Team MX (otherwise known as Dave) has a bit of a thing about doing old caches, caches set in the first couple of years of Geocaching’s existence, and he was looking for someone to go with him on a quest to the Scottish border to find a couple of caches placed in July 2001. The thing is that these caches aren’t just on the Scottish Border, they are on the Border in the most difficult to reach part of the country, nearest road about 3.5 miles and two or three hillsides away. So he put a call out for people to go on the walk with him and several people seemed interested, but when it came down to it, just like last time the final tally was Team MX, Printerfixerman, Lady the dog and myself.
11th August 2013 – Off yer trolley, Boroughbridge GC44FV2 – cache #2754
Team MX picked me up from home and we set off to Boroughbridge to meet Printerfixerman (from here on called PFM) in Morrisons car park – the location of this cache. I didn’t need to Phone A Friend for help as Team MX is the Cache Owner, and PFMan replaced and rehid the cache last time it went missing !
11th August 2013 – SLYMEFOOT PUB GC1KZHD – cache #2755
One hundred and twenty five miles up the road, and a delay while we sat at the side of the road avoiding the competitors on the Mintex Rally (some nice old rally cars there) we found ourselves at the at the start of our walk. The start of one of the historic drovers roads over the hills to Scotland and the site of the Slymefoot Pub where the drovers, whisky smugglers and local farmers met up. The foundations are still there and it can’t have been much more than a hut.. not really what we would know as a pub !
Team MX had found the cache before I had worked out which side of the fence to be on !
11th August 2013 – Where’s Georges Kidney Stone (Northumberland) GC1330 – cache #2756
Three and a half miles up the old drovers road and almost on the Scottish border we got to the first of our old caches… set out in July 2001. We spent a while looking for a magnetic nano or a 35mm tub at the base of a post, after all when the cache is at the side of ‘The Street’ it must be a 1*/1* drive-by mustn’t it ?
11th August 2013 – Border Ridge – Mozie Law GC4ANWW – cache #2757
The Pennine Way footpath runs along the border here, across the tops of the hills through the bogs and heather moorlands. From the last cache to this you walk alongside a barbed wire fence which has England on one side and Scotland on the other. (The path is on the English side). The cache itself is 40-50 yards off the path over the heather and we were intrigued by the hint (sign the log) and the Camouflage for this cache… certainly not native to the area so was it carried here deliberately ? or did the CO just wander about the moors and find it ?
11th August 2013 – Reivers Revenge (Scottish Borders, Just!) GC132F – cache #2758
A mile and a half along the Pennine Way and 120 metres upwards we got to the cairn and trig point on the top of Windy Gyle, and from there we walked across to a second cairn to find the cache… and ended up in Scotland, if only by about 50 yards. This is another old cache dating from July 2001, and is the highest cache I have so far found at 615mtrs above sea level – but then these last three caches are the highest three I have found, this one just the furthest up of them.
I know now why it’s called Windy Gyle, it was blowing a gale up here but a windy day means there is no haze and you can see for miles and miles from up here
After this we just had another three and a half miles and 360 metre descent back to the car, all in all we walked almost exactly 9 miles and it took us five and a half hours
11th August 2013 – Welcome to the Otterburn Range GC1NRMJ – cache #2759
On the way home we did some drive-by’s…
Pull up in car, read cache name and search… nothing to find
Then get GPS and look in the right place… cache found !
11th August 2013 – PIT STOP – WOODHOUSES BASTLE GC1KZH8 – cache #2760
As we pulled up Team MX spotted the cache through the car window… if he’d had longer arms we would have been able to do this without getting out of the car – a true drive by !
11th August 2013 – Percy’s Cross (Northumberland) GCAA2 – cache #2761
We made a quick detour on the way home to grab this cache. This was the third 2001 cache of the day, and the oldest of the three (and the oldest cache I have found to date), dating back to May 2001
11th August 2013 – Gate on the Hill GC4E163 – cache #2762
I guess three blokes hanging around behind a roadside snackbar could look a lot suspicious to the man locking up the garage for the night (and presumably removing the day’s takings) Eventually though he left and we could get to the cache… In the end Team MX spotted the cache by jumping down into the field and walking along the back of the hedge until he saw it then he guided us in until we had our hands on it.
