well the last post covers the blog/ diary i had been writing slowly and intermitently over the last year or so and covers quite a few things that occured on our last year of boating.

we have now put the boat up for sale and moved ashore.

One thing it did not cover was my walk of the first third of the pennine way that I walked in October last year.

I covered Edale to Malham in 5 days, some 70 odd miles on day walks, with Mollydog for company and Cath helped enopurmousley be dropping me off and picking me up exhausted at the end of the day.

Now currently planning and getting equipment together for the next stage from Malham to Bowes, which I am hoping to cover in 4 days walking in July but this time carrying tent and sleeping bag. Scary as I havent done anything like that since being in the Venture scouts 20 years ago.

reminds me of a great holiday that Cath And I had just after getting together when she and I were joined by Jim and another friend Justin and spent a week in Snowdonia.
It would have been summer 1995 i think.{Edit:I have just been told it was 1993]
We caught the train from warrington to Llandudno Junction then waited for the branch train down through Betws-y-coed to a tiny station Pont-y-pant then trekked over the ridge below Moel Siabod to a campsite near the A5, great memories, we walked for 2 days before on the 4th day treking down to Betws-y-coed to catch the train home. sunshine all the way and excellent walks.

any way Pennine way stage 2 is the plan.

Bargee's notes- a long catchup of the last year

bargee's notes


It's been a while, but I can now continue this journal.
Reasons for the long absence is that work stopped 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 finally 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 Macclesfield since leaving the marina at Easter

2/09/08
Pennine bridleway
Great walk on Sunday, an 8 mile circuit down the Huddersfield narrow canal along an old railway access track then up the side of the valley to join the Pennine bridleway. To return via a detour to grab Carrbrook dam cache and 3 Oldham way caches on the flanks of Alphin.
Views were restricted as the murk was lying right on the hills and rain started as we descended into Carrbrook and it continued off and on for the rest of the way back.
Total - 8 miles and 4 caches.

Cassiedog is injured
Our older dog, Cassie, has hurt her left back leg,
Whilst we were tied up in uppermill last bank holiday Monday, I let her outside in the morning and as she jumped out, she spied the ducks roosting [is that the right word?] on the towpath in front of the boat and launched herself after them, after a few strides she pulled up quickly with her leg hanging, we think she has pulled a muscle in her leg, but she is quite happily hopping round on 3 legs and now she is beginning to use her leg again.

Caching up to 1596 found now.

9/9/08 Tuesday

I'm standing on the platform at Greenfield station tapping this onto my PDA whilst waiting for a train to Manchester as I'm attending a course in Altrincham for the next 3 days, introduction to management, sounds boring eh? Though I do plan to grab a few of manc's city centre caches on the journeys back and forth.
I decided on the train as I am a bit sick of driving everywhere and the train was an option as the course was only starting at 9am rather than the usual 7am that i start work.

We are tied up at Friezland again having moved back down from uppermill the other weekend, we kept getting pulled off our pins on the Uppermill pound, the towpath was very wet and the trip boat was passing back and forth with the action of the water working the pins loose in thee damp ground.we lost 2 pins during our stay there.the trip boat steerer reckons he saw a couple of lads pull the pin out and chuck it in the cut the first time and Bw were great as they tied us back up again and then came back to check the boat was alright.

all this comes after a great trip up the huddersfield to uppermill t e canal is really good and though we had a few problems touching the bottom we had a great trip.
We started off early on a Sunday after mooring overnight on the offside at Ashton wharf below lock 1w. Noisy mooring due to the factory fans But we were undisturbed. We even saw a mink that swam across the canal and headed through the towpath tunnel by lock 1w. The first locks up to Stalybridge were great and an aqueduct too, plus saw a BW man clearing the overflows. First signs of human life were fisherman just below the lock 6 who were friendly and joked with mrs b as we passed, I was on the towpath walking up to the next lock, through the square at 9.45 and past Tesco and out into the greenery again

Cache list
Friday 3/10/08
1. Caches breed like rabbits round here.
2. In memoriam
3. What an amazing place
4. Which way now?
=1614
Evening walk from the boat
Saturday
1. Woodlesford station
2. Manchester invasion
=1616
Sunday
1. Coach road bonus#1
2. Shembob
Dnf coach road bonus #2
=1618
Monday 6/10
1. Motorway mayhem m62 j30 ii
=1619
Got mp3 player as well
Got to level 11 on tetris mania fusion
Tuesday 7/10

24th December

Christmas
Thursday
Friday


14th and 15th February 2009

1800 finds over the weekend

weekend started well as we headed out from the boat in Cath’s new car, over the top of Haworth moor and down into the worth valley, still snow all over the moor and we saw the steam off a train on KWV railway, a detour up the Halifax road and we parked in the large lay-by and headed down the Bridle path to hunt for GCRN40

Merry Christmas 2005 (past), which we had worked out a few weeks ago,
The bridleway had a covering of snow which was melting fast, though it dropped away from the road quickly leading to an Icy slippy decent, classic upland green lane with substantial drystone wall either side, some strange crops growing in small fields either side of the lane too, winter beet maybe, lots of evidence of pheasant raising and we saw some bird tracks in the snow.
Cache box was found, but won’t tell you where as it is a puzzle cache, work it out yourself:)

On the way back up to the car we could here shooting and saw a crow/rook fall from the sky in the field alongside us, also more worrying was the sound of the spent shot rattling through the trees in the wood alongside the bridle oath, we were glad of the shelter of the stone wall, just in case their aim was out.

After that decide not to find the Watch the Birdies cache nearby as the snow hadn’t fully melted and I had Dnf'd that one due to very deep snow covering the area last Sunday.

Off to Skipton for some shopping and a wander round the town, but found that my export on the PDA didn’t get as far as Skipton so a cache free day was in prospect, though an excellent pub lunch in the Narrow boat pub a large burger smothered in Yorkshire blue cheese and jacket wedge chips... mmmmm plus a pint each of Blencathra and High Pike ales from Hesket Newmarket cumbrian brewery.. Very good, glad Cath was driving.
http://www.hesketbrewery.co.uk/
http://www.hesketbrewery.co.uk/brewery/beers.php

Drove back via Foulridge where we stopped to have a look at the tunnel mouth on the Leeds and Liverpool canal, canal was still frozen and there was building work going on converting an old warehouse into a cafe, looks like it will be open later in the year.

Onwards via Burnley and back to Todmorden, saw a drive by GC19EVQ Top of the rocks on the map on a road that climbed up above the valley, a very steep road as it turned out and we ground up it, luckily it was free from ice and we made it onto the moor top, though the weather had closed in and we were just below the cloud base with a bit of drizzle, parked up and struck out across the moor for the .1mile to the cache which was found, Cath headed quickly back as the breeze was cold and I managed to loose my foot into a bog as the snow covering it looked nice and firm. A wet cold foot, not fun so we headed down into Tod and home.

Only 2 caches but a good day.
And I got to watch the whole England -Wales’s game,
So a great Valentines day for me :P

Sunday 15th February

Lazy day, we should have moved the boat up to Tod, only 2 miles and 5 locks but as it was a bit grey we didn’t fancy it so just got to hope we don’t run out of water before Saturday.
As the afternoon wore on I began to get Itchy feet so grabbed the little dogs lead and took her off for a walk
Drove down to Hebden Bridge and parked behind the station, aiming to get 3 of John Haughton' caches but stayed out longer and bagged four in just under 90 mins as the Ireland Italy game was still on when I got back to the car.

The caches were:
GC1CFHB Wood Top
GC1CFHJ Hidey Hey
GC1CFHR Secret Nest &
GC1CFHX Pocket Rockit

Quite a climb up from the valley bottom but the first 3 caches were all on the top of the valley edge after the climb, all nice easy finds and a good walk, the last, Pocket Rocket, was up again nearly at the top of the moor, well it felt like that though I think it was up again to get to Stoodley Pike. I went up the footpath from secret nest cache, and it was steep, mollydog loved it as we left pasture and the climb was through scrub, heather on an ancient path that was cut into the side of the hill, really enjoyed it. Some nice old houses up here too. What a place to live, though you must get snowed/ iced in.
These caches took us past the 1800 mark too.




No actual cache finds today Tuesday. Though I did pick up all the clues for [cache=GCYGPJ] Wakefield Wandering[/cache] a multi in Wakefield city centre... yes Wakefield is a city.. Who’d have thought it?.
wandered around at 6.15am in the dark counting plates on a wall and looking for gravestones and blue plaques, got all the details required now just to get up early enough to get the actual cache.

As my next job is due to be building a new secondary school in Barnsley starting end of March, I'm hoping to clear alot of the Wakefield caches before then.

with that in mind I headed out on Wednesday morning to find a micro in the dark at [cache=GC16JJ6] Wrenthorpe cache[/cache],an easy find, I didn’t even have to use my torch as it was Nautical twilight....see using all that info on dawn that Foinavon taught us on the winter hill walk.....


Thursday
Loo run this morning so no time for a cache. One of the most popular topics when you tell people that you live on a boat is 1. Isn't it cold in the winter? And 2.How do you deal with toilets??? The answer to the second, is usually Tongue in cheek " we do it in the canal!!!" He he.
Cath had ordered a new Mp3 player with a DAb radio and it came to work today, so have transferred Tosca onto it, brilliant and the dab is great too, I can listen to planet rock anywhere!! And the cricket too rather than relying on radio4 long wave.

I think that Foinavon is getting a hard time on the forums. After giving his opinion about power trails. most of the points he made are valid but some people are IMO taking it a bit far. Without Foinavon's input some of the best discussions wont have got going.
On other Forums, I just popped into the canal world discussions forum and popped straight out again as after an innocent question about speed to pass moored boats it descended into a slanging match between a few posters, very childish, worse than the dark place. People are just spoiling for petty disagreements, it gets depressing, hopefully NWcaching wont go the same way,if it does i'll have to find somewhere else, or get on with some work :)

Saturday no caching but moved the boat
After 3 weekends we had to move the boat to fill up with water, normally it lasts 2 weeks but we must have been very frugal or filled it extremely full last time. The water in the pound has been low for the last few days so we decided to head up the locks to Todmorden rather than down to Hebden bridge as this would bring more water down rather than taking 2 lockfulls out of the pound we were in making the pound even lower had we gone down. bear with me as this does make sense.
The locks on the Rochdale seem to always be full, the water must leak into them, so it is a slow journey uphill having to empty each lock before we can go into it. but it was a pleasant feb day but with quite a strong breeze into our faces. the canal is great squeezed into the valley with the infant Calder and the road and railway, some lovely spots.
After winding(turning round) below Todmorden library lock and filling up with water, Cath nipped into Tod to get some bread ( she came back with a bag and some gloves as well from Nepal!!) I worked the boat down the first lock helped by some passersby who said they were fairweather boaters with their boat tied up at Lyme view marina above Poynton on the Macc canal, Had a chat whilst I waited for Cath to get back, that’s what I love about travelling the canals you get to pass the time of day with people, though there are some odd balls, like the bloke who wandered up as I was waiting with his small staffy dog and a can of Special brew and started to tell us his life story...... needless to say we soon found an excuse to move on.
On the way back we decided to try a few spots to see if we could moor up and we got in above lock 14 about 1/2 mile and 2 locks above from where we had spent the last 5 weeks. Great spot as well. will try and post a picture.

Sunday: Bingley

a Dnf and 8 caches

A return to Bingley to grab more caches, though when i look through the logs i keep seeing petenumbers and grufty in the logs.

We did a circular walk from the fisherman inn at Dowley gap staircase locks
Caches: [cache=gc14kgj]towpath walk[/cache] the dnf; [cache=gc1ghyj] Aldo's mate[/cache];
[cache=gc14kh5]Dowley lock view[/cache]very well hidden this took a while;[cache=gcnr93]Over & Under[/cache]this is at the aqueduct where the L&L canal crosses the Aire we were on the towpath and the cache was on the other side so we went down to the river bank and walked under the canal, bit muddy but great to see to walk under the canal like that;[cache=gc14kg7]river walk[/cache];[cache=gc14zv8]river walk 3[/cache];[cache=GC1J974]a Wednesday one[/cache];[cache=GC1ATHX]....and two fingers to you[/cache] plus on the drive home picked up a drive by [cache=GCKH2N]grand old fellow[/cache]
Great walk about 2 miles could have got loads more but I think that was enough, plus we then went round the mill at Saltaire, great architecture.

Monday, dawn raid to find the final of a multi

Well it's taken a year in Wakefield but at last i have finished [cache=gcygpj] Wakefield wandering [/cache]. Collected the final bits of info last week so was determined to finish it off.
got to the hiding place and waded ino the trees and brambles with my torch on checking for stick-o-flage behind trees couldn't find the cache at any of them, so went to leave the trees and get another fix with the etrex, as I came thrashing out of the brambles with torch looked up to the path and there was a dog walker mooching past looking my way... He didn't say owt though... god knows what he thought.. he he.
Found the cache soon after on the other side of the path and swapped a bug for a coin, a 100 find coin no less.

Tuesday, in a squelchy field above the M62

Cache:[cache=gc1khx8] Rastrick view Travel Lodge [/cache]

Extract from a Msn messenger conversation with cath
did a cache this morning as well up above M62 on the long climb.
Hint said behind holly bush, only trouble was it was a sunken lane where the every tree was a holly bush and they met overhead, thought it would be easy but it was a bit of a search.
Cath says:
glad you had fun
iain says:
it was, new torch was good, managed to spot the disturbed ground and knelt down and reached underneath, managed not to get prickled.
imunn says:
on way back across the field could see a man with a dog standing at the field entrance watching me, lovely golden retriver. he said we wanted to see what the light was coming across the field when i said morning to his dog and him
imunn says:
maybe he thought i was a ufo
Cath says:
def a ufo
iain says:
i wasnt flying so it couldnt be
Cath says:
unidentified ferreting object

Good cache though especially in the dark. Left the 100 finds geocoin i picked up yesterday in Wakefield.


Thursday 26th feb 2009

Day off a rare day off indeed, but had to go over to Runcorn to take the CSCS health and safety test at 8am at the quality hotel, walked into the reception nd asked which room it was in, it isn't in a room its in the car park round the back of the hotel sys the receptionist, and there it was a 16.5T waggon like a horsebox with 8 computers in it, Sat the test, nice and simple, but just as I was finishing and clicking on the end button the generator tripped out, luckily the system saved all my answers so when the bloke got the generator started again got the results and wa off with the rest of the day our own.

went past the marina in Anderton and picked up our post and then onwards to pick up a box of a cache we had archived in Middlewich also found [cache=gc1hqnq] centre of cheshire 1[/cache] ( a tree planted to honour queen victoria); [cache=Gc19TMX] Geode cache[/cache] and [cache=GC1ad8r] Lock Lock & Lock[/cache] which were both on the towpath of the Middlewich branch of the SU canal; and we missed them as we past by boat last June as it was too busy with other boaters; quiet today in February though;

I wanted to pick up all the dane valley waycaches with the rest of the day but after 2 of them [cache=gc1e76q] Sproston[/cache] and [cache=gc1g22n] holmes chapel(2)[/chapel] Cath had had enough so we drove onwards via a lovely church at we spotted it across form the main road and decided to head up the drive and take a look, it was unlocked and we had a look inside, lovely
seems it was built i the 12thcentury as an oakframed church with thatched roof and wattle and daub walls, but in the 17thC someone replaced the thatch with stone roof slabs which overloaded the timber structure, so the solution was to build 2 brick walls either side to strengthen the structure and the brick ispainted in the cheshire black and white as in the picture. It really deserves a Church micro cache.
Onwards via the Rainow road from macc to Whaley bridge with a diversion up to windgather rocks to pick upcats eyes drive by[cache=GC1BV95] C.O.Ch. Footprint[/cache]
then over to The Navigation pub in Buxsworth by the end of the peak forest canal.
where we had a good meal
I had a 16oz Haddock!!!
plus 2 good pints

Dinting Arches 4.4% ABV

Dinting Arches is a pale medium strength beer, quite hoppy, made with Halcyon malts, and Pioneer and Styrian Golding hops.

The beer is named after the railway viaduct which crosses the narrowest point of the valley, to the west of Glossop. It's graceful yet sturdy, and a notable landmark. We think the beer lives up to its name.

and another beer which was an excellent dark bitter but I cant remember its name.

It started to rain heavily after lunch so we headed home via Holme moss and Meltham stopping to pick up a cache in slaithwaite,[cache=gc1m682]Coln Valley listeners[/cache], this was set in a wood between the railway and the Huddersfield Narrow canal and there were 2 metal dishes set up so you could hear the people approaching you, nice bit of public art.
In the cache we found a tb which was a memory stick, the owners want you to log pictures and add to the blog on the stick and have set up a blog of its travels.
all in all a good day off.

Saturday 28th february2009 walk into tod
No big expedition planned today just a bit of shopping before the day was our own, had a long lie-in and a leisurely breakfast and decided to walk into Todmorden.
A short walk up the towpath to the first cache just behind a large canal side mill that has been converted into flats. Lovely building 5-storeys. The Cache.[cache= ]that snow angel[/cache] was exposed so luckily i could see it as i approached, i felt very exposed as i signed the log in full view of the flats.
Onwards up the road then turned off along a bridleway past a small farm and terrace to the next cache,[cache= ]badger woodnt[/cache]. This by a gravestone to a local horse called trigger, caching takes you too some odd places.
Dropping back into the town we walked down to the main road to pick up a nano[cache= ] mini stoodley[/cache] a metal replica of stoodley pike monument with a little stair with figures climbing it inside the real pike could just be seen through the murk on the skyline.
.

Did our shopping and bought some tickets to a play at the local theatre next weekend. Then on the return from the town with me carrying all the shopping in the rucsack, took in 2 more cacheshigh up on the other side of the valley; [cache=] tudor perch[/cache] and [cache=]think pink[/cache] dropped back down to the boat via a bridlepath and meeting a friendly horse, great views from up there, maybe stick a cache up there on the bridlepath.

Walk was 4.5 miles

As we wearily wandered up the towpath we spotted a mink under a jetty opposite, it stared at us for a while before disappearing back under. Saw it again in the river calder on Sunday morning, carrying a cub which was squeaking its head off. I assume it was moving the cub to a new location.


Sunday

After a lie in we decided to head over via Bacup to Rawtenstall for a visit to the East lancs, picked up a drive by [cache=gc19ewh] boulder cache[/cache] on the way through and parked at ramsbottom station and just bought our tickets when a Jinty pulled in with a train to rawtenstall, we hopped off at Irwell vale and wandered up the path to grab [cache=gc12wh8] pipedream[/cache] and returned to the station to grab a long term dnf for us; [cache=gcyn5m] sidetracked elr 8 irwell vale[/cache] amazing how easy it was after hunting round desparingly last time. got the cache signed and replaced before the jinty returned from rawtenstall and rode all the way to heywood and back to bury after watching the engine run round at heywood. stopped at bury and browsed round the society shops for magazines before catching the next train back to ramsbottom behind the standard 4 tank 80097, a great ride and lovely afternoon.

Wed 4th march

Blew a hoolie last night and heavy rain when i was walking the dogs before going to work saw that the boat behind us had been blown off its pins, cath spent the afternoon trying to tie it back up, reversing our boat back to it and towing it back to the towpath side.

topping out

Had the topping out l=yesterday on site, all the dignatries, ci=ouncil, funders bosses on site to have a look round. Free food and beer too. Some piccies of the job now we've nearly finished the frame.
Met a woman at the doo who is a fund raiser for the yorkshire sculpture park, she had been told that i did caching by one of my colleagues, so i spent a pleasant quarter of an hour explaining about caching, wonder if there will be some new caches in the sculpture park.

friday 5th march

Early morning raid on 3 caches ;[cache= GCMGZN] elland bridge[/cache] took a while. We'd cruised past this one on new years eve as we headed up the calder and hebble to soweby bridge, we tried to guess where it was as we passed, we were wrong. It took me a few searches to find the cache and a few mins getting my hand stuck trying to get it out. Good cache.
Next was [cache= GCT5ZW] parish church of st mary the virgin[/cache] a straightforward micro in a neglected churchyard, not much more to say.
Third was a puzzle that i had solved a few months back but hadn't the nerve to hunt for it in the dark, or maybe had the good sense to leave it to the lighter mornings.[icon=mystery cache= GC1JMDM] in the wilderness[/icon] a good hide as well.
Friday cath went to see nathan and caro going round alty, she also dropped into the lowry and got some cancellations for andy parsons for Sunday night. when we both got back to the boat a quick change and back out to the Todmorden hippodrome to watch a bit
of am dram. A murder mystery play 'Deliver us from evil' not bad at all, good fun.


Saturday 7th march 09
Crufts
Up early and a drive south to the nec to go to crufts, this year the Saturday was gundog day, lots of spaniels, retrievers etc, lovely dogs, we got there early so we could get close to the pens in discover dogs, played with a lot of dogs, i especially liked the Manchester terriers, welsh springers and the smooth collies and the Airedale terriers. I picked up a few leaflets on the rescue services for different breeds as well. Cath as normal headed for the larger dogs, like the mastiff, wolfhound etc, how we would ever get them in the boat!!!! Though saying that last June we saw on the shroppie a semi-trad with 2 great Danes on board. It looked a bit of a squeeze!

Caching wise we found 2.
1 a puzzle cath had solved, easily which she was surprised as all the logs said they found it hard [icon=mystery cache=GC1K8H9] The "Honour Teen Soil" Enigma by TheFitz [/icon] its just outside the nec boundary. Though i accessed it by jumping 2 fences off one of the dual carriageways rather than hunting for the end of the path.
We could have got plenty more round the area but we were both a bit footsore after walking round the halls we decided to head home.
Picked up another one on a detour into penkridge to get some bread and bacon and some late lunch.
We like penkridge as we stop here to fill up with supplies as we pass by boat along the staffs and worcs canal, after grabbing some delicious sandwiches and cakes from Jaspers the bakery we drove round the corner and parked over the Canal at longford lock. Ate our lunch and watched a boat pass through, after that i nipped out into the cold and windy day to go and grab the cache. We had missed this one when we passed through by boat last June because some random bloke insisted that he help us through the lock, so i couldn't nip off and grab the cache.
After a successful find this time, up the m6, m62 and m60 to tod and home, need a long lie in tomorrow.

Sunday 8th march

Blew a hooly again last night, we were banging and crashing about and the rain was lashing down.
Looked out on waking up and the boat behind us was adrift again, it came adrift after the wind on wed night too, and was resting across the canal against us.
When we finally shifted I nipped outside and retied her up using a couple of our spare pins.
The wind continued all day with lots of sleet and heavy hail showers. We stayed in and i downloaded some pics for a new puzzle cache I was working on. Cleaned up the box we picked up last Thursday from middlewich and then I went out with the dogs on a walk from the boat, found a suitable spot with a great view and hid the cache. All I have to do now is sort out the puzzle page and submit for publishing.

In the evening drove to the lowry at Salford quays to see Andy parsons, it was excellent, he didn't seem to have a set routine and was much the same as in 'mock the week' very funny though a poor couple on the front row got humiliated, all started because he was wearing a cardigan.

Still blowing a gale when we came out. Stopped for petrol in whitefield and then the Renault wouldn't start, with the help of the shop man we managed to bump start it

Monday 9th march09' .
Week off started here

Monday- safie's series - our first long walk with cassie's repaired leg along river kent from Kendal and the filled in Lancaster canal, about 5 miles, pleasant low level walk.
River Kent south of Kendal
Filled in section of Lancaster canal
Tuesday10th war of the roses- up on moors above heptonstall, wow hard going for 3 caches, rest of series to complete now.

Wed-11th finished cache page and sent for publication - 'trainspotting' a puzzle leading to a cache with a great view of todmorden.

Thursday-12th cache found and vets for check up for cassie, was told it was ok to walk her up to a mile gently... Didn't tell vet she had done 5miles on Monday…

Friday13th Scarborough
We had a provisional plan to finish off the war of the roses, but that changed as we decided to go to the seaside and Scarborough was chosen, pq for north yorks had been recently downloaded so was transferred to the pda and we were off, got there at lunchtime and had dinner in the Ask restaurant on the harbour. Then walked along beach to the spa complex and picked up a few Caches, all Micros though
1[cache=] Scarborough spa[/cache]
2[cache=]star disc[/cache] well hidden micro above the filled in swimming pool
3[cache=] old bowling green[/cache] and
4[cache=] the royal[/cache] also dnf on the holbeck which was a nano on the site of the hotel which fell into the sea in 1994.
Great views.

Saturday 14th moved boat lazy morning after a late night driving back from Scarborough not much done except move the boat down to Hebden bridge lots of people about but they weren't chatty, all locks were full which made for an easy run down plus with taking the water down with us meant lots of depth, cath worked 4 of the 6 locks leaving me the pleasure of trying to hold the boat in the wind, we passed a couple with a kid after the pram cache 5 and he was tapping into a pda/phone but as they walked straight past the no.6 cache we assumed they weren't cachers. Tied up in centre of Hebden Bridge for the night and had an excellent meal at the Thai restaurant in the canal warehouse, Mmm duck red curry and fragrant rice.


Sunday- lazy day walked to get cars and moved boat down to Mytholmroyd, gave girl a shock as she was sitting on the lock beam as i walked up and the lock was full, rather than asking her to move, i just pushed the gate opening with her riding on it.
We've tied up just outside Mytholmroyd just beyond the falling royd curved 'bomb shelter tunnel under the main road,
Walk, about 4miles up towpath, moving boat about 1 1/4 miles and one lock.

Tuesday 17th march09'
Work but got chance to have a look at muttoneer's new cache [icon=puzzle cache] werewolf[icon]. I had read the thread on nwcaching.co.uk but couldn't figure out what was going on. Soon did though found most of the clues but still don't know what to do with them.


march 27th to 31st
friday 27th, cath around in Wakefield as i left work so we left car at work and went home in hers, what she didn't work out as we left was that she would have to bring me to work on wed morning, her mistake!!

sat 28th
Long weekend ahead high winds forecast for Saturday so we decided to go to Bradford to the national media museum. not a bad visit and all free.
One thing sticks in mind was a little kid being asked by his mother to go and check whether the Dalek on display was safe, he ran over to the Dalek then came back assuring his mum it was alright and safe
Spent the afternoon on a drive up into Wharfdale, and ended up having a meal in the craven heifer pub just outside skipton.
a pint of black sheep and bowland gold
no caches though.

Sun 29th
Clocks forward, hour less sleep
Up early to watch Australian grand prix, and an excellent race, bodes well for the rest of the season. Then took dogs for a walk also top grab A bee in the bonnet cache which is up on the north side of the valley above Mytholmroyd, about .9miles distant in a straight line. Walked down the towpath into the town centre, then up the Midgeley road past the high school climbing all the way, onto a footpath that went straight up the valley side, it was steep and the walls either side were over 2m high, felt a little claustrophobic. but good views behind when i stopped to take a breather. I pushed myself so only stopped 4 times on the whole climb up from the canal and the valley bottom.
The cache was hidden in a triangular area where 2 walled paths met and the morning sunshine had burnt off the overnight frost and snow dusting. a really pretty spot, even though the cache hadn't been logged since October, the log book did show it had been muggled though, but they had left a nice note, they had stopped for a cup of tea and noticed the cache,
Left a tb and took a few pics also rescued a geocoin that had been there since October.
Decided to return by contouring along the valley side by way of footpaths and bridleways and drop down to the boat further on.
We were as high as the moor on the other side and the top of Stoodley pike tower was could just be seen sticking over the top.
Some lovely barn conversions and old farmhouses along the paths, all linked by these old tracks. and managed to pick the right path to drop down and came out right at the boat, a lovely morning walk, though had to rush the return as we were supposed to be leaving to go to Hale to meet friends for lunch, only just made it back in time, for a quick wash and change and then we were out to meet Caroline, Stuart, Nathan and Halley; Sue and Alan, Iris and David at Pizza Express in Hale village, Nathan who is my Godson is coming on leaps and bounds and is obsessed by Thomas the tank engine, so as the restaurant is alongside the Altrincham- Chester line at the level crossing by Hale station a couple of trips outside to watch the trains go by when the barriers came down were in order, usual 150/2 and 156 sprinters were forming the services today.
Got given pressies as its my birthday in a few days, got 30 quid to spend in waterstones and some models for the railway, so after lunch we headed off to waterstones in Altrincham and a pleasant hour spent buying 7or 8 books, I always come out from there with too many books.

Mon 30th

Sat with cath doing puzzle caches in the morning, trying to figure out werewolf, two sons, and a few others, managed to find all the clues but one in werewolf, need no.5.
left her in ther afternoon and went for a walk, climbed up out of the valley and picked up the JohnHaughton caches up abover Mytolmroyd and cragg vale, 5 caches in all; GC165GG ups a daisy; GC 1785y Micr,cos...'erm; GC136t3 Cragg coiners cache; GC1CFJB Holly! Go Lightly and GC1CFJM Up n under the walk after the sharp pull up from Mytholmroyd contour round the valley edge just at the moors edge before dropping down through a holly forest, great fun. and the caches hadn't been done since december.

Tuesday 31st
Off to do Beamers trail on the Witton Weavers way, excellent 5 to 6 mile walk and 28caches done in the day
good fun and rounded off with a PUP mystery cache - Introduction to Trigpointing.

near the end of the trail, we passed the butlers arms next to Pleasington priory, and stopped for a pint. I sampled Sharps doom a very quaffable bitter:
left a long log of our experience at the Beamers trail cache.

Log

Assualt on the WWW beamers trail today and as its my birthday and we passed 1900 finds on the way round.went round from the visitors centre clockwise and after the 1st 2 caches one a WWW and the other one of rose thorns' chess caches we were out on the trail proper, there has been some work going on at the start of the trail, they have built a wooden play fort some new picnic benches and sculpted tree stumps, there is a falcon, an owl, an otter and a fish so far. easy finds all the way up though the first in billinge wood,was a bit of a scramble to get behind the tree and the anciernt tree cache, cath sent me down the steep bank. detoured off route to pick up the tiny sheepfold and after the fallen owd soldier we went wrong a bit but luckily had brought our explorer map so quickly worked out where we had gone wrong.
lots of mud by the twirly tree and cath nearly lost her boot and we stopped for lunch at the hollow and washed the mud off her boots in the river. really pleasant watching the Buzzards circle overhead.
after meeting 2 large Labs at the ford and negotiating the washed away path after river ruins, the homeward stretch, which included a pint in the pub at Pleasington priory and we had to wait for muggles to disappear at the butlers bridge cache.
All round did 27 caches. And no DNfs. a good walk
Thanks for setting them.

Weekend 4th and 5th April

Most of weekend spent moving the boat from Mytholmroyd up to the summit went from below lock 8 to below lock 35, lock 36 being the Yorkshire summit. First move was from Mytholmroyd to below lock 19 just outside Todmorden, we set off after watching the qualifying of the Australian grand prix. No caches

Sunday
I couldn't sleep so got up at 6 and walked the dogs, headed up above Todmorden on the valley side up a road past the station, views were great but only found 2 of the 4 caches i went for, got back to boat at 9 just in time to watch the GP.
Great race Jenson button made it look easy.
Left the mooring at 11am, worked up through the town, including the guillotine lock which cath worked, lots of gongoozlers watching us there.
up up and up past the great wall of TOD, and under the Gauxholme viaduct to lock 25 where we were forced to stop as the pound above was empty. Quick call to BW and we were away again by 3, scraped through the pound and up the next then water levels were ok. finally stopped above lock 34 at 7pm, quick wash-up then walked back down the mile and bit to Walsden station, train to Hebden bridge then 1/2 mile walk to pick up the cars, Cath's wouldn't start so had top tow it onto the road to try a bump start it which we managed with the help of another boater off the long term moorings.
a great journey and a good weekend, great scenery, brilliant canal, deserves more boats.


Our mooring near the summit of the Rochdale.

Easter

Dropped car off at Stuart and Caroline's on Thursday night, and got the tram and train back to Walsden and a night-time towpath walk up from Walsden station back up the canal, lots of frogs around could see them in the torchlight hopping around.

Good Friday
morning very damp, raining, locked up 35 and through the swing bridge then tied up and waited for BW to come and work us up onto the summit, they arrived at 9'15 and we were soon 600' above sea level and cruising across the highest point of the Rochdale canal.

All too soon it was over and we met the same 2 BW lads who dropped us down lock 37 on the Lancashire side.
We stopped on the cleaned up wharf and had breakfast, and enjoy the quiet, before starting the drop down to Littleborough.
the next lock down No. 38 was very slow took about 20 mins to empty, this has been done to stop flooding in the pound below, but then at lock 39 the next 2 pounds were empty; we weren't getting very far very quickly, a call to BW and checked with them that it was ok so we locked down and ran water into the pound below, got through bumping along the bottom, the pound was a lot deeper than it looked, so we didn't need to run much water through probably 3 lock fulls and the next lock 40 filled the next pound up as it was so short and once through that it was ok, the locks came thick, so we tied up 2 locks above Littleborough in an old loading dock, used according to one of our books for loading stone slabs cut from Blackstone edge into boats for transporting down into Manchester. Picked up 2 caches on the canal.

Easter Saturday
Aim for today was to get to the rose of Lancaster pub just south of between Rochdale and Chadderton at lock 63. Was only 16 locks 2 swing bridges and 6 miles including the longest level pound on the Rochdale between Littleborough and Rochdale.
After the first lock, stopped for loo and water, then down 2 more locks and stopped by Littleborough station to walk into town centre and go to butchers, bakers and greengrocer. this part of the Rochdale canal had the most blockages and this was where alot of the millennium money was spent reopening it with new cuts under the M62 and the Rochdale link road, It is ok in canal scenery but alot of floating rubbish in the cut, lots of people out and watching as we pass through, chatted to a lot of them.
down to Slattocks top lock and working through the second one and the windlass slipped off the spindle as i was raising the bottom paddles to empty the lock and the windlass swung up and hit me in the mouth, and split my lip, surprised me to say the least, but didn't hurt too much, but I was even more surprised when I spat out a tooth!!, Cath said my face looked a real picture, bit of blood as well. I thought well I'm miles from home; we have to carry on, to get to lock 63 to meet BW in the morning. But Cath was busy on the mobile and talking to NHS direct as I looked worse than I felt; it just felt like a heavy tackle in a rugby game.
She got advice to get me to an A&E so we tied up straightaway, I cleaned my mouth up and left her to look after the dogs and walked back to the Ship Inn and got a Taxi to Rochdale Infirmary.
Got seen very quickly, even before the girl who came in after me , dragged in by her mother, who had taken ecstasy that morning and needed to be checked over...
anyway the doctor checked me and said nothing they could doo about the tooth so ring the emergency dentist line, it was now 4.30pm on Easter Saturday, got through to them and there was a clinic in Bury at 7pm that i could attend, so another cab to bury and sat and waited for 7pm and got seen second, damaged tooth capped and x-ray taken and I was on my way back, got bus back to Rochdale and a quick change and another to Slattocks getting home at 8.40, so not bad service by NHS at all, tooth only splintered. Taxi fares cost more than the treatment! Now just got to wait to see my own dentist for the repair a week on Wednesday.

Easter Sunday,
Cath had cancelled our trip down the locks into Manchester for today as we wouldn't have made it with my injury so an easy day was in order to get down the 6 or so locks to lock 63 and rebook for the passage for Monday.
Pleasant cruise down the locks, through a very friendly fishing match and I steered the boat as cath understandably wouldn't let me work the locks, mouth was a little sore.
Spent the afternoon planting up the baskets and troughs with flowers and veg seeds in the sunshine and at 7.30 I took dogs for a walk and did 4 caches.

Easter Monday,
A very early start had the boat moving at 6.50am, mist rising from the canal as the sun rose, down lock 63 and across the aqueduct over the Irk, lots of goats and kids in the field alongside. then after stopping to pick up Oldham way- troubled waters we were into the Manchester suburbs, canal felt more hemmed in to lock 64, couldn't hunt for the cache there as a fisherman was too close, down the lock and I walked down to operate the lift bridge, it being early on a bank holiday we only held up 3 cars. The bridge lifts up on 4 jacks for the boat to pass under rather than tilting or swinging like most bridges. After closing it grabbed the cache too.
made it to meet BW by 8.30 am at Failsworth top lock No. 65; we passed under the M60 and past the large Morrison's which smelt of pasties and jam doughnuts.
After being locked through 65 we were into the 19 locks to Piccadilly, through some rough estates. the canal in places in the 1960s had been shallowed and the locks had been made into weirs, all this had been partially restored but alot of the shallowing concrete was still there lurking under the water and caused me a few worries when the boat lurched onto them, and got stuck, but got off the shallow spots and made it through. Lots and lots of rubbish floating, the BW guys worked down with us, appearing at every other lock in their vans and fishing rubbish out of the by-washes and the locks, going down the flight made it easier as we were bringing water down with us, so all the pounds were full.

We made it down the 19 to Piccadilly then a late lunch then the Rochdale 9 through the centre of Manchester to Castlefield and the Bridgwater canal. Windlasses were put away and we cruised the level pound into the evening to Dunham. I then walked round in the darkness to the farm to pick up my car so I could get to work in the morning.
Total for the day an impressive 30 locks and 14 or so miles of cruising. In 14 hours.

Working my way through a case of Marston's beers that was given for my birthday, includes pedigree, single malt and double drop... Excellent.

Tuesday 14th April 2009

While I had to go to work today Cath moved the boat a mile down the canal to spud wood in Oughtrington near Lymm, a much nicer spot with a car park for the woods we can leave the cars in overnight, should do us until Friday.
Collected the 1 potato 2 potato and the first part of 3 potato 4, both first stages were brilliant nanos, very hard to spot, but superb when you do work it out. Could tell you more but I wont spoil the sparrow boys fun.
picked up the 2nd part on 3 potato, 4 on the way into Lymm on the boat on Saturday.

Friday 17th April.
Cath's car woes

The tale of woe of Cath's car continues, you may have read earlier that we had to bump start it the weekend before Easter, well it didn't start the next day so she called the RAC out and then took the car back to car craft, they looked at it and came back with a long list of items that needed doing, not just the new battery and bulb for a headlight as we thought, they fitted all under warranty, luckily, new battery new bulb new driveshaft, this to replace the cv joints, new brakes pads and discs and new sensor tyre valves and 2 new tyres, trouble was they didn't rush so we were without the car in the run up to Easter and it wasn't ready when expected on Thursday before Easter,
A few calls to car craft customer service and we got assurances that the parts would arrive and be fitted by Tuesday after Easter, but it was only completed by 4pm on Tuesday so Cath got up early and came into Wakefield with me for 7am and caught the bus up to car craft to collect it on Wednesday. It still wasn't completely ready, so she waited, and waited, finally got the car at 12, drove off down to the roundabout on the M62 and a sensor came on, so back to car craft, they fixed it , away again and the sensor came on again, this happened twice more, plus they hadn't tracked the car after replacing the drive shaft so it was pulling badly. finally got away at 4pm and she headed down to Mytholmroyd to do the washing and got a huge puncture at Luddenfoot on one of the new tyres that had just been fitted, another call to car craft customer services and they dispatched a recovery truck from a nearby garage, he got stuck for 1 1/2 hrs in a big smash on the M62 so only got to her at 6pm, and put on her spare, she got home at 8pm.
On Thursday back to car craft and another new tyre that she managed to blag off them and the sensors rechecked, all fine on Friday until she met her parents at the Preston brook near Runcorn and on returning to the car the front left coil spring had snapped while she had been having lunch. She limped the car to National at Northwich and I picked her up as it would be Saturday afternoon before it was repaired. Which it was excellent service off National Northwich, who argued her case with car craft and got them to pay for the repair and the tracking required. picked it up on sat afternoon and she revisited car craft Wakefield on Monday to get new tyre sensors fitted, so hopefully the 2 weeks of problems are over.

Saturday 18th April 2009

Up early to watch the GP qualifying from shanghai, which was exciting with Vettel only making last minute runs to grab pole, really like the way they do the qualifying now.

mooched around and then went out to pick up Cath's car, grabbed 3 caches, Bawming the Thorn in Appleton Thorn, a drive by whose name already escapes me and Wilfred's cache at St.Wilfred Grappenhall, my old church where i grew up attending every week, my usual weekends were play rugby for school on Saturday morning, church on Sunday morning and watching Wire on Sunday afternoon, great memories.
Had lunch in the Rams head, a nice Gammon steak and a pint of Cornish ale, one of the guest ales but Cath bought it so not sure of the name. It was a good session beer though.
After picking up Cath's car and dropping it off near the flashes where we were going to move the boat to, we got home, untied, picked up the 2nd part on 3 potato, 4 cache and tied up for the night just beyond the M6, another bottle of Marston's double drop while I sat on the towpath throwing a tennis ball for Cassiedog and reading a book enjoying the sunny evening.
Bliss....

Sunday 19th April 2009

Watched the Chinese grand Prix, another great race in the wet, Vettel won it.
quick breakfast whilst it was on then we were off as we knew we had a long way to go, after cruising along to Preston brook had to wait for the tunnel for half an hour, but got going at 1.30pm only to stop again after Dutton stop lock for some lunch as we were tiring and needed a break, it was very warm could feel myself overheating.
But the whole stretch felt like we were home.
Passed through Bartington wharf where we used to live from 2000 to 2003
This stretch to Anderton is my favourite stretch of canal to cruise, I always enjoy it.
Stopped briefly to check on my “weaving through Little Legh” cache and then waited for the narrow crooked Saltersford tunnel for 20mins, as it is single file and a timed entry system, before heading through and across Saltersford Pool and through Barnton tunnel without meeting any other boats.
As we got to the exit, a Claymoore navigation hire boat shot across the entrance and collided with the bank really hard, we must have surprised him emerging from the darkness, but he didn't seem too bothered, just asked if the tunnel was clear behind us and then scraped his way along the concrete bank into the tunnel.
The footbridge between Barnton and the swing bridge has been repainted black and white since we left Anderton last Easter and there has been some bank works to the offside in the pool beyond.
Onto Anderton and a stop to fill up with water and empty rubbish and toilet, saw a few people we knew around, but we didn't stop long, on into Marbury park following a boat who refused to slow down past moored boats, causing them to move and rock alarmingly, needless to say we soon were left behind and peace resumed until passing Select's yard at Wincham and the Northwich Victoria stadium and the engine died... a quick investigation and we worked out that we had run out of diesel, I had last put 50 litres in 6-7 weeks ago so not bad going .Luckily we weren't far from the main road at Wincham wharf, so we had somewhere to park the cars. Locked the boat up and with the dogs walked the last 2.5 miles along the canal, through Lostock works and Broken cross to the flashes. Cath's car was alright and it started, a quick drive across the higher ground to Oughtrington to pick up my car and we were back at Wincham and soon walking round to the boat, finished about 8pm just as it was getting dark.
20 miles canal, 3 tunnels, 1 stop lock 2.5 miles walking and 1 maintenance visit to a cache

Monday 20th April

Got some red diesel 25 litres and the engine started ok, after bleeding it.

Tuesday 21st April

Today marks the 16th anniversary since Cath and I got together... amazing how time flies and I can't imagine life without her.
At work in Wakefield and Dew piling are pulling out the sheet piles from along the river Calder below the weir. To do this they have a neat rig that 'walks' along the tops of the piles pulling them out in turn. Took a video but may not get chance to put it online.

The sun is beating down, went up on the roof and it was lovely and a good view over Wakefield.

Thursday 23rd April

St George's day passed me by, only realised as i typed this.
Cath out with Sue at Trafford centre tonight to catch up so I decided to pick up some caches on the way home.
Did 3
1. 30/40 nano GC1E4RP - quick drive by on the outskirts of Knutsford,
2. Virtual chapel GC18QPM - interesting little place, set in the middle of a Knutsford estate the footprint of an old chapel has been marked out with brick and all the old surviving gravestones have been laid flat inside, some are still legible and detail people who were buried in 1666, along time ago 343 years since it was chiselled out of the stone.
Cache was an easy find with the clue, though is protected by some brambles but as its only spring they are easy to get past, only slight scratch on calf was sustained.
Good interesting location; I like to imagine what it all looked like.
3. Tattonine incident: what's going on here?! GC18WCH - regularly travel through Pickmere and along the main Chester road and have seen the dishes poking above the trees. Like the story that Pandemi is telling about a Roswell style cover up.
Took 2 passes before I decided on which track to head down so parked up out of the way on the footpath and wandered down, lots of distant traffic and tractor noise and hares boxing in an adjacent field. No-one around and spotted hiding place without looking at hint.
good fun cache.

Weekend 25th and 26th April
Drive home on Friday was a nightmare, went over Woodhead as M62 reporting very slow through West Yorks and I was tired of sitting in the queues, good run over until Hollingworth to the M67 which was very slow with queues to the traffic lights, then Cath rang and we decided to drop a car off in Middlewich so I diverted to meet her, thought I'd be clever and cut the corner via Knutsford which was a mistake as it was gridlocked and then the centre of Middlewich was busy too, should have gone via Mere road and Chester road. Left the car by a bridge, on the SU Middlewich branch, by the Geode cache.

Saturday
Up early and moved boat aiming for Kings lock chandlery to fill up with diesel.
Nice and quiet but the skies were threatening rain, as forecast and we just reached the flashes when I felt the first spots, we quickly pulled into the side and tied up just getting inside the boat as the heavy shower hit. Decided to sit it out as the forecast was for it to brighten up in the afternoon, which it did.
I took the opportunity to wander down to the spot that our archived cache' big lock pound#2 the flashes' had been hidden but no sign of it.


Wednesday 20th May
Caches
1. old viaduct - I grew up in Grappenhall and can remember the last 10 years of the Warrington- Skelton jcn line through Lymm and Thelwall as it ran on the embankment at the bottom of our estate climbing up to cross the ship canal and I used to watch the long trains of coal heading towards Fiddlers ferry all through my childhood, plus I then watched its closure and track removed and used to walk the old ballast through here before it was transformed into the TPT. Great to be back as I pass close by regularly on our boat on the canal but haven't found time to stop and walk round to grab the cache, today I was out of work for a dentist appointment so had time to cache after.
Cache was easily found and I grabbed the Wooden Lymm tb. And sat on the nearby bench looking over the Mersey basin and tried to put the puzzle together.
TFTC
Iain the bargee
2. Dnf - really sidetracked - Thelwall-
Well I couldn't find it, wasn't sure whether it was a regular cache or a micro and the Ivy is growing vigorously so after wandering back and forth checking all likely places I had to give up.
I can remember walking our dog or cycling down the towpath to here and standing on the access to the lane below and waiting to see a train go by so close.
Iain the bargee
3. Setting Sun - Back in Barnton for a dental appointment and had time to kill before the meet at Moore so decided to try this Multi, and was glad I did .In this time of growing traditional caches and power trails of 3 or 4 caches or more per mile, I am finding that multis give me a much greater pleasure after completing them and are more memorable.
I parked in the community hall car park and soon had the nano in hand, though it took a few mins to extract the paper from it. The walk from there was really good, even if the knee high plants were soaking my trousers and boots, the views across the high ground of the is part of Cheshire were great , and the houses I passed were all desirable, I wish I could afford them.
The cache was found in the second place I looked using the clue. I returned the same way that I had come and left happy
4. Toast rack - On the way to the May Nw cachers event at the Red lion in Moore, had stopped in Stockton Heath for a chippy tea and used the lay-by to park and eat them after I had walked up and grabbed the cache, to let them cool down.
Cache was where I expected it to be, though I did wait until the stream of cars were stopped by the traffic lights before leaning through to grab it as I didn't want to startle a passing muggle driver.
TFTC
Iain the bargee
5. event- -Great fun though a little wet, thanks for organising Foinavon and Sheila, good to see you all again
Iain the bargee
6. bodyline - Having watched my Ferret come out of the pipe last in the 8.30 from Moore, North West Cachers handicap for male Ferrets - where the going was Heavy and whilst Foinavon collected his winnings, Chas and I decided to head off to find this cache in the pouring rain An empty coal train passed underneath us as we crossed the WCML bridge. We tried the first road but there was no path only a primary school so backtracked and tried the next path, this looked better and we were soon on the fields on a well made track, it was still chucking it down and after consulting the etrex I sent Chas into the trees whilst I decided to keep slightly drier and walked along the edge, to find a much wider better path towards the cache, Chas meanwhile emerged like a very wet David Bellamy from the undergrowth cursing me LOL he was soaked from brushing through all the wet tree branches. Our initial guess as to what tree the cache was hidden in was correct and Chas soon had the cache.
We returned via a diversion into the school grounds which was accessible through an unlocked gate from the field but all the gates onto the road were padlocked, returning to the fields we headed up to the next exit onto a lane, recrossed the WCML and back to the red lion, thoroughly soaked, but happy with our adventures.
Tftc
Iain the Bargee





Wed 25th November
Back in Warrington to attend a counselling session so dropped by to grab this cache.

Walton gardens overspill – wed 25th Nov
Dark as I pulled into lay-by by the canal, very quiet for 5pm no-one around.
Headed up the road towards wally gardens and waited for the gps to get a lock on the satellites, was taking a while due to the trees. Walked past the cottage and found the entrance into the overspill. Glanced back to check whether anyone was in sight and heard a harsh cry, looked up and a heron flew across the large moon, like the batman sign…… ooooh.
Headed onto the grass and then saw some movement in the moonlight in the centre of the park, I think it was a fox, it stopped as I spotted it and was about 20 metres away, though I could only see it as a dark shadow against the grass, it was too big to be a cat. Switched on my head torch to see if I could get a better look and the shadow turned away and loped away.
It was hard to see a way into the cache area in the dark but found one on the further side and headed in, went straight to the cache, but couldn’t spot it tucked under so expanded my search for another clue item but couldn’t spot one, so retried the first place and this time found it.
I love night caching in the country, it makes easier hides much harder and it is always quiet.
Tftc
Iain the bargee


Sat 28th November

On my way to a dentist appointment in Barnton scrape scrape of the teeth to look forward to so did some caching first to cheer me up.

Tatonine WMD OMG??? Sat 28th Nov
On my way to see the MD and noticed something strange so stopped to investigate, switched on my PDA and noticed the Pandemi had already spotted the same things, parked nearby and trying to look unobtrusive and like I belonged headed down the road and grabbed the cache, glad you hid the cache on this side of the railway as there were some strange dark side machinery in the yard beyond the bridge, they looked overgrown but could be just good camouflage.
Left my mark
Tftc
Iain the bargee

Shakerley mere 2 Sat 28th Nov
I can remember being brought here by my dad as a small kid 25-30 years ago to wander round the mere and walk our boxer, nice to revisit, and the M6 is just as noisy as I remember from then, today the paths seemed quiet as I wandered round with my two dogs but just as I got to 100’ away spotted 2 sets of dog walking muggles heading round towards me, so acted innocent, threw a stick for one of my dogs and waited for them to pass by.
Spotted the cache but couldn’t see an easy way in without crawling, in the end decided to walk in at the middle and reach through the branches to pull it out. Cache is in great condition, left my mark and replaced.
Tftc
Iain the bargee



Shakerley mere 1 Sat 28th Nov
After completing #2 headed on around the mere past a car park and some fishermen in tents and soon was within 100’ of the cache, cassiedog headed for the right tree but I searched 2 or 3 more before I noticed the hide, very very good.
TFTC
Iain the bargee

As I said I can remember Shakerley mere by the M6 just after Cheshire County Council opened it in the early 80s when we visited with my Dad, I have vivid memories of the noisy traffic hurtling past as there was no tree barrier between the mere and the m6 then or it was very small at the time.


Wed 2nd december 2009
2 caches on the edge of Cheadle, in the dark on the way to work, I was planning to do more of the series but the ground was too damp and I only had trainers on so decided to retire unmuddied .

Bruntwood bonanza – not so lonesome
Dawn raid found at 5.55am. Parked on Wilmslow road and walked back up to the A34 underpass to get to this cache. Moonlight was bright this morning and the area was deserted. Got down to 40’ before the gps became confused under the trees, my headtorch beam wasn’t quite bright enough to helpfully illuminate everything satisfactorily so I decided to hunt through the main trees, searched each one for 100’ down the path but soon realised I must have missed the cache, I then recalled the cache name and this narrowed down my search and soon spotted the cache at the first tree I searched, I originally had thought it was a shadow and my gloved hands hadn’t felt it. The problems of hunting for micros in the dark[;)]. I planned to continue round the series but after following the path through the trees and emerging 300’ from the pond cache straight into a waterlogged field, ik decided my inadequate footwear would make the whole experience unpleasant, so retraced my steps, grabbed Wilmslow road cache, and left for Yorkshire and work. Will return with more suitable footwear.
Tftc
Iain the bargee

Bruntwood bonanza – Wilmslow road.
Dawn raid found at 6.15am.
After not so lonesome pine and abandoning the rest of the series, I returned to my parked car on Wilmslow road and tried for this one. It is hard to spot dead trees in winter,[;)] in the dark,[;)] but the one with the cache is obviously dead and soon spotted the stone that hid the cache. Log book is too wet to sign.
TFTC
Iain the bargee

Thursday 3rd Dec 09

Mmm again been along time between posts, too busy, laptop meltdown, unable to access blog are just a few of the problems I have had.

Since last post we continued round the Cheshire ring and ended up back on the Macc canal for the rest of the year.

Also had a 2 week holiday in September where we did the Stourport ring, venturing onto the river Severn, great weather, and great canals and a lot of locks. Some 225 in total.

Caching I am over 2300 finds, way too many to mention, but some superb ones.

Walking I have had a few weeks off in October on the sick due to stress at work following a major accident, I have used the time to my advantage and have walked the first 3rd of the Pennine way, from Edale to Malham some 80miles over 7 days, all superb walking. Should post some pics but don't know if I will be able too.

Work

Well we completed our work at Hepworth gallery and then I moved onto Barnsley schools, very hard work building a new secondary school at Carlton, but then accident happened and it went a bit pear shaped for me. But now back at work in Normanton Wakefield at the Data centre to try and clear up problems with the drainage, to achieve handover.

Well will try and write more often

Friday 4th December 2009

Dawn raid to grab a cache near Kippax on the Leeds country way, wanted that cache as it had a tb in it for the miles apart cache which had information I needed on it, so mission accomplished with that. Planning to grab the miles apart a cache now I have coords then go home via Denby dale and Woodhead as the m62 is always bad on Fridays.

Leeds country way – little preston.
Dawn raid found at 6.45am.
Can’t believe its over a year since I was last on this path doing a coach road cache when we were tied up nearby at woodlesford lock. Thought that my caching in this area was over once I had finished the contract at the art gallery in wakefield, but after a spell at Barnsley I find myself at Normanton industrial state completing another building, so caching opportunities round here have returned. My reason for grabbing this one this morning was that I was after the miles apart tb as I’m aiming to complete that cache very soon, only 1 tb to go after today to get the required info. So that’s why I was here, but I made a complete hash of getting here, a real case of Poor planning produces poor
performance..( add the implied bad words yourself[;)]).
I for some reason thought little preston was separate to swillington so came in via kippax off the M1/A1 link, bit of a roundabout route. Got parked up eventually after rechecking the map and headed down the track, residents were just stirring but soon away from them, the moon was bright and the horizon was turning purple with the coming sunrise, so I didn’t use my torch as I could see quite well, that was until I got past the utilities compound and stood straight into the clear stream running down the centre of the track with the result of a sharp curse as the water soaked into my trainers… really should put my boots on for these trips…turned my torch on then to help me locate slightly drier ground.
I then found I’d left the scrap of paper with the coords and hint in the car and with no local caches uploaded on the PDA I had to resort to trusting that the gps arrow was very accurate, during the day I probably would have spotted the hide quite quickly but it took me a few trees and getting prickled by some vicious thorns before I spotted the likely place.
Grabbed it, grabbed the tb and replaced. Mission accomplished now back to car and off to work.
All good fun, I still love caching in the early morning.
Tftc
Iain the bargee
Took miles apart tb

Sat 5th December.
Yessss went home via miles apart A got the required distance to Boroughbridge then down M1 to Wakefield and along Denby dale road to Clayton west to check the distance for mile apart B as I hadn't noted it down when I grabbed that cache. And home via Denby dale, Hepworth, Woodhead and Glossop, whole thing took just over 2 hours, so about the same time as sitting on the M62.

Saturday was a lie in and then via Macc for library, and haircut to the Royles for Hallie's second birthday party, good fun, 14 or 15 very well behaved kids, no tantrums, highlights was them playing musical cushions and Caz forgetting to remove the cushions each time so the game went on and on.
All adults were suitably tired out.
Then a early dinner at the Golden pheasant in Plumley with a pint of john willies bitter and turkey with all the trimmings, went there to try out as a suitable place to take the relies for a early Christmas dinner in a couple of weeks.

Sunday 6th December
I didn't go to church; instead Cath and I drove up to Calderdale and Huddersfield crossing off potential houses. Which we did, really knocking Todmorden on the head as too far to commute from, but opening up Huddersfield around Milnsbridge as a possibility. Now lots more houses to look at. No caches today though.
Uploaded the memory map for Wakefield though so all systems go for grabbing caches on the way to work again. There are loads of new ones since last year. I have just worked out a mystery, magpie nest, so think that maybe the first one to be found. I may use the puzzle on a cache in Cheshire, also relooked at TV times but cannot identify 3 of the theme tunes, so put a request on nwcaching.com forum for help.

Tuesday 8th December
Tried to grab an A-road anarchy this morning but missed the layby and ended up on the M1 heading south so went off to work, stayed at Kat’s in Leeds for the night and was out for a Christmas do in Leeds.

Wednesday 9th December 2009

A-road anarchy A63 M1 jcn 4.

Missed the layby yesterday as I passed but spotted the entrance, so this morning whilst leaving leeds popped down past and back up and pulled in, spotted the brick holding the cache in place and reached in to retrieve it.
Tftc
Iain the bargee

Stayed the night at Kat’s in leeds so grabbed the a-road anarchy onm my way to Normanton in the morning. Also went for 2 caches at Lemo royd lock and a walk along the Aire. Lovely in the dawn light. Figured that noone would be rushing into work after the Christmas do last night so a wander caching was a good way of sobering up.

If it wasn’t for the towers.- DNF
Was hoping to grab this one this morning but when I first pulled up at 6.30am the tankers were leaving 1 after the other so decided to walk down past the lock to your other cache further down the Aire.
As my return route was along the east bank of the Aire I had to walk straight past the cache, the fuel depot was quiet and the green BW tug and 2 pan set by the lock just started its engine . I had hoped to see one of the tanker barges discharging its cargo at the wharf as I have yet to see one here even though they still make at least weekly deliveries to this depot. As I walked up the road to the bridge thought I would get a quiet moment to search but no a car pulled onto the bridge and parked on the crest right in front of where I assumed the cache was. was it a cacher? Or a fisherman? I had to walk past and down out of sight but he got out of his car and stood looking down towards the lock, by the time I got into the car he had driven off but I decided to leave this find to another day.
Iain the bargee
Ps, don’t understand the title of the cache.

Kids find
A very good walk along the banks of the ‘new cut’ of the Aire. We have cruised up and down here 8 or 10 times last winter whilst we were in the area on the boat, but I never got the opportunity to see it from the bank. When you are down on the water your view is restricted by the high flood banks, but you do get close to all the bird life, this stretch of river has so many swans, last time through we counted 40 between lemonroyd and allerton. Plus loads of migrating ducks.
Anyway the cache, it got brighter as I walked down from Lemonroyd lock as dawn broke and the sun rose, so didn’t need the torch as I found the cache, it was a little exposed but dry inside,
I took the tb.
I returned down the east bank looking out over the old opencast site. and was surprised to see the remains of one of the 2 old river locks abandoned in the 80s following the breach into the open cast and the rebuilding of the river on a new line and the construction of the existing Lemonroyd lock, the abandoned lock still had its white bollards. .
TFTC
Iain the bargee

I then had to go across to Warrington for a councelling session so after I had done that dropped in on Ackers pit in Grappenhall a pond that I can remember playing at in the early 80s as a kid.

AckersPit 1


Thursday10th December

I had made a decision to restart my morning caching and this was the first puzzle cache I attempted, I had worked it out a few days before in consultation with Cath who remembered the majority of the rhyme about magpies. And the calculated coords were not far from a road so decided to try or it by torchlight.

Magpie’s nest

Dawn raid found at 6.45am.
A nice little puzzle that I half completed on Monday morning only missing a couple of numbers but a quick search on the net and the 2 remaining numbers were obtained, so this morning, Thursday I found myself pulling off the M62 to go and grab this one, parked up on the quiet road and wisely as it turned out changed into my walking boots, onto the field behind the houses and picked up the path alongside the new wood/ plantation, this was thick clay mud and soon clogged my boot treads so I slipped and slid my way down the footpath towards the cache.
I inadvertently by accident rather than design washed the mud off one boot as I reached for the cache but luckily it didn’t go over the top and my foot stayed dry, Hard to squeeze my 6’3” frame in to reach the cache but got there and happy to find a large ammo box, exchanged TBs leaving Miles apart 1 tb and replaced the box.
TFTC
Iain the bargee


Wed 16th December
Designer footbridge
Attending a meeting in Castleford so once that was over decided to take my lunch break and wander down to the river. We have passed through Cas on the boat on the Aire and Calder but the lock cut bypasses this weir, though at least one barge has gone over it looking at the rusting hull below the weir. A very impressive bridge and a nicely hidden cache. TFTC
Iain the bargee

The meeting referred to in the log was at the building society to organise a mortgage approval, which was successful.
The bridge is impressive. This is one of the curves and it sits just below the weir on the Aire. Pic is not mine taken during the snow in January.
Christmas 2009

I got to meet my niece Charlotte Brenda Munn for the first time as Paul and Bea had come over from Switzerland for Christmas, she is gorgeous
They have invited us over in the summer so hopefully we will go.
Did quite a few caches including coppice camouflage

Sunday 3rd January 2010
Had a trip up to Kendal to look at the hills in the snow, only managed one cache as the snow was too deep to go exploring.

Off your trolley Kendal
Well an easy one as we stopped for fuel after the run up the m6 from Cheshire. Tftc
Iain the bargee

Few more done in between

Thursday 5th Jan 2010

Cath is off viewing houses in Huddersfield today 2 viewings booked. Both look good. Despite the weather she is determined to go over there.

Saturday 7th January 2010

I was expecting to attend Foinavon’s winter solstice meet climbing Cheetham close above Bolton in the dark to watch the dawn break but due to the extremely harsh snow and ice it was postponed for 2 weeks. But its cancellation enabled me to view the house cath saw on Thursday.

Monday 11th Jan

After viewing our new house in Huddersfield Cath rang in the offer this morning £5000 below asking price, they came back to meet us half way so £2500 off the house so we agreed and the house is ours barring any problems.

Tuesday 12th Jan 09
Stayed in Huddersfield hotel for the night to attend an event at the head of Steam pub at the station. Did this rather than stay all night in the pub then drive back to Poynton and the boat to get up again and drive back past Huddersfield to go to work. Plus it’s a great real ale barJ.
Event – uddersfield ogmany
Shoppers delight
St georges square

Also had to visit the estate agent to drop off the mortgage approval.

Thursday 14th Jan 09
Continuing with my New Year drive to find more caches in the mornings before work found 3 more in the snow.
At the 3rd I picked up a letter 1 tb which relates to the Postman Patsy has lost her post cache, so now I know how to solve it just have to find 3 more letters to get the coords.
If it wasn’t for the towers was an DNF from last year.

If it wasn’t for the towers – lemonroyd
Remembrance – woodlesford
Oulton Hall – woodlesford left neigh neigh tb took letter 1 tb

Friday 15th Jan09
Still snow on the ground but walked and grabbed 2 caches on the way to work.

Pylon View
Dawn raid found at 6.30am.
Have put off going for this one so many times in the past 2 years while I have been working in Wakefield, Barnsley and now Normanton that this morning I decided it was finally time to work out how to get to this one, normally pass by on my way into and out of Wakefield to the m62 and the end of the path never looked that inviting, today I came off the m62 and pulled up in the lay-by and sorted out the coords and decided to drive round and have a look at the other end of the path. The temperature was just below freezing and the minor road was a little icy but no-one around so I could slip and slide the car without worrying. Parked up on the dead end lane which was still snow covered, and after squeezing through the gap by the gate headed along the field following all the human and doggy footprints in the snow. Saw a couple of large rabbits, very east to spot as they were silhouetted against the snow, in fact the snow reflecting the light around made it very bright and I didn’t need my head torch until I got to the cache.
Armed with the hint I looked up and down above ground level for a few minutes discounting everything, then I thought maybe, what if, tried and my fingers found the cache. A brilliant hide, though how you found it in the first place worries me [;)]
Thanks for a great micro.
Iain the bargee

Clean & green #1
Dawn raid found at 6.50am
I drove as close as I could to get to this one and a short jaunt along snowy tracks to grab the box and drop off a letter tb.
Looked at this one on the map as we travelled past a few times up and down the Aire and Calder navigation last year but the lack of a bridge across the river made it impractical to grab the caches on this bank. Now the boat is back on the Cheshire side of the hills and I am commuting to work in Normanton found time this morning to detour off the m62 and grab this cache, easy find despite the snow still on the ground.
Tftc
Iain the bargee

And then 2 more on the way to Stanley Ferry to have a shower after work before going home.

PM
A655 drive by
Badge box

Saturday 16th January 2010

After a few weeks of snow and Ice and dark days and the cancellation last weekend of the winter solstice event, I was missing a walk at the weekend not having stretched my legs properly since a walk up Dovedale just before New Year. So after breakfast and a check that the cache was still live I took the dogs for a walk to find Middlewood way circular – rams clough cottage which is a mile and a half along the towpath, when I last looked for it 4-5 months back I couldn’t find it and things didn’t look to good at first again but I persevered and found it in the leaf litter on the 4th search.
Rather than return along the towpath I decided to go via some footpaths across the fields above the canal, it was a biting wind blowing off the moors above and the thaw was in full swing with all the snow now gone from the fields I was walking through though on the higher ground above it was still present. It was great to be on field footpaths again and striding along.
Returned to the boat and a quick change and into Macclesfield to a lunch at Pizza express with Cath’s Parents to tell them about the house. It all went surprisingly well.

Spent the afternoon driving across to The St.Rocco’s hospice shop in Warrington to look at second hand furniture, we want to furnish the house with second hand as we think it will be better and cheaper rather than spending a fortune at DFS. Found some great stuff already but before we buy anything wait for the official ok on the house.

Sunday 17th January 2010

A quiet day in with Cath trying to fix stuff on the computer.
We uploaded a new version of GSAK and then tried out Popup pirates newest version of Pupport which worked really well, a lot quicker than version 1.
Also at the meet in Huddersfield last Tuesday someone had mentioned a cache called Alphabet soup, so we searched GC.com and came up with it. Alpahbet soup-Yorks. A mystry cache, basicly the logging requirements are to find the cache and prove that you have found 26 caches,after the cache has been published, that each cache name begins with a separate letter of the alphabet. So we spent time trawling through our finds to see whether I qualify. Since the date given I am just missing X and Q, if from when I started I would qualify, so I have identified an X cache in Castleford and a Q cache in halifax that I can grab to qualify for the cache.
Doing this led onto the ‘Bingo’ caches of which there are afew based on the difficulty/ terrain grid, we worked out we qual;ify for team marzipans but still need tofind 18 caches to complete stonefielders nine squared.
A day was pleasantly wasted doing all this.


Monday 18th January 2010
Well a nice and easy Christmas has passed by and lots of snow and ice
We have been iced in on the Macclesfield canal from mid December, on the night of the first heavy snow (probably Thursday 17th December) the last boat came through; it was the coal boat Alton, low in the water filled with house coal and diesel. The snow was coming down heavily in the dark and we saw the headlight approaching from Bollington. The snow had settled on the ice so it looked like Alton was steering down a white road, the heavy boat was making seemingly easy work of the ice, which was around an inch thick, but after passing our boat it got stuck, as usual, under bridge 20 which is notoriously shallow, and clogged with leaves. The snow had settled all on the bow and the covers all the way down the boat looked a picture in the dark at it reversed and charged the bridge again and again, It would have got through after the 3rd run at the bridge if it wasn’t for the ice on the far side which brought the boat to a stand before it could clear the bridge properly and get into deeper water but each time it got a foot further so after 20 mins they made it through, even then they had to reverse a couple of times to break enough ice to get around the next corner. The steerer said he had been going all day from Bosley it was now 7.30, ice breaking all the way and was planning to tie up at Lyme view for the night. Last I saw was him disappearing round the corner with the heavy flakes falling steadily. Quite a thing to witness, wish I’d had the camera out.
After that the snow came down and the ice refroze and got thicker, Christmas passed with no boats and it was 31st after a slight thaw that Oberon came through heading for Marple, we were running low on water so after a quick discussion headed off, turning round at the winding hole by bridge 17 and smashing further the channel that Oberon had cleared for us. The journey up to Lord Vernon’s wharf still took us an hour longer than normal though as the iced sections were quite thick. Penny Peace also took the opportunity and arrived just after we did they had travelled from Bollington.
After filling with diesel and water we returned getting back to our spot in the dark, the ice was already reforming as we tied up, the Bollington Restaurant boat ‘White Nancy’ went through turned at Lyme view and passed back and that was the last boat we have seen.
The snow came down heavily a few times more and has only thawed off the towpath and fields yesterday, Sunday, but the cut is still frozen solid and no boats have moved.

House
We have bought a house in Huddersfield a large terrace so our sojourn of 12 years on the canal is coming to the end. If all goes well we should be moved in by the middle of February.

Caching
Yesterday we have updated our Stats and they currently as of this morning stand at 2368 found. We found 628 in 2009 which surprised me as I had some lean months through the summer, when work took up too much time.

So back to the caching this morning found 4 caches.
Lin dike 1,2 and 3 and letchmire logs below:
All around Castleford.

Monday 18th Jan
Lin dike 1
Dawn raid found at 6.15am,
A good run over the m62 from Cheshire meant I had time before going to work to grab a few caches, whilst I was over in this area on the boat 18 months ago I did a lot of the local caches but kept putting off going for these 3 as they were micros; I was so wrong to do so as they are 3 well engineered caches and I wish all micros were as good as these rather than a 35mm canister thrown down behind a fence post.
This first one took me a few mins to work out in the dark but after exhaustiong the obvious places felt around elsewhere and there it was very clever, it was only after doing the nearby ‘pylon view’ cache that I thought about this kind of hide.
Tftc
Iain the bargee

Lin dike 2
Dawn raid found at 6.25am
After finding the first cache I hoped I would be simarliy challenged and I wasn’t disappointed, dismissed the hide at forst while I examined the rest of the gate and posts before trying it and uncovering the well hidden cache. Some unfamiliar bird noises in the dark on the nearby flooded area. The lights of Castleford in front providing just enough light to see without my headtorch which I only used whilst searching. Night caching is great.
TFTC
Iain the bargee

Lin dike 3
Dawn raid found at 6.30am
A quick walk down to the last, the large impressive iron railway bridge over the calder was silhouetted in the lights from Castleford beyond. It is an impressive bridge that is sadly deteriorating after the coal trains stopped running.
This cache was the easiest find of the three.
Tftc
Iain the bargee

Letchmire
Dawn raid found at 7am.
Following 3 successful night finds at lin dyke I was in a confident mood so decided to detour to grab this one whilst I was here and made a hash of it.
The problems of night caching loomed large, in the daylight I wouldn’t have made the errors.
First I set off following the arrow on the path to the left not realising that there was no way across the deep drainage ditch behind the wooden fence, I walked all the way down to the corner before realising, in the daylight I would easily seen this.
Second, after returning to the start, headed through the cycle squeeze to the correct side of the ditch and wandered round the mire. Still a little bit of ice on the path by the overhead pylon but negotiated safely. Got to GZ and started to search, after 5mins fruitless searching widened the area but in the dark couldn’t see an obvious separate post in the trees, in the daylight I would have quickly discounted the woodland but in the darkness I had to have a look around to discount it.
The cache was finally uncovered on my 3rd pass along the fence, it had been well hidden by the last cachers and the tape on it camouflages it excellently.
Signed log and replaced and after a quick look about decided to retrace my steps rather than continuing the circuit around the mire.
I didn’t manage to negotiate the ice as successfully this time and my feet went from under me and I ended up on my back on the path[J], no harm done only my pride, first time I’ve slipped over during all the ice and weather we have been having in the last 5 weeks, checked my pockets that I hadn’t smashed the etrex, pda and phones, the only casualty was my head torch which the batteries had sprung out of, but after getting to the car I managed to repair it. Only thing was that now the seat of my trousers was very wet from the melting ice I had slipped and landed on but they soon dried out.
Tftc
Iain the bargee


Work
Currently still sorting drainage out at Wakefield data centre but should be transferring to Manchester Metrolink next week. Enough said really, don’t want to dwell on work to much.

Tuesday 19th January 2010


Looked for 5 caches found 3 of them
The 2 DNFs were black nanos, stupid to hunt for these in the dark!!

Two to go
Dawn raid at 6.25am
Quick drive by the first chance I’ve had without a truck parked next to the cache lay-by deserted this morning.
TFTC
Iain the bargee

St Johns corner
Dawn raid at 6.30am
Cleaner area than I was expecting so the find cheered me up and good to see a decent sized box.
tftc

Mane attraction-Dnf
Found the right place but couldn’t work out where it was hidden and I felt very dodgy wandering back and forth at 6.30 in the morning, so decided to leave it.

Lofthouse millennium garden
Dawn raid found at 6.45am
After a failure at main attraction came up here to restore my caching pride and did find the cache though it was lying on the ground with the log alongside very wet, looks like it had been like that all through the recent snow, rolled the log up and rehid the cache though it now needs maintenance.
Iain the bargee

Lofthouse cemetery drive by – dnf

Unsuccessful dawn raid-did not find at 7am
Looked all over the gates and the nearby signs in the dark, the coords were pointing me into the cemetery but by 30’ but couldn’t see anything in the foggy gloom to search apart from gravestones, so decided that hunting for a difficult nano in the early morning darkness and fog was a silly idea got back in the car and went to work.
Iain the bargee


Finished sorting out my Tb for the 2010 Nwcaching race. Had to take a picture of tag and print it out to make a copy of a lost tb tag, I wasn’t going to buy a new one after a previous one had gone missing. But all done and its ready for releasing into the wild on Feb 1st.

Wednesday 20th January 2010
Another early

X-treme factor
Dawn raid found at 6.30am, needed this cache to qualify for the Alphabet soup- Yorkshire cache only a Q cache to find now. Parked in a deserted KFC carpark, turned on gps and found I was 60’ away so grabbed the cache quickly but log was wet so didn’t unroll it.
The lesuire complex is not my cup of tea I’d rather get my kicks walking the hills, moors and fells of the North.
Tftc
Iain the bargee

Ponty 4
Dawn raid found at 6.40am, after finding x-scape I headed across the B&Q car park onto the perimeter path, wasn’t expecting the railway foot crossing, but you can see a long way and there were no trains passing at this early hour, crossed safely and then started to search for the cache, took way longer than it should of done then spotted it and took the tbs,
TFTC
Iain the bargee

Hilda’s view
Dawn raid found at 6.50am last of my 3 for this morning, up the bank from Ponty 4 decided to walk to this one rather than return to the car, found the path up onto the hill behind a row of parked trucks.
The path is soft, probably due to frost heave, these types of path always deteriorate after a heavy frost/ icy period.
Found cache after a quick sweep of the area. And signed log, good views appreciated then a jog down to KFC and the car and to work
TFTC
Iain the bargee

21st Jan 2009

Miles apart X
Dawn raid 1t 6.05am. after stumbling across the last tb that I needed yesterday with the coords for X, I decided to detour from my commute on the M62 and take an older road to pick up the info here. It Took 3 passes to get the info as was being followed on 2 of the passes even at this early hour. Email on its way.
Now to work out the final coords and then get up there and find it.
TFTC
Iain the bargee





22nd Jan 2009
An early start to the weekend with grabbing a cache on the way to work, probably my last round Castleford for a while as I’m due to leave the site I’m on in Normanton and transfer to the Metrolink works in Trafford Manchester.
Old Ferry view
Dawn raid.
Found at 6.30am
After a horrible wet journey over the hill from Cheshire through spray, heavy rain and fog arrived in Castelford early for work so nipped over here to grab this cache, parked at the end of the lane and wandered doen in the dark in the light drizzle. The first excavator drivers were just arriving at the site as I walked past but I saw no-one else all the way down to the river. I have passed this spot a few times on my boat last Christmas and seen muggles walking their dogs along the floodbank here and wondered how to get here as the trees stopped any mooring, so now I know.
Cache was found easily and I left a miles apart TB and a Geocoin.
TFTC
Iain The bargee

Stop press, following a meeting to run through the remaining works on site, the Powers that be have organised me to stay here another week, but trying to also carry oiut work for metrolink in my spare time, Oh Joy.

After getting home, Mrs B went out to stay in Glossop so I travelled over the hill to Whaley to empty loos and rubbish then continued down to Marple/ Chadkirk to pick up 6 caches along the river Goyt. Great fun in the dark, the river was swollen with all the rain and snow melt off the moors and was loud in the darkness. Finished at 9.30pm and back home by 10pm.
Loaded on caches for the pda for tomorrow mornings adventure.

23rd Jan 2009

The Postponed Solstice with the stones event was today, dragged my weary body out of bed at 4am and brewed up a flask, left at 5 to drive up to Bolton and find the meeting point at Last drop village, quite a few cachers already there and a good crowd as Foinavon called us to order.
Better conditions than last year’s freezing fog though still misty, Route finding a lot harder and I stuck with the backmarkers and we lost the main party very quickly and then missed the path across the golf course, arrived at the top of Cheetham close just after dawn as the Chinese lanterns were released.
The views were great as the top of the ridge was free from fog but all the lower ground was covered, A classic temperature inversion, the sun peeped over the fog bank as well, only peel tower above ramsbottom, scout moor wind turbines and winter hill and anglezarke moor were visible either side of us the valleys and the Mersey basin was one thick bank of fog. Loved it.
All too soon we descended back into the mist and picked up further caches including a couple at Turton towers, a great walk.
2 other event followed and a few more caches, the efforts over Friday and Saturday means I have passed 2400 caches ending on 2403. I should at this rate hit 3000 before the end of the year.

Sunday 24th January 2009

Spent Sunday logging caches from yesterday and playing games as the weather was foul and I needed a lie-in after the exertions of yesterday 24 caches found/attended.
We hunted for a board games shop so we could find upgrade packs fro Carcassonne and killer bunnies, 2 games we like playing, found an excellent web based shop which had them all.
Cath did a magnificent roast beef dinner as well. Yum yum.
The dogs were very quiet as well after yesterdays walk, enjoying their well earned rest, cassie coped well and wasn’t limping this morning at all. Only took them up the towpath for a run in the field.
Also watched Flightplan jodie fosters film which was quite enjoyable and restarted watching 24 season 7 and got to the halfway point when they have thwarted one attack but the next one is just beginning.


23rd February 2010
Whoah a month of no blogging… crazy crazy.mad, mad world
Its now the 23rd February and a very cold time it has been, ice and snow

Now moved jobs from Wakefield to Trafford Manchester on the metrolink so maybe that is why I haven’t kept this diary going just been busy with life and new site, though the caching hasn’t stopped.

Boat – well we got a patrol notice on the boat 2 weeks ago telling us to move on, probably the pre cruising season inspection but as we are effectively locked in on the top pound of the Macc and upper peak forest canal it felt a bit rich.
The canal is closed at Grund’s Aqueduct in Bollington and Marple locks were closed for a while, Bosley locks are still closed as is red bull Aqueduct, and the Rochdale 9 and Ashton locks are closed as well.
But all reopen by the end of March.
So we decided to head round to Whaley bridge over the weekend of 13th -14th Feb, very cold on the Saturday with a lot of ice which we were breaking until High Lane, tied up for the night at Swing bridge near Disley and went for a walk on Sunday morning grabbing FCol – burymewick cache, then a short run to Whaley bridge.
Stayed on the visitor moorings for the week then moved to Bugsworth basin on Saturday and then to Furness vale on Sunday in thick snow where we are now.

Caching Stat Attak

As of this morning numbers are up to 2461 so that means in 31 days I have found 58 caches, not a bad month really

Just been through my Stats and since new years I have found
Since end of November 150 caches
39 in December
68 in January
And 43 in February so far
At this rate of approx 50 a month that would be over 500 caches by year end still to find so still on course to get to the 3000 by 2011

Though maybe the new house will get in the way of that.

But back to today, -2degrees but felt colder and it was daylight as I pulled up and left the car on the edge of Stretford/ chorlton by the Mersey, strode out along the Mersey to grab Mersey stride 19 and 20 and Mersey book drop.
Logs below:

Mersey stride 19
Dawn Raid found at 6.45am
Found the beginning cache in Stockport a couple of weeks ago and then didn’t start working my way down the Mersey as the first couple appear to be missing. Today I decided as work is now quite close at Trafford bar I would start my assault on the series in reverse from the Stretford End.
After a false start found my way through the housing estate and under the Bridgewater and railway to park up in the car park, I was closely followed in by an early morning dog walker.
Headed off quickly to get way ahead of him and soon got down to the co-ords. The box was an easy find but as the previous DNF says it is completely empty.
Needs a bit of maintenance and probably relocating slightly.
Iain the bargee

Mersey Stride 20.
Dawn raid found at 6.55am
After finding #19 headed up onto the flood bank and down the frozen path, a heavy overnight frost again, the car said minus 2 degrees when I parked but felt colder with the slight breeze. Fully light now no need for a torch for the first time this year before 7am which made the walking easier.
I walked along keeping pace with a couple of Mallards that were drifting through the rapids on the Mersey but they stopped when the water calmed down and I carried on to the railway, and found the cache very easily.
TFTC
Iain the bargee

Mersey book drop
Dawn raid found at 7.00am
A quick circular walk taking in this cache and Mersey stride 19 and 20.
This was my last of the morning and was an easy find due to the excellent hint.
There was water in the box which I emptied out but the books were dry.
I took Catcher in the rye which I haven’t read and with the author dying last month thought it would be good for me to read this classic.
I have to return to grab some more caches in the area so will drop off a replacement book.
TFTC
Iain the bargee
:-:-:_:
Nice quick easy circuit and a taster of the hoards to come along the Mersey as Grandad John has set a full series of 20 and additional fill in caches from Stockport to Stretford.