The Sketch
Sunday morning, the sun is out, and we have visitors. Nic and the boys, Grandad Dennis and Nana Linda all at once. We can’t possibly fit all those people into the house so let’s go and wander round the woods looking for tupperware. Linford Wood, in fact. There seem to be a handful of caches up there so it’s got to be worth it.
Right by the car park is MAKING WAVES ? by Norfolk12. This is named for the fact that it’s underneath an enormous telecomms tower, nothing to do with water. It might as well have been at the bottom of the ocean though for all the success we had. Our visitors’ first experience of caching was rummaging around in a bunch of trees and failing to find anything. This needs to improve or they may not catch the bug. After 10 minutes of fruitless rummaging we gave up. The kids won’t last much longer.
Chainsaw Sculptures
As we were walking along looking for item number 1, and taking a few wrong turns into the bargain, we were talking about the chainsaw sculptures in Linford. A few years ago Kas and Kev got quite familiar with these whilst producing a photographic brief for the MK Parks Trust. Since that time (2006) there have been a number of others added. Two of the newer ones provide the backdrop for Betwixt the Hare and Bear by jakits. You can guess for yourselves which Bear and Hare we are talking about, but they are close to each other. Can’t say where though, you’ll just have to go and walk around the woods yourself.
Further around the wood, and a couple of wrong turns later again, is This could be Poplar by jakits. This one involves going a bit “off-piste” but still proved fairly easy to find. This was closely followed by Leap the Ditch by jakits. This, too, required a bit of off-piste and was a bit more scratchy and dangerous than the last one. Not difficult, but a bit uncomfortable.
On the way back to the car Kev decided to have another pop at MAKING WAVES ? and whaddya know? There it was, obvious as you like, hiding under a pile of bricks. How exactly did we manage to miss that last time?
Parting Ways
So we think the Whickham Moores enjoyed a bit of caching but not too sure. Anyway, we had made sandwiches (with drinks and Pringles) for lunch and so we retired to Campbell Park (down by the canal) for lunch. The kids had a bit of a play and then all too soon came their departure. Grandad Dennis doesn’t like driving home in the dark so off they went.
All of which left us away from home but not quite ready to give up. There are quite a few around Campbell Park so that seemed good enough.
A short (but longer than expected) walk along the canal is Grand Union Series Bridge 80a; A Novel Idea! by Norfolk12. It was easy enough to find but we had a few problems with a small canal boating muggle of around 5 years (maybe), whose parents were allowing him to just wander up and down the canal banks unattended. I would not let my kids do that. Still, the advantage from our point of view was that he was unable to articulate to his parents what we were doing, so we didn’t worry about him too much. It was a nice big cache and we grabbed a couple of trackables to relocate. And then we set off back along the other side of the canal to return to Campbell Park.
We decided to try one more, Grand Union Series – Bridge 81b: Campbell Park by Norfolk12. This is a multi which requires to you read some information off the furniture down by the canal and then do some sums. We think we got it OK but couldn’t find the cache. Kas had a couple of looks, as did Kev, but to be honest it was a busy afternoon and there was an angling muggle sitting right under the canal bridge which more or less sealed our fate. The required GZ was too close to him for comfort.
And that was our lot for one day.
