Rivington Ramble

Had a Sunday afternoon off in May, so we decided to go for a walk. I have had tendonitis in my foot and have been out of action for a while whilst it recovered. Still going to work of course but walks in the country were a no-no. I thought we would go to rivington pike, it was over 20 years since I had been here and I held good memories of it. It was hard work getting to the top of it , amazing how quickly fitness dwindles when you don’t exercise regularly. Arrived at a converted barn which housed a cafe and bar, there were hundreds of bikers there. It was a nice sunny day and it would’ve been nice to have a pint in the sun, but deetee was driving. We made our way up to the pike. Here it is below. You can’t go in it, it’s just a stone block, not sure why it was built, there was no information on it.

I couldn’t believe how dirty it was around this place. Hundreds of dog poo bags strewn about (why bother putting it in bags?!) , junk and rubbish piled up next to the paths, litter all over. Such a shame and ruined what would be a nice walk.

We did manage to find a geocache through all the litter 🙂 Just the one, as we seemed to be going in the wrong direction for the others in the area. I found a lovely pink plastic snake in the cache , the pic of it on this blog has disappeared and I have since thrown away said snake, so you don’t get to see it 😦

Finished off with a Mr. Whippy from an ice cream van. Wish I had taken a pic as it was huuuuge, it had lime sauce on and I keep craving another one 🙂

Tramping around Tromsø

So, we had a cold and lovely time in Tromsø, Norway this month. We visited museums , went on a husky sled, fed reindeers, saw the northern lights, went snow shoeing and sampled the local fayre, all in 3 days!

 Here is me feeding what was my favourite white reindeer 🙂 
Here is our husky sled, which crashed by the way.  
 

  Below is our snow shoe adventure, which was really hard work!
 
Somehow, in between all this activity we managed to snag a few geocaches. My first foreign geocache was discovered while walking back along the huge bridge,  which we had crossed to view the Arctic cathedral. This was only a micro cache.   The day after we had a bit of time to spare inbetween reindeer stroking and aurora chasing, so we hunted for more. We ended up along a breakwater on the tromsø harbour. We were unsure at first as to whether we were allowed down there but that’s where the GPS took us. Dee tee was the one scrambling in the snow to find the caches bless him. The pic below shows him searching under some waterside huts, I was scared he was going to fall into the icy depths!

  
There were no tourists around here, lovely and peaceful and great views across to the city which we would never had seen if not for geocaching.
I found a travel bug, which I always love , I’ve yet to move it on. I also found a seal, which was quite apt as we had been to see some seals in the Polaria museum on our first day. Also got what looks like a caterpillar, I thought it was super cute, I am going to put it on a string and make a necklace out of it. 

  
Excuse the crinkled bedsheets. 

January Japes

It had been raining for weeks and weeks, every day off I had since Christmas and before was wet and I couldn’t get out in the fresh air. I was feeling low and cooped up, so I took this opportunity to have a walk one Sunday, which was particularly warm for a January. I had planned to take this route on a walk with workmates the following week, so deetee was showing me the way and we were also checking if it was passable due to recent floodings.

It was wet, very wet.

  
It was very very muddy. I slipped in the mud and buried half of my iPhone, the speaker doesn’t work properly now.

  
We could see all the debris at the side of the river which the high waters had left behind, and there was damage to bridges. I decided that I wouldn’t take my workmates here or the dogs would disappear in the mud! It was a nice walk, but probably nicer in summer.

  
I was happy to grab my first geocaches of the year. We found a travel bug which I will take to Norway with me. I liked the teddy bear reflector , I will also take that to Norway to put on my bag, it gets dark early there at this time of year. It’s good to find something useful in a cache 🙂

   
We were going out for tea, but I had to go and get cleaned up before that! Went to wetherspoons to spend a few slimming world syns on food and wine 🙂 

Soggy Sunday

It was a December Sunday , unusually mild for the time of year. It had been raining for the past week, and today was still a bit drizzly. There was a carol concert in sunnyhurst woods, in the bandstand. Despite the sogginess, myself and deetee went for a look. We joined in with a few carols and had a mince pie, unfortunately the mulled wine had run out! The plan was to walk another few miles to the village of tockholes for some food, I considered not doing that due to the poor weather, but we braved it. We didn’t get overly wet,  but it was a bit damp and miserable! I had not been walking for a bit though, so it felt awesome to get a bit of fresh air in my lungs. A bonus was the finding of a geocache, I had wanted to get it previously but we had been on the wrong path. Not much inside but got this, whatever it is.

  
Finally got to the pub and had a lovely meal. There was a little gift shop there, and deetee got mum a Christmas present which I reckon she will love! 

We walked on to another pub, my feet were KILLING me in some new walking boots (I am going to sell them by the way ). Had to have a wine to quell the pain before a taxi home 🙂

A look around Lancaster.

We had previously picked up a leaflet detailing walks around Lancaster and planned to do one. This sunny Sunday was the perfect opportunity. I had a headache due to too much wine and I didn’t want to go out.. but I did!

We had a lovely walk along the estuary. My phone was broken so we were relying on deetee’s phone to find us some geocaches , however, it was being rubbish and the GPS was all over the place.   
 I was grumpy because my geocaching finds of late have been few and far between. Since I came back from holiday I have been non stop working and there has been no time for walking & caching. We had a look around Hollingworth lake near Bury the other week. We found a few caches (no treasure though) and had a nice meal by the lake. 

These lovely baby swans made up for the lack of geocaches.

  
We stopped at a couple of great pubs along our walk. There is something about sitting outside a pub next to water that makes a pint taste better! Onwards, and I had my first walk across an aqueduct. Not sure why this excited me but it did 🙂 

I also saw my first heron today 🙂 Beautiful bird.

 
In one  of the pubs  there was this heron badge for sale, naturally I got it to remind me of my encounter!
  
I was having a great day without any geocaches , but then, the phone behaved long enough for us to find THIS beauty, a cache in a rat 🙂

  
Here is another one we found, a micro on a bridge.

  
When we got back to Lancaster city centre my legs were tired and it was good to have a sit down (in another pub). We went to merchants 1688. I love this place, I love vaulted ceilings. This is apparently an old wine cellar.

  
I had a starter and main from the specials board. The first time for me trying wild boar, it was awesome ! We then went to a little bar playing live music before our train home. What a nice day 🙂

Jumbles Jaunt

Myself and deetee had purchased a picnic bag and a picnic blanket. Last Saturday we decided to put them to good use seeing as the weather forecast was looking fine. We drove to the strawbury duck pub and set off around wayoh and jumbles reservoir , I think it was about an 8 mile walk we did. We found a picnic spot about half way round , it was like a little beach next to the reservoir. 

  
We had some nice cheeses and prosecco and lots of other bits, it was quite yummy. Below is the view to our spot from across the way.

  
Here is a butterfly which stayed still long enough for me to take a photo.

  
Of course, there were plenty of geocaches about. We got muggled at one point and had to explain what we were doing. I couldn’t find my pen on the stretch home so missed out a lot of caches. I was hot and tired and full by this time so probably couldn’t have been bothered to look anyway. 

Here are some of my treasures, I particularly liked the caterpillar trowel thing. The loom band ring was a bit rubbish but the best of a bad lot in one cache. I also found a fairy pencil sharpener but forgot to add it to the picture.

  
My fave thing though was my ladybird, because I love them 🙂

  
By the time I got to the pub I was too tired to have a pint even. I had done a lot of walking last week. I made up for the lack of pintage when back at home in my jim jams 🙂

Damp discoveries

I was up early again the other damp Sunday, was out walking for half 7. I noticed that a few new caches had popped up around Darwen , so I thought I’d have a look.  First stop was up near astley bank hotel, I knew this existed but I’d never seen it. It is really pretty, I’d say it would be a lovely place for a traditional wedding, but I didn’t see inside, might be a right dump. Anyway, I didn’t find the caches up here 😦

Next I ventured up bury fold lane and got my first cache of the day, it was inside a log, which I had looked underneath before realising it was the actual cache. Onwards and upwards, here is a cache on a gate post, I had given up on it and walked away before deciding to have one last try. 

  
At the next one I was startled when I looked up and saw a muggle …

  
Lots of steep inclines and DNFs followed , I was starting to lose the will, but a nice view at the path summit made it worthwhile.

  
So far I had not found any treasure! I was a bit lost on a path I didn’t recognise , but eventually came out at a site where I had a previous DNF. I thought I’d give it another go , and BINGO!

  
Back home in time to go to Trafford centre with deetee for holiday things 🙂 

Trot up the tower and Ingleton falls.

Last Thursday my body clock was messed up,  I was up all night and asleep in the day. Fortunately I woke up with some daylight still remaining. Enough time for a trot to the tower, looking for a cache I had previously been unable to get due to muggles. The GZ area was all burnt due to a grass fire, I thought the cache would surely have been damaged, but no, there it was. It was in a pile of rocks , disguised as a rock! Pretty cool.

No prizes to be had today unfortunately.

On the Saturday I suggested that we drive to Ingleton waterfall trail for a walk. It was a cloudy and muggy day, but not rainy so that was good. I was not feeling good today, feeling bloated and ugly, but I tried to put it to the back of my mind. There was only one cache here, an earth cache, I presume they can’t hide cache boxes in a place that visitors have to pay to enter. Here is the earth cache with one of my plastic geocaching smilies. The waterfall is called Thorton force and was very pretty. I wanted to sit under it but , I may have got a bit too wet!

Here is another lovely waterfall.

I had taken a fairy wish jar with me to hide , which dee tee brought me from the Isle of Man.  Fairies like waterfalls, so I figured there would be some about. Here is dee tee crossing the river to hide the wish, it was a bit too treacherous  for me!

He took me a picture of the hiding place in a tree root💜

We had an ice cream half way round the walk which was welcome due to me sweating like mad in the mugginess. On the way back we saw lots of slates which people had written their names on, so I added to them.

When we got home we went to for some drinks in deetee’s friends garden which was nice with a fire and a gazebo. I didn’t want to go as I was nervous and crying, but I actually enjoyed myself a lot. So all in all I had a good day despite my brain working against me!

Dunham and deers

It was bank holiday Monday this week. Dee tee and myself had been out to Darwen music live on the Sunday and had plenty of beers. It’s safe to say that on the Monday morning I was not feeling too great. I felt tired and sicky. But, dee tee had taken time out from working to stay with me so I couldn’t very well stay in bed all day! I decided that we could go to Dunham Massey, an old stately home and gardens. There was an exhibition here which recreated the time in World War One when the house was used as a military hospital. It was super interesting for me, we looked around it after a spot of lunch which was V. tasty.

Then we moved onto looking around the gardens, firstly stopping off at a craft stand where I made my own rose.

It was a bit early to see the gardens in full bloom but they were lovely all the same. 2 sets of roses were flowering, both of which I had a sniff of.

 From the garden we moved to walking around the deer park. I was amazed to see these lovely creatures so close up.

 Around the deer park there were plenty of geocaches. After a bad start we got on a roll and found a few. Some good treasures were to be had, made up for the fact I tripped up and hurt my wrists.

 I liked the marble as it reminded me of dee tees blue eyes 🙂 The keyring is ace as it glows in the dark. There is a travel bug here which I must move on soon. All in all a fab day.

Caching for fitness

After numerous stresses at the end of last year, I piled on some chunk. I tipped the scales at over 13 stone and felt absolutely crap. With a sunny holiday looming I had to up my exercise in order to shed some timber. At first I tried to go on a walk every day, but in between busy night shifts where I am on my feet for 10 hours, it was too much, it was making me ill. I decided to walk on my days off instead. (I’m currently writing this sat in the cemetery after a walk up from town). 
This cache was found on a Saturday morning at about 6am. My crazy body clock had woken me early and I thought I might as well go hunting, it would give me some much needed exercise. I’d say caching is much better than the gym! Off up to the tower I went. This little treasure was found under some rocks in the heather, the clue was very easy. 

  
The cache was called ‘reservoir view’ but the reservoir wasn’t looking too pretty this windy morning, it was empty. There are lots of caches near to this one but I had taken the wrong path to get to them, something for another day.