Chichester Trundle - Geocache

Me and Lewis decided to use our day off together to get some caches under our belt, there's been a series nearby that Lewis has done before with Kashpop that we hadn't done together. So on a nice cold November (also windy) day; we decided to go to the Trundle which happens to be on top of a hill. The Trundle is an Iron Age hill fort which is found right next to Goodwood Racecourse. The Trundle is a great place to go if you like views, especially at night time. The car park is layered so its great for sitting in your car and staring out into the distance. It ranges from Bognor all the way across to Portsmouth. 

Along the series each cache has a letter alongside a number which you need to collect in order to gain coordinates to a bonus cache at the end. If you forget there are two caches at the end which have all the coordinates (spoils the fun a little but still great if you forgot.)

#1 - 7 Points Ramble - The Rubbing House

The first cache is located near the car park, all of the caches in this series are in "obvious" spots; it just requires knowing the existence of the caches. I actually think the caches could easily be found by children exploring or climbing but perhaps because of the area people would only join in and not destroy the caches. 

The first cache may seem like a pile of Ivy but you'd be wrong!

#2 - 7 Points Ramble - Arboretum

 An easy spot, although we did walk past it because we were level with muggles and had to "stop" for a coffee break. We did this three times with the same person, probably made them feel quite uncomfortable but luckily we ended up getting ahead! I think the log book on this cache was quite wet and damp but someone had put some dry paper in there. Will need to tag for maintenance! 

#3 - 7 Points Ramble - Welcome to Westside

 All the caches are of decent size, with a few being big enough for trackables. They all seem to be well maintained and dry, luckily! 

#5 - 7 Points Ramble - Westside 2

#6- 7 Points Ramble - Wall gate

Reaching this cache we started to walk along side some crops, Lewis wasn't sure what they were because they were purple and I told him that carrots before the 17th century were actually purple! It was only until carrots were cultivated by the Dutch (by cross breeding red and yellow carrots) that they were orange. The whole field here on the other hand were purple carrots. 

 This cache was pretty close to a little door, just reminded me of the Secret Garden. Wonder where the door leads too! Probably more mysterious coloured fruit. 

#7 - 7 Points Ramble - Fence post

#8 - 7 Points Ramble - Tractor gate

 The hint for this cache was "This one will have you stumped, old timer!" It just takes a little think of what you're looking for!

#9 - 7 Points Ramble - Sycamore

#10 - 7 Points Ramble - Along the Bottom

#11 - 7 Points Ramble - Trail post

#12 - 7 Points Ramble - Top Gate

 Our walk was quite pleasant up until this point, hardly any wind. That was because you start to realise you're at the bottom of the hill and after this cache you have to get back up to the top. I really struggled getting up the hill with the wind against us and it was pretty cold that my knees were struggling to get me up! This is probably the hardest part of the walk if you struggle with hills; I'd definitely recommend going when it's warmer and less windy. Or you could even do the series backwards as I think coming down the hill earlier was more gradual and therefore might be easier to walk up. 

Although when you get to the top the view makes up for the work.. one man behind us even tried cycling up the hill! 

#13 - 7 Points Ramble - On the way back

#14 - 7 Points Ramble - Almost Home

This cache was covered in snails! I did have to take them off (sorry little snails) as I didn't want to break their shells when trying to take the lid off. They covered the cache so you couldn't get a grip on it! Not great if you don't like little slimey things! 

 These were all the caches in the series, we had collected all the co-ordinates along the way and just double checked them at the end. After we put them into our GPS we made our way to the final bonus cache!

#15 - 7 Points Ramble - Bonus cache

I'm not going to post the co-ordinates here as that just spoils any fun and makes it easier for people to just find the bonus cache. It does take you to the well-known Chalk Pit lane. Chalk Pit lane is one main indicators that this site was an Iron Age fort because of the perfect straight line down the hill to the town. Although it appears to be a straight road going down I believe you aren't allowed to drive down; even if you were to try you'd probably take the bottom of your car off. 

The final cache! 

The series took us 2 hours and 10 minutes including the hill struggle and stops for coffee and tea. We walked roughly 3 miles. Despite the cold you do warm up walking. It's a great series if you want a nice walk and views as well as easy caches. The multi-cache is easy to get so if you don't have many of those in your collection this is great to add another. We sadly found no trackables on this trip! We have another series completed and more caches gained!

Kingley Vale and Lizzard TB UPDATE

We went for an evening walk with Kashpop in Kingley Vale. The walk itself is quite large and the caches are spaced out very far and wide.

There is quite a large hill you can climb (at your own risk) it was pretty hard work as it goes steep. Luckily someone's made foot holes as you get higher and it makes climbing to the top easier. If you can get to the top the view is pretty amazing. Probably even better at night! (Sorry for poor quality photo, taken on my phone.)

SDGT Kingley Vale

By time we found the cache it was late and dark, especially inside the woods. We only managed to get one cache but it was fortunately big enough for the trackable, Lizzard, we wanted to move on from Bournemouth. We helped it move 47.28 miles. Probably our quickest move on a trackable! The site were the cache is located has some local history too so it's a great cache visit if you want to learn something about the local area.

It was a medium sized container great for swaps and easily could fit a few more trackables. It seems to be visited requently so hopefully the trackable gets moved on soon!

The Return, Chichester PART 2 - Geocache

Video of the cache.
Me and Lewis finally got around to finishing the last half of the series in Dell Quay-Chichester! The original plan was to eat lunch at the pub, Crown and Anchor, and then cache afterwards. How it actually turned out was we ate lunch outside and then literally as we started to walk the heavens opened and it chucked it down. So we did the caches to following day (without lunch). As far as the pub goes for food, it's great. It is a little costly compared to other pub lunches but you are paying for the location too. I had the fish and chips (costing £14) and the fish was cooked to perfection although I didn't enjoy the mushy peas mixed with mint. Lewis ordered a burger with cheese and bacon coming in at £12. The menu isn't massive (around 6 mains) but it's very nice to sit in the sun and enjoy a lunch. 

Our view eating lunch!

Back to geocaching! 

The Return 10

This cache took longer to find than it should have because the hint had some confusing extra info "Right hand side of path in 'V' of tree head height. ICT opposite "path" to defences edge ('X' marks the spot although not buried)." The cache was just simply in a tree but I still have no idea what the rest of the hint meant and we spent some time trying to figure out what ICT means in Caching slang..

The Return 11

Upon arriving at GZ we had a brief explore for this cache but were soon cut short after a couple came and literally sat about 30 meters away from the location. We didn't want to look too suspicious so carried on and found this one on the way back!

The Return 12

A simple find if you know what part of the edge to look over, I'd say it's relatively obvious from past people pushing back the plants! 

The Return 13

Lewis went down off of the path to find this one, although it's not as low down as you'd first assume. Sometimes I think we over complicate caches..

The Return 14

This cache is very well blended in, we spent a couple of minutes looking all around two posts. We assumed it would be at the base but the cache is actually hidden within ivy along the top!

Inside we found a trackable! FarmtagZ 2015 hasn't been traveling for very long but it started in Bretagne, France. It's only been in 4 caches and was exchanged at a meet and greet, quite a lucky trackable to get from France and England so quickly!

Number 15 in this series is a church mirco and after a previous attempt at a church micro between 11-12 we decided to just skip it out and come back another time to do both church mircos in one.

What Ammo Box

I found this cache without Lewis telling me when we were there, the entrance to the cache is obvious, too obvious that it makes me wonder how exploring kids and such haven't found this! It has a lot of swaps inside and now counts as our second ammo box! 

The Return 16

I'm not really sure why the series ran through the countryside and left the last one in a public place. It does return you back into Chichester but it's located at quite a high muggle area and if you're lurking around the tree you look awfully suspicious! The tree itself is right next to the Tesco Extra walkway so many people shopping walk past here. Luckily it was a Sunday and close to closing time so their weren't too many people passing by. We stopped for some refreshments to take on our journey back!

Big Green Ugly Thing

This last cache was so close by it wasn't worth leaving! It's found by the overpass to the train tracks and although I haven't got a picture of the big green ugly thing, it is in the video if you want to see it. This cache was a feely job rather than a seeing but it didn't take too long! Just have to be careful for muggles as they walk past to get over the tracks. 

The journey itself took us around 3.5 hours to walk there and back (forgot to reset GPS so just estimating) the total distance we walked (including off track of the series to get a church micro) was 3.84 miles - 6.1 km. We arrived about half 1 and got back home at half 5. It didn't seem like a long walk but it was quite warm! I guess we can't say we've finished this series as we have the church micro to do but for now we've done 99%! All the caches part of the series were small so easily fit trackables in and luckily enough for us we bagged another trackable!

The Return, Chichester - Geocache

After a while of not doing a series me and Lewis decided to head to Chichester Marina and start another series where the Lipchis canal series finished. it was also mine and Lewis' 1st year anniversary so it was nice to visit the location that our 2nd date (also the same day he asked me to be his boyfriend) took place! We only went from 1-9 as the series can be done in two parts, it's quite a big walk to do in one, we'll do the rest another time soon! 

You can watch the journey here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFjE5Ee2dKo

The Return 1

An easy cache but hard for your eyes to adjust too among the bush, it's right at the start of the footpath so I assume in the summer it's muggle central!

The Return 2

 A small container, easy to spot but I think my eye is just becoming well trained in spotting English trail caches! We also dropped of a trackable here that we picked up in Florence from Fort Belvedere, I shall also link to it's own travel blog update once completed. These caches have lovely logs, nice big notebooks that have lots of room to write the date and your name!

The Return 3

Slightly obvious to spot as the brick were unnaturally stacked by I suppose a passer by wouldn't suspect a thing!

Just a little further up you can see a small barn with lots of cows in. Not very exciting but it's a break from all the green lovely scenery!

The Return 4

 This cache was marked as under maintenance but checking the logs I saw that someone had fixed it, I added it to the GPS just in case it was there and behold it was! It was previously believed to be vandalised but it is kind of suspicious with some twigs stacked up on a tree. Perhaps the farmer was sick of people hanging around near his cows. 

The Return 5

At a 45 degree angle.. I wonder where it could be!

In among some stinging nettles of course.

The Return 6

 A nice little co-ordinates cache (multi-cache). I did wonder how there would be one at first when it was just open field after open field and then there was this random sign in the middle of no where to get the answers to the questions! It's about the Airfield, gives you something to learn along the walk. 

After putting in the co-ordinates you can easily find the cache hidden away, there were lots of little mice running around, they must have been protecting the cache from any more vandals! 

The Return 7

High in a tree, easy to see and probably a bit odd to anyone who spots it. A random box in a tree! It did have a one off signature in it that wasn't in the previous cache or the one after so maybe someone spotted it and decided to add their name.

The Return 8

 Hiding lower in a tree this time, not as easy to spot as it's tucked away but still an easy find!

Reaching Dell Quay and it was quite a nice view, not so much the smell though. It was a very sunny day and seemed to be hotter than when we set off. Very nice place that I haven't visited before, we plan to park up here when we continue the caches.

The Return 9

 Last for the day but not least! Hidden in a overgrowth behind a post, tucked away and probably the most well hidden cache so far. 

 #9 is located right by this pub, The Crown & Anchor. It looked lovely inside but we already had dinner plans so sadly didn't go inside. It was such a beautiful day with no breeze and the view from the pub was great! The seats outside looked like they had an even better view but if you plan on stopping by and it's not very nice weather you'd still get a great view inside. (Slightly expensive with cod and chips costing £14 but I bet it taste great!)

 We headed back to the Marina after 9 and then went and enjoyed a nice Indian, where we also ate on our date. We ended up walking for 56 minutes one way and that was 3.7km - 2.2 miles but Lewis turned of the GPS so the total distance would be an average of 3 miles as we walked a shorter footpath back! The first photo was taken at half past 2 and the last video was shot at quarter to 5 so  we were out for 2 hours and 15 minutes. I'd estimate we walked for about an hour and 45 minutes there and back! It was lovely day, with nice and easy caches. They were all small containers so made for nice trades and trackables. Will be nice to finish the series!