Remembering Poshrule

Setting the Scene

A long day spend remembering poshrule by wandering around his old manor at Yaxley. The geocaching was preceded by a long drive and a parkrun. For many UK cachers, especially those in the Midlands and East of England, poshrule was a very well-known figure. He was one of the most prolific setters and finders of caches in the country. His work to the west of Peterborough is what generated the idea of the Cachemuda Triangle. An area where cachers enter and get trapped, sometimes for days on end. I think I first searched for a load of his caches away back in 2012 (see Warmington).

The point of the post is, however, that poshrule sadly passed away a couple of months ago. So the UK caching community lost one of its most prolific and most likeable characters. His kids and various nearby cachers set up a geoart of lab caches and a number of short walking series of caches in his honour. Each of the physical caches is (sort of) in memory of one of poshrule’s original series.

Getting There

When I left Measham it was before 7am. One downside of moving to Measham is that the drive over to Peterborough and the nearby caching grounds takes an hour longer than it did from Milton Keynes. Clearly the benefit is that there’s a whole load of caches now that are an hour closer, but swings-and-roundabouts.

Anyway, it was foggy when I set off, but that only lasted as far as the motorway. I’d looked beforehand and Dr Google said the best way was to go around Leicester. However, Felicity the car sat nav had other ideas. She wanted me to go down the M42, across the A14 and back up. The time she predicted was similar to google, and driving the motorway is nicely easy at 7am on a Saturday, so that’ll do. The drive was quick and painless.

Saturday is parkrun Day

I arrived at Ferry Meadows on the west side of Peterborough just before 8:30, because, you know, parkrun and all that. Ferry Meadows parkrun is held in a big public park that probably used to be clay pits or gravel pits. There’s a couple of lakes, and now some trees. Also, and these are the important bits for parkrunners, there’s a massive car park, clean toilets, a decent cafe, and five kilometres of flat paved pathway. That makes for a fast run. Did I mention it was a beautiful morning, by the way? I’d had the sun in my eyes for the whole drive down. It was cold, but not excessively so. Nice and fresh.

So how did I do? It was a slowish start as there were a lot of people. Approaching 600, I think. Once we got past the first kilometre I could run at the speed I wanted. I made my fastest time of the year – 33:09. Not spectacularly fast, I know. But baby steps. And another venue added to the collection.

After the run as I was walking to the car there was a massive queue to pay for parking. So I went to the car and put on some walking trousers and then went back to Race HQ for a cafe stop and to get a local to photograph me next to their board. I don’t carry my phone with me when I’m doing parkrun, usually, so I have to go to the car and fetch it if I want a photo of myself.

Back at the plot, the cafe did good coffee and bacon rolls. And by the time I’d finished them, the queue to pay for parking had gone. Excellent. So on with the rest of the day.

When it was All Fields

From Ferry Meadows I had a massive 10 minute drive round to the church at Yaxley. I’ve parked there before so I knew it would be safe for the car. What I didn’t know though, was that since my last visit at the start of 2022 there’s been some housing development in the area. As a result, the roads are all different, and there are new houses everywhere. The drive into Yaxley from Norman Cross used to be countryside. I know because I’ve walked along that stretch of road finding caches at least three times. But now it’s a link road between various new bits of Peterborough suburbs. And I got lost at the new road junctions. It took me a couple of goes to find the church, even though I could see it. Candleford was waiting there when I arrived. She’d not been there for long though.

On with the Walking

After a couple of drive-bys, our first walk was around Crown Lakes Country Park. We walked these as a clockwise loop, initially heading west and south from the parking. It was kind of muddy, but no worse (I guess) than last week in Shepshed. So we made good progress because all the caches are new and also have been placed in poshrule style, by which I mean they are there to be found. And find them we did.

The walk around Crown Lakes took just over an hour and yielded 14 finds.

When it was All Fields (Again)

We grabbed a few drive-bys whilst on the move again, including the two at Farcet, before parking up in the new housing estates at Hampton Water. These are just north of Yaxley and have been gradually expanding for as long as I’ve been coming here to cache. It’s pretty full now, and quiet nicely manicured in the way that new housing estates are.

The second walk took us around Beeby’s West Lake. I remember walking into here before, but there were no houses at that time. Anyway, another walking loop. This one yielded another 14 finds. It was quicker than the first because (mainly) it was paved all the way around. No muddy, slippery footpaths here. It was quite warm by this point too. I swapped my heavy coat for just a fleece jumper, and that was fine. Anyone would think it was nearly spring.

This walk took us to around 2pm. We followed it with three more that we did by moving the car and driving in-and-out of housing streets, accessing caches along what I think used to be a railway line.

Back-a-Yaxley

From here there was one significant cluster of caches left to do. These were to the south of the village and involved a linear walk out around Yaxley FC’s playing fields. It was a bit muddy again and I was getting tired, but this brought another 9 finds followed by an out-and-back walk on the path to Stilton that bought another three. This path out to Stilton was familiar from one of my earlier visits.

Labbing

So by this time it was nearly 4pm and Candleford didn’t want to be out late. Well, I didn’t either, because I’d got a 2 hour drive home. So we went back to my car at the church and headed off. I made the trip up to the recreation ground to hack through the lab caches. After this I set off home, taking care to stop at Yaxley Cemetery for a couple of drive-bys, and then the same down at Norman Cross. I know I’ve parked at least three times at Norman Cross to do poshrule series. Maybe more.

Driving Home

And that was that, apart from needing to drive home. Felicity decided to take me up the A1 and across the A52 towards Nottingham. That seemed a long way round but she was insistent it wouldn’t take any longer than I’d spent coming, so I thought I’d give it ago. She was right. It took me an hour and forty minutes. So now I think that an hour and forty minutes is the time it takes to get from Measham to Peterborough, regardless of what route you take. Fair enough.