I wanted a memorable cache for my 200th find and as I'd been told Doffcocker Lodge was good for bird watching, sarahjones65 and I decided to make it this one. We came in the car from the 'Red Rose Forest' cache at Rumworth Lodge, where we hadn't seen any birds other than a few Mallards and Black-headed Gulls. After parking in a nearby housing estate we were quickly walking through an entrance gate and down to the Lodge.
Soon we could see that the main lodge was split in two by a causeway, and I remembered that someone had told me that this was a good place from which to photograph ducks and other water fowl. Unfortunately not today, there was very little here except for the odd Coot and Mallard. So we continued along the circular route around the Lodge to find the cache. As we approached GZ the muggle count suddenly increased, and although I spotted a likely place, we had to walk past it to avoid suspicion. As I had my camera out it just looked as if I was taking pictures of the ducks and geese. When everyone had gone, we snook back to GZ and had soon found the large cache container under a tell-tale pile of newly-laid sticks, just where I had guessed it would be.
The contents of the cache were a little damp, but Sarah managed to sign the log whilst I took some pictures of a nesting coot which started its alarm call the minute I approached. Then we walked round the rest of the Lodge to get back to the car and on the way saw Canada Geese, Snow Geese, Mallards, Black-headed Gulls, Mute Swans, Moorhens and (my favourite) Great Crested Grebes. A great place to come back to later in the year.
Out for a quick one with sarahjones65, we drove down the cobbled Lock Lane from Hunger Hill and had our bones shaken up quite a bit, not to mention our car. Turning right at the bottom we entered the very 'posh and expensive' looking area of Lostock and soon found our way to Ladybridge Football club. At this point we parked in the club car park and made our way to the public footpath a little further down the road.
Walking along the gravel path, it soon diverged and so I took the high road whilst Sarah took the low. It wasn't long before we were at GZ and looking for the cache. Unfortunately, our GPSr made the location about 50 feet away from where we actually found it, and that's the second time it's been so far out in week - I need to check that I haven't messed up the GPSr settings somehow and that's why my normally quite good readings have recently been wrong.
After signing the rather soggy log, we took the Russian badge from St. Petersburg badge and left a cute little Garfied the Travel Gnome geocoin. Sarah wanted to carry on further up the path but we didn't have time today, and so we'll mark it as one to come back to in the summer and do a spot of birdwatching on Rumworth Lodge. A great place.
After using an old copy of a cache list on my PDA and wasting my time looking for No. 14 in this series (which has obviously gone now), I headed up and along the canal for this one, only to find that in my grumpiness I had set off the wrong way. The hint mentioned that the cache was at the end of the canal, and I was heading to the wrong end at first. I actually think I was technically 'right' as the cache location isn't actually at the 'end' of the canal, it's just where the canal has become blocked by reeds and other rubbish. The line of the canal carries on to Bury even though it's no longer navigable everywhere.
Nevermind, it was a beautiful day and so the walk was very pleasant and, after changing direction, I soon came to a row of houses and other buildings on the canal bank. In the distance I could see where the canal had become blocked and there were some swans sitting on the vegetation that had filled it. As I walked past the last building I quickly found the cache, but there was no pen or pencil in it and so I couldn't sign the log today. Instead I took a picture of the cache to prove I'd been there and then went on to take some pictures of the swans, who had built a nest in the reed beds and rubbish!
I may return to sign the brand spanking new log that's been put there, just to get my name on first!
Anyway, after locating the items mentioned in the hint I found the 'spider bridge' quite quickly. I made the coordinates to be nearly 50ft away from where my GPSr said it should be. Here's what I made GZ to be if anyone's interested: N53 33.469 W002 22.889. There were quite a few muggles around to day as it was a beautiful day, but I just pretended to be interested in the flora and fauna as I rummidged around in the undergrowth. I did nearly give up, but thankfully persevered for that 'one last look'.
We walked back down to the crossroads to look for the cache and could soon see the item mentioned in the hint. After a quick look round we weren't at all sure the cache was there, but due to the traffic lights cars were stopping on the road very close to us and so we found it hard to have a good look. Eventually Sarah did locate the cache when the lights turned green and the cars starting moving. She got it out with a stick and signed the log, and then I stood in the way of the onlooking traffic as she put it back.
With the excitement over, I took a few piccies of some nice buildings and the canal stretching off towards Manchester United's football ground at Old Trafford in the distance and then we headed for home.
On our third cache out in Altrincham today we had a couple of problems - first of all we used the coordinates at the top of the page before spotting the change lower down in the logs. Luckily I had downloaded the logs to my PDA phone or else we would have been stumped at this point. Hopefully the cache owner can have this changed to avoid confusion for others.
With the new coordinates in the GPSr we had no problem finding the first cache in this lovely park. Secondly, we couldn't find the final cache but did find a page from the log book. It had the owner's geocaching name on it and the name of the cache. However, we couldn't find any other remains of the cache, so it may well have gone missing.
During our hunt to find the second cache we were frequently seen by muggles, including a pair of pensioners sitting on a bench directly facing the cache. After a quick look round GZ we decided to wait until they left before having a more thorough examination of the area. One of the park gardeners who was cutting the grass even came over to us and asked if were alright.
I decided to explain what we were doing and a little bit about geocaching at this point. She told me that she'd seen others doing similar things in these bushes and had wondered if they were doing something suspicious like hiding a dead body! I told her it was just a bit of fun and was nothing to do with drugs or crime and she left us to carry happily reassured (I hope)
A maintenance visit would be useful to check if the cache is still there and we just missed it - but we did have a good look through the leaf litter and in some of the other bushes. In spite of all this we're going to log it as a find, even though we didn't actually sign the logbook or find the container - I can send a picture of the log book paper with the owner's name and writing on it if required.
