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Quietly ticked over 1,000 doing the southern loop of the Parramble trail today. Glad I chose that loop for my milestone, it’s been great so far. Wrong moor, though!
Congratulations Dartymoor, you now qualify for my top UK Rankings list (at least when I next get a chance to update it ;))
Well done Dartymoor. Good to see you up north!
I can recommend the Parramble loops (No 1 being GC350WP) to anyone attempting the challenge of 100+ caches in a single day. I notice someone managed the 150 in a day a couple of weeks ago. The Parramble is one of two sets of over 100 caches each set out by Kevham1 and CeeKay1. Together they have over 400 active caches – amazing.
Yes, GH – I saw the logs of the guy who did 150. Started at dawn, still going at night. 5 or 6 hours hard walking is enough for me!
Dartymoor, will you do some sort of write-up for these Parramble Trails please. I’ve looked at them several times and can’t decide whether it’s the type of walk/geocaching I want to do. The longest loops I’ve done are only about 20 caches and I normally get bored before I get to the end of those and I’m not certain if I could face 40 or 50 on such a short walk. Obviously depends on the quality of the caches and how difficult they are to find. I would also not be looking forward to logging them afterwards. I hate the TFTC logs and normally write 2 or 3 sentences on each cache but surely you can’t do that on 40 or 50? You would certainly have to make lots of notes.
The other question is, of course, would we want to see these sort of loops on Dartmoor? I know of at least one person who posts here who wouldn’t and on this occasion I would probably agree with him.
Congratulations Dartymoor, it’s a big milestone to get.
I did the Way Down West loop last year, with 110 caches in one day. I started off at 6AM, and it took about 12 hours if memory serves. The thing you tend to forget about this type of series is the sheer amount of time processing the caches takes. You might look at the map, and say to yourself, “only 20 miles, won’t take too long”. If you allow 2 minutes to find, extract, sign and replace each cache, which is probably an optimistic amount of time for some caches, the WDW series I did meant I spent around 3.5 hours of that 12 just processing the caches!
I too really don’t like TFTC logs, and even on a long series try to write something unique about each individual cache, so I made notes as I went round. They do tend to blur into each other after a while, so there’s really no other way.
Dave – I would like to see these trails on ‘my’ moor, very much.
WDW is mostly film pots and small clip-tops, not huge variety. Parramble has a huge variety of containers, unusual in anything other than a short trail. All of kevham1’s caches are well maintained, with missings being tended to within a short period, and I found all of WDW and all but one of two loops of Parramble (the DNF – we were the first to log, and it was replaced a week later)
In every case the clue is clear, useful, and the coords are bang on.
If you wanted to sample one, I’d say do a few of Parramble first, see how it goes.
Didn’t do a write up as not on Dartmoor…
GH – “only twenty miles”… 12 is about my comfort level, after that my legs go a little jellyish… (17 and a half stone, y’see) I’m also rubbish about stopping often enough, usually going 3-4 hours without a break, and then only a quarter hour or so. I average about 2mph that way, including finding and logging, but obviously dependant on terrain.
I too hate TFTC (or at least, only use them to avoid saying something bad!), and if I sit down (with a cup of hot chocolate) immediately after the walk, I can re-live even these longer trails quite clearly. I occasionally put a brief comment on my gpsr – such as “Fave” to remind myself to mark one as such, or “Bull too close”, “Untidy farm” to remind myself of something noteworthy along the way.
Usually after I’ve logged I crash out for a couple of hours in the afternoon…
Oh, and DD – if I’m comparing. As I’ve said a few times in here, geocaching for me is mostly about the walk. Exploring new areas. These trails give a structured walk with some numbers thrown in. They push most of my buttons for caching and why I’ve spent an awful lot of time on the M5 and North Devon Link this summer as most of the long ones seem to be in North Devon.
Parramble has superb views; crosses part of the open moor of Exmoor and has more footpath than road. Parking can be an issue but you’ll find somewhere. My favourite views were at the top end down across the coast towards Valley of the Rocks.
WDW – Huge sense of achievement on completing without a DNF. Much more roadwork, two untidy farms, wetter underfoot generally. Some great views, along the north side, and the wind turbines do overpower one – the noise on even a slightly windy day was enough for me to not be able to hear traffic in the lanes. I was fairly ambivalent about them, but that walk polarised my view of the things – although from the logs, others walk away loving them!
On both – that underlying smell of cow muck that N Devon seems to specialise in…
I only did part of the Parramble in one attempt to qualify for the ‘100 in a day challenge’. I divided my effort into three sections that would otherwise have been completed on three seperate days. With all due respect to Kev and Chris, the hides are not difficult to find but at times are amusing. Definitely family fun. On my own, I managed a cache every six minutes for 10 hours. Fiddling to open and close the plastic wallet seals was a chore! I’m pleased you managed to have time to enjoy the views which range from Dartmoor to South Wales. Logging was also done in three sesions. I think I wrote something different regarding each cache and, of course, Greasemonkey helps with the signature, etc..
Sorry about the cow dung! It happens!! GH.
It seems to me that it’s back to the old question “It’s all about the numbers!”
Mark Twain once described golf as “A good walk spoiled” and dartymoor says “geocaching for me is mostly about the walk”. So how many caches per mile spoil the walk? What is the optimum number?
If the terrain is brilliant (like most of Dartmoor) then I prefer one cache about every half mile to one mile and that is what I placed on both the Walk on the Wild Side and Heads of the River Trek series. If the terrain is not so brilliant then one every quarter mile is fine. Loopy Around Lifton is close to that having 21 caches in 4.2 miles. But more frequent than that? The Parramble Trails have a cache about every 200m which is about 7 or 8 per mile and getting close to the minimum spacing allowed.
We recently managed to escape for a couple of days and had a choice of where to go reasonably close to Dartmoor. Both times we chose the coast path, first from Tintagel to Boscastle and then from Boscastle to Crackington. These are two brilliant series of caches by SMacB with dramatic views, but usefully spaced caches at about half mile intervals. We could have gone for the numbers but chose instead the quality. We are looking forward to returning for the Crackington & Beyond series. The numbers on these series certainly don’t spoil the walk!
Thanks Phil. Well timed as I completed Parramble yesterday – 3 days’ worth, plus another two series near to it (Hunters’ Hike is recommended, cracking views on the coastpath, but a little scary for vertigo sufferers like myself!)
Now having to look further east and west for the big loops, only a few left in Devon. CCC near Salisbury next, perhaps…
Well i made it, five years after finding my first cache i have finally found my 1000th cache, it feels good to be in four figures.
Congratulations to reb10 on reaching 1000 cache finds
Have just been to check out your log, and it looks like you should have gone to specsavers………..chickens indeed!Thankyou LympstoneBogtrotters and Dartymoor.
I look forward to Dave updating the stats to show us new 1000 finders.
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