On the next day I drove the few miles into Portmadog to spend the day doing what I had come to Wales for, to ride the Welsh Highland Railway from Porthmadog Harbour Station to Caernarfon. As the crow flies they are about 15 miles apart, as the railtracks go they are 25 miles apart… but the journey takes over two and a half hours.
12th July 2011 – Dock on the Bay GCHQ8E – cache # 1268
I set off on the train at 9:30AM, and arrived in Caernarfon at 12:15PM, which left me with a couple of hours to kill before the journey back, so I did what any self respecting cacher would do, and went to find the caches in the city. The first one is down by the old docks, stuck underneath the piece of the old dock gate which its with some other maritime relics by the dockmasters office, which is now a museum. Getting the cache involved sime inelegant crawling on the floor, ggo djob there was no-one much about to see !
12th July 2011 – Coastal Castles Cache No 8 Big & Brash GCMVQ7 – cache # 1269
This was a strange one, as the previous 8 logs had all got this down as DNF’s – not that I knew that when I went to look for it. The clue said it was hidden under a tree stump just off the path, there were one or two tree stumps in the area, but only one was bang on the co-ordinates, and that was where the cache was hidden. I can only guess that the first of the DNF cachers had looked at the wrong stump and the more experienced ones (including one from round here who I know who and has found over 2,500 caches) were victims of expecting not to find the cache so not looking properly
After this I got the train back to Porthmadog and on a small hillock overlooking the station I couldn’t find GC1Q7H3 Hot drink and Quartz, basically because there was far too much broken glass around to bother looking
12th July 2011 – PORTHMADOG HARBOUR GC2PQZG – cache # 1270
A quick walk around to the other side of Porthmadog Harbour from the station brought me to the bench where this magnetic nano was stuck… it wasn’t really like the usual bench caches as rather than a metal frame and wooden slats the bench was a slate frame and wooden slats, so the only iron to stick the cache to was the bolts holding the slats in place.
12th July 2011 – Deceangi Drive-by Series – Castle View. GC2PC3J – cache # 1271
This cache was hidden in a layby just outside Criccieth which I had driven past 5 times already before I found it empty enough to grab the cache. Even then it wasn’t totally empty but by the time I had parked up and eaten a sandwich and have a drink then the couple who were carrying on in the other car in the layby had stopped what ever they were doing and left
