WWWWAL - LEGEND Caching

Tuesday 23rd Nov I spent the daylight hours on the  Walsden section of LEGEND 2. Starting and finishing at Watergrove Reservoir. Covering 13.5 mile in just under 8 hours. Finding 36 caches, one DNF and a trig point to boot. I was accompanied by LogieB on the walk.

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Donna Nook - Seal visit

Today I visited Donna Nook Nature Reserve in Lincolnshire.

From the web - 

Grey Seal Breeding Colony

For much of the year grey seals at the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trusts’ Donna Nook National Nature Reserve are at sea or hauled out on distant sandbanks. Every November and December, the seals give birth to their pups near the sand dunes: a wildlife spectacle which attracts visitors from across the UK.

With over 1300 pups born annually and tens of thousands of visitors, management is required and this is achieved thanks to the fantastic support of a team of volunteer wardens and the staff of RAF Donna Nook.

There isn't that much to write so I will let the photos tell the story

Hough Hill Triangulation Piller

TP4036 - Hough Hill can be found at Grid Reference: SJ 96843 97423 

Having dropped my car off for a MOT I decided to grab a couple of geocaches in the area and on the way there happened to be a trig point that I hadn't visited. I walked up through Gorse Hall before walking across some open ground and getting sight of the trig. Now all I had to do was find a way over to it. There was no path marked as going to it so after some time of wandering the local streets I got directions from a dog walker. I got onto a dirt track that serves a farm yard and stables and walked this until finding the footpath sign. This footpath doesn't pass the trig point but goes over the hill behind the cover reservoir that is next to it. 

After walking to the crest of the hill I left the path and headed to the trig keeping to the east fence of the reservoir. From the trig point you get great views over Tameside and on towards Manchester. I could even see the stream from the cooling towers at Fiddlers Ferry Power Station above the haze. From here it was a short trot down the hill, over a barb wire fence and on towards four geocaches to find.

A Manchester Meet - Winter 2010

Well the time had come to have a get together so I decided to sort one out in my home town. The Angel Pub had been mentioned a number of time to me so decided that the would be the location. The pub is a real ale house with a different selection week in week out. With its wooden floorboards and coal fire its a true pub. Not to sure on the total numbers that turned up but a good number of mew cachers came along as well. The quiz had the brains working overtime with a number of people caught cheating. The winner in the end was nursemike who went home with a ammo can ready to hide. My night ended at midnight when I made it home after a tour of more Manchester pubs and a curry at Akbar's. Thanks to all the cachers that turned up, hope you all enjoyed yourself.

Manchester Night Togging

Well it had been mentioned on a number of time about heading into the city centre for some night time photography so I decided to make it a geocaching event. 

So we had Lights Camera and a Beer, Manchester Nocturnal 

Meeting in Exchange Square and then heading towards the Town Hall via St Annes Square and Cross Street.

From the Town Hall we headed around to St Peter's Square and the front of Manchester Central Library. Here the main shots were of the metrolink trams using a long exposure to get that light streaming effect.

Next stop was the now Manchester Central aka G-Mex. Since the last time I passed here they have built a new entrance which hides the lower part of the old station structure. After some time here and the Bridgewater Hall oppersite it was onto Great Northern Square. The home of The Great Northern Warehouse and Bar 38.

At this point the group started to shrink as people started heading home to there different parts of the world. You will be asking why I used world there and not country, well with had the company of The Oz's who are Mary and Steve from Ohio, USA. The soon a breakaway group headed for food leaving Wicker and myself to wander down to Piccadilly Station and see what shots we could get down there. That didn't last long as we got moved off the footbridge over London Road by a plastic copper saying that it was private property and we needed permission to take pictures from it.

So I managed to get one shot from that location.

2000th geocache find

The time had come for the next milestone of 2000 cache finds. The Syllogiser and myself had decided to go for it together so planned a day out in Derbyshire. We headed to Froggett Edge and Johan's Journey.

After walking up onto the edge we needed one more cache for 1999 so on the way we managed to pick up Roman Lounger. This was off piste from the main path but was quickly found. Log signed and cache returned it was onwards to our milestone. We headed down the path that took us to the bottom of the cliff and on to GZ. With the search under I was under the cache but was unable to find a way to it. Don headed up to the top while I looked on the other side. I returned to where we had dropped our gear to the sounds on Don calling from the top. Before I could make my way up there he had descended down the hole in the rocks at the top and was making his to the cache. After some time I heard "got it"
Once the log was signed all that was left was to get The Syllogiser out of there without the help of the Mountain Rescue.