Cardinham Woods and more steep climbs!

We went back to Cardinham Woods today to do the  Bonus geocache we didn't manage last week.

Sharp eyed Sean spotted it- thank goodness for children's good eyesight!

We walked the Wheal Glynn walk. Another long steep climb rewarded with amazing views. Hidden amongst the trees is the old engine house and chimney stack of an old lead and silver mine. And when I say hidden I mean that every one of us walked past it without spotting it at first until I realised we had gone past it. We then back tracked to take photos.

The full team out today!

Me - I usually prefer to be
the other side of the camera!

The strange things you find in caves!

Yep, still strange!

Until next time
Gillian

Our motto

This is a motto I made

We all have bits to say.


We made cards to put in caches we find.


Bye all
Sean

Geocache and Earthcache at Helman Tor

We went  geocaching at Helman Tor this morning. It is an amazing granite formation set in a nature reserve. It also has the remains of a Neolithic hill settlement and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument.


Words don't do the site justice so here are the photos...but guess who forgot to take their camera... so these are all taken on my mobile phone

 The prevailing wind direction is quite obvious- just look at this tree...

You can see all around from the top of the Tor

At the summit...

Just had confirmation that we also got the Logan Stone Earthcache at the Tor. Really happy!!!!! 

Our first Earthcache! We had to answer three questions and post a photo. We did find the final question tricky as we had to give the amount of movement of the Logan stone and none of us would climb on it because it was so windy- not even Tom who climbs like he is half mountain goat usually! But we worked it out in the end...


Helman Tor is a spectacular place, with amazing views all around- definitely the best geocache we've done so far!


Until next time
Gillian

River Fowey walk

AKA Geocaches #9,10,11


Hooray we made it to 10 geocaches- that was our target for the end of April and we got there in half a month...


Today we found Riverside, Respryn Bridge and Riverside_2 geocaches during a two hour walk along the bank of the River Fowey in Cornwall. Although we have lived here 19 years and walked this area many times, we found another new path today with fabulous views of the river.

The first bluebells I've seen this year

 Respryn Bridge (see http://www.historic-cornwall.org.uk/a2m/medieval/bridge/respryn%20bridge/respryn_bridge.htm for more information)

Really! 

Respryn Bridge seen from downriver

Respyn Bridge seen from upriver

 Some of the paths and semi-islands made me think of a book I read when I was young... Swallows and Amazons by Enid Blyton... I would have loved to play here as a kid... so much to explore...

Until next time
Gillian

Geocaching #6 completed

We bought our first GPS today- we decided the Iphone is just not good enough as a GPS device as we keep losing signal under trees and in valleys. We bought a basic one- a Garmin etrex- the idea is just to put in the coordinates and follow the arrow! Simple...

We tried it out tonight, going back to the geocache Kirland View to complete the second part of the cache... it made it much easier!

No pictures today as it was overcast and drizzly. Not the weather for my camera...

Here's hoping tomorrow is going to be dry so we can out geocaching again- we've got to make the most of being on our school holidays...

Until next time
Gillian

Geocaching #7 and #8

Back to Cardinham Woods and the Lidcutt Valley Walk today. Like last time we were there, the GPS was close to useless, there isn't much reception in some parts of Cardinham Woods. This time we had written down the clues so we quickly found both geocaches when we got to the right place.

The sign is back!!!

Geocache#7 was straightforward. Last time the vital arrow on the signpost wasn't on the post. Clearly they are redoing all the signs at the start of the tourist season and typical of our luck we first went when they were halfway through the job! We were really pleased to find a Travel Bug at the geocache- it's the first one we've come across. [As the TB was from Randwick Cub Scouts it will be going with Sean to his Cub Scouts meeting on Thursday before it moves on from us]. 

We saw some great views from the climbing paths we took.

Geocache#8 had a really good spoiler clue- this proved essential as the GPS had no reception at all along the path we were on. However all became beautifully obvious once I'd noticed the key thing... The others didn't see it at all at first but it was a gem of a clue and we quickly searched the right area...

Sean with our Travel Bugs

Leo wants to go far!

For fun we set up two Travel Bugs of our own today. Neither of the cache boxes today could fit our TB's inside so they visited instead, but they will be out there travelling soon.

Until next time
Gillian

Geocaching #6

Monday evening we went out looking for the geocache we couldn't find yesterday. Today the GPS worked a treat, taking me to 1m from the location. I nearly missed the cache as it was almost too clever! Fortunately John had read the spoiler clue and wasn't fooled...

We now have the coordinates for the next part of this multipart cache but unfortunately we hadn't worked out how to input coordinates on the go so had to come home to work that out... We'll finish this one later in the week.



The photo was taken on the Cycle Path from Bodmin west to east.

Until next time
Gillian