Evening walking when away on business is going to have to stop now.... darkness falls too quickly. Start in good light, end up flapping around in the pitch dark looking for a way out of the park.
I am down working on the Kent/Essex border and find a likely short walk that I should be able to complete before nightfall. Starts and Ends at a decent boozer as well, which is a bonus.
The walk is in the grounds of Weald Country Park, steeped in history and full of people walking their dogs. After a tricky navigation of a busy road, I turn right into the visitors centre. Straight away faced with a common sight on this autumn walks, more deer. Still they are cute.
Who killed Bambi?
Dissect the two pools and then head into the area of woodland imaginatively entitled "the forest". Capability Brown may have been great at country gardens but he couldn't come up with decent handles.
There are a few caches here. None have descriptions and most have several DNFs recently recorded. I have a bit of a look for a couple and only find one, right at the end of the walk. The walk is straightforward, a square route on good paths through woodland. There are plenty of Essex folk out with their dogs.
Nice bit of fresh air after 200 miles of driving and a day in an office. Pity that the autumn evenings close in too fast.
The indian summer continues, so after an escape from the X-factor by going to the pub, we went to bed with the windows open. This proved a mistake as there were two independent parties going on from the Trevithick Massif. The first family, named after a well known vegetable, kept the party going till 2am. Its the second lot who made the real noise. His identity shall be kept secret but we think his friends are werewolves. There is no other explanation for the howling at the moon at 4am this morning. You know who you are Toy the Darber.
So up early. Yesterday when blogging yesterday's walk a new series of caches appeared over Kingsford. It was always going to be a challenge, as there were no clues, apart from the cache names.
It did lead to an absolutely stunning walk and some very amusing caches.
Park up at the recommended parking just over from kinver edge. Are there any other cacher cars here? It looks a bit early, so I may be OK. Drop down a lane for cache number 1. Nice easy find and it looks like I will be Ok on this trail. Number 2 is similarily easy.
Cache 3 is up the hill, but people are coming
Cache 3 makes me laugh. Its in an Urn (as per the name) and I was setting up the camera to take a victory pose with the pot aloft when I hear voices coming through the woods. Maybe another search party are on their way! I quickly put it back and then make my way to cache 4 which I cannot find.
The voices belong to cyclists rather than cachers, so I let them overtake but confidence is shattered as U cannot find 5 and 6 as well. 30 mins into the walk and it is Mappiman 3 - 3 All-Weather-Cacher. I need to bring more people out with me to help look.
I don't mind because although I know the area well, I have not been on these paths before. And they are stunning. Great views out over the woodland and good tracks. Makes a great round.
Get back into the game at cache 7, after a long hunt and then thinks get interesting as I make a U turn at Start Green Farm to enter Arley Woods. Some great walking and the caches get really amusing. I kiked the hammer of the gods and the big acorn a lot and my previous DNFs are fogotton.
This is a cache
Tracks in Arley wood are stunning, although I do get a bit lost at a pheasant farm trying to follow the green path on the map and we have to go cross country to get back on the route. Molly loves it when she has to follow me through the undergrowth.
Arley Wood. What's not to like?
At Witnells End, there is a expanse of grazing field that is surrounded by the woodland. More picturesque views.
Lovely
The cache containers maintain interest levels and for the rest of the round, they are all finds. Will I ever forget a trainer and the danger mouse (how on earth was that created!).
Work my way through the Bodenham Estate. Nice of them to build a room for you to record the caches. Would have thanked them but do you think I get them to say hello to me? Country folk with their country ways.
High Speed Internet
On the walk through the grounds of High Hobro farm, the path was blocked by an unusual obstacle. A more senior man snogging his asian bride. You would have thought that they would stop and move over, but they were so into their passion that I had to squeeze past with my labradoodle.
Back on familar ground at Kingsford Caravan Park, the last couple of caches (what was 17 all about?) and back to the car.
Do this for the walk. The caches are an extra. Fantastic route - thanks All-Weather-Cacher.
Today was going to be a long walk. I was thinking about a nine miler over Ironbridge. However, as with nearly every day in life, work is getting in the way. Not mine, but Ellie and Sonias.
Sonia has gone out to work looking like a victim of domestic violence after a row with a fridge. She also has a cold. She doesn't want to let the team down but should blend in well in Walsall.
Ellie is currently holding down two jobs. As a result, I am letting go the yoghurt pot tops, permanently on lights and the dining room which looks like the painter Jackson Pollack has a good session.
Why do we all work so hard? For what purpose? With Sonia, it's holidays, with Ellie it's shoes but me, I need nothing but the fresh air, a round of caches and a decent malt on special days that end in 'Y'. On the radio yesterday was a story about a man that walked for 16 years continuously, taking in 64 countries. One day.....
All this lady work is not what has stopped me going on the big walk. It's deemed not right to leave Alex on his own all day. This is not because we fear a Facebook style party but because we will come home and find him watching the Simpsons surrounded by the debris of multiple bags of crisps.
So, a small round of geocaches is in order. There is a round of 9 at Trench Woods, just the other side of the J6 M5 Motorway Island. Not been there before, so head off before the row about whether Ellie had time to wash her hair escalates to Def Con 1.
There is parking and a short walk through the woods. I can hear rustling in the trees and me and the doodle stand dead still to be rewarded by two deer running across the path in front of us. This, and the squirrels, gets the otherwise disinterested dog interested in the walk.
Cache one is where the woodland ends and reveals some great countryside views.
Camera on Cache Post, Tree flopped in the way
We then walk around the permiter of the farmland, with Fillet wood on our left. A hunt for cache 2 but found and then I should have taken the hint that cache 3 is at the far end of the bridge, I should have crossed it. Instead, I continue on the field edge and have to scramble over a ditch stream to get cache 4. I'm too old for this.
Pick up the lane around Netherwood Farm Cottages and fail to find the cache along here. I have read the previous logs and know that I have to worry about killer dogs, and just as I am lay prostate over a large fallen tree to see if the cache is on the other side, I can see the cavalry charge coming up the lane. Two of them, and its always the small one that makes the most noise. Just as Molly and me take our defensive positions, the farmer comes out on a 4x4 bike and calls them off. They are angry but obediant. I decide to abandon the hunt but part of me feels that the Jack Russel has half inched it. He's that sort of dog.
The rest of the caches are fine and we head back up to the woods through sheep fields at Oddingly Bridge (#2). Back into the woods for the last couple and soon back to the car.
Scene from the last cache - who would have thought is Oct 1
Perfect little round for my needs. I get home and clean the dog and out comes the boy in his bumble bee pants demanding £8.50 for Microsoft XBOX loyatly points (no wonder Bill Gates is so rich) and a bacon sandwich. The crisps were safe.
The indian summer has provided a bonus in the quest and reaching the half way point at the river on the western side of the circle.
Both start and end point of the walk are on the District Line which has a stop opposite my hotel. Getting dark at the end of the walk, so it may be the last of the year, but you never know.
I had high expectations for this and it didn't disappoint. Some of the legs have had road walking and dodgy locations in south london but in Richmond Park, you feel like you are in the Scottish highlands.
Cross Wimbledon Park, with its large lake and onto the home of the Wombles. The weather cannot make up its mind and a particulary strong downpour has me heading for the Windmill cafe for protection from the elements. By the time I have ordered my coffee it has stopped.
Wimbledon Cafe
Take my coffee with me as I walk through the woodland on good paths. First cache of the day is behind a tree next to kingston university playing fields.
Cross Kingston Vale Parkway. This is like a motorway and then head into the wilds of Richmond Park. Its rutting season and as you approach Pen Ponds, you can hear almost prehistoric bellowing. It is like the start of Jurassic Park. On the tube down, I read the Evening Standard that had the attached Story. I didnt get close enough for a great picture - but you get the point.
Pen Ponds
Get off my land
Its quite a sight. I have a female come darting across the path and in the ferns you can see her persuer - well his antlers sticking out over the top at least.
This leads to a conversation with an incredibly nosey woman who insists on walking with me and repeating everything I say to her friend Sandra. "Sandra - he's walking the capital ring". It goes on. She does ask me if I have lost weight by doing the walk. I dont know if my trousers were hanging off me or she thought I was doing it in one go, but it seemed a strange question to ask a stranger.
Leave them behind at Pertersham where Cache number 2 is - next to a pub that is too posh for me. Find the cache high in a tree and get showered in wood lice. Nice.
Across Pertersham Meadows and I am back on the Thames on the run in to Richmond. More nice views and quality places to eat that I am too smelly for.
Night fall over the Thames
There a cache at the end - found it last Jan
Richmond is a lovely place. Even the tramp is popular and gets loads of people talking with him. My first port of call is the White Cross. Can't really avoid the call of the Neon.
Come in - we have Stella
Then its something to eat.... and an encounter with an amateur dramatics groups when I was looking for the loos. They did ask if I would like to join, but I could have only accepted if they had a role for a man who needed a pee badly....
