Geocaching at Coombe Abbey Country Park

Coombe Abbey Country Park is located near Coventry and is a very popular destination for families and dog walkers. The country park offers over 500 acres of woodland walks, picnic areas, gardens, lakes and bird watching. I have been visiting the park for a number of years with my children and often visited the park when I was young.

Coombe Abbey Country Park Lake

We decided to visit Coombe Abbey this weekend and whilst we were I had a look at what Geocaches were in the area. There are actually two Geocaches located in the park itself; not very impressive really due to the size of the park and how popular it is. We set off looking for the first one and I decided to take a more direct route to its location. I led my family off the beaten path and through the trees only to find that we soon having to jump over water filled ditches as my GPS signal bounced all over the place. We got there in the end though and laughed because if we had only followed the path around it would have led us straight to it. But still, we had lots of fun. The cache is located somewhere in this picture (thankfully it was not in one of those trees that have been chopped down).

Geocaching at Coombe Abbey Country Park

We have taken many photographs within Coombe Abbey County Park over the years and today I decided to take a few of the trees within the park. This photograph is of our favourite tree; just look at that lovely face on the tree trunk!

A tree with a face

And here is the same tree after we had given it some arms...

A tree with a face and arms

As with most Geocaching trips, the second cache led us to a part of the park that we haven’t really visited before; the cache was located near to these lovely tree stumps with butterflies carved onto the stumps.

Butterfly carving on a tree stump

And also this tree stump that was covered with fungi...

Tree stump fungi

So that was our Geocaching trip to Coombe Abbey Country Park; a good day out within the park but it is probably in need of a few more caches to keep us busy.

Mick

Geocaching around the village of Baddesley Ensor

Wasn’t it a gorgeous weekend with a lovely Spring-like feel to it! On Saturday we decided to head for the village of Baddesley Ensor, near Grendon in Warwickshire for a spot of Geocaching. We parked up in the village and headed for the first of six rambles in the area.

Geocaching aound Baddesley Ensor

Ok, firstly for the negatives. There was an awful lot of dog mess about and all of it was right in the middle of the footpaths too, what is it with people? We were forever warning our son to be careful which made the walk a lot less enjoyable than it could have been. Also quite a lot of rubbish too, what should have been a lovely area was spoilt really and I had the impression that the walks were not very well maintained. Once upon a time the view from the area would have been wonderful but now a huge industrial park (Birch Coppice) has taken over and is a real blight on the landscape.

Footpaths around Baddesley Ensor

Quickly onto the positives! The owner of the Geocaches had made the effort to detail the history of the area. That is something I really love about Geocaching; most caches that are placed are in areas that mean something to the owners and in this case the owners had lived in the area of Baddesley Ensor and wanted to share the history. If you ignored the stain of Birch Coppice industrial park, there are some nice views; this one looking over a freshly ploughed field particularly got my attention (this is looking in the opposite direction to the Industrial park.

Baddesley Ensor - Near to Birch Coppice industrial park

We came across some unusual sights on our walk; we have seen this one quite often whilst Geocaching and that is a pointless stile (i.e. the hedge or fence has been removed leaving the stile all on its own). Every time we come across something like this we are always tempted to still climb over it!

Pointless country stile

Then there was this Graveyard, but no church and in the middle of nowhere (surrounded by fields). I bet this place is a bit creepy at night!

Baddesley Ensor graveyard

So that was our ramble around Baddesley Ensor, there was nothing really to show you regarding the caches themselves but we will be back to finish the other walks in the area at some point.

Mick

Our 100th Geocache at Beacon Hill

We celebrated our 100th Geocache find this weekend on a lovely sunny day at Beacon Hill. We had saved the Beacon Hill cache especially for the occasion since we have always enjoyed visiting the park. Our GPS signal pointed us in the direction of the Old Man of Beacon Hill, a rock formation in the shape of a man’s face that can be seen below.

The Old Man of Beacon Hill

The cache itself was located at the base of this rock formation and we initially thought it would be difficult to find since there were rocks everywhere! I got close to where the GPS was pointing to and noticed this which caught my eye because it looked a little unnatural.

Beacon Hill Geocache hide

I removed the loose rocks and there was the Geocache container peeking out from underneath the larger boulder.

Beacon Hill Geocache revealed

Here is Angela proudly displaying our 100th Geocache whilst my son climbs to the summit of Beacon Hill in the distance.

Our 100th Geocache at Beacon Hill

Once we had returned the Geocache to its location and managed to persuade our son down from the rocks we had a good walk around the park and had a winter picnic on one of the benches. I then noticed that there was an unusual cache located in the park. It was called an Earthcache, something I had heard of before but not something that I had ever looked into or tried to find.

EarthCache at Beacon Hill

Unlike traditional caches where you search for a physical container, the Earthcaches are special places where people can learn something about the geology of the Earth. The rocks of Beacon Hill were formed 600 million years ago during a period of violent volcanic activity – The rocks are some of the oldest anywhere on earth.

Our EarthCache task was to identify some of the rocks in the area and more specifically laminated tuffaceous rocks that were formed from layers of solidified volcanic ash.

Beacon Hill Tuffaceous rocks

I had never really paid much attention to the rocks before and spent quite some time looking and feeling them, I think passers’ by must have thought we were really strange! The colours and textures were beautiful and it is amazing to think they were formed so many years ago from a volcano!

A close up view of the Tuffaceous rocks

We had such a nice day at Beacon Hill, we always do however this was special because it was our 100th Geocache and first EarthCache. I will certainly be looking out for some more EarthCahes in the area; they are a great way of exploring and learning something new.

Mick

Geocaching in the snow at Hartshill Hayes

I took our children Geocaching this week to a country park that we have often visited over the years. It is Hartsill Hayes Coutry Park located in Warwickshire, about 15 minutes from our home. We often visit the park since it has some great walks, a children’s play area for the kids and lovely views over the Leicestershire countryside.

Geocaching at Hartshill Hayes Country Park

Our aim was to get two Geocaches to take our tally up to 99 caches; we are saving the 100th cache for a special place that I will hopefully blog about in a few days time. We arrived at the park to find it covered in snow! It had all melted back home so I was a little shocked to find so much of it and hoped that the caches were not too hidden.

Hartshill Hayes Commemorative Wood

The two caches were hidden in a part of the park that we seldom visit, not for any particular reason other than we have our usual favourite walk that we usually repeat each time we come. This happens so often with Geocaching though, the caches are often placed in areas that allow you to experience something new. The first cache was located a few minutes’ walk from the car and then down lots of steps!

Hartshill Hayes Steps!

We scrabbled around in the snow for a little while and then spotted the cache peaking out next to a tree. I don’t think the snow hampered our search but probably helped a little by providing a contrast to the cache.

Geocache in the snow

The next cache was quite a walk through muddy footpaths, waterlogged fields and across streams away from the country park to an area we hadn’t visited before. The cache itself was quickly found and we took in the views across the countryside and a nearby quarry.

Hartshill Hayes quarry view

We made our way back to the car and had an enjoyable visit again to Hartshill Hayes Country Park. Although we have now finished the Geocaching around the park, I am sure we will be back again during the summer months to enjoy the lovely walks.

Geocaching at Hartshill Hayes Country Park

Mick

Geocaching around Claybrooke Parva

I must say Geocaching started well this weekend; my wife did the shopping at the local Asda supermarket and I went looking for a cache that was hidden in the car-park. It was part of a “Off yer Trolley” series of caches, all of which have been hidden around local supermarkets. This one had proved quite a challenge for me and was actually the fourth time looking for it. The challenge being that there were always lots of shoppers about and it was hidden behind the recycling facility; not a nice place to be hanging around at all! This time I went straight to it and it couldn’t have been easier hidden under a rock. I think it must have been hidden under leaves before; well that is my excuse anyway!

Saturday afternoon we decided to go Geocaching since it looked like it was going to be a nice day. We decided to go and finish the series of caches around the High Cross area and targeted a series of caches hidden around Claybrooke Parva; a lovely looking village close to the High Cross on the A5.

Geocaching aound Claybrooke Parva

It turned out to be very cold with a biting wind hitting us across the fields and we set off looking for the last of the Geocaches we needed to get in this area. Thankfully the footpaths were not too muddy but the writing of the log books got progressively harder as we went on due to the cold air.

The Claybrooke Parva set of Geocaches took us on a circular walk through the countryside and we did see some nice unusual caches on our tour. This first one was located next to a fence and for the first time in a long time our GPS signal was a little out. It did look obvious though and I am surprised it has lasted so long without being stolen by a passing dog.

Geocache disguised as a stick

This next cache was interesting. The title of the cache was ‘Bugaboo’ and the hint ‘Could this be a bug's life?’ had me expecting that this cache was disguised as a spider or something. Then I spotted this amongst the trees...

Geocache bug house

I lifted the lid and expected a creature to jump out but there was the log neatly inserted into one of the holes.

Bug home for a cache

I think this is some kind of bug home and if you could let me know what it is intended for that would be appreciated. We completed the last of the Geocaches aound Claybrooke Parva with a slight detour to a Leicester Round cache. It looked quite straightforward looking at the map but as always it is never easy when you are faced with fields is it.

A nice place to hide a cache - Hole in a tree

So that completes a nice day out around Claybrook Parva. Rather cold but we returned to the car with happy faces having found eight caches.

Mick

Geocaching around Fazeley Part 1

We had the urge this weekend to go out Geocaching since we haven’t been for a few weeks due to the snow. We decided it would probably be wise to stay away from field and country walks because of all the rain last night and looked for some town trails. A town up the A5 from us called Fazeley looked ideal; there is a circular walk around the town with ten Caches leading to a final mystery cache.

Geocaches camouflaged with sticks

We parked up within an estate in Fazeley quite close to the first cache, out came the phone and we made our way to the first of ten caches we had planned for today. When we arrived at Ground Zero (GZ) we gasped. We had looked at the clue for the cache and it was ‘stickoflarge’ i.e. the cache was likely to be camouflaged with sticks. The bushes in the area had recently been pruned and there were sticks EVERYWHERE! That and the amount of rubbish around meant that this was not going to be easy. Half an hour later we still had not found it and I was about ready to give up when I noticed the cache peeking out from beneath a pile of sticks... we had been looking on the wrong side of the footpath! We signed the log and moved onto the next cache which we hoped would be easier; how wrong we were.

Geocaches camouflaged with Ivy

We knew this next cache was hidden within Ivy, and had our suspicions that it would be disguised as a fake Ivy leaf. However there was at least six Ivy covered trees that could be hiding it! We focused our attentions on one particular tree but wasted so much time groping around in the Ivy...the locals must have thought we were up to something!

Eventually Angela spotted a fake Ivy leaf lying on the floor; it must have become detached from the cache itself so we began to search around for the cache and finally spotted it close to the ground. His is the Ivy leaf Geocache (the light coloured leaf in the centre of the photo):

Ivy Geocache camouflage

So far we had spent over an hour around Fazeley Geocaching and had only achieved two of the ten caches! We were about ready to call it a day and decided to go for one last cache which proved to be straight forward (a Nano cache by a lamp post). We then walked back to the car and witnessed a lovely rainbow; I bet there is a really big Geocache at the end of this rainbow.

Geocaching rainbow over Fazeley

It happens so often that Geocaching does not go to plan and in this case the first two caches of the day were possibly the hardest we have come across to date. However we look forward to returning the Fazeley area to continue the challenge!

Mick

Geocaches that I dislike and Nanos!

To be honest it is very rare that I dislike a Geocache however some are better than others! The caches I am particularly not fond of are the tiny Geocaches known as Nanos. These are the smallest of all Geocache containers and often measure approx 2cm long and are just big enough to house a small paper log.

Nano Geoches

The Nano Geocaches are mainly metallic and are often magnetic. They really are tiny and often remind me of metal screw heads or bolts. The magnetic versions can often be found attached to metal road signs. The ones that really do frustrate me are the ones attached to railings, especially railings in a public area. There is nothing more frustrating than having to feel around long lengths of railings for the illusive Nano with people about.

Thankfully this Nano cache was not on railings but within the metal work of a local park bench; it is quite difficult to spot if you don’t know when you are looking for, can you see it?

Nano Geocache - Hidden in a park bench

Here is the Nano removed from the bench, what a small thing it is too!

Nano Geocache container

And here is the same Nano cache opened up to show you the log book. The log is an extremely tightly rolled up piece of paper and surprisingly holds quite a few log entries.

Opened Nano cache showing log

Geocaches that look out of place

This is my least favourite Geocache to date. Firstly I dislike Geocaches that do not fit into the surrounding area and look out of place. A bottle in a tree is not the most attractive sight is it. Also why a bottle? There are so many camouflaged Geocache containers available out there and I find the bottle quite ugly! We gave up trying to extract the log out of the neck of this bottle to sign...it just didn’t want to come out! There is also room within the bottle for a trinket or two but you just can’t get them in or out! A jam jar would have been better but again, not hung from a tree!

Geocache bottle in a tree

So there are my least favourite Geocaches found to date. I would love to hear what yours is?

Mick