Saturday morning, and after a good breakfast we decided that the itinerary for the day would be to go caching around Bala Lake, then come back to town for some lunch, then some caches near the town before heading off up the Bryntirion for the evenings festivities.
First of all though we went for a walk along the main street via the nearest cache to the Hotel
31st October 2015 – TEGID FOEL NO’ 1 / BOX CORNER GC3KDAY – cache #3880
This was the first cache of the day, a magnetic cache on the bottom of the postbox
31st October 2015 – Nods offspring #2 GC3P86M – cache #3881
This took us longer to find than it should mainly because of us not being able to decide how many trunks the trees had so we searched more than needed
31st October 2015 – Nods offspring #3 GC3P87A – cache #3882
After the ‘normal’ container at #2 we were amused to see this one peering out at us
31st October 2015 – Nods offspring #4 GC3P88K – cache #3883
A quick find here – though it’s a good job this road isn’t very busy as we just abandoned the car in the road while we searched
31st October 2015 – Nods offspring #5 GC3P897 – cache #3884
More than one hint object in the vicinity, but with 3 of us searching we soon found the right place
31st October 2015 – Nods offspring #6 GC3P8BD – cache #3885
Several objects matching the hint around (between 2 large moss covered rocks), including two either side of the stream, we tried to get Adam to go paddling to see if he could find the cache in between them, but he wouldn’t
31st October 2015 – The Inscrutable Enigma – Discover the CHAV GC3BPB4 – cache #3886
We found the container… eventually found the HAVOC though we tried various mathematical formula first… then we tried more mathematical formulas to calculate the CHAV out of it… and of course none of us had remembered to bring a notebook or even any paper out with us – so we had to use Adam’s arm to write on (see headline picture)
Eventually the penny dropped and we got to the log sheet
31st October 2015 – Nods offspring #7 GC3P8D4 – cache #3887
A quick find at a new gate, we presume the original container got lost when the new gate was put in
31st October 2015 – Llangower frustration GC3NH3R – cache #3888
This didn’t frustrate us too long as we spotted something that looked remarkably like cache camouflage from the roadside…
We were muggled here by the National Park Ranger, he saw us parked off the road all standing about so stopped to ask if we were alright, we said ‘Yes, everything’s fine’ to which he replied ‘Are you geocaching ?’ and then told us exactly where to find the feeder for the Famous Five multicache !
31st October 2015 – “Bala Views Series” – Near Pentrepiod Station GC1MBEM – cache #3889
We pulled off at the side of the road with the GPS showing about 65ft to the cache then we set off along the road and the figure went down, down then up… we soon realised that we needed to be up the junction to get to the cache
31st October 2015 – Little Welsh Reflection 1 GC4YQ2B – cache #3890
Adam went off to take a picture of himself on the bench (he’s on this website where you post pictures of the view you see whilst sitting on benches… don’t understand it myself !) So while he did that Angel78 and myself went to find the cache, which wasn’t too hard
31st October 2015 – Sidetracked at Llanuwchllyn C2P0VR – cache #3891
For a cache in an old red phone box this is a big’un
31st October 2015 – Little Welsh Reflection 2 GC56TXJ – cache #3892
We approached the cache site up the farm track opposite the village hall, Adam as fascinated by the gate catch mechanism and even recorded one of his videos on how to open a gate – well I haven’t seen a gate catch like it either !
The cache was quite run of the mill compared to the gate
After this we didn’t find GC1ZHED 2 Welsh Gents of Llanuwchllyn – Three of us each looked and poked and prodded, but we found nothing – although everybody else managed to find it
After this we didn’t find GC5NNCQ Church Micro 7463…Llanuwchllyn – We found a magnet – we didn’t find a cache, so no smiley for us…
(we muttered a bit that some people had claimed the cache on just finding the magnet, while after us some others found a magnet and put a new cache on it and claimed they’d found it)
31st October 2015 – Quickie at “LON”, drive-by! GC5WKMC – cache #3893
Adam jumped out of the car here and did the business whilst I sat with the car blocking the end of the lane
31st October 2015 – Kate’s Birthday BINARY Challenge No.1 GC5WKNX – cache #3894
We’d heard people talking of the final Mission Impossible at the Friday night event so our trip around the lake was primarily to get these feeder caches… we were expecting something a bit fatter, so it took Angel78’s delicate fingers to discover this in a place where Adam and I had already felt in !
31st October 2015 – Kate’s Birthday BINARY Challenge No.2 GC5WKPF – cache #3895
As I was driving along I couldn’t find anywhere to park, so I drove on past, turned round and drove back, then reversed off the road at the end of the barrier… fortunately traffic was light and we got the cache quickly
31st October 2015 – Bala Lake Drive-bye. GC4HQWW – cache #3896
The hint matched two objects, so I parked in between, and then headed for the wrong one first… I always choose the wrong one – it’s a statictical anomaly as to how often I choose the wrong one out of two possibilities – maybe that’s why I haven’t won the lottery yet !
31st October 2015 – Kate’s Birthday BINARY Challenge No.3 GC5WKPW – cache #3897
Two ends to the hint item… I chose the wrong end to look at while Adam got the right end… I always choose the wrong one of two…
31st October 2015 – Kate’s Birthday BINARY Challenge No.4 GC5WKQQ – cache #3898
The object referred to by the hint has two similar looking sides, guess what ? I chose the wrong side to look at first !
31st October 2015 – Kate’s Birthday BINARY Challenge No.5 GC5WKR4 – cache #3899
Parked at the bottom of the road and walked up to the GZ… took a while finding the cache, mainly because we were looking on the wrong side of the road (which if you are reading this blog probably doesn’t surprise you !)
31st October 2015 – Llyn Tegid – Bala Lake GC2P6PX – cache #3900
During the day we drove round the lake clockwise from Bala collecting all the caches as drive-bys so we went to location 2 before location 1 !
An Email has been sent to the CO with our answers…
There were only a couple of trains running on Saturday, but our visit to Location 2 happened to coincide with one of them arriving at Llangower Station… and through my Father being one time secretary of the Narrow Gauge Railway Society I know more about the railway engines of the Bala Lake Railway than I do the geology of Bala Lake !
For Example I know without resort to Google that the locomotive pulling the train ‘Holy War’ is a 2ft gauge Hunslet 0-4-0 saddle tank and was built over 100 years ago for the Dinorwic Slate Quarries and in the mid 1960’s was the last Steam Engine in use in the Welsh Slate Quarries
31st October 2015 – TEGID FOEL NO’ 4 / BETSI CADWALADR GC3KE0Z – cache #3901
After a spot of lunch we were heading up to the grotto cache that Adam has been to before, a popular cache this weekend because as we stopped for this cache on the way up to the grotto we were met by another party of cachers on the way down.
31st October 2015 – Guess Who?’s Grotto GCRV2Q – cache #3902
What a great location. Adam had been here before, but it was new to Angel78 and me.
I was actually suprised at how well my GPS worked even though I was in and under the rocks, it was only a couple of feet out at the cache site – the Satellites must have been ‘low’ in the sky 🙂
31st October 2015 – Kate’s BINARY challenge No6 & MISSION IMPOSSIBLE! GC64BH0 – cache #3903
Struggled a bit with the binary because we had forgotten (okay… I had forgotten) to write down one of the binary codes… Fortunately it was one that we had come up with different answers for when we found it, so we remembered what it was… added it in to the total and failed to open the lock… opened the calculator app on the phone and recalculated all the binary codes and additions that I had done in my head – came up with same answer that didn’t open the lock… then found I had not got the wheels lined up straight and the answer was right… Got the key, pressed the button… and the music started, and Tom Cruise dropped out of the sky.
Totally Brilliant.
31st October 2015 – Haunted Hill 4 camp GC5T686 – cache #3904
Thanks to Martin & Linda, the Halloween weekend was a most enjoyable one
As Vice-Chairman of the Yorkshire 2018 UK Mega Committee it was great to be able to share the moment we were awarded the Mega with others at the Bryntirion…
31st October 2015 – Start Jumping at the Bryn GC4GEAB – cache #3905
Although we knew where the final cache was we did go through the process of finding the feeders just to marvel at their ingenuity…
As for the final cache, we had to borrow all the necessary equipment from the CO as there was no chance of getting our equipment near to the cache !
As with all the CO’s devious caches you are left inspired to go and put out similar caches at home – just a copy of the second feeder would be a very highly regarded cache on it’s own
31st October 2015 – Queen Victoria, Night cache GC64NZ4 – cache #3906
We took Dave – Brenin Tegeingl along with us to make sure we didn’t get lost – though you can’t really get lost walking along a railway line… you just keep going until you get there
And I like the reflectors (washers cut from car number plates), bigger and easier to spot than firetacks, and easier to hang up as well…
We had to wait until midnight on Oct 31st to be certain of getting the Mega, and as Dave – Brenin Tegeingl (Deceangi) is the overseer of the UK Mega bid process it was fortuitous that we were in the same place at the right time… I was expecting to buy him a Penderyn – Welsh Whisky (to prove that Yorkshiremen are not tight with their money !) But I wasn’t expecting to have to make a speech !
I guess I will have to get used to standing up at events and explaining to all who I am and what we are doing