GoldenPie - GC12W1F

Autumn Glory

I had to take my son Robert for his Driving Test Theory exam in Bolton at 8am today, so knowing I would have a hour or so to kill I decided to do some caching. It was still dark when we set off but we got there in 25 minutes from Tyldesley and found the Test Centre without any problem.

Queen's Park, Bolton

After dropping him I off I used my PDA to find the nearest cache and this was it. I entered the coordinates into my GPSr and set off to find the closest place to park to it which was on Chorley Old Road, more or less in front of some small entrance gates to Queen's Park.

The 'Pie Crust'

There was a lot of activity with men, machinery and vehicles near the gates I used and I thought it might be difficult to find the cache without being stared at. I saw the 'pie crust' very soon after walking into the park and then headed off away from it towards GZ. The items mentioned in the hint soon became evident and then it was only a matter of finding which one - it didn't take me too long and thankfully no-one was watching.

GoldenPie Cache

Once the admin was done I took some photos of a New Zealand Travel Bug called Jule's Quartz that was in the cache. A note asked for it not to be taken because the owner was coming to pick it up, but when I checked the logs that was in August and the TB was still here - maybe they've forgotten. I noted the TB tracking number so that I could log it anyway, but I missed the geocoin in the cache.  Ah well, I might return for it later.

Artistic or What?

I spent another 15 minutes in the park having a look round and taking some artistic pictures - well I think they're artistic, check out my blog and see what you think! It's a great place - the trees were wearing their autumn colours and the birds were singing like mad. As well the usual Magpies, Woodpigeons, Blackbirds and Carrion Crows I spotted some Long-tailed Tits and a Robin. I also think I might have heard the 'shrike' of a Jay, but I didn't actually see it.

Bridging the Gap

Then I headed off across the bridge for the second cache on my list: River Croal -  The Lost Arches. It was quite a surprise for me when I ended up walking past the Driving Test Centre, as I'd done a full circle without realising it. "Well, it will be easy to come back to pick Robert up" I thought.

River Croal in October

Blackleach Country Park - 1 - GC2FZ0A

After the previous three successful finds I decided to pick up the remaining two caches here which I'd missed being released over the last couple of days. As I walked round the south-eastern corner of the reservoir a series of fishing platforms came in to close view.

Today the water was very serene as I looked out from the platforms, but I can imagine in the height of summer it gets very busy with families and children.  And perhaps even the buzz of model boats being whizzed over the water by some men in their later years - this type of activity seems to have died out with the screenagers of today who seem to want instant gratification without any effort. 

The sign at the end of the platform made me think of my dad who sadly died much too early in June 2008. He would have liked it here because he used to build radio-controlled boats and gliders. When he resurrected an old model he'd built of the German warship Scharnhorst about ten years ago, we looked around for somewhere to sail it and ended up going to Moses Gate a little further up the road in Bolton. I can't imagine that he didn't know about this place but maybe it wasn't set up for boating then.

This cache was well hidden and it took me a couple of goes to find even using the hint. I took the wonderful 10-10-10 geocoin (I just couldn't resist) but sorry, I had nothing to leave today.  It's going to be hard to part with this but I think I'll put it in one my own Birdwatch caches sometime soon.

With just one more cache to go I set off on a leisurely stroll back along the eastern bank of the reservoir, taking photos on the way and generally enjoying the peace and quiet.