I’d spent many hours over the summer tramping around Ilkley and up on Ilkley Moor to clear the 50 odd caches that there were there, and then someone comes along and puts three more caches in, so I had to go and clear them. Saturday morning and I was out shopping, so I took the opportunity to clear two of them

25th September 2010 – Mr Tumnus GC2DD4H – cache #813
A cache in a wood, by a lamp post (good job I went to see the film so at least I got the reference !) the trouble was that with the tree cover there wasn’t a good GPS signal and there were two lamp posts in the wood and my GPS had the co-ordinates right in the middle of the two of them… I searched for about 15 minutes, then walked away from the wood about to give up, but thought I’d go back and give it one more go and this time I found a rock that was in the wrong place, with a cache underneath it

25th September 2010 – Tarned out nice again! GC2EARQ – cache #814
A short walk up from the car park gets you to Ilkley Tarn, I was surprised that on a sunny Saturday morning there weren’t more people about, but there was just one dog walker I had to wait for before I could dive off the path behind a large rock to find the cache.
At this cache I dropped off the Dralion Travelbug

26th September 2010 – Graham’s Rest GC2FQAF – cache #815
On Saturday evening a new cache appeared, in an area that I’d cleared and was just too far to reach at Lunchtimes, so I went on the Sunday morning to find it. When I got near the co-ordinates I saw a couple with a small child and another man just where the cache should be, not knowing whether they were cachers or not I walked off and waited until they had gone (it turns out they were cachers, but relatively new ones I hadn’t come across before)
The cache itself was fairly easy to find being magnetic and there was only a metal gate that it could be on, so I found it easy enough

26th September 2010 – Building Bunker GC2EHBF – cache #816
When they were building Esholt sewage works they used a railway line to bring the equipment and materials in to the site. The old railway line is now a footpath and along the path there are a few old buildings that are derelict now. Inside one of these is this cache. it’s a well disguised magnetic ache painted rust coloured and hidden in the dark shadows at the back of a rood girder. I couldn’t see the cache in the darkness, but I used my walking pole to slide along the girder until it reached an obstruction (the cache) and when I had located it I could then just make out the edges.

26th September 2010 – Poggy Wood GC2F5PK – cache #817
Just on the hill above the sewage works is a bit of rusty old fence, and hidden in a dark corner of a rusty fence post is a rusty bolt – as shown in the headline picture – which is really a magnetic cache container

26th September 2010 – Aire Footbridge No 2 GC2EQDV – cache #818
A delightful old iron footbridge on a remarkably busy path, I had to walk off about 5 times while looking for thus cache as people came along (the bridge isn’t wide enough for two people to pass, so I couln’t stay there looking at the view until they’d gone)
The cache itself is magnetic and hidden in the bridge structure.

26th September 2010 – Wood Wander GC2DM8A – cache #819
Sunday afternoon and it was back to Ilkley to go up on the moor to find the last cache. This cache as you might guess from the name is in a small patch of trees, very large trees which give a poor GPS reception. Then in the middle of the trees is a tall steep banking – 30ft at least of 75° slope, almost vertical, and that deflects the GPS signal as well, so there isn’t much GPS accuracy. So you go by the cache description, which says the cache is child friendly… errr wrong !
I did eventually found it, hidden in a hole half way up the slope. Not a slope for children to be climbing on (and tumbling down) It was covered by two stones, unfortunately when I moved them one rolled all the way to the bottom of the slope and I wasn’t going to go down, retrieve it and climb back up again to replace it.
I’m not the only cacher to log that it isn’t really child friendly !

26th September 2010 – The Start of the Dales way GC21QHA – cache #820
Just outside Ilkley I stopped in a lay-by and walked the half mile or so down to this cache, a surprisingly large ammo box hidden troll fashion under a footbridge over a stream