Diary of a Dead Man

I was coming up to my 400th find and wanted a cache that would be memorable. On numerous occasions, various cachers have told me about a night cache called Zombie (GC2A3MP) and they all say the same... it is a must do. I have to agree; the puzzle element is very well put together and is difficult without being unsolvable. The physical part, although in need of a little maintenance - up to 30 fire tacks? We came across about ten - was still an enjoyable adventure.

As this was a milestone cache for me, I wanted to be a little creative with the log which - unsurprisingly - was a little too long for the Geocaching website and so I have made it into a blog post. Enjoy ;D

"Legend has it that lurking in the woods in a place called Croxley, is a man guarding a terrible secret. At least, he used to be a man until others greed and hunger for profit and power forced him to make a tremendous sacrifice. Tales of geocachers going missing in search of this tortured, soulless being are whispered in country pubs all over the Home Counties at Geocaching events. It was at one such get-together that I first encountered utterings of the tale of Dr. Elgin and discovered the existence of his journal. My curiosity piqued; I took it upon myself to investigate this story further.

Progress was slow at first; there is such secrecy surrounding what happened five years ago at Croxley Biomedical Research Facilities that distinguishing fact from fiction was proving to be a challenge. One thing I knew for certain though was that Elgin's Journal held the key to everything; I just had to gain access to it.

For many nights, I worked on the diaries, unlocking it piece by piece. I had mixed feelings as the story unfolded in front of me ranging from anger to empathy and then to doubt. Harbinger's zealous pursuit for riches led all those connected to the project down a devastating path of destruction. Was I being arrogant too? Was my thirst for the truth leading me down an equally dangerous path?

It was late one night when I uncovered the final piece of the puzzle. This was of little comfort however as I sat in a dark room with nothing but the glow of the laptop for light. What started out as a mere need to satisfy my curiosity had become an obligation, a duty, to protect all that Dr. Elgin has sacrificed himself for. I'm just a geocacher though, with only 399 finds to my name, what were my chances of survival against the undead?

Going alone to find Elgin would have been suicide so at a recent geocaching event I recruited a few other cachers to join me on my mission. They needed some guidance with the journal which I was happy to provide. After all, it was essential that they read it so as to understand the gravity of the task at hand. Nobody could go into this blind; too many lives were at stake.

Today was the day. Today I would help keep humanity a little safer for a little longer. All the necessary preparations had been done, a rendezvous time was set, we would reach the coordinates stated in the journal just after sunset. I tried to carry on as normal during the day and not think about the horrors that awaited us this evening but it was futile. The prospect that I may end up as Elgin's next meal was unsettling to say the least. The relentless rain hammering on the windows that day intensified the inauspicious feelings growing in my gut.

The rain had stopped by the time we got to Croxley. Whether or not this would turn out to be a good omen or not was yet to be seen. The woods were dark and unwelcoming; the mud thick beneath our feet. The fingers of tree branches dripped water like blood that spattered on our heads and for a moment I questioned the sanity of what we were about to do. Then I remembered that the future of mankind was at stake, secrecy about the project must remain intact. We were here to ensure that nobody had discovered Elgin or any of his work, just as other geocachers had done before us and many would do after us.

Negotiating our way through the woods proved to be problematic because there was no clear path for us to follow as promised. According to the stories, there should have been a "breadcrumb" trail left by Elgin to show the way but it appears that time has devoured them. Fearing that we were going round in circles, we retraced our steps to where we started. I called a friend, codename Smokeypugs, as I knew that they had undertaken this task before. Though his words were cryptic, his message was clear, we had to persevere in our search for Elgin, we were close, so very close. With a feeling of foreboding, we continued on our quest, still unsure about what we would find so deep in to the woods. And then we got separated.

The journey home was pensive, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I know now that nothing could have prepared us for what we saw that night. The smell, the sound, the sight of a man that once was. It will haunt my nightmares forever more. My encounter with Dr. Elgin invokes feelings of empathy as well as disgust and horror. It is imperative that the world does not learn of his whereabouts; if the virus ever got out it would mean the end of the world as we know it.

I am getting a little concerned now as Nigel's health doesn't seem to be improving…"

Mega Mud, Mega Monsters and a Mega Event

A couple of weekends ago, Nigel and I attended our first Mega-Event Cache and with it came a few more firsts for us that weekend. The 25th October saw us heading off to Wakerley Great Wood near Corby for the annual Halloween Mega 2014. A Mega-Event Cache is an Event Cache that is attended by 500+ people. This year, 1,339 adults and children descended on Wakerley Great Woods for a day of "Creepy Caches & Halloween Hides" and with over four and a half thousand favourite points given to the various caches by attendees, I think it is safe to say that everyone had a mega time that weekend.

With a potential 64 caches to find during the event, Nige and I were set to break our record for "most finds in a day". Okay, so this wasn't going to be a difficult record to break - our previous total was only seventeen - and the caches themselves were not going to be difficult hides, but we still found it a challenge. Not including the event itself, we found and logged 61 caches that day including 10 lab caches, a letterbox cache, an earthcache, a mystery cache and a multi cache!

It took us twelve hours and about fifteen miles of walking. I got covered in mud, I busted my knee, and I managed to smack my head pretty hard on a branch in the dark, mainly because of my stupid decision to wear this during the evening:

Never again!

At first it seemed like the Best Costume in the World Ever until we ventured out into the dark forest; I found that I couldn't see a damned thing and kept standing on my beard when ducking under branches. Despite all that we had an amazing weekend.

I nicknamed this little chap Bones

Attending an event of this magnitude shows just how diverse the geocaching population is. Young or old, two-legged humans or four-legged canines, alive or undead... we met them all. As we walked around from cache to cache, we kept bumping into people we had only just met that day and by the evening our brief "Howdies" to these strangers evolved into friendly banter and conversations of shared experiences. There was a sense of camaraderie that you rarely get at large events outside the geocaching world.

Everyone was so friendly; we had help from and gave help to many people throughout the day. We joined up with a group of zombies to help them solve the mystery cache, they were the slow moving George A. Romero kind though and we were on a mission so left them behind after a while. We had help from another group of cachers to find the multi cache and we worked together with others on the lab caches.

Heroic moment of the whole day though goes to Nigel and another man (whose name I didn't get). We were blessed with fantastic weather that day, being October I was expecting it to be either raining and/or cold, but within the woods the temperature was moderate enough that we didn't really need our jackets. However, the preceding week had been a bit of a wet one which transformed the area into swamp-like conditions that even Shrek would refuse to inhabit.

"You've got to be kidding!"

We had met a few people at the event that day that were in wheelchairs and mobility scooters and, all credit to them, they were getting about the woods remarkably well considering. However, conditions were anything but improving as darkness descended. We were walking along a particularly sloppy footpath when we heard a bit of a commotion behind us. We looked back to see a group of cachers that we had met earlier in the day. One of them was a lady in a mobility scooter, except it wasn't so mobile at the moment, it was wheel spinning in the mud and leaning precariously to one side. Just as the woman was about to receive a complementary Wakerley Wood face pack, Nigel and the unnamed man leapt into action through shin high mud and guided scooter and rider to sturdier ground!

Now onto the caches. Every single one of the unique cache containers were an amazing find and the organisers of the event, The Halloween Crew, deserve every single favourite point and then some for the effort they put into them all. There are too many to write about here so I shall just tell you about my favourite day and night caches from the event.

Spitting Sid - day cache.

It was approaching dinner time for me when we came across this cache so I didn't pay much attention to the name of it. Ground Zero was slightly of the beaten track, as were most of the caches throughout the day.

In my excitement at finding the container to be an ammo can - it's always a bit special to find one of these in the field - I rushed to open it up only for Spitting Sid to live up to his name! There was a mechanism inside the box that when opened caused Sid to squirt water right at his unsuspecting victim. Much to Nigel's amusement, I not only got wet retrieving the log but stupidly got another soaking putting it back!

Deady Bears Picnic - day cache.

This was the last of the day caches that we found. Whoever created this beautifully gruesome piece of brilliance has a twisted mind! I loved it! It's probably a good thing that all the caches were replaced with Tupperware containers at midnight; can you imagine coming across this whilst in the woods out on your own? You wouldn't want to stick around for long that's for sure. The log book accompanying this creepy little dude was concealed in his cup. Fortunately, this one had no nasty surprises when you opened it up.

MEGA HERTZ - night cache.

This was my second favourite cache of the whole day. A cache with a shocking twist! - I'm sorry, that was a terrible joke. This genius piece of engineering was far from terrible though. There was a box on the side of the chair that contained the log book. When opened, the chair started to 'charge up' and everyone nearby took a nervous step backwards. As the sound reached it's crescendo the poor soul in the chair began shaking violently and lit up like a lantern!

Even though this cache has made an appearance at previous Halloween Megas, it still remains a firm favourite amongst event goers.

MEGAPHOBIA - night cache.

As with most of the caches we seeked out during the day, there was a small crowd of cachers surrounding this one as we approached. Being small, I could not see what was up ahead, I didn't need to see it though to know that this find was going to be special.

As I wound my way through the gathering of people to get a look at the cache, a chilling sound arose from the darkness ahead. There were gasps and nervous laughter from all around me. I emerged from the crowd, looked up and stood in awe at what I could see above me. About 20 feet up in the trees was a giant spider hanging from it's web. The log book was inside the skull that you can see at the bottom of the photo.

We couldn't see how the sound and movement was activated, we guessed that it was when someone attempted to retrieve the log book. I kind of wish that there had been no other cachers there when we found this one as I bet this would have been super creepy to find on your own.

This was by far the most impressive cache for me at the event, not just for the fact that it was the most monstrously nightmarish hide there, but also because of the time, effort and skill to put something like this together. I have heard that it took about 3 hours just to put it in place!

That is definitely not something you would like to come across in the woods at the dead of night on your own! Except if you're a horror fan like me and think that, although scary, it would be awesome!

The above videos were filmed by Adam of caching trio the3maslankas. Please take a little time to visit his youtube channel by clicking here.

Overall, Nige and I had an amazing weekend, even though we couldn't move the next morning because we ached so much! If you have never been to the Halloween Mega Event before then I urge you to go next year... we definitely will be.

Earth, Wind and Fire Tacks

There has been a bit of a gap since I last posted as I have been quite busy lately. I have still found time for geocaching though whether it be out finding them, planning for days out or simply solving a few mystery caches. Let me apologise now if this is a bit of a long one, I do hope you read to the end though.

Sunday 12th October was International Earthcache Day. For those of you that don't know:

"An EarthCache is a special geological location people can visit to learn about a unique feature of the Earth. EarthCache pages include a set of educational notes along with coordinates. Visitors to EarthCaches can see how our planet has been shaped by geological processes, how we manage its resources and how scientists gather evidence. Typically, to log an EarthCache, you will have to provide answers to questions by observing the geological location. For more information about EarthCaches visit http://www.earthcache.org/."

Unfortunately for me, this was the same weekend as the final of the British Touring Car Championship. There was no way I was missing that but I also wanted the souvenir for finding an earthcache on that day.

So, I had to come up with a plan for our weekend away at Brands Hatch Racing Circuit that would have an earthcache squeezed in somewhere along the way. There were a few factors to consider given the time of year - namely, the shortening days and the wonderfully capricious British weather! Time was also a factor; it needed to be somewhere along the route to or from Brands and the D/T rating needed to be reasonably low. This was going to be a 'cache and dash' of sorts. I was a little disappointed at this prospect as I would have liked to have taken the time to appreciate the site of the earthcache I would be visiting, but... Touring Cars!

I had been formulating a plan for a few weeks - which, if you have read one of my previous posts, you will know that this is quite an achievement for me - our weekend away had arrived and I had an earthcache in my sights with two backup caches if my plan fell apart.

The cache I had found was just around the corner from the circuit and as an extra bonus it was a Church Micro. After a bit of research in the week (I love how educational these types of caches are) I had answers for the first two questions, the rest would be ascertained on our visit to the site.

Druids Hill Bend

Whilst sitting in the stands at Brands Hatch on Saturday watching the qualifying races, we discussed tactics for the next day. We decided that we would grab the cache early in the morning before heading back to the track as Inaccuweather told us the weather would be fine. This later proved to be the right decision as it was raining hard and getting dark when we left for home after the racing.

We got up early on Sunday morning. the scene that greeted us outside our hotel was amazing, however I am not a morning person - Nige will definitely attest to that - so I failed to get a photo. Our hotel was situated next to the River Medway; the sky was clear, the air was crisp but floating atop the river was a thick, white cloud of fog like someone had placed a wad of cotton wool on the surface water.

Our chosen cache was Church Micro 2372... West Kingsdown- St Edmund. To find out more about the Church Micro Series, by cacher sadexploration, then please click here. There were two locations that we had to go to for this cache; a motorway bridge over the M20 and the church itself. Thankfully the roads were quiet, so we stopped the car on the bridge en route to the church and I took the required elevation reading without getting out of the car.

We arrived at the church shortly after  and was pleased to find the area muggle free. I got to work gathering the information needed to log the cache, I was still very much asleep at this point - I cannot stress this enough, I do not do mornings - so when a lady materialised in front of me from within the church and asked me if I was here for the Sunday Service my only response was to stare at her blankly with a look of sheer horror on my face!

"I see you're taking notes" she indicated towards the paper and pen I was clutching.

Plausible explanations eluded me. I tried sending psychic 'Help Me!' thoughts to Nigel who was somewhere behind me but that didn't work. I think I mumbled a few words that certainly did not make a coherent sentence. For some reason, it felt like I had been caught doing something naughty, this was a holy place after all. The lady disappeared briefly and returned with something in her hand.

"It's a lovely building isn't it? Here, take this." she said as she handed me a postcard. Bidding us a good day she left us to return to her duties within the church.

After that awkward little moment, I gathered what information I could glean from the church and we headed off to watch some TOCA carnage. In between races, I continued researching chalk hills, flints and scarp slopes until I was confident I had all the right answers to log my find and aquire the souvenir for International Earthcache Day.

My Souvenir

The following weekend Nige and I decided to attempt a night cache. We thoroughly enjoyed the first one we did at Linford Wood and wanted to try one that was a little more challenging. There was one that I have had on my radar for a while now and being nearby in the forest of Ashridge, this was the perfect cache to choose.

I first tried to solve the puzzle part of Spirit of the Teine Sith when I started geocaching back in the summer. I was pretty sure I was looking for the coordinatess in the right place but I couldn't get a hit on geochecker. A couple of weeks ago, I was idly looking through my unsolved puzzles and came across this one again. On closer inspection of my numbers, I realised I had made a monumental mistake. Back onto google I went, making the necessary corrections and this time I got BINGO on geochecker!

Nige and I invited a couple of friends, Aravona and Dynadin, on this outing as it's their first night cache. A friend from the BBH Facebook group, mjcross, joined us for this adventure too. I'm so glad he did as this was only our second night cache and he gave us loads of tips that we never would have thought of like waypointing the markers as we went.

We rendezvoused at a small car park near the start of the trail. There were already a couple of cars there and we pondered as to whether they belonged to  geocachers on the same mission as us or if they belonged to a completely different kind of persons who frequent this forest. There was no movement from the cars and the windows were steam free so we deduced it was the former.

Following the trail was relatively simple. After a while though the trail seemed to go dead. We decided to back track and see if we had taken a wrong turn. Whilst contemplating alternative routes we saw some lights in the distance. Were they the Spirits of the Teine Sith come to guide us? No, it was a group of cachers out searching for the Spirits too. This was a first for Nige and I; we have never come across fellow cachers whilst out before. We had a bit of a chin wag and they kindly confirmed that we were going in the right direction.

Even by day Ashridge can be creepy as Hell!

On we went through the darkness and mud, encountering all sorts of wildlife like deer, beetles, centipedes and spiders! I've been to Ashridge many times during the day but night time transforms it into a different world. Conversation inevitably turned towards horror movies, at which point I realised I was bringing up the rear of the single file we had formed, I was a prime target for any Vorhees wannabes lurking in the darkness, like a shot I ran ahead past the others shouting: 

"It's not safe for me back there... I'm not a virgin!"

After much trekking across some interesting terrain we came to a likely spot for GZ. Whilst looking around for further markers I spotted the well hidden, huge cache. It was great to see it well stocked and in good condition. We signed the log and started back for the car with mjcross leading the way. This was an adventure in itself as, like me, mjcross likes to take the 'direct route'. If the GPSr says I can go straight through that wall, then I'm going straight through that wall!

Overall it took us about 2 hours to locate the cache and get back to the cars. This was an amazing experience and we all thoroughly enjoyed it.

The next day, Nige and I went out to Leighton Buzzard to complete a trail of caches called LB Sandpit Series. Even though the difficulty and terrain rating for the caches were low, the wind was blowing hard that day which made the 4.6 mile walk a little extra challenging. The scenic area was completely muggle free and we found the first few caches with ease. Our luck soon changed though.

I usually love doing trails of caches but for the first time since I began geocaching, I became a little fed up and disappointed with this series by the end of it. It wasn't because of the weather, the wind was tolerable as the sun was out and it was quite mild for the middle of October. The walk didn't bother me either; the trail we followed was beautiful with some great views despite the lack of discernible public footpaths at some points. 

I think what frustrated me most was that out of fifteen caches most of them were micros, had no hints and we logged five DNFs. Most of the ones we did find had naked logs - film pots are not waterproof - so most of them were damp or too wet to write on. On the bright side, it has taught me a lesson; if I ever set my own trail, I will use a variety of cache containers and not place a hide just for the sake of placing one to make up numbers along the trail.

I would like to end this post on a happy note so here is a picture of a rainbow that I took at Brands Hatch:

I wonder if there is a geocache at the end of that!

I laugh in the face of spiders (and then run away!)

I don't like walking without a purpose, I get bored of that quickly. That's one of the reasons I love geocaching. I could quite happily walk for miles to find a geocache. Everyone has their own reasons for getting outside and finding hides; it might be to find as many as possible, to complete the Alphanumeric Challenge, to claim the coveted title of FTF or one of many other personal goals. For me it is all about the adventure.

The majority of caches out there are relatively easy to find and are run of the mill. Don't get me wrong though, I appreciate every single one of those hides and fully understand the time and effort that goes into them. My own two caches are of the 'run of the mill' type. Each one has its own merits and each one is special in some way.

There are cache owners out there however that go completely above and beyond, some would say insanely so, but they do it in spectacular fashion.

Our mission last weekend was to find one of these "extreme" caches. These types of caches have cropped up in conversation many times when we talk to fellow cachers at events so our 'to do' list is steadily growing. Are You Afraid Of The Dark? is the cache that we had heard most about, so this is the one we decided to undertake. Seeing as it would be quite a drive to get there, we spent the night before looking for caches in the same area.

Sunday came round and we set off for Hoddesdon where today's adventure would start. We began with a small circuit of caches set in the woods consisting of eight traditionals and a multi bonus called HPW. Then we went into Hoddesdon itself to pick up a few in that area. The were all easy finds and served as a warm up for the more difficult ones later on.

So far so good. We had found eleven traditionals, a multi, a Travel Bug and a Geocoin. We were on a roll.

"So what's the next one?" asked Nige as we got to the car.

"A small series called 'Off Yer Trolley'. Seems simple enough, the first is a cache and dash in a supermarket car park. How hard can that be?" I replied.

As we arrived at GZ, we realised that this would be challenging to say the least, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway. Nige parked up, I jumped out of the car and headed to where my GPSr said the cache was just as a car parked up in the space next to it. I looked back at Nige, he just sat in the car laughing at me. I tried my best to have a look around but my attempt at being stealthy just made it look like I was checking cars out to boost! So before security was called on my suspicious behaviour, I ran back to the car. This was our first DNF of the day. We decided against the other two caches in that series, figuring we would encounter the same problem. Not to worry though as, we still had a church micro, a traditional and the main event to go for.

The traditional and the church micro were found without a fuss so we headed for our final cache of the day. Before continuing, I should tell you a little about the things that scare me. The list is quite short as I am not phased by an awful lot. My biggest fears are planes, dentists and spiders. So on with the cache, Are you afraid of the Dark.

We found a parking spot across the road from where we were told to start this cache. Crossing the road we found a gap in the bushes and ducked through. We had high expectations of this cache and as we climbed down to the tunnel entrance we were not disappointed. I shone my torch inside and the beam was swallowed by the darkness. As I stood in front of this pitch black tunnel, it suddenly occurred to me that this is exactly the sort of place that spiders like to call 'Home, Sweet Home'. I was here now so I just had to suck it up.

In we went. I led the way. We had heard from others that the tunnel has water running through it sometimes, but not today, it was just very slippery. Being a shorty, I had the advantage over Nigel and could walk through without stooping. On the downside, I was practically doing the splits trying to straddle the uneven brickwork on the ground. I shone my torch above me and that's when I saw Them. So many different types of spiders. On the walls, in the pipes, potentially on me! From that point on, I concentrated the beam of the torch at my feet. With logic that only makes sense to me, I figured that if I couldn't see Them then they weren't really there.

Sunlight had disappeared behind us and there was no sign of it ahead. I had no concept of how far we had travelled through the tunnel, it seemed never ending though. We stopped for a brief second and turned the torches off. The darkness was absolute. I don't have a problem with the dark and for a moment I forgot what was living in this tunnel.

We continued making steady progress and it wasn't long before we saw the end of the tunnel ahead. We emerged into the sunshine and I gave myself a mental high five for not freaking out about the spiders.

'I used to be a kickboxer. One of you hairy little suckers touches me and I'll slam you into next week!' I thought as I headed back into the tunnel. I lead the way again but this time I actually had to look for the cache which meant shining my torch on the walls and ceiling. This seemed to highlight every single spider in the tunnel. Every nook and cranny I looked in seemed to house a spider and they seemed to be getting bigger and uglier the further we went in. After a few sweeps of the torch, something caught my eye.

"It's here!" I shouted trying to contain the urge to jump up and down, thus cracking my head on the ceiling "you can retrieve it though cos I ain't touching it!".

I took a few steps back in case removing the cache from it's home unleashed an arachnid avalanche on my head. We signed the log and took the time to replace the container exactly as we had found it. It was time to head back up the tunnel. Nigel turned to me and asked

"What would you do if a velociraptor came up the tunnel right now?"

Yes, we have some strange conversations sometimes, but it's wise to have a plan for all types of eventualities. Before I could answer, however, we heard the cry of an animal. Now, I'm pretty sure it was a horse, but I wasn't leaving anything to chance and started back up the tunnel post haste... With Nigel behind me of course!

We finally emerged from the tunnel, triumphant and elated. We had done it! This cache took us to a new level of geocaching that we had yet to experience and straight away we started discussing the next one to go after.

A big thank you has to go to the cache owners, Noztradamus and JackNano, for taking the time and effort to hide this amazing cache. This is certainly one that we will not be forgetting any time soon and will definitely be recommending it to everyone.