23/05/15 - All Around The Wrekin

Distance - 5 Miles
Geocaches - 5
Walk from - Country Walking Magazine - March 2015


There's two ways of telling that you are near Telford.

Number 1.  The caches are invariably in socks.

Cache in a Sock

Number 2. The dog walkers like nothing better than to bag their dog poop.  So far, so community spirited.  Then they leave them, usually at the base of a tree (often the hint for a geocache), sometimes thrown down a bank.  Where they can lie, non degradable in the countryside, for all eternity.  Some even have non-standard jolly coloured bags to stand out from the more pedestrian black standard issue.

Are they completely dumb?

I will be a happy man in one person seeing this blog thinks "Hey, I was brain-dead but now I have seen the light and I will put it in a bin or at worse, flick it into the undergrowth".

We are at the Wrekin in Shropshire.  Mainly, as the weather promised wall to wall sunshine and I thought the views would be spectacular.  It was more misty than expected.

Park up at the reservoir at the foot of the Ercall.  Country Walking Magazine want to take us on a there and back excursion to this hill, but it looks a bit dull retracing your steps, so we head off on good paths along the southern side of the Wrekin.

There are a good number of caches, but Sonia isn't feeling the GeoLove and leaves me hunting solo.

Get to cache 4 and I get the first DNF of the day.  This throws me so off kilter that I take the wrong path, where another 10 remain to be found on a different day.

Sonia is secretly pleased.

Only one cache left to find.

Cache of the Day - at the foot of Little Hill

In my walking career, I have knocked off around countless Nuttalls, an impressive amount of Marilyns, 50ish Wainwrights and 1 Munro but none of these compare to the 1500ft of ascent up the Eastern side of the Wrekin.  It's steepness can be best described as "really needing a Ski Lift".  It's even got a false summit of Little Hill, which you gainfully pant up - only to drop back down, before the main event of the Wrekin.

And the clouds haven't lifted to provide the wonderful views that this amount of climbing surely deserves.

Nearly at the Top

The trig point is surrounded by people waiting for some daredevil paragliders to make a move.  They have all the gear, but seemingly little idea, as they disappoint the huddled masses by not actually doing anything.

The Masses shout "Jump, Jump, Jump"  and then think poorly of themselves

The Wrekin's Aerial Summit

It's a short walk from here back to the car.  Unexpectedly, a tea shop presents itself but the 80p mug of tea is kind of ruined by the amount of flies bothering us.  After a couple of sips, the tea is disposed off and we half walk, half slide our way down to the car in search of finer refreshments.

I was half thinking of heading to Much Wenlock and knocking of a Top 10 county pub but we really couldn't ignore advertising that was made for us at Little Wenlock.

The Huntsman, Little Wenlock

Lunch is Served