Today we decided to give the moor's a try. We loaded up a few geocaches and headed for Dartmoor, first for a pub in Poundsgate and then a few caches around Haytor.
The day dawned a little overcast but still quite pleasant. As it is Saturday and as we've already overeaten lots, we decided to pop down into Ashburton and buy some food from the lovely range of food shops to make tonight.
We headed off toward the moors and found the pub where we ate and hunted for a micro cache. Dave found it and after lunch we headed off for Haytor. It was really beautiful there, lots of people but still lots of space. We did an Earthcache first, which involved taking your picture on the top of the appropriate tor. In fact, we nearly went up the wrong one - the one that looked like the main one, but when you followed the GPS, you ended up at the one next door.
So, Dave and Stephen climbed it. I wimped out citing anti-biotic fatique or some such but took their photo so we could email the cache hider and, by supplying the answers to the 3 questions, log the cache as found.
Then we wandered off. I had downloaded Haytor 5 - Tramways. This is the fifth in a series of caches around Haytor and I quite fancied it. We followed the arrows and eventually got to the bit where the arrows seem to get all confused and point back the way you came. Dave was using his Extrex Vista and I was using both the PDA and the Garmin Geko. They all said the same thing which was reassuring. Dave found this cache, hidden beneath a rock. Three down.
We decided to head off to another cache on a nearby tor, but I hadn't printed out the directions. So, we followed the arrows (we had the location info, just not the text description) and when we got to the tor, I used my Nokia N80 to log onto the internet and check out the description. This was the first time I'd used the GPRS of my mobile phone in earnest and it worked really well, giving me just the info I needed. We continued to follow the arrow and this time I found the cache in it's narrowing crawlspace. It is a really exciting feeling to be the person who actually finds the cache.
We left and looked for an easy route to the top of Saddleback - and Stephen spotted a container shoved in a hole under another rock. We pulled it out and it looked like another geocache, but with nothing but a logbook in it. I decided to sign the log book and then look for the geocache on the website, but the other signatures mentioned letterboxing. The geocache description we had found said this area was popular with letterboxers so clearly we'd stumbled upon this one. Steve was a bit disappointed. Next time we go for some caches, we'll try to make sure he's the one to find them. It really makes you feel good.
Heading back to the car we decided to take a shortcut. Wish we'd checked the map first. Looked straightforward - we could see the car park. What we could not see was the fact that the area we were going to walk across was really boggy. Steve and I headed out and by the time we were up to our calves in squishy water and worrying in case we lost our shoes or got bogged down, Dave turned back and took a different route.
We struggled on. I really did wonder if I was going to get sucked under. I started to take faster steps in order to spend less time on each patch of bog in order to sink less quickly and eventually made it to some reeds on slightly higher ground. Both Steve and I had filled our boots with muddy water. Fortunately I was wearing cropped trousers so just had wet legs. Steve's jeans were pretty soaked.
I always carry spare clothes, a towel and footwear, so I dried my feed and changed into my flipflops. I also had trainers and offered my flip flops to Steve but he thought they would be too small so stayed in his wet trainers.
Headed to Widdecombe where we had a nice coffee and cake and strolled around. Nicked the Rombout filter cups because we can't work out how to make Anna's coffee-maker work. We can get coffee out of it but it is pretty cold so we're just going to live with these little filters.
Salmon at home tonight which will be nice. I think we may head off for a national trust property tomorrow. No walking as my boots and Stephen's will still be wet I think. Thank goodness for Anna's washing machine.
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