June 08

It's been a while, but I can now continue this journal.Reasons for the long absence are work stopping access to the blog site, and internet access was restricted further as we moved out of the basin, where we had a wireless connection, at Easter and haven't yet returned.
Caching 1500 up!! Yes another milestone passed whilst we were on a 2 week holiday round the 4 counties ring and on the caldon.Caching has really grown it was brought home to us as we planned the trip. We came up with a list of 65(approx) caches on or nearby the canal and during the 2 weeks found around 20 of them.
Boating
We left Anderton at the Easter weekend and made our slow way up cheshire locks to the Macc finaly stopping at the top of Bosley locks. A very cold weekend with a few hail/sleet/snow showers, spent time sheltering under bridges from the heavier snow flurries on cheshire locks.I attended easter 8 am service at lawton church on the sunday as well.
We also placed 2 caches at the Dane Aqueduct near the bottom of Bosley locks where we tied up for the sunday night.

25-08-08
tied up on huddersfield narrow at uppermill saddleworth below lock 22W. Been up here for a week, we are booked to go through the tunnel in Sept .after Staying on the peak forest canal and maccelsfield since leaving Anderton at Easter it was time after our four counties ring cruise with Peaceful Voyager to head over the pennines to Yorkshire.

dark caching and an otter

On the journey up to Belshill, I started at 6.30pm from work at Wakefield, over the pennines on the '62 up the 61 and the M6 to Kendal services and a break, stopped just before 8pm. I had been planning stopping for a few caches on the way up but had left later than intended and I had forgotten how far it was from carlisle to Glasgow up the M74.

I only ended up doing 1 cache but it was a brilliant one:
Brilliant Bridleways on Scout Hill by martlakes & Freya

Log: Monday, February 18, 2008
bargee found Brilliant Bridleways on Scout Hill (Traditional Cache)

on way to Glasgow for a course so decided to break the journey here and stretch my legs.........in the dark
Found my way via some very narrow minor roads to the north end of the bridleway, at least it was the place i hoped was the north end as there was no sign.
After climbing out of the car which i had parked on the verge, I stood and took in my surroundings. The silence after driving for 2 hours from work in Wakefield via the M1, M62, M6 and M1, was great, and the full moon was shining down giving the frost covered fields a silvery glow.
I headed through the gate and onto the track, I couldnt see any obvious path following the wall, so thinking that the 1:50000 map on my Pda wasnt quite correct I followed the vehicle track up the hill and curved round onto the top.
After around 0.5miles i realied my mistake and changed my heading back towards the line of the wall, but this took me through some spread out pine trees, which surrounded a bog!!, luckily the cold weather meant that the crossing of the wet ground was easy with the ice crackling under my feet.
I gained the correct path and was soon chasing some sheep away from the field below the cache, which was a quick find though i did get a few prickles off the gorse for my trouble.
I left an interloper in the form of The Cuckoo cache and i took the belgium coin, so the next visitor wil get the bonus of 2 smilies when they get here.

On my return to the car i followed the correct path and whilst walking along saw a group of standing stones, 5 inall, silhouetted against the cold clear sky; " Thats strange" thought I, " no mention of that in any logs", and then one of the stones moved!!! and an eye reflected in my torchlight; the Standing stones were in fact 5 ponies, and they walked down to say hello. After that little fright the rest was easy and I was soon back on the M6 heading into the land of the Scots.

Excellent cache, amazing fun in the dark TFTC
Iain the (Mad) Bargee


Well after that i decided not to grab any others and made my bed in a premier inn at midnight, a very long day as I had been up since 5am, but a lie in the next morning.

Tuesday

after a day listening and learning I dived out rather than watching a european football match, grabbed a quick drive where i left a red jeep tb and then rang the better half, and drove round to try and find a second cache, with mrs B on the hands free kit i wandered around and eventually found the cache in the pitch black with just my headtorch: log below
BabyG
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
bargee found BabyG (Traditional Cache)

Second cache of the evening whilst staying the night in Belshill. used the parking coords left in one of the previous logs and in the growing gloom headed along the riverside path, I was unsure whether i was on the right path until i got to the cache area. using my head torch i searched where the etrex led but lots of hiding places. All the time i was on the mobile to mrs bargee at home and she spotted some other coords on another previous log and using these i stated seaching in another area and after 10mins i found the cache.
left the wall tb
tftc
Iain the bargee


Wednesday

Last day of the course and the journey home.
broke the journey to nip,... nip!? well divert off the M74 to grab a cache.
jubilee bridge by rsdbwallace, the Skollers and Liz
Log:


February 20 by bargee (1402 found)
After a 2 day course in glasgow i broke my return journey back to cheshire by coming off the M74 to find this cache.
after driving past on the B road and then back up and down the minor road i tried a well used track which brought me out to and excellent parking spot by a pumping station on the bank of the river.
It was getting dark now at 5.30pm and i mde my way along the bank of the river heading for the bridge which wasnt far away, i crossed a plank bridge and heard a in th river near the reeds in front of me, i stopped nd peered into the gloom expecting to see a v in the water as a water rat swam away, but was surprised when a long neck and head came out of the water and looked at me, it was an otter, it dived showing its tail and surfaced a few yards away and turned over in the water as i seemed to be no threat, i managed o watch it for 5mins until it swam across to the other side of the river and into the gloom, a great sight.
cache was a quick find soon after and I left ask the ball tb
tftc
Iain the bargee

An otter i couldn't believe it, superb and topped off the cache.

Belshill and Dark caching

Its been a few weeks, but the work life balance has been a little more out of balance than normal.

Belshill

After the weekend on the boat and a boring monday at work, I had to drive up to Glasgow to attend a course on tuesday and wednesday.
The course?... Temporary works appreciation.

not as mind numbing as you might expect, basicly checking, and coordinating all the temporary works on site, making sure designs are correct and checked by competent engineers.

temp works cover every thing that isnt part of the permanent works, so that includes, trenches, scaffold, formwork, falsework, tower cranes, mobile cranes everything, and if something goes wrong it could well kill one of the lads on site, which wouldn't be good.

Enough of the work bit onto the journey and the caching :)

Out on the boat

Saturday

Now we are finaly certified and have a BW licence and are both well, we took the boat on a jaunt.
Only a short one from Anderton, North to Dutton, about 6 miles. Engine ran well and it was a pleasure to be cruising again.
Last weekend, the first since getting our licence was ruined as i came down on the
friday night with a bug and spent the weekend feeling unwell, so we didnt take the boat out as planned, Mrs B also caught it off me, feeling unwell sunday and monday.

This weekend was different though and the weather held off meaning an easy exit from our jetty and out of the basin onto the main line, a quick clear out of ply, waste timber and rubbish at the waterpoint and we were off, it really opened my eyes to what I had been missing the last year.
Rolled over a lump under the road bridge, the bottom still too close to the top.
Managed to make the times a Saltersford tunnel, there were 3 boats waiting at the other end, including J-Peg, which i think has a blog.
Saw Harry on his boat Wilson at Bartington where he has made the offside mooring nice, Margret at the Acton Bridge Black Prince base gave us a wave as we slipped by.

Cassiedog and Mrs B jumped off at bridge 210, just by our old mooring to go and gab the remains of Acton Impulse cache which had been left under a bit of ply for us, and she walked with cassie further round beyond the moorings to where I could pick her up, on the way Cassie jumped into the cut and hed a swim, rather her than me!.
We stopped at our Dutton View cache to have a look for it but couldnt find it, so we have temporarily disabled it. I walked the last mile with cassiedog and on the way past Lodge lane nurseries bumped into CRVman, who had just found the Dutton corner cache. We finished the day by tying up on the rings near Dutton corner cache, which Cath went off to find, bringing it back to the boat and on returning it we left a belgium geocoin.


Sunday

After a lie in (what lie in? asks MrsB) we decided to get out before having breakfast and grab 3 caches, 1, George Bushell by John Stead;
2, Weaving through Dutton by John Stead; 3, Cache for kids - I-Spy by Qpootle5, a great walk it was and we found all 3 caches easily,
the downside was that as we walked past Dutton locks on the weaver the heavens opened and we got soaked, the weather reminding us it is still February, by the time we had climbed up the bridle path to the canal we were feeling very cold as the wind as bitingly cold at our wet legs, but after sheltering under the bridge for a few minutes the wind dropped and the rain eased.
the walk back was uncomfortable in wet trousers, but once back on board and getting the stove going we soon warmed up. about 2.8 miles walk Returning to Anderton later on we had to go up to the winding hole at Dutton, on the way past we spied some cachers hunting for Dutton Garlic, after turning the boat we pased them agin and as they hadn't found the cache I leapt off dashed down the hill and helped them look. Know you would think i knew where it was hidden but no i couldn't find it. the cachers were the Bilberry 3.

getting back to Saltersford tunnel we just missed the times so tied up to wait 40mins, as expected nobody came the other way so we would have been ok sneaking through, the time came round and it was our turn to enter, I gave a long blast on the horn and to my surprise it was answered, someone had jumped the times and was coming through, I had to reverse out and clouted the chimney on the roof of the tunnel as I tried to go backwards, the miscreant was an Alvechurch hire boat and I don't think the hirer had a clue what he had done, gave him the benefit of the doubt and didn't give him a piece of my mind.
Back to the mooring and a great weekend over.

How wrong can I be!!

Well i definetley spoke too soon, as I am back in Liverpool, in the dungeon office at the Paradise street site.

A phone call yesterday and I was told to report to here to help in the sign off of the NCRs(non conformance reports) and the clients SORs (Site observation reports) basicly defects!

At least it meant a little lie in and i managed to try for a couple of caches on the way

Tried for Mars bars Enigma challenge cache- but was too dark and i failed to locate it in the trees

but did manage to find Carlos' Botson - with out flying - so the dawn raid to haydock wasnt a total loss.

good to catch up with JA and sam here on site and hopefuly will be back at the wakefield site tomorrow.

a full week

It has been a very busy week which is one reason i have not done alot on here.

Floods-

Monday was very worrying, the journey over the pennines was very bad with driving rain and spray but on reaching work the river levels over the weir didnt seem to bad, this changed quickly and by 10am the storm surge made it downto wakefield and the river rose swiftly and overtopped the sheet piled wall, eventually ending up 1.5 m above the sheetpiles and flooding the whole basement are of the piling mat.
The river upstrem of the weir had risen to be touchiong the road bridge and below the weir it was only 2-300mm below the underside, the weir had virtually disappeared.
see these photos

the boats

across the river were looking very precarious and i heard later in the week that 2 narrowboats were sunk higher up the Calder when they were lifted by the floodwters onto the tow path and then overturned as the waters receded,The river breached the lock cuts flood defences in tose cases so it was an unusually high flood, but it ids the 2nd time this year that our defences on site have been breached.

Quiz event-
Well done to Muttoneer and his mrs, for a great event at the Swan in Winwick, very busy doo with over 40 cachers shoehorned into the room to take part, all the usual suspects and a few new faces, including Dewsetter who joined Qpootle 5 and myself in team cheshire,
Some very odd questions especially the music round which was very obscure.
Team griffin won and i think we came about 5th which wasnt too bad.
Met Cannonedwards for the first time at the end but didnt have time to chat, as usual it seems i didnt recognise Its Chopper, meetings before he has been in his bike leathers or head to toe in waterproofs, so how am i expected to recognise him!!
Normal time trying to wind up HazelS, mostl;y about her A49 mistake on the forums, but thats another story which will be lost to the memory soon.
Ac-P managed to win some money on a 1-1 challenge as well.
great night, Hope there is another in the pipeline.


TB race
thread here - TB race

Nw cachers forun tb race, great idea, tbs were released at the quiz, My tb was a late starter ( LOVELACE ) but logged it through the startline and it ios on its way now.

Scoring system relies on a bit of honesty and Jeremey has set up a scoring table which he will publish weekly link -
this will rely on us entrants updating it regularly though.

There has already been some contreversey over points scoring as Philpamandrob has taken ginderbreadmans' tb on a tour of 5 trigs plus photos on the wirral scoring a potential 100 points, but is it in the spirit of the race? hmmmmmm.


Weekends caches.

Sunday and we planned originaly of a trip up to J36 and climb the big limestone hill that towers over the M6 just before the J36. But we decided to not go as far and picked as our main object, JermeyR's The Beasts of Caton Moor, we also found Hidden Scout and as the result of an appeal on the Nw cachers forum, CBBCs challengs cache

The Beasts of caton moor was superb,read the log here
The beasts are the windmills, but i quite like them, they are so graceful and a great achievment in engineering and every little jelps in providing the energy we need to provide our power needs.
we also released into the cache our lovelace tb and qPootle5's Salty the diesel tb both of which are in the Nw cachers race, Salty i think scores 33 points for the cache whilst lovelace scores zero because i am its owner.


Hidden scout was a good cache to a nice rocky outcrop/ ridge just below clougha pike, good views and a well hidden cache, on the drive up the minor road to the layby near the cache we saw alot of cyclists, slowly climbing the hill, a lot of sweat pouring from them, rather them than me!!

There have been alot of caches hidden within the 10mile radius to home, even one by john stead using my Weaving around... title, which i dont mind, must go and clear all these new ones though.
QPootle 5 is the main culprit and Pandemi with the Tattonine incident series.

Boating

Holiday in June is booked with work, 2 weeks on the boat, we are planning our usual route, 3rd time now, of the 4 counties ring and the caldon canal, but the difference this time is we will be accompanied by Mrs B's parents,(my In-laws) on their boat.
The idea started from a discussion last year in, I recall, September after they had come back from a holiday, and after a braoinstorming evening of talking and arguing over maps, they presented us with an itinery, which we checked against our previous trips, to see whether it was feasible, which it was.
From that they booked a holiday off work and we agreed to do the ring with them.
I especially want to show them the Caldon canal which is one of my favourites.
Anyway thats the holiday plan for June.
But it depends on where we are moored at the time, we hope to be up in Marple to reduce my Commute to Wakefield by a bit, but we will see as that will mean a run down Bosley and Cheshire locks to meet them on the Middlewich arm, but at least it will give us a leisurley end to the holiday without having to drop back down to Anderton.

Looking forward to it, but first still need to get the BSS done.:(

plus there are a lot of caches set by the narrowboaters along the shroppie to grab now as well.

Sunday walk and new geocoin

We got a new geocoin.They came on saturday morning, a gold and a silver Severn valley appeal geocoin, we have logged both coins on the site and will soon be releasing one of them into the wild.
The coins were minted to raise money for the Severn Valley railway, which was washed away in several places during the floods in July 07, see the link which has some videos.
The coin we are going to release has the mission of visiting preserved railway lines throughout the UK, so hopefully we will get some good photos.

lazing on a sunday morning, thats how the songs go.
so i had a lie in, but a little nose nudging me made me wake up and get up and take them out for a walk. I decided as i left the boat, that the walk would be longer than usual and i would go and check on 2 of my caches, Weaving through Barnton and Weaving through Saltersfod which both hadn't been found since october.
the sky was very grey but all the walk the rain just about held off, we followed little molly and her owners all the way past the boatlift and round to the Barnton footbridge, before we turned down the hill to Winnington swingbridge and onto the towpath of the river Weaver.
along here are the 3 micros and the final cache of weaving through Barnton cache, I checked the final box first, which is a little damp, but hopeflly will dry out in the coming few wekks as it gets warmer.
On from there past the large wharf buildings on wallerscote island and checked on the 3 micros along the towpath to the access road to Saltersford lock.
As we climbed up to the saltersford pool i saw a family standing above me looking at a sheet of paper, could it be walk instructions or was it a print out of my cache page?, It was a print out so i introduced myself to them and in their company wandered up above the tunnel to watch the 2 kids hunt for the cache.
They took the enigma geocoin, which i was going to leave there and continued on to weaving through little leigh.
The dogs and i returned to saltersford pool and after pausing to watch a boat exit the tunnel walked up to the main road in barnton and went home via the co-op and anderton.
good little walk.

Round Loaf in the dark and New site

Winter wander 2 dawn recon or round loaf in the dark!!
Another post on the forum, this time by Foinavon Round Loaf in the dark thread
asking 'how long it would take to get up to Round Loaf Barrow? ( which is also an earthcache )
and as before on my post for a walk round anglezarke moor, it turned into a little meet, 8 of us met at Alance bridge on Anglezarke reservoir at 6am in the dark
and proceeded up lead mines valley and onto the moor, great fun.on the way up we found caches BMR2, Lead mines clough , where Dizzley managed to loose his GPS, and Raided, before wandering out onto the moor with dawn just colouring the grey skies above.

As we stood on Round Loaf it became fully light and we could see a fair way.
Returned cross country, hard going steping over the tussocks, via Grain Pole hill, Hurst Hill, Mini Pikestones and Lapwing Layer, where the group split.
Jungle Godess, Stora and Carlos came back to the cars with myself whilst Foinavon, His 2 muggle friends, Muttoneer and Dizzley, Headed back to lead mines valley to look for dizzley's gps, which they found.
back in car for 10am with 8 caches under the belt, can't wait for the next one.


New site First week

Started at a new site at Wakefield on Tuesday, The job is a concrete frame and drainage works to the new Hepworth Art Gallery.see link I have just found the webcam for the site as well http://www.hepworthwakefield.com/AboutUs/NewBuilding/hepcam.htm
maybe you will see me striding across site, then again maybe not.



I returned to site for my second day there on Thursday to fing the river had overtopped its banks and had flooded the basement piling mat to a depth of about 2.5m at which point it topped over the sheet piled wall and flowed back into the river, lets hope it doesn't happen too often, or we will be swimming. attach some photos before and during the flood taken on my phone, sorry for the poor quality as it was before 8am and wasnt fully light.
friday was spent trying to empty the water out and repair damage to the riverbank to try and stop the river flooding again at such a low height.
blurb from the architects web site -
the hepworth wakefield is a new art gallery designed by david chipperfield architects to replace the city of wakefield's existing gallery at their new site on the river calder. the new building will house the gallery's collection of european and british art along with an extensive collection of work by locally born artist barbara hepworth. the official groundbreaking for the new site will take place on december 7, 2007 on the city's historic waterfront. david chipperfield architects have consciously designed the building to blend in with the area's small-scale industrial buildings. because the site is visible from all sides, the building has been designed with no front or back, giving every viewpoint its own unique perspective.
Sat morning
lovely morning when i decided to climb out of my pit this morning and take the 2 geohounds for a run, the sun was shining and the towpath muddy, and i saw a Kingfisher streaking along low to the water away fom us, the blue on it's back was shining in the sunshine, a great sight, one which always puts a smile on my face.

Happy new year etc.

two weeks off work so thats why no new posts,

we spent christmas in scotland, new year on the boat refitting the kitchen and now back at work on a new site in Wakefield west yorks.

Chistmas was a little eventful, manage to find 49 scottish caches in the week, some brilliant places we went to, will try to do a post for this alone.

as it is i'll leave it at that and try and update soon