4th June 2010 – The Secret Seven House GC – Cache #543
I’d been spending time trying to work out solutions to local puzzle caches of which there are many in the Area between my house and Harrogate as there are a number of cachers around there who try and outdo each other with puzzles. On Monday I had done three, but still had a number to do in the same area. The first of these was in a place that I could actually see from where I did the Lindley Wood cache, but was a field away and on a totally different footpath that I wasn’t happy about crossing the fields between, so on Monday I left it for a later time, and that time was 4 days later.
I had solved the puzzle ages ago but as to get to the cache involved a walk of 3/4 mile each way I hadn’t bothered going to it, but it had become the nearest cache that I hadn’t found so my Friday evenin trip started there.
It’s a cache on a string, dropped into a metal gatepost. Fortunately the hint tells you exactly where to find it as you would struggle otherwise !
4th June 2010 – Enigma Redux GC – Cache #544
This is quite a difficult puzzle cache, fortunately a Google of the Enigma Redux name brings you to a document that at least tells you where to start. First you have to find the clues in the cache description, then you need to use the clues and the method found on goolge to decipher the code given in the cache description, then you need to decipher the answer you have got… Perhaps little wonder then that I was only the second visitor this year, there were only 5 visitors in 2009, 5 in 2008, and only 1 in 2007.
The cache itself is easy to find once you have the co-ordinates. Drive to within 50 metres of the cache, then it is hidden under a large stone on the moor.
At this cache I dropped off the Travel Bug – Leeds / Bradford Traveller 1 – which of course has the key to the Burke & Hare cache… so you need to work out a 4* puzzle to even get to the second part of the 5* puzzle… cruel perhaps !
4th June 2010 – WHO’S SHARP GC – Cache #545
A quick cache and dash at the side of a country lane… made difficult only by the fact that the cache is in the middle of a huge patch of gorse bushes !
The cache itself is the size of a bucket, so easy enough to see when you get to the right part of the gorse.
4th June 2010 – Simon said…. “put it there !” GC – Cache #546
A puzzle cache that I had looked at and had no idea where to start to solve the puzzle.
However, I read the hint, read the logs, looked at the photographs and gleaned enough information to work out the rough whereabouts of the cache, and the hint said the cache was by an upright stone post, and I had seen photographs taken from where the cache was showing a wall with a field boundary just to the left.
On Monday I had parked my car in a Forestry Commission car park and walked to 3 caches from there. Friday night I was back in the same car park as I had worked out that this cache was there as well. By the time I got there it was 9:45 and getting dark, but I reckoned I still had enough light to find it – or not if I was in the wrong place. Anyway, I went to the path I thought the cache would be on and walked along it until I found an upright stone post in the wall with a field boundary just to the left of it… and there under a stone at the base of the post was the cache
Cheating ? Well the puzzle is all about finding the cache by resolving clues… I found the cache by picking out clues and resolving them into a location, just not the clues that were in the puzzle !
It was the Puzzle third cache in a week that I had found by using the logs rather than solving the puzzle… if only they were all that easy !
5th June 2010 – A bridge too far GC – Cache #547
A hot sunny Saturday afternoon saw me doing a walk from Burley-in-Wharfedale to bag 4 new caches that had been placed in the previous week as well as a couple of older ones which had slipped by. The first of the new ones was in the space under a footbridge, guarded by some vicious nettles.
5th June 2010 – 1st class post GC – Cache #548
A 35mm film cannister hidden in the rotted hollow of a fence post by a stile… although there isn’t a fence, so the stile is just in the middle of an open space, still it gives you a direction to head for when you enter the field and shows you where the bridge over the stream is.
5th June 2010 – The mighty Oak GC – Cache #549
This cache is a largish plastic tub, about the size of a coffee mug, and is in the roots of an oak tree, the hint says the oak tree is next to some holly. As the entire copse is oak trees and holly trees it still took a few goes to find the right tree.
When I did find the cache it was at the edge of a steep slope covered by a large patch of holly bushes, and reaching down to get the cache from under the roots the cache slipped through my fingers and rolled down into the middle of the holly bush… I only got prickled a bit getting it back !
5th June 2010 – In the cairn GC – Cache #550
As the name suggestes this cache is in a pile of rocks on top of a hill. A cairn normally is something built by hand to mark the top of the hill, this cairn is actually a pile of huge rocks which you wouldn’t carry by hand !
The cache itself is a rusty Quality Street tin, easy to spot, but hard to open !
5th June 2010 – Bureau de Change GC – Cache #551
Heading back down the hill I walked through another patch of woods and just at the edge, where the stream spreads over the ground turning it into an area of bog there is a cache hidden 25 yards off the path (in the bog) in the hollow stump of a dead tree.
5th June 2010 – Curse of the FTF Wharfedale #16 – Brick GC – Cache #552
An interesting little container for this latest in the Wharfedale Curse series, it’s home made from plumbing fittings and is inserted into a hole drilled into a brick. The brick is by a gatepost and so will rapidly become just a part of the scenery. Though there will be a patch of ground by the gatepost that is different to all the rest about as the grass will be all flattened and worn down. I was the second cacher that day to grab this one and the grass around the fence post was noticeably flattened compared to that roundabout before I got there !
