Collingham.

As has been our habit of late, this weekend my geocaching partner and I, planned a Geocaching weekend away. We had visited Lincoln  previously and on the way home had completed part of a series based on Bingo calls in and around the area of Collingham; this weekend gone we decided to do a few more.

After a pleasant Saturday spent in Newark, we parked in the local Co-Op Supermarket and headed along the road to find our first cache, this was a very cute traffic cone hidden in an air brick then, after  a short walk across a field (with some horses enjoying their breakfast), we came to the next cache (an old lighter) hidden beside a kissing gate. We then turned right, passing a very cute bird’s nest to find our next cache, this was a cute (but non-native species) bight red lizard.

 The next cache we thought we had ‘in the bag’ it was a terrain 3 and clearly hidden under a bridge, however after a scramble down one side I spotted it, we retrieved it, it was an old Mag Light torch! We got out the log to sign only to see ‘NOT THE LOG’ written on it. Imagine our frustration! It was quickly replaced and we scrambled under the other side of the bridge to continue out search. After no luck we got the torch back out and took the whole thing apart. It was hidden in the actual battery. Very clever.

After our success here we quickly found  our next few.  A rat, a sparkly Halloween spider,  mushroom and a fake plant.

After the mushroom we met this lovely, friendly horse… 

Spring is definitely on its way as the flowers are coming into bloom.     We decided to find the next cache and then have a geo-snack break. Luckily the next cache was fantastic for a rest stop, it was a raised platform bird hide overlooking the, now water-filled quarry pits, and underneath was another cache.

We didn’t find the next cache, even though all the logs  said it was an easy find; it was implied that it was a magpie but despite a very long and thorough search we couldn’t find it. The trees did show signs of being hacked about so we think it might have been removed or destroyed. We did however find part of an animal backbone!

The next cache took a while to find and was very cleverly hidden in a bird hide in a massive hidden geocaching book. Once signed we took a rest and watched the birds feeding, we saw a greater spotted woodpecker cheekily eating from the nut feeder.

  I’m not sure if we actually found the next cache  – we did find a film canister but it was too water sodden to sign, it also seemed too boring to be one of the series to be honest. We logged it as find but I will remove if it wasn’t the cache. Next came a rusty baked bean can and a frog!

We couldn’t find one hidden by the riverside but the land was so covered in mud, others hadn’t found it either. The next cache was too scary for me, it was hidden about five metres up a tree . Luckily my geocaching partner  decided to go for it, I stayed with my feet on the ground and  took photographs evidence.

At the bend in the river, we stopped to see if we could find a cache that had two ‘did not finds’ we knew where to look but it wasn’t there and the cache owner  had left a message to say it needed fixing…

 The next few came thick and fast.

 All in all this was an interesting and highly varied series, I will be back to finish them off.