1000 smiles

Length	Estimated Duration	Difficulty
7miles on foot 30+ miles driving	All Day	5
Max Elevation	Terrain Types	Smiley Rate (Caches/Distance)
To High	rivers / mountains	not important!

After some careful planning last weekend we are at 999 and ready to mark our 1000^th find with a special cache and a special day. Whilst at the Picnic In The Park event last weekend Mrs T of the Tennants and The Good Wench decided we would be going as a group so the Captain had better get planning.

We know we want to mark the occasion with a cache of significance and one stands out for us above all others – Cynaphobia. The cache owner is a known miscreant (The Magna Defender) and we drop him a line to let him know we will be heading for his cache. It’s good to hear back from him that this, of all the caches he’s placed, is his favourite one – nice. Why stop there though? We decide to throw together a string of high value caches and attempt them all in a day.

Stevebm is another familiar face close to our shores so we give him a tinkle and see if he wants to join us. Now given we plan to go out on a Sunday and this is stevebm’s day for snooker we aren’t sure he will want to tag along but the promise of tatty pie and real ales is enough to tempt him to leave his cue in its case for one Sunday. What we didn’t realise was that this is a Sunday tradition stevebm has had for two years straight so we are extremely honoured he thinks enough of us to forgo green baize for green hills.

So we have our little caching trip with stevebm, Rishes10 and The Tenants arranged. Running order for our days adventure is as follows GC2CD1R –Cynaphobia, GC301T3 – Hypsidendrophobia, GC2Z3PT – Vertically Challenged, GC3JX4B -Under Roddlesworth and GC314J8 – Velman. Then it’s back to ours for meat and tatty pie ‘n grog. On the face of it seems easy enough… until you see the ratings on all these!

Sunday arrives and we picke stevebm up and head off to the White Crow pub to meet The Tennants & Rishes10. We arrive and soon our little group is trekking towards the farm where a friendly farmers wife (think Anchor butter) points us towards the gate and waves us on our way. We follow the footpath and we can see a railway crossing ahead and realise that it must be close to the GZ. Heads down we plod on through the rain until we hear the cry of another farmer who is none too happy we are trekking through his field. A few shouts are exchanged across the field about how there are no signs etc end then the farmer start to get his dogs barking in chorus at us. Hmm. We back track and realise we have missed a crossing point into another field and soon we are on the right path again (sorry angry red faced farmer – who was probably armed and prone to shooting first and asking questions later). As we follow the path it takes us under the railway tunnel and it’s pretty active even today. Two Virgin intercity trains have already crossed overhead so we know it’s a live rail network and not some disused line.

Under the tunnel we go and round the corner and we land at the GZ. A small stream caries water alongside the rail embankment and then it gets diverted back under the tracks through a small tunnel that is covered by foliage. On a dry day it wouldn’t be more than a few inches in places but it’s been raining and the water is up. Whilst everyone is getting ready Rishes10 jumps in wellies ‘n all… and slowly starts to sink in the mud. The Captain has donned full pirate headgear, rolled his trousers up and is sporting some fetching flip flops. It’s a good look and with that he’s in the water. Pause, sharp intake of breath… Holy Mother of…. It’s bleeding cold….and then I gets a sinking feeling. The mud is up to my knees and all the ladies on the bank can do is howl with laughter. After a struggle and the help of some low branches nearby I drag myself onto firmer ground and start wading into the tunnel to catch up with Rishes10 and Mr T. We soon locate the cache and we all boggle at what TMD must happen to have in his rucksack just in case he finds a good cache site – in this case cordless power tools would have been required on site to install this cache! stevebm is bringing up the rear as he has been searching for a drier route to the tunnel entrance that avoids crossing the stream (he failed). Together we set about trying to ‘open’ the cache. We have head torches and powerful hand torches and we have the required tools needed. It still takes four of us a good 15 minutes before we extract the log.

By now my legs from my knees down are numb and my hands are starting to shake so I barley manage to sign the log. I realise I’ve left my camera with the ladies so we send Rishes10 back to get one. As he gets all the way back out stevebm remembers he has his with him and whips out a huge SLR camera! Rishes10 is not amused…but it won’t be the only time today he sees red! We take a couple of group shots and it’s time to leave… but not before Rishes10 and his teenage bladder decide they need to relieve themselves. Remember I’m barefoot up to my knees in the water! “Just trying to warm it up for you”, comes the adolescent reply. I feel dirty, so very dirty.

Back out on to the banking to re-group and as we empty wellies, wring socks out and dry off we all know it’s one of our top caches just for the camaraderie it brought out in us.

With the 1000^th in the bag now we aim to head back to the car. There are a few other caches along the way to grab. First up we come to ‘The Hunt For Pongi”. We can see the cache under a small makeshift bridge but it’s surrounded by nettles so we deploy Rishes10 and his youthful exuberance. He soon plucks the cache from its lair and we have the log signed and the cache replaced. Nice little bonus one for the day.

Next on our main menu for the day is Hypsidendrophobia. It’s along our route back to the car so no additional navigation required. We hop over a stile and into a field full of cows and as we approach what looks like the GZ we realise it’s got cows sleeping under it. We decide to jump the nearby gate and into the empty field behind so as not to upset the bovines. Ok so we stand and look at the tree and we size each other up… ok so who climbing it then? Young Rishes10 gives it a go and even though he bares a canny resemblance to a shaved chimp his tree swinging skills aren’t up to the job today.

Age and experience step in and stevebm matter of factly enquires if we would like to use his rope ladder. Rishes10 is open mouthed – “you have a rope ladder?”. “Course, doesn’t every cacher”, says stevebm.

Up goes the ladder and up goes Rishes10 and he soon finds the cache. The effort getting to this and the reward don’t seem balanced in Rishes10’s mind and he makes numerous serious life threatening remarks about what will happen the next time he sees TMD. With that things are replaced as found and we start to pack up… but wait what’s that coming down the hill? Blinkin’ farmer is coming and we are in his field! Quick unhook the ladder!! Try as we might we can’t get it unhooked before the muck spreading farmer is upon us so the group freeze and look at their feet. “You lost?”, enquires the farmer. No one moves and then some giggling breaks out in the ranks. The Captain steps up and walks over to the farmer so engage with him. “No no we are fine”, I say. Farmer - “What’s that up my tree?” Captain – “It’s a rope ladder” Farmer – “What’s it doing up there?” Captain (running out of ideas) – “We are bird spotters and we are taking photos”. Genius! Farmer - “Oh OK then.” Couldn’t believe it, he bought it and drove off! The group are now crying with laughter and Mrs Tennant has done a little wee. We later discover from TMD that the farmer knows about the cache so either my tales of bird spotting were so believable that he thought leave them to it or he was just having some fun with the stupid townies. Either way it gave us some cracking memories and as we wander back we witness a new born calf taking its first steps. This has literally been born in the time it took us to get Cynaphobia and walk back. Thoughts of my meat and tatty pie come to mind… mmmm can’t wait.

With Hypsidendrophobia in the bag we drive over to the GZ for Vertically Challenged. On the way we get a text from LFC4EVA to warn us there has been a death on the railway line this morning and we might not be able to go for the cache. As we arrive though it’s all clear but in the back of our minds we are already uneasy.

We walk the short distance to the GZ which is under a road bridge that crosses the railway line. The path is raised from the track and has a metal spiked fence running alongside it and the bridge work is 15 to 20 feet above you… where is the cache…15 to 20 feet above you on one of the supporting stone ledges! So let’s recap. Spiked fence to impale yourself on – check, live railway line with passing trains inches away – check, vertical climb of 15 feet required over both these things – check… that’s why it’s a 5/5!

Stevebm breaks out the rope ladder for the second time today and he starts swinging it. After a dozen attempts it finally looks like it’s hooked and through a fair and democratic process the group decide to send Rishes10 up the ladder. With the aid of a stick he pulls out the cache. What do we get as our reward? A rock, a single solitary blinkin’ rock. That’ll be why TMD wanted us to bring some swag then (yes it’s another of his). We stuff the container full of swaps for the next guest and return it to its safe place.

The lid is cracked and as we pack up we consider putting a maintenance note on the cache just to force the owner to come out and retrieve it!

Next stop is ‘Under Roddlesworth’ and this isn’t a 5/5 so we are expecting things to be easier (a bit anyway). We drive to the parking co-ords listed and find a quiet spot to dump the Geowagons. We head out along the path and keep the fence on our left as instructed. The rain is hammering down now and with two 5/5s under our belts today our energy levels have dwindled somewhat. We head deeper into some wooded area and then realise we had gone off course and there is no fence anymore… just a muddy near vertical slope going up about 40 feet. The Captain and Mrs T scramble up to get a look out and plan the next move. We decide the group should come up as well and we deploy ropes and start hauling the women and children up the bank. We can see roughly where we need to be but no clear sign how to get there. The waypoints and directions listed have stopped making sense and we are making it up as we go along. We circle a building and follow another footpath but this just takes us to a small water fall and we know we need to be down at ground level – no chance here though without climbing gear! We back track and stevebm thinks he sees a route down through the field down the side of what looks like a large crater.

As we reach the bottom the river and the tunnel comes into view and we realise we are at the wrong side. If we had continued on our original track we would have found the correct tunnel entrance I guess. No going back now though. The team set up camp at the top as its way to dangerous and I’d like to add at this point that you need to do this cache as directed not how we did it. If we weren’t in a large group then I wouldn’t have even attempted this. The water is high, very high - don’t be fooled by the pictures when it’s dry as I can testify there was at least 3 feet of water in the shallow parts. Ok so we didn’t have to wade through the tunnel and I’m thankful I don’t have to be in water for a second time today but the challenge now is to get down the steep loose bank to the cache without falling over the side and in the water. We break out the rope (again) and the Captain volunteers for this one. Rishes10 anchors himself at the top and lowers me down. I lose my footing a couple of times and the rope is my only lifeline. I get to the tree and uncover the cache – a urine sample bottle!. Again Rishes10 seems somewhat animated about how he will disembowel TMD the next time he sees him – something about small caches seems to set off these teenage rage bursts.. oh well… wouldn’t want to be in TMDs shoes when Rishes10 catches up with him.

Gets us wondering though how TMD finds all these remote locations and out of the way hidey holes and the group settle upon the fact he must be part Yeti part chimp with a little bit of insane thrown in for good measure.

We set everything back in its place and the Captain is hauled back up the banking. We head off wearily back to the car. The mud and the rain and the effort of this cache have taken it out of us all and we still have one left to grab. On to Vellman…

We follow the satnav to the GZ only to find we are on the wrong side of the canal bank. It literally shows us 20 feet away and seems to think there is no problem for us driving on water. Grrr. We drive round a bit and find a parking spot but it’s half a mile away from the GZ now. We are tired and can’t be bothered to find a closer spot so we set off down the tow path. Heavy wet feet and a few pounds of mud adorn most of the gang and the going seems slow. We arrive at the GZ and Rishes10 does the honours for stage 1. Vellman is a very cleaver puzzle cache and then a very very cleaver cache design that requires you to complete a task in the field (between two locations) in order to get to the prize.

We walk out a different way and realise that there is a closer parking spot we can use when we need to return to do the final stage and drop back off the required items we have just picked up (can’t say too much without giving it away). We walk back to the cars and set off to get the final part of the puzzle. We find what we are looking for but our brains have gone to sleep now and we knock on the COs door for a bit of help. Now before we set out today the CO had said to make sure we say hello and maybe grab a brew. The sight of 8 wet, muddy, sweaty bods on his drive must have made him regret such a kind offer! We soon have what we need and with a wave the CO sees us off his property.
We drive back to the spot we found closer to the GZ and for the last time today we decamp and head for a cache. Rishes10 soon has it open and we sign the log. It’s been a very long day for such a few caches but we have tackled some of the hardest around. Given two of the crew mates are 7 and 5 this is good going! It’s been a great adventure and this cache rounded a day off that’s been full of memories and hilarity that we will always remember.

Now home for pie ‘n grog!