Solstice With The Stones

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Originally uploaded by scubaclogger

Saturday 23rd Jan - Arriving at The Last Drop Village for 05:30 there were was a number of other cachers already parked up and ready for the walk. The walk was to take us across Turton Golf Course and up to the Trig point on Cheetham Close to watch the sunrise. The sight of the trail of headlights behind snaking down the hill is a sight to be remembered. Once on top of the hill I made my way to the trig point with Wicker and then waited as the rest joined us. As the sun came up the mist started to clear to reveal low laying cloud below us. The sight of Winter Hill Transmitter to the West and Scout Moor Windfarm to the Southeast with clouds rolling past below was amazing. As the sun peered over the top of the cloud the whole sky turned orange and the chill in the air seemed to disappear. While the main group headed of along the paths to find some tupperware I headed down hill with Ferretter38 and Bargee before heading back towards the car. Total time of walk was 5 hours and just 10km.

Post Christmas Chocolate Cracker

Early in the week it was decided to postpone the three events in Bolton that I was going to due to the weather that would effect the first. These being Solice with the the Stones, Appalling and Camouflage. So having noticed this event on the groundspeak weekly newsletter I decided to head to North Wales.

I arranged to meet Don (The Syllogiser), Francies (FFloss) and Steve (1/4 of Team SLuG) in Shevington for a 7:30 departure. With all gear loaded into the car and all passengers on board it was a matter of getting of the ice rink side roads of Shevington and onto the M6. We arrived at Abergele Railways Station just before 9am for the start of the day. Cachers turned up at a steady pace and then it was time to get the train to Llandudno. The train was early for once so we had some spare time to grab a couple of caches that weren't on the route for the day.

After some running around town finding a stage of a multi it was to the band stand for the start of the walk. The route was along the coast taking in the Little Orme, Rhos-on-sea, Colwyn Bay, Llanddulas and finaly Abergele. The full route has been uploaded to Wikiloc here.

On arriving at the Little Orme a splinter group headed to the trig point go get some numbers for a multi cache. The views from up their over the bay of Llandudno were just amazing. The wind was biting but the sun was shining. So after a great walk of around 15 miles, there was 26 caches found and 2 events attended.

One Thousand and Two

Yep, 1002 is the number of caches that I have done in 2009. Not bad for my second full year of caching. I started mid December in 2007 and got 14 and in 2008 357 caches in 38 caching days. So last year saw me cache for 114 days. My best month was in March with 195 finds which is when I was doing the LEGEND series a lot. It also saw me get 17 first to finds that month, all on one day with a new series not far from home.

I have also got addicted to one cachers caches. The Sparrowboys have a number of cache around the Partington, Carrington and Durham Massey area. There 2 and 3 stage multi's are some of the the best cache I have done and I believe it will take a lot to beat them. I also got my one and only 5/5 rated cache thanks to Muttoneer and his Werewolf cache. Which I combined with finding Whitespace at the same time. January saw me attend my first geocaching event and I now have a total of 16 under my belt and hope to beat that number this year but I don't think it will be by too many more.

So here is to 2010 and many more caches.