of a bridge, easy to get to from the road if you are willing to park in the nearby bus stop… I figured that at 8:30pm there weren’t going to be many buses passing.
There is a fourth cache in the series, but you can’t easily get to it from the road so I had to leave it for another day
21st August 2010 – Bike Ride #7 – That’s a large tree GC1VAE1 – cache #735
If you are trying to retrieve a cache that’s in the fork of a tree above a patch of brambles and nettles it’s almost bound to slip from your fingers and into the unfriendly undergrowth… and it did
21st August 2010 – Bike Ride #8 – That’s some stile GC1VAE7 – cache #736
This cache was hidden in the bottom of a prickly hawthorn hedge
21st August 2010 – Bike Ride #9 – Stumped GC1VAEC – cache #737
A cache hidden in a rotting tree stump. Lovely when it’s all wet and the bits of rotten wood covering it are decomposing in your hands
21st August 2010 – Rosey and Jim (Willington – Stenson 3) GC1FP9P – cache #738
A cache hidden under some stones behind a fencepost, nice and straightforward except it’s at some traffic lights and opposite a pub car park, so even at gone 10:00 at night there were still people who could see me.
After this I decided that I had had enough caching for one day, found 29 of them and travelled effectively 56 of the 145 miles I had to travel, in about 6 hours… I still had at least 90 minutes driving ahead of me so I gave up caching for the day, and went home.
