The previous weekend when I had been out caching with Adam (UKCacheMag) we were discussing how our caching was going on in 2013 and I realised that he was doing much more than I was, 120 caches for him to the 73 for me, and I’d only found 73 caches whereas by this time last year I’d found 247, and even in 2011 when I had sciatica and couldn’t walk I had still found 84 caches by this time.
It struck me that although the weather had been bad at times I was using bad weather as an excuse for not going out caching and also limiting myself to only caching on days when I needed to fill spaces on the calendar grid… That was something that needed to change.

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK ONE GC4A9KK – cache #2424
It seemed it was going to be a nice afternoon for a walk, and there had been a new series of caches published that started less than 2 miles from my house, so even though it wasn’t a blank day on the grid I thought I would have a walk around the new series
The first one was easy enough to find though I did have to hide a bit to avoid the attention of a local exercising her dog in the adjacent field

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK .BONUS CACHE. GC4A9J2 – cache #2425
After the first cache I put my walkman on (I listen to audiobooks on my walkman while I cache, currenly slogging through the last part of Lord of the Rings – which I loved as a book and have read ten or a dozen times, and I loved the films too, but now hearing it read out I am becoming more and more disenchanted with it. Frodo is a wimpy, whining git and Sam his unpaid fawning lackey a bumbling village idiot, but I digress…)
Anyway, I found my headphones weren’t in my pocket but left back in the car so I walked back up to get them, only a couple of hundred yards, but on the way passed somethng that looked like the hint for the bonus cache, so I went over and had a look and found the cache… at least having found it I could happily forget to write down the bonus numbers !

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK TWO GC4A9MA – cache #2426
As the farmer was passing by in his tractor as I was dealing with this cache I had to cover my tracks by taking photographs of the lambs playing just the other side of the wall

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK THREE GC4A9N8 – cache #2427
Straightforward enough to find, even under the trees, the GPS led me straight to it

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK FOUR GC4A9P4 – cache #2428
I met a party of geriatric mountain bikers coming up the path as I was at this cache… there must have been about 15 of them… strange to see lycra clad mountain bikers with long grey beards !

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK FIVE GC4A9PN – cache #2429
Another easy find, I was using the clue rather than looking at the GPS and there was only really one possible place for the cache to be

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK SIX GC4A9QJ – cache #2430
Which is worse nettles or hawthorn ? This cache involved braving the latter – especially as going by fingertip search I managed to dislodge the cache and dop it onto the ground in the nettles

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK SEVEN GC4A9R4 – cache #2431
I had to play dodge the farmer here as he drove about in his tractor dropping off turnips for the sheep to eat… again the trick of stopping to take pictures of the lambs at play was utilised to give me a reason to hang about until he went off into the next field (you can just see his tractor coming into the picture on the left)

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK EIGHT GC4A9VK – cache #2432
The hint said large rock, and my GPS led me to the biggest one around and I searched all around that to no avail, then I noticed a smaller one a few yards up the track so I went and searched that and found the cache

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK NINE GC4A9VZ – cache #2433
As the cache was on the other side of the river I had to make a choice before the cache of bridge or steppingstones… I opted for safety and the bridge, though the stepping stones were well above the water level.

The cache itself was guarded by some inquisitive calves, I thought one was going to follow me across the footbridge to get the cache

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK TEN GC4A9WK – cache #2434
I always like a cache with a convenient place to sit while writing the log, and in this case sitting on the step of the stone stile was even more convenient as sitting down kept me below the level of the wall and out of the view of the farm occupants who were just the other side of the wall

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK ELEVEN GC4A9XC – cache #2435
I got a bit lost in the farmyards coming from TEN, no path seemed to be in evidence so I took the long way round to ELEVEN, up the farm track to the road then down the next farm track and then back onto the footpath across the fields, easy enough to find the cache once I got to the clue item, though getting over the last stile was a little bit tricky

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK TWELVE GC4A9YC – cache #2436
Another farmyard to navigate through, and there was a bloke out mending a car in the farmyard so I had a discussion with him about which way the path went… I went up the hill out of his view then snuck across to the wall and back down to the cache, just in case he turned to watch that I was going the way we had discussed

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK THIRTEEN GC4A9YQ – cache #2437
I had worked out what the hint meant and there was only one possibility, so it was an easy find… though not an easy retrieve as the camo bag the cache was in was tied up in the prickly holly brangches!

23rd April 2013 – DOB PARK FOURTEEN GC4A9ZT – cache #2438
This was my last cache of the series (having already found the bonus) and was the one that took me the longest to find… it just didn’t seem to be there – maybe I was being too careful to avoid the spikes of the hawthorn !