Piratemania V - Ashbourne Derbyshire

Length	Estimated Duration	Difficulty
10 miles	6 hours	4
Max Elevation	Terrain Types	Smiley Rate (Caches/Distance)
563 feet	Road / Fields	2.5

This will be the last blog before we head to the US for our holidays. Whilst everyone is convinced we will be doing power runs whilst out there in the main we are there for a holiday... after all, caching isn’t everything…is it? We get back in six weeks so look out for an update on our travels mid September.
This weekend though saw the long awaited arrival of Piratemania in Ashbourne Derbyshire. We attended last year as relative newbies to caching and it was our first event. Such was the impact it had on us (making new friends) we signed up for PM-V as soon as it was announced. The Good Wench doesn’t do camping (unless hair curlers and a salon is provided) so we make the trek down from Blackburn to Ashbourne for the day on the Saturday. Our local caching buddy SteveBM also joined us for the day.

7am Saturday morning and we pull up outside Steve’s house and he gets his first taste of what’s to come as the Captain is sporting full pirate regalia and the geowagon is proudly wearing skull and cross bones and the ‘Captain Calico Jack’ name badge across the front window. Steve takes up his position next to the Captain and slowly sinks into his seat trying to hide from the gawping muggles. The drive down is uneventful and we maek good time, arriving at the event camp site at 8:45am.

We pull in to the main gates, which are locked, and two other cars in front start to disembark – presumably looking for someone in charge to open the gates. With this the Captain decides to join them to find out what’s occurring. As the Captain approaches the group a nicely tanned gent reaches out a hand and introduces himself as Brian. Now the cogs are turning. The Good Wench had mentioned the previous night that one of the founder members of Groundspeak would be attending the event. His name – Brian. Ok so we have an American gent called Brian with a perfect tan and a lacky entourage… yep must be ‘the’ Brian! As we park up The Good Wench grabs the opportunity for a photo with the kids and with that he rewards us with a gift of some TB’s. What a cool way to start the day!

With that we get booted up and head off to meet up with our friends – Basketcase Crew. Ian and Kate took us under their wing last year and we met so many people through them that we are now facebook friends with and this event is turning into our annual reunion. It’s great to see everyone again (too many to list) and it doesn’t seem like a year has passed at all. The Captain and Ian head off to grab a cache sheet from Mark the organiser (aka Pop Up Pirate) and back at the tent Ian is firing up the laptop in order to download the waypoint file. Word gets out and a queue starts to form at his side of people all wanting their GPS’s updating with the waypoints. Once the mass upload is complete we finally get to set off on the walk. On paper it looks like about 8 miles but the ground is still wet from the recent bad weather so it could get tiring on the legs today. Saying that though we are blessed today with sun for the first time in a long time so at least we could leave the water proofs at home! There is about 30 in the group to start with and as we navigate to the first cache site we soon realise how 30 people crossing stiles all day will slow our progress down! We decided to do the caches in reverse order in the vain hope that it would mean we avoided some of the crowds who had set off before us. Numbers are not in yet but it was set to tip the scales at over a thousand so you can imagine how congested the route would get if everyone went the same way at the same time.

As we make our way round the walk the group starts to employ a bit of natural selection and thins out a bit. Straglers are left behind like old Eskimo whilst the younger legs up front set a Usane Bolt pace… our group is somewhere in the middle. The Good Wench and Kate from Basketcase crew have been thick as thieves for the last few caches and have been deep in conversation. There is a plot afoot I can sense it. A couple of caches later and the level of their deception is laid bare as they both plead a case to quit halfway round in order to take the younger ones back as ‘they will get too tired’. We recently solved a puzzle cache that involved decoding Enigma code using an Enigma machine (GC362RE- give it a go it’s ace) – but I didn’t need to be that smart to realise that this was an excuse to go back to the pub at the camp site and sunbathe!

At the halfway point then and our group thins out even more with the women and children abandoning the cause and the rest of us heading on a little detour to the pub for lunch prior to tackling the last stage. Last year we found a nice pub on route and the owner was surprised to see hundreds on Pirates suddenly disturb his quiet Saturday lunch shift. I remember it well as there was a wedding reception in the pub that afternoon and by all accounts the landlord ran out of beer during the reception because we had drunk it all –when I say ‘we’ I don’t just mean our group more everyone attending Piratemania IV. This year though and our pub of choice is a good half mile off the route so whilst the landlord is doing brisk trade he isn’t overwhelmed.

With grog in our bellies we set off to do the remaining half of the walk. The route we took is available to download don’t forget – just click on the Everytrail link to the right. With no young ones in tow anymore the group has renewed energy and we set off at a pace. The sun is still out and the heat is on. Towards the end SteveBM & I are flagging and we decide to take the last few caches on our own and let the rest of the group march ahead… so this is what it feels like to be an old Eskimo then. We meander back to camp and take in the scenery and get some good photos. We take the time to look around and appreciate what we have, so far today, been racing through heads down. Blue sky, green fields, wheat fields golden with the odd poppy poking out here and there and no noise other than the microlights that have been swarming above us all day. Bliss.

Steve and I make it back to camp and meet up with some other North West cachers (Magna / Schnuz) and round the day off with a well deserved drink before heading home.

Best piece of news all day– Magna Defender didn’t bag any first to finds… happy days.