Not being a fan of slogging around caches in the cold, wet and mud it was only when a new cache trail appeared locally that I decided to spend a Sunday Morning out doing the 4 mile walk in the sunshine.
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #1 GC – cache #1422
My GPS hadn’t locked on to the satellites when I walked to the first cache. The hint was fairly descriptive and I saw a spot that looked a likely place, but as my GPS was saying I was still a ways away I ignored the place and carried on… then as the GPS settled I realised I had gone past the cache and so walked back to the place I’d spotted as a likely cache site and indeed found the cache.
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #2 GC – cache #1423
I had to have a little stop to retie my boot laces to let the dog walker behind me pass before I got to this cache
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #3 GC – cache #1424
It always seems to be the way that when you are walking towards a cache and you see someone in the distance walking towards you then you predict where they are going to pass you and you work out that you are going to pass just by the cache… I had to slow down to let the dog walker get past the cache before I got to this sneaky little cache clipped to the fence.
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #4 GC – cache #1425
I nearly poked my eye out with a branch here, the cache is hidden in a huge fallen tree and you have to duck into the branches to get to it. I was saved injury by my hat getting between the branch and my eye… but I guess if I hadn’t had the hat on I would have seen the branch and avoided it anyway !
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #5 GC – cache #1426
Most of the caches on this walk were fairly simple straightforward finds, while walking towards this one I had decided where the cache was going to be hidden just from the hint
26th February 2012 – Crimple Valley GC – cache #1427
The Spofforth and Follifoot walk goes past this cache, I quickly spotted where it must be so it was a simple find.
Two people and a dog were coming towards me so I tried to be as discreet as possible, but I needn’t have worried as they turned out to be cachers (Oxymoron and Jasmine&Boris)
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk # GC – cache #1428
This cache was wedged in the fork of a tree branch, I had no end of problems getting it to stay wedged in once I had put it back
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #7 GC – cache #1429
This must have been in one of the busiest fields in the country this morning, it’s not that big a field, but as well as me there were 10 other people and a similar number of dogs… There were people walking towards me, people behind me, people over the other side of the field, all of whom made hanging around until the coast was clear to grab the cache a little awkward.
Fortunately two Red Kites flying around over the trees gave me an excuse to stop and look up while everyone got past me. As soon as the coast was clear I made a dash for the edge of the field and the cache, which was a nice hide of a nano in a piece of log
There was another cacher in the field, Goldfish58 whom I saw at the next cache and passed on my way out of the field
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #8 GC – cache #1430
From the map I knew this cache was on the roadside, from the hint I knew it was magnetic, therefore likely to be hidden on a signpost and I had seen Goldfish58 at this cache from halfway across the field, so I knew which signpost it was on. There was a car parked right next to the cache but fortunately the dogs were loaded up and the car drove off as I got to the wall, so I had no trouble finding the cache.
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #9 GC – cache #1431
I had to wait for a couple of walkers to pass the other way before I could grab this cache
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #10 GC – cache #1432
I always like a cache with somewhere to sit and sign the log, and this cache is hidden on a big green bench – a wooden bench, so instead of using a magnetic cache the inventive hider has used velcro strips to fasten it down.
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #11 GC – cache #1433
A detour off the circular route through the Church grounds to find this cache by the back wall of the graveyard
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #12 GC – cache #1434
I had to sit on the step and pretend to shake a stone out of my boot while the locals passed by on the other side of the wall before grabbing this cache
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #13 GC – cache #1435
The map shows the footpath here going over a style in a wall, however the footpath in reality goes through a gate several yards away… the cache is hidden by the style, so I used it, probably to the amusement of some walkers who were down the bottom of the hill watching me
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #14 GC – cache #1436
A straightforward find, though I realised at the next cache that I had left my pen here… fortunately I had a spare
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #15 GC – cache #1437
A group of 8 or so walkers had followed me out of Follifoot village and they were catching up by this cache, which I managed to sign and replace before they came into sight, but when I turned round I was suprised by how close they had got
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #16 GC – cache #1438
The walkers were right behind me, so I had to leave this cache and make a guess as to which way they were going to go when they reached the road…. I went right and slowly sauntered along the roadside, fortunately they went left, so I could turn around and saunter back to the cache…
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #17 GC – cache #1439
A straightforward find, though I had to use the bootlace tying deception to cover my bending over and putting the cache back as a cyclist came along just at the wrong minute
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #18 GC – cache #1440
I was having little luck at getting to caches without having to avoid muggles, this cache was no different, I had just reached around for the cache when a Landrover came down the track and slowed right down while it passed me
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #19 GC – cache #1441
This was the fifth cache in a row where other walkers and locals were an issue, this time I had to go passed the cache as there were a couple of walkers about 25 yards away coming the other way when I got to GZ… so Iwalked past them, then ducked behind a large tree and waited til they were out of sight before going back up to the cache
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #20 GC – cache #1442
There was a lot of rabbit fur on the ground around this cache, but no sign of a dead rabbit, I have to assume there was also a less than hungry fox about as that would be about the only thing around that would eat the whole carcase
26th February 2012 – Spofforth Stroll GC – cache #1443
The hint for this cache says something about a large overhanging oak branch and a flat stone to sit on with the cache underneath… not like that in reality anymore, the tree branch is in the stream at the bottom of an banking and the flat stone is halfway down the slope… However there was a couple of suspicious looking rocks jammed into a hole at the top of the bank, and behind these the cache
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #21 GC – cache #1444
I passed Goldfish58 going the other way for the second time on this walk just before I got to this cache, I actually saw quite a few people twice on the walk, it must be a popular circular walk in the area, I didn’t mark any of the others down as cachers though.
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk #22 GC – cache #1445
The GPS wasn’t too accurate here so I had to search a couple of places that matched the hint (Fence post) before I found the cache
26th February 2012 – Spofforth and Follifoot Walk the Bonus GC – cache #1446
When I had replaced cache #22 I realised that I had missed out on one of the significant numbers for the puzzle to find the bonus cache co-ordinates, so I had to plot all the numbers it could be on my GPS and I came up with 3 possibilities as to where the cache could be (assuming it was between cache #22 and the village)
The first two had no sign of a cache anywhere near, but as I walked towards the third and last possibility I could see the cache box peeping out from it’s hiding place.
