The second Sunday in October is International Earthcache Day – a day when cachers celebrate by going out and finding an Earthcache. Now I have found all the Earthcaches local to me, so I didn’t bother finding an earthcache on this day last year, but this year there was a caching event being held near Wakefield which had an Earthcache less than a mile away, and a couple more Earthcaches within 5 miles – and as I wanted to have a day out driving and walking before going away for the Halloween weekend to see if I was going to be in pain, the whole lot became killing three birds with one stone.

12th October 2014 – Get down the pit lad ! GC1JY6H – cache #3434
he first Eartchcache I did was at the National Coalmining Museum, and was unsurprisingly about coal !
I have been to the museum before and done the Underground tour, so I just stayed on the surface this time and got the information for the cache questions
Historically my Mother’s family were Coal Miners, they moved across from the Staffordshire coal mines around Hednesford to the South Yorkshire coal fields in the 1920’s. My Grandfather was blind in one eye where he was kicked in the head by a pit pony.

12th October 2014 – Essex 2015 Road Show #3 – on EarthCache Day GC5D65M – cache #3435
I Thought I would go to this event and show some support for both the Yorkshire cachers and the Essex Mega as I am one and in all probability will be going to the other.

For an event that started at 12:00 it was amazing how few people were there at 11:58 – even the organiser hadn’t turned up by then… but he was there by 12:00 so that’s alright !
After about an hour of chatting to caching friends old and new I was persuaded by Goldfish58 to accompany her to the nearby Earthcache, after which we got back just at 2:00pm as the event ended so I was among the first there and the last to leave

12th October 2014 – Useless? GC1M87E – cache #3436
On our way to the Earthcache we had to pass this cache, which was already in the hands of other cachers – The cache is called ‘Useless’ because it is on an old signpost which has weathered and corroded so much that there was no visible writing on it. However since the cache was set the signpost has been put back into use with a ‘Danger Deep Water’ message on it so is not useless at all now.

12th October 2014 – Calder Island View Point GC3XDY5 – cache #3437
Found with Goldfish58 this Earthcache covers two features that man has created, a gravel pit, and a spoil heap from a 19th Century soap works, in the soap making process involved mising sea salt with sulphuric acid, adding limestone and coal and burning it to produce ashes from which sodium carbonate was extracted by washing the ashes in water – the residue being highly toxic containing Hydrochloric acid, Hydrogen Sulphide gas and a solid waste of Calcium Sulfide – known as Galligu, which is what the spoil heap is made of… impurities in the Galligu include high levels of arsenic and a variety of heavy metals

12th October 2014 – Curse of the FTF Wakefield #2 – Wally GC24FF5 – cache #3438
Found with Goldfish58 on our way back to the country park where the event was beong held from the nearby earthcache. Being incapacitated with a trapped nerve I had to do the gentlemanly thing and let Goldfish58 do all the crawling around on the floor to find the cache !

12th October 2014 – …Second GC4WJFZ – cache #3439
Found with Goldfish58 on our way back to the country park from the nearby earthcache.
There was another family of cachers searching for this cache which I proceeded to find in a location that they swore they had already looked in…

12th October 2014 – Horbury Quarry GC5AFY7 – cache #3440
An Earthcache in a pub car park – what could be better 🙂
After the event at Pugneys Country Park I drove over here to get my third earthcache of the day. Nothing especially interesting just a sandstone quarry

I’ll have to hope for some new ones to be set up in the next 12 months otherwise I will be driving a long way for next years International Earthcache Day