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 :)