The problem with the Lake District on a sunny Royal Wedding Bank Holiday weekend is that it is full of people similarly avoiding the Royal Wedding, and they all have cars, so that even though you know you are going past easy drive by caches there is just nowhere to stop, park and go look for them.
The Friday of my Lake District trip suffered a lot from this, cache after cache came up on the GPS but there was just nowhere to stop when I got to them. So I drove from Windermere to Ambleside, over Langdale, Wrynose and Hard Knott and right into Wasdale before there was a chance to stop and grab a cache
29th April 2011 – Wastwater 4th GCXH1R – cache #1087
Easy cache to find, hidden in a rocky outcrop above the road, the experienced eye could spot the covering rocks well before I got up to it.
There are other caches in Wasdale, but even though this is one of the more remote lakes there were still many people around
29th April 2011 – Crows Nest GC1WPPP – cache #1088
A stop in Whitehaven for refreshment led to a walk around the harbour and a walk along one of the stone jetty’s to a Millenium Fund Project ‘The Crows Nest’ where there is a magnetic nano hidden. Fortunately for me I had read a previous log which talked of climbing on the bench to get the cache, so I knew that it was hidden up high rather than underneath the seating and I soon spotted it.
30th April 2011 – CRUMMOCK WATER GC1MRB7 – cache #1089
Saturday morning saw me heading out to some of the less visited parts of the Lakes, first stop Crummock Water and a cache just off a little car park used by walkers, which just happened to have one space left in it for me. The cache is hidden under a boulder – well most of the ones in the none tree covered parts of the Lakes are !
30th April 2011 – S’late in the Day. GCHG1M – cache #1090
With nowhere to park around Buttermere the next cache was on the road up the Honister Pass. The cache took longer to find than it should, but the clue said ‘large rock’ (or words to that effect) and the cache turned out to be under the smallest of the large roacks in the vicinity – a rock I had discounted for being too small to call large given it’s companions.
There was also a strange mystery here, hidden in a gap between two of the larger rocks was a bike. It seemed in good condition, was not locked up – just hidden, and there was no-one about who it could belong to, no-one visible at least.
30th April 2011 – Put It On The Slate GC1PQXX – cache #1091
The next cache was the earthcache at the Honister Slate Mine at the top of the pass, one day I’d like to go back and do the mine tour but this was just a quick visit to take pictures and move on
30th April 2011 – POST HASTE – HONISTER GC1EVNA – cache #1092
When there’s only one feature in the vicinity that can possibly hide a cache it’s not hard to find it…
30th April 2011 – Half Way Up Honister GC1FHBV – cache #1093
A cache best attempted on a dry day after a dry period, as to get to it you need to cross a swiflty flowing stream, when there’s not much water coming down there are plenty of stones above the water level to tread on, but according to the cache logs these stones are very slippery when wet. However when I was there it was a dry day at the end of the warmest, driest April for 100 years, so no problem getting to the cache.
30th April 2011 – PICTURE IT – DERWENT (JETTY) GC23M3B – cache #1094
Round to the Southern end of Derwent Water and a cache – as the name suggests – overlooking the Steamer jetty. The clue said that it was hidden in tree roots, but it wasn’t straightforward to find as although the cache was hidden in tree roots, the tree in question was a stump only a couple of feet high and hidden in the undergrowth
30th April 2011 – BT 10 – Elephant Cave GC2TEJP – cache #1095
A cache hidden in not so much a cave, but a hollow left when two large lumps of rock end up nestled on top of each other (dumped by glacier I expect).
One of those times I wished I’d taken my normal spectacles with me as well as the prescription sunglasses… Brilliant sunshine outside the cave so I needed dark glasses, but then almost too dark to see in the cave… and if I take my glasses off I can’t see a thing anyway, but I found it in the end, more by feel than sight !
Fifty yards or so before I got to the cache I passed a couple sitting on a large boulder looking at a map, one of them had what appeared to be a GPS in his hand, so it was no suprise to hear a voice call out “have you found it alright ?” and there down on the path were ‘Mickink’ and his wife fellow cachers out on the trail.
The thing about caches in the Lake District is that they almost all have spectacular views from the cache site.
30th April 2011 – Borrowdale Swap Shop GC2TEKT – cache #1096
Another cache hidden under another large rock on the hillside just above Derwent Water.
30th April 2011 – POST HASTE – ASHNESS GC1EBRV – cache #1097
Ashness bridge is one of the most well known sights in the Lakes and so there are ususally many people around. As the name suggests the cache is hidden by a post, in this case the post of the stile going up the hill away from the bridge, so even though it was quite busy the cache site was clear of people.
30th April 2011 – ROAD SUMMIT – ASHNESS WOOD GC24KFT – cache #1098
I had to park about 50 yards away and walk back towards this cache, which the hint said was hidden in the roots of a tree, trouble was it was in the woods with lots of trees about and my GPS’s batteries were failing so I hadn’t got a strong signal. I had to search around many trees until I found the right one… of course if I had been coming in the other direction I would have seen the sign on the rock and just gone to the nearest tree !
After this I couldn’t find GCK5H2 SURPRISE VIEW. I had no clear GPS signal under the trees and the hint said hidden in a hole in the bank next to the path, covered by a stone. I searched under every stone at the side of every path for 20 yards around, but didn’t find the cache…
30th April 2011 – CUMBERLAND PENCIL MUSEUM GC1QYV7 – cache #1099
A quick stop in Keswick for ice cream and a short walk out of the middle of town brought me to the cache site. The batteries on the GPS with the cache hints on had died completely by now so I was left with just the coordinates to find the cache with, fortunately it wasn’t too hard to spot
30th April 2011 – Stick A Fork In Me I’m Done GCRZK4 – cache #1100
Last cache of the day and my 1,100th find, again I thought I might struggle to find this without the hint. but once I got to the co-ordinates there was an obvious cachers path up the verge and behind a bush to where the cache was hidden.
