Dartmoor Geocaching

Judy and I had signed up weeks ago for The Forgetful Elephants’ Leaping into Leap Day event and Hobo & Miss’s Leaping on the Green event and then we made a late decision to also go to Exeter for Stuey’s Get Your Caching Fix on Day 366! event!  So it would be a very hectic day.  But not only that, last week I had contacted Kit & Buster to ask if they would mind if I placed some caches for their event – and I had done nothing about it!

The Bullseye Stone Near Windy post

So yesterday, Judy and I explored the area around the Cox Tor car park, to see what we could do.  I thought it probably needed 4 or 5 caches including some sort of bonus on an easy walk of about 2 miles.  The route was not difficult to plan, but placing caches was as I had to dodge 2 or 3 existing caches (including a puzzle cache with unknown coordinates) and I also wanted something interesting that would keep a group of cachers busy for an hour or two.  We eventually decided the locations for all of the caches including a couple which we thought a group might find interesting, plus a revived cache for Windy Post and a bonus cache.  Next, all the locations had to be checked with the reviewer,  5 cache descriptions submitted for a timed publication at 9pm today and the clues for the bonus cache calculated!

All that was achieved yesterday, so today all I had to do was to finalise the caches, insert the bonus information and go and place them in the agreed locations.  Easy!  And now an early night for that 6am start tomorrow and hopefully lots of fun!

There was I being really good and doing some maintenance on our rooms, when up rushes Judy to tell me that a cache has been published only a couple of miles away! By the time I looked another 2 had appeared and it was evident that muddypuddles had been at it again! So straight into the car and up to the Warren House Inn – and Judy thought we were going caching!

Dartmoor Forest Millennium Boundary Stone on the Corner of Soussons Forest

Before attempting the new caches, I realised that one had been placed very close to the Warren House Inn a week before and it still hadn’t been found – it really was a c&d!  So we found that one first and then set off for the other 3.

The first was at Soussons Down which we walked to from the pub, spotting this new Dartmoor Forest boundary stone on the corner of the forest.  We then drove and walked to the other two caches.

So, with 4 FTFs not a bad afternoon’s work, but little maintenance done on our rooms!

I’m normally much more interested in quality caches than pure numbers, but there are so few quality caches and they are scattered about.  We are fortunate that living on the moor we can largely ignore urban caches and c&ds and concentrate on the many  good caches around Dartmoor.  But today we needed to boost our numbers and decided that we would start with one of the newer series and follow it with as many c&ds, etc. that we could fit into daylight hours.

Teignmouth and Shaldon from the Postman's Path

We set off for Ideford and completed the excellent Ideford Common series before gradually moving south to Bishopsteignton, then south-east to Shaldon before ending up at Teignmouth. None of these places we had ever visited before and we were really impressed by this new area that once again we had found by geocaching.   In total we found 25 caches of varying quality and interest, but all had to be placed by their owners and I would thank them all.  And we wrote a unique log for each!

We ended the day by amazingly finding an excellent fish and chip shop open on a Sunday evening in February.  Even more amazing was that while sitting and eating our fish and chips I suddenly realised that there was a cache almost right outside the door.  So we found our 25th cache of the day!

Today was a Dartmoor Dave solo day!  A day to wander into the most remote part of the moor, walking using map & compass only, in as straight a line as the bogs would allow!  The main motivation for today’s trek were the new Hobo & Miss Kneeset Triangle caches, and of course to knock off a few more Dartmoor Forest caches.

Okement River Valley from Great Kneeset

The day started really well with easy finds on most of the caches, the highlight of the day being the Kneeset Triangle.  Somehow I have missed this little bit of the moor and was very impressed by the scenery and the Okement River valley.  Unfortunately the day was not conducive to decent photography, but I did manage a couple of the Okement valley.  The Kneeset Triangle caches were very enjoyable and the bonus cache well worth the effort. Highly recommended if you are prepared to walk into this remote part of the moor.

The day went rapidly downhill after Kneeset with a difficult river crossing, a steep climb, a DNF at the very boggy Stenga Tor and the last two and a half miles by torchlight.  But, still a very enjoyable day with 11 of my targeted 14 caches found with 1 DNF on a trek of over 13 miles taking 10 hours!

Muddypuddles has been placing Dartmoor Forest caches quicker than we can find them, but one of the latest ones is not too far away.  The Dartmeet cache has been there for over a week now and still nobody has dared to venture across the stepping stones that the West Dart is rushing over!  But now there is one near Saddle Bridge and it’s not that far from Dartmeet, so a nice little walk brings us two FTF’s and two more crossed off from the series.

We’ve been planning a new little series of our own and wanted to do something a bit different from my usual clip & lock boxes shoved under rocks.  So we’ve called it Expect the Unexpected and I placed the first in the series near Saddle Bridge.  I have to be honest and admit that this series has been inspired by the wonderful Joy of Caching series and my thanks to Kit and Buster for that.  Hopefully you will enjoy these as much.

We’ve geocached on Dartmoor for nearly two years and have yet to visit the shrine of Dartmoor geocaching at Woolwell.  So today we decided that we must make the pilgrimage to the “bin”, which would also give us the chance to pick up a few other local caches we had been avoiding for far too long.

The “bin” must be the largest cache I’ve yet seen and wasn’t particularly well hidden!  But it’s well worth the visit for the hospitality which we were afforded.  In fact we spent a very enjoyable hour or so with Yvonne and Stephen drinking coffee and chatting about our hobby.  As I said in my log, thanks for the 3 C’s (cache, coffee & chat)!

We took the opportunity to pick up 3 more of the Plymouth Airport – DASH series, a little series that so far has been well worth doing, but we still have a couple more to find.  We also took in the Plymouth Travel Bug Hotel, another cache that’s worth the effort if you are in the area.

Yes, we are now back up and running.  Judy and I managed to get out yesterday to place a new cache on Hanger Down on an unbelievably cold day.  The temperature was about -6C and the windchill must have taken it down to -12C.  I don’t think I have ever been so cold on Dartmoor before.  However, it’s a great place to come with wonderful views in all directions and we also took in the nearby Hanger Down Clump cache.  Certainly worth the visit here.

Dartymoor’s first attempt at placing a new cache for us unfortunately failed as he discovered he needed extra permission in the location he had chosen.  But he got back out there today to place a new cache on the eastern edge of Haytor Down.  Many thanks to Simon for placing this cache and I have therefore re-enabled the Dartmoor Mega Challenge!

The six missing caches for the Dartmoor Mega Challenge were all on the outer areas of the National park, and of course not close to each other. One in the west, three in the north and north-east, one in the south-east and one in the south-west!  Yesterday I asked dartymoor if he could kindly place the south-east one, so Judy and I set off northwards today to place the missing three in that direction.

Our first planned placement was a definite no go, a public footpath through very obviously private farmland.  Then Judy spotted a tiny common on the map at Fire Stone Cross, so we raced across to there.  The next was placed to plan down a lovely bridleway at Crockernwell before driving around to Cristow where we found a wonderful little brook tumbling down into the village and placed our last cache by a little ford.  We had never visited this part of the moor before and were very surprised at how beautiful it was and how hilly.

We had hoped to find a few caches as well, but ran out of time, although we did manage to find a delightful cache right on top of Heltor Rock, a cache which hadn’t been found since last May!  So, a very successful day.

“Where?” you might ask!  Whilst I have been trying to sort out the Dartmoor Challenge caches, muddypuddles has been very busy with his new Dartmoor Forest series and new caches have been springing up all over the moor, some with the strangest of names.

Boundary Stone Near Wester Redlake Head

Today I decided it was time to go for some of his more remote caches and also to extend my own Lych Way series further to the west.  So I set off from Bagga Tor not realising that this part of the moor had had more snow than other parts and had drifted right over one of the new caches, making it impossible to find.  But a really great day to be out on the moor, only 2 caches found, but 3 new ones placed on a trek of over 7 miles.

Having wasted so much time with the the two Dartmoor Challenge Caches it was time to ascertain where we were and what needed to be done.  Yesterday I confirmed that all caches were in place for the Minor Challenge (and re-enabled the cache) and that 6 new caches were needed for the Mega Challenge.  So today we chose the nearest area needing a new cache and drove there not only to place one new cache but to find some that had been on the to do list for some time.

Brent Tor Church

Surprisingly I have lived on Dartmoor for 30 months and have never visited Brent Tor Church. It is an amazing location with wonderful views in all directions, especially on a clear day like today, and one I would strongly recommend.   We then placed a new Never Say Never cache nearby.  If you don’t understand what this refers to, you will have to take a look at my profile!