I went to York to do Church Micro No. 6000 and Quest in the combo, a new puzzle/multi cache (that actually I can’t write too much about without spoiling the surprise of anyone who reads this before doing it) – those being the only caches within the city centre I haven’t got smilies on… The four (and a bit!) mile trail of the puzzle cache took me near the Minster so I did a detour from it to circle round the minster gathering the clues for the CM – loads of English and foreign school parties looking around it when I was there.
25th June 2014 – Mia’s River Walk GCGC3HYKX – cache #3310
My route took me along the riverside, and as I always say, I like a cache with a convenient bench nearby on which to sit and sign the log, so I sat and watched the walkers, joggers, cyclists, rowers and boat trippers going past… (Mia is a Chihuahua belonging to Mel and Freddie that you may have seen in other postings as she always goes caching with them)
25th June 2014 – Quest In The Combo GC4YVCN – cache #3311
I nearly failed at the first hurdle with this cache, working out the start position… the repeated use in the cache description of names associated with specific numbers led me to think they would be the coordinates – and they can be plotted to an acceptable point on the map near the false coords. But I thought I would check with a previous finder and she told me that I was not getting it right (Thanks Mel !)
So I looked again and eventually found some better coordinates… and off I went… from there it was still not plain sailing, when I got to location 1 I couldn’t see anything that would give me the code as described in the cryptic hint… so I sat on the bench for a few minutes wondering what it could be… then it came to me – though I couldn’t remember the exact number and had to try a couple or three before I got it spot on.
When I got to the fourth stage I was even more in the dark as the way I had walked from 3 to 4 I didn’t pass anything that matched the information I needed for the code, so I had the option of walking back another way and hoping to find the required information – or trying all possible numbers until I got the right one… a bit of calculation based on the formula given and I realised there were only 72 possibilities, so I thought that would be quicker than walking back around… I got it right about half way through the 72 !
No problem from there getting to the huge cache, had a quick look through the contents though as I don’t have kids I don’t bother with swaps and rarely move on TB’s unless they have been stuck in a cache for months, so I took nothing and left nothing but a signature and note in the log book…
This is definitely the furthest I have walked for a multicache.
25th June 2014 – Church Micro 6000…York Minster GC56Q8F – cache #3312
When I detoured to walk around the Minster and got the answers to the clues I stopped to worked out the waypoint for the final coords on the GPS hoping the puzzle cache trail would take me somewhere near them… but alas not, so when I had found the puzzle cache I went to find this one, which was fairly easy as it’s just where the hint says it is
And unlike the 35mm tubs and smaller that abound in York it’s a nice big ammo can – which makes it about a 6th the size of the Quest For Combo cache container !
By the time I got back to the car after finding the Puzzle cache and this Church Micro I had walked just a few yards shy of 6 miles and it had taken me a few minutes short of 3 hours, and I’d only found 3 caches – but it was one of the most entertaining caching trips I have done and both main caches are well worth the favourite points I gave them.
