H
hg137
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“The Day of Garlic, Prickles, Thorns and DNFs!”
The wet winter was at an end. Spring was in full flight, We decided on a day-long caching trip – we hadn’t undertaken one for some months.
Hawkley – a village a miles south of Alton, was our target. A church micro, a series of 15 caches and a bonus. A great day promised.
Hawkley is only a small village – a population of about 500 – a beautiful church, a village green in the shape of a triangle all surrounded by agricultural fields.
We visited the church first, and collected numbers for the church micro multi-cache. We established the final coordinates were a short distance from the church, in the opposite direction of the Hawkley Hike caches, so we agreed to find it the cache at the end of the day.
The numbers we had to collect around the church included the dates near the ‘church mouse’ and the dates of a composer buried in the churchyard. (The composer’s son is frequently seen on TV as a BBC journalist).
A short walk away from the church was the Hawkley Hike. The houses around the ‘triangle’ soon gave way to farmer’s fields. Alongside the side of which were our first two caches. Or at least should have been. We didn’t find either! The first was, or so we believe, well hidden behind a prickly, thorny bush. The second under some flint behind a tree. Not a great start.
The series had a bonus cache. In 6 of the 15 containers there would be a number which we would use to find the final cache. It was likely that the first number was on one of these 2 caches.
A little bit dispirited, our navigation from the second cache went awry. We missed a footpath and ended up close to cache 4 before cache 3. The mistake took us up onto the Hangars Way a 21 mile long distance path which links Alton station to the South Downs Way at Queen Elizabeth Country Park. Our mistake though was a joy to walk – we were surrounded by wild garlic – in full flower. The aroma was quite overpowering. Along this route we met several other people and it was tricky to pass each other without stepping on the garlic.
Cache 4 looked as if it was in the middle of a garlic bank near a fallen tree. This seemed odd, so we decided to descend a steepish slope away from cache 4, and head towards the omitted cache 3. Thigs were going a little wrong, and we agreed if we didn’t find cache 3, we would abandon.
We found cache 3 !
A largish container ! Phew!
We reclimbed the slope back to cache 4. The GPS resolutely pointed deep into the garlic slope. Mr Hg137 ventured into the garlic, checked a few places, but on hearing voices on the nearby Hangars Way, decided to abandon his search. It wouldn’t look good for geocaching if we were asked why we were walking over the pretty garlic!
So 4 caches attempted and only 3 found.
At cache 5, we had a fallen tree to find, and we found the cache. In fact we found 2 caches (no idea why there were two) – we signed both logs. Nearby a fallen tree-trunk provided a lunch spot. The morning hadn’t gone well, on top of that Mrs Hg137 had slightly strained a leg muscle a few days earlier and the slope between caches 3 and 4 and exacerbated the injury.
We reviewed our options. We had a couple more caches to find before we would have a short-cut footpath back to Hawkley. If we had anymore DNFs before that escape route or Mrs Hg137;s leg got worse, we would abandon.
We did find the next 2 caches, and because our path was ‘flattish’ Mrs Hg137’s leg was easing. We even found our first bonus number too!
The second half of the route began quite well – we were finding caches and bonus numbers with a degree of regularity. We could admire the burgeoning flowers and beautiful countryside.
We also found out the modus operandi of the setter – place the cache either behind a tree up a steep bank or behind some prickly vegetation. Not wishing to make Mrs Hg137’s injury any worse, it was Mr Hg137 who scuttled up the various banks. We took it in turns to be attacked by the mighty Hawkley prickles.
There was a short quarter-mile section of road walking, a small ford to walk through, before our route headed back to Hawkley. A few more finds, a couple more DNF’s later and we were the wrong side of a fence for the last cache in the series. It took us some time to realise we should have walked through a gate rather than strictly following the GPS!
The last cache, a very easy find, was near a pond. It gave us a chance to asses whether we had enough numbers to attempt the bonus cache.
We had 4 of the 6 numbers. We also could assume that the final would be ‘broadly’ on the route between the last cache last cache.
Two missing numbers meant we had 100 combinations to try. We decided on mapping 9 of them. (using 1, 5 and 8 for one of the missing numbers and 1, 5 and 8 for the other) We could see where these coordinates pointed. We had the hint (“base of tree”) so any calculated coordinate not near a tree we could discount. With a bit of adjustment, and trying a couple of other trial numbers, we had a couple of candidate locations. The first was yards from the pond – the second near a road junction. The first location yielded nothing, but the second…yielded the bonus cache! Amazing! We had found the bonus with only 4 out of 6 numbers and some educated maths!
We returned to the church to locate the church micro. Our elation at finding the bonus was short-lived as the Church Micro was our 6th DNF of the day! Grr!
Nonetheless a pleasant walk, in beautiful weather and the smell of the garlic stayed with us for quite some while.
The wet winter was at an end. Spring was in full flight, We decided on a day-long caching trip – we hadn’t undertaken one for some months.
Hawkley – a village a miles south of Alton, was our target. A church micro, a series of 15 caches and a bonus. A great day promised.
Hawkley is only a small village – a population of about 500 – a beautiful church, a village green in the shape of a triangle all surrounded by agricultural fields.
We visited the church first, and collected numbers for the church micro multi-cache. We established the final coordinates were a short distance from the church, in the opposite direction of the Hawkley Hike caches, so we agreed to find it the cache at the end of the day.
The numbers we had to collect around the church included the dates near the ‘church mouse’ and the dates of a composer buried in the churchyard. (The composer’s son is frequently seen on TV as a BBC journalist).
A short walk away from the church was the Hawkley Hike. The houses around the ‘triangle’ soon gave way to farmer’s fields. Alongside the side of which were our first two caches. Or at least should have been. We didn’t find either! The first was, or so we believe, well hidden behind a prickly, thorny bush. The second under some flint behind a tree. Not a great start.
The series had a bonus cache. In 6 of the 15 containers there would be a number which we would use to find the final cache. It was likely that the first number was on one of these 2 caches.
A little bit dispirited, our navigation from the second cache went awry. We missed a footpath and ended up close to cache 4 before cache 3. The mistake took us up onto the Hangars Way a 21 mile long distance path which links Alton station to the South Downs Way at Queen Elizabeth Country Park. Our mistake though was a joy to walk – we were surrounded by wild garlic – in full flower. The aroma was quite overpowering. Along this route we met several other people and it was tricky to pass each other without stepping on the garlic.
Cache 4 looked as if it was in the middle of a garlic bank near a fallen tree. This seemed odd, so we decided to descend a steepish slope away from cache 4, and head towards the omitted cache 3. Thigs were going a little wrong, and we agreed if we didn’t find cache 3, we would abandon.
We found cache 3 !
A largish container ! Phew!
We reclimbed the slope back to cache 4. The GPS resolutely pointed deep into the garlic slope. Mr Hg137 ventured into the garlic, checked a few places, but on hearing voices on the nearby Hangars Way, decided to abandon his search. It wouldn’t look good for geocaching if we were asked why we were walking over the pretty garlic!
So 4 caches attempted and only 3 found.
At cache 5, we had a fallen tree to find, and we found the cache. In fact we found 2 caches (no idea why there were two) – we signed both logs. Nearby a fallen tree-trunk provided a lunch spot. The morning hadn’t gone well, on top of that Mrs Hg137 had slightly strained a leg muscle a few days earlier and the slope between caches 3 and 4 and exacerbated the injury.
We reviewed our options. We had a couple more caches to find before we would have a short-cut footpath back to Hawkley. If we had anymore DNFs before that escape route or Mrs Hg137;s leg got worse, we would abandon.
We did find the next 2 caches, and because our path was ‘flattish’ Mrs Hg137’s leg was easing. We even found our first bonus number too!
The second half of the route began quite well – we were finding caches and bonus numbers with a degree of regularity. We could admire the burgeoning flowers and beautiful countryside.
We also found out the modus operandi of the setter – place the cache either behind a tree up a steep bank or behind some prickly vegetation. Not wishing to make Mrs Hg137’s injury any worse, it was Mr Hg137 who scuttled up the various banks. We took it in turns to be attacked by the mighty Hawkley prickles.
There was a short quarter-mile section of road walking, a small ford to walk through, before our route headed back to Hawkley. A few more finds, a couple more DNF’s later and we were the wrong side of a fence for the last cache in the series. It took us some time to realise we should have walked through a gate rather than strictly following the GPS!
The last cache, a very easy find, was near a pond. It gave us a chance to asses whether we had enough numbers to attempt the bonus cache.
We had 4 of the 6 numbers. We also could assume that the final would be ‘broadly’ on the route between the last cache last cache.
Two missing numbers meant we had 100 combinations to try. We decided on mapping 9 of them. (using 1, 5 and 8 for one of the missing numbers and 1, 5 and 8 for the other) We could see where these coordinates pointed. We had the hint (“base of tree”) so any calculated coordinate not near a tree we could discount. With a bit of adjustment, and trying a couple of other trial numbers, we had a couple of candidate locations. The first was yards from the pond – the second near a road junction. The first location yielded nothing, but the second…yielded the bonus cache! Amazing! We had found the bonus with only 4 out of 6 numbers and some educated maths!
We returned to the church to locate the church micro. Our elation at finding the bonus was short-lived as the Church Micro was our 6th DNF of the day! Grr!
Nonetheless a pleasant walk, in beautiful weather and the smell of the garlic stayed with us for quite some while.
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