14/4/12 - The Red Ring of Death

Distance - 3.1 Miles
Caches - 6
Real Ale Pubs - The Wellington
Walk from - Discovery walks in Birmingham and the Black Country

Second City Caching

Todays blog is not the result of ordering a Chicken Thal from Namaste but something that has ruined a 13 year olds world.

The RROD is an affliction that affects overworked XBOXs.  When it is 2pm in the afternoon and you are still in your pants, talking to "friends" on headsets, looking at video calls on an ipod touch and checking out facebook on an iPad (just in case any real humans are meeting at the park), you can boil the insides of an XBOX.

Once it had broken, it was quite amusing watching the boy's inability to entertain himself.  However, it also meant that I lost control of the Sky Planner.  Somenthing had to give, so on a Saturday, I find myself in a City, rather than the countryside.

For the second time in three days, I park at the Hawthorns (can't resist the bargain of free parking) and head into the second city.  The repair shop turns out to be a flat opposite the town hall, but Chris has enough open carcass consoles all over his lounge to give me confidence that he knows what he is doing.  Leave it with him and head out for some caching.

This is why I have the best hobby in the world.  Two nights ago, I was traisping through snow on the Pennine way - today, I am in a city centre.  Armed with the same device, doing the same thing.

Start off by walking past the scene of my second to last dancing experience at the Yardbird and into Broad Street for a cache down by the canal at Gas Street.  Urban location, so we will forgive the pile of sick and can of Super Lager that is at GZ.  Nice views and a couple of good looking pubs that I need to investigate.

Pocket Camera has no controls.  Pub will be visited.

Then head up around the Sea Life Centre for a Virtual Cache and a real cache at an old ticket office before coming back up to the roads at Newell Street. 

You can see me now.  Dont take photos into the Sun.

A large Jamacian with the biggest bottom I have ever seen gives me a cheery hello at street level.  Find the cache at the Assay Office - a fine old building with some history that I learn from the cache description.

Then its a tour of the Jewellery Quarter.  I have the caches in this area from a mid week visit last year but its really nice to walk around the deserted streets.  It reminds me of the East End of London here.  Pass a Paul Calf lookalike drinking a can of Carling.  Its 10am and I have no problem with him doing this, but if you love your lager, you should at least drink Stella.

I am not the only one taking the sights - pass two tours of OAPs who are having a run down on Birmingham history.  I hang around listening to the stories whilst getting the cache at St Pauls and half think of following them for the rest of the tour.

St Pauls and BT Tower.

One cache at the site of Birmingham Eye Hospital and a final one at Bennets Hill.  Haven't had the nod that the repair is done, and need the correct change, so I pop into a real ale pub called the Wellington.  Its a real find.  Load of different real ales and full of Albion fans.  Quick pint of sunchaser and the call comes in.... all fixed.

I pass the Floozy in the Jacuzzi in Victoria Square and am just about to take a photo, when the fairy jumps in to retrieve the gold from the wishing well.

Wishing Well

Train back to the Hawthorns with my new drinking friends and then the drive back home.  Really should have brought a ticket for the game, but I have a 13 year old pacing the living room like an expectant father. 

Get it home and he disappears to set it up.  30 mins later, he is down commenting that "He doesn't know if something has gone wrong with his XBOX, but Tottenham are bottom of league in Manager Mode".  I point out that Harry has had his mind on the England Job for the last 3 months, so he shouldn't be that surprised.