The Mad Geocaching Pensioner - Clever Cache 2

Are you all sitting comfortable, then I shall begin. One upon a time there was a famous poem or song, it went:

If you go down in the woods today,
You're sure of a big surprise.
If you go down in the woods today,
You'd better go in disguise.

For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain because
Today's the day the Teddy Bears have their picnic.

Well I didn't see any teddies today but there was certainly a surprise to the cache I found located in a hillside wood. So Bare with me and I'm going to share all the fun and games in locating this one, needless to say as usual it wasn't trouble free for me, and I didn't have a Picnic either.

I knew it was going to be a tricky and unusual one, firstly it had been awarded 8 favourite points out of only 9 finds, secondly it hadn't been found for over a month, even though it was just above a large town.

It was surprising that the recommended car parking spot was in an housing estate and therefore didn't give any indication of the fun ahead. A small footpath between a garage and hedge lead away, so I donned the  now famous Lady-Magpie hat, grabbed my kit and walking pole and set off for the fun.

After a short while the tarmacked path joined a very rough path that just went up and up, I certainly should have had teddies porridge this morning as I had to pause several times just to get my breath back.

At last the wood opened up and what a lovely place it was, quiet, tranquill with plenty of wildlife to view. Don't worry readers, this is England and we don't actually have an bears here, well perhaps the odd bare streaker but not in these woods. I didn't take the track under the tree in the photograph as my GPS indicated to go left up a bank and follow a narrow trail. This is when my troubles started:


Now I class my self as being vertically challenged, or as my good friends would say "A bit of a short-ass", so you can imagine the problems I had that after a month of rain, followed by a long hot spell, the track became a stinging jungle.with the nettles each side of the track being over five feet tall. I was forced to walk with my arms in the air, shouldn't have warn a short sleeves shirt with bare arms.

I located the cache down a bank after chopping down the undergrowth and moving a log to one side, easy I thought as I prised the long square plastic container out of it's hideaway. WRONG !! Not easy at all as the contents didn't hold anything that I was expecting, no log book, no swaps  and no clues. All it contained was a card that said ALMOST and believe it or not a door bell-push.



OK, this must be the surprise as I kept pushing the button and wandered around the other tree's and bushes and like a headless chicken. Now not being unkind, I suddenly thought that the geocaching website didn't have a icon that said "Not suitable for the deaf or hard of hearing".


I couldn't hear a sound other than the wind in the trees, birds and small wildlife movements, so after about 15 minutes of searching I decided to give up and wandered back to the original spot, just to put the bell-push back in it's container for another cacher.

Suddenly, without me pushing the button I heard a ding, that's it but where did it come from. I again waved my arms around point the gadget in all directions whilst pushing the button, then after a few seconds I heard the noise again. Unless a bird has the same call as a door bell I had found it.


As you can see from the photo I had unearthed an old tree stump by chopping down the stinging nettles and then climbed down to a hollow beneath it. I had forgotten all the tingling feelings I had from stings, more a case of finding the cache made the pain less.

There was the cache container, including the main part of the door-bell, relief that all my efforts weren't in vain, although it had tested my patience.  The cache owner was the same person as my last clever cache story, but I think that the maintenance on this one will be continues what with replacing batteries etc. Thankfully I was able to sign the log and return both containers to their hiding places.

As for me I was then able to enjoy the views over the local town from near GZ before returning home to recharge my batteries as well. I must admit my log report on the website was very long and I moaned bitterly about the terrain and all the nettles. I had been stung through jeans and my shoes, but I also award a favourite point while writing "WHAT A BLOODY GOOD CACHE". 


- Oh and the name of this clever cache was "DING-DONG".