Where to next?

Daughter, High Horse (teacher) keeps suggesting I should incorporate geocaches with my longer walks which sounds ok in theory, but, a week ago I found thirteen out of fourteen on one geocache-dedicated six mile round. That walk would normally take two and half to three hours, but it took five.

So, to find say half a dozen on a long walk day could extend time by a couple of hours. Companion walkers can be another factor if they are not fellow enthusiasts for the game, so one can feel uncomfortable spending a lot of time searching when your companion’s main objective is to get on with the walk.

My strategy for regular Thursday walks with Pete is to plan a route first (that is always down to me), then see if it coincides with any caches, and that is unlikely to amount to more than one or two.

For the last year since we completed the Lancaster Canal we have walked circular, approximately six mile routes almost every Thursday within half an hour’s drive of home without repetition, but it is now becoming increasingly difficult to find fresh ground , especially in this uncommonly wet winter when we try to keep mostly to quiet roads and lanes.

Our walk yesterday managed to find yet another new circle, and one geocache pleasingly situated at the point with best views.

Memory Map on my computer showing Thursday walking routes plotted. Previuosly I deleted them, but recently they are retained to help avoiding repetition

This Thursday's walk, north east of Kendal

River Mint near Patton Bridge

A de-luxe stile (not on our route)

Whinfell Tarn

Diversion

Faced with tasks my conscience tells me I should do but don't want to, I find it easy to invent alternatives. Sometimes I may start other tasks instead that are also a pain, but not quite as much so as the original, but today I was having none of that.

A quick look at the Geocache website identified a cache in the middle of nowhere, about eight miles from home and I was off leaving my conscience behind.

I knew the going would be rough upland, wet walking, so after the recent controversy about footwear on this blog I hypocritically wore my boots.

I thrashed across the rough terrain more like a Chieftain tank than a Willis Jeep. The cache was hidden up a steep hillside amidst gorse, and with hardly any feature to relate it to. The GPS on my iPad Mini with Memory Map was satisfyingly precise, as were the coordinates given by the cache originator. The location provided extensive views to the west to Blackpool and across to the Lakeland hills.

I picked up another two roadside caches afterwards and was there, and back home in under three hours.
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For the last couple of days Blogger seemed to have discarded the slide show facility when you "click to enlarge", but things seem to have returned to normal today. What ever are they up to?

Geocache map of my locale. I live in Arnside (red dot, middle left). The cache I did today is the yellow circle top right hand coner. Yellow circles are the ones I have done to date.

Looking back to my parked car

The cache was amongst the gorse on the hillside

A first ascent

Three years ago I was mildly puzzled by people who wanted to talk about, and extol the virtues of grandchildren, but now I am one of them.

Katie is now 2 years 3 months old. On Saturday, along with mother Jill (High Horse), we all made the ascent of the first proper hill for Katie.

Orrest Head, at approximately 750ft is a popular viewpoint above Windermere involving a two mile round trip and 350ft. of ascent, all pretty steep going.

I know it is not so remarkable, but what gave great pleasure was Katie’s obvious enjoyment from beginning to end. Despite a biting wind, rain in the air, and mud underfoot, she walked cheerfully the whole distance. One of my walking poles was requisitioned, and it was obviously too long, so Katie trailed it behind, and told us it was her dog that she was walking. I remarked that there could be a market for walking poles for children until a bit of lateral thinking had me shorten the pole to suit - Katie was well pleased with that.

The weather was hostile on the summit, but no bother to K. She joined in at being pirates looking for treasure when we sought and found the local geocache and she was rewarded with a little spangled booklet which she cherished for the rest of the day.

On the descent K had a little tumble and muddied her jeans, so back in Windermere HH shot into a charity shop and bought a virtually new pair of designer (Joules) jeans for 75p so we were all neat and tidy to finish the day in Café Ambio at The Lakeland Motor Museum.
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Some of the pics were taken with Jill's iPhone and leave much to be desired.

On the summit

At speed on the descent.
 Note colour difference between my Canon SX150is and Jill's iPhone

iPhone panorama from summit - very pixelated

At Café Ambio

Arriving back at Arnside - nb railway viaduct

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Thursday 16th January

My regular Thursday walk with Pete took us to Humphrey Head setting off from Cedric Robinson's cottage near Allithwaite. Cedric is the Queen's guide for walks across the sands of Morecambe Bay from Arnside to Grange-over-Sands. Some years ago I was on that walk with my old Springer Spaniel, Barney. I was concerned whether he would make it or not in view of his age, but out at the front  was a lady with a little terrier that was on heat and Barney got tucked in behind and never flagged. 

Despite both our ages (Pete is a few years older than me), and not having the same incentive as  Barney, we managed the seven mile round trip in sprightly fashion at an average speed of 2.1 mph including finding three out of four geocaches and taking pics.

Zoom to Arnside Knott 

Removing a follower

Housekeeping.

I have now reinstalled my followers and successfully removed the undesirable one.

If you open Blogger Dashboard and look below the title of your blog you will see information saying how many posts and page views there have been and the number of followers on the blog.

Click on the number of followers and you will see them all.

Click on the one you want to banish and select "block".

It has taken me much time and searching to achieve what seems to be a very simple operation, but as always  help menus never seem to contain a solution and the best way is to Google the problem and hear what others have to say; thanks to all those geeks out there.

Thanks also to Gibson (Afoot in the Hills) for encouraging me to persist.

Tree climbing and funny gates

I cannot remember the last time I wore boots.

Last summer I walked from Lowestoft to Clacton, most of the Cheshire Ring, the Sandstone Trail, the Kennet and Avon Canal, the Severn Way and the Monmouth Brecon Canal, and many outings in between, all wearing Gortex lined trainers. My feet have only been wet occasionally, and that was through walking in long wet grass soaking down through socks, which happens anyway with boots.

Scotland is different: rough, pathless steep terrain demands boots.

On Thursday we walked new ground east of Windermere -  a delight of small hills, minor roads, tracks and paths. I identified one geocache near the road, but now confess to inventing yet another way of mucking up navigation. I printed the OS map (enlarged) and put it in a plastic wallet. Being too lazy to unseal I marked the geocache position onto the plastic. Of course, when we came close to the spot I found we had already walked past because the map had moved inside the plastic. The geocache was left for another day.

Next day, alone, I followed a more cross country route finding five caches on a five mile trip, but failed finding the one we had missed. The last one had been set by Cragrat (geocache nick name) and involved climbing an oak tree to gain the cache in a mock bird box. An old fence post propped against the trunk provided a foothold.  A secret opening mechanism had me stumped for a while.

I emailed Cragrat congratulating him on his ingenious cache. He turned out to be Wilf of Wilf’s Café fame at Staveley who I knew from regular visits with Tony, my late climbing partner.

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Housekeeping: observant readers may notice the panel of photos of my followers has disappeared. An undesirable appeared there linking to things radically political which I wanted no association with. I tried to delete but the whole lot went and as far as I can tell there is no way of getting them back.

Nb: the increasing number in my geocache finder following my renewed enthusiasm for that pursuit.

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Pink = route Thursday with Pete.
Brown = solo route Friday

Two pics on the walk with Pete

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Bird box geocache on my solo walk - Friday. Nb fence post used as foothold

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SOME RECENT GEOCACHE PICS

NB - Sign to right of gate (enlargement below): another award from the eccentric Waist High Passimmeter Awards. Google  and see if you can make more sense of it than I  - it looks like a sort of sarcasm award to me

Click to enlarge

Leighton Hall and RSPB Leighton Moss - Arnside Knott, I live over the other side

How to make a proper job of supporting your guttering

Memoir of an aspirant photo journalist

My magazine editor brother advises me that misfortunes make more interesting reading than purple passages about nature. If a nauseating photo of a gashed leg or the like can be included, so much the better. Remember photographer Hurley with Shackleton - his cumbersome photo plates were one of the few things salvaged from the stricken ship. His presence of mind had provided a priceless record of dramatic events, although the main motivation for saving them came from Shackleton’s awareness of their potential commercial value later - he would have made a good journalist.

That’s all very well, but I am a bumbling, non-instinctive amateur, and dealing with the emergency usually takes priority, although I have had my moments.

Because of waterlogged fields, last Thursday I routed our walk again on Tarmac, but included one section of what OS defines as “track”, that is an unsurfaced lane varying from a well found, hardcore Land Rover highway to a little used medieval mudfest often blocked by brambles and nettles. Even the supremos of the OS have so far been unable to represent those differences. You therefore rely on experience and intuition.

Within a few yards of leaving the Tarmac I knew experience and intuition had failed me - we were squelching and slip-sliding along a mud path, which eventually widened into a mini flood-lake thirty yards across and fifty yards long with no obvious circumvention short of climbing several walls and barbed wire fences. Undoubtedly an impasse. Sod’s Law had located this well beyond the point of no return.  Here we go: with the distraction of formulating Plan B, I took no photos. There was not much comparison with the scale of Shackleton’s drama, but I was so cross with myself when it dawned on me quarter of a mile later. Would Hurley have gone back? Well, he would never have missed that opportunity in the first place.

Zoom to Whitestone Crag near Newby Bridge. A minor crag where my old climbing partner Tony had the only fall I can remember for him. Fortunately it was not serious, but once again I took no photo.

A unique seating facility at Field Broughton built for the millennium

Just for the story herewith. My cut vein when I fell descending Nan Bield Pass on my walk from Lowestoft to The Lakes in 2009

What did you accomplish in 2013?

Well, perhaps all those posts over the last year were my version of a Donald Crowhurst (Google, or see my post: Whither the next TGO, 6th July 2013).

Here is what I have really been up to:

How many possible games are there?

Wikipedia says:

 There are 52! (i.e., 52 factorial), or approximately 8×10⁶⁷, distinct deals. However... 

...yes, it can get a lot more complicated than that. If you have any nerdish, or mathematical inclinations at all you would be in heaven looking at the Wikipedia entry.

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Katie update.

Playing with dolls' house, Christmas morning