70 mile trek around the Isle of Wight!

As mentioned in a previous post, my friends and I had decided we'd like to set ourselves the challenge of walking around the Isle of Wight in three days and I decided I'd like to do it for a charity I'm keen to support, Crohn's and Colitis UK.

So here's a map of the island so that when I mention places they make sense! We came across from Southampton bright and early and kicked off the Friday at 8am in Cowes. We took the more standard approach of following the coastal path anti-clockwise so that the wind would be in our favour. As it was, there was no wind! The sun was out the whole time and to my mind it was a little too hot to walk in but better that than pouring with rain!

The walk from Cowes to Gurnard and beyond was nice and straight forward but then we had to cut inland a bit, still following the official coastal path, to get around the estuary at Newtown. This seemed to take forever! I was chuffed to be able to collect a couple of caches as we passed through the various towns and it made up for how muddy that particular stretch of the journey was!

So then we were able to meet the coast line again as we approached Yarmouth. This was a busy area and it was here I claimed my 2500th cache milestone. We stopped for a bite to eat then continued on in the late afternoon sunshine through Totland and up to one of my favourite places on the island, Alum Bay and the Needles.

Alum Bay is famous for its multicoloured sand as it's a geologist's dream. They make quite a trade in selling empty glass and plastic containers for people to fill with the various different coloured sands and I've done this on three occasions now.

Alum Bay

What made this trip to the Needles special was that it was totally empty of people. We were the only ones there and it was so very peaceful with just the sounds of wildlife and the odd distant buzz of a plane or boat. We were also up by the lighthouse and on Tennyson Down as the sun was beginning to set so the views were even more spectacular.

A glimpse of the lighthouse on the far west of the island

Sunset over Tennyson Down

We had to clamber to the top of this hill before descending the other side and then hurriedly finding our way through the town of Freshwater to our B&B for the night and after 26 miles of hiking, boy was I aching!

I was still hurting after a good night's sleep but there's no rest for the wicked and we were up and out straight after breakfast. We had another long walk ahead of us as we made our way from Freshwater round to Shanklin on the other side of the island. This day we didn't have the mud or detours away from the coast so much but the chines were enough to keep us going up and down like yo-yos. So many slopes and steps! Why did I pack so much?!

Looking back, you can just make out Tennyson Down

This walk was interesting for the fact that the recent bad weather has taken its toll on the west side of the island's coastal paths. We were precariously close to the cliff edges a lot of the time and fences had been moved back. Whole paths had crumbled and crashed to the beach below and it was clear that more were on their way! Best to keep as far away from the cracked soil as possible. Geological structure change is not something consigned to the past - it's happening all the time, and who's to say you won't be the one who is walking across the cliff when it decides to give way?!

Later in the afternoon we came to the southernmost tip of the island where St Catherine's lighthouse is situated. Halfway round at last and I have no idea how I'm still standing upright!

We continue onwards and through a really delightful narrow cliff-top coastal path past St Lawrence towards Ventnor. The early evening in late spring is a perfect time to be here when the sun is shining! The views are fantastic!

I like this type of walk!

Ventnor was quite busy and after walking through a wood for what felt like hours as the sun was disappearing, we emerged to see the lights of Shanklin and Sandown ahead of us! Quickly we made our way to our next B&B before the owners went to bed!

Our third and final day was the most straight forward. We just needed to climb the odd hill or steps but most of the time it was flat which I was extremely grateful for as my legs by this time were putting up a very firm protest at the notion of continuing!

Bembridge was the furthest east on the island we went and shortly afterwards we stopped for more food and to rest the legs.

Bembridge

Finally we pushed on and made it past the back of Queen Victoria's Osbourne House and enjoyed the view from Wootton Bridge before cracking on back to Cowes.

Wootton Creek

The first time I saw a sign pointing to Southampton, I could have cried with relief! The small chain ferry ("Floating Bridge") back to Cowes from East Cowes took a little while to return to us but thankfully it was in time for our ferry home to the mainland. 

I am very glad to be able to say I've done this walk now, and I really did enjoy it all but I don't think I'll be signing up for anything like this again in the near future! As long as I raised some awareness and money for Crohn's and Colitis UK (Not too late to sponsor me: www.justgiving.com/walk-the-wight) then I feel it was worth every step. The official route was 67 miles but what with recent diversions due to cliff falls and treks i and out of town to get to our B&Bs, I think 70 miles is more appropriate!

Not sure if I'll ever do something like this again. Perhaps my next ambition should be to take the island by bike? Now there's an idea...

Abbey Road Web Cam

Web cam caches are now "grandfathered", which means that those created years ago can still be found and logged but new ones can't be created. I've found quite a few around the country now but by far my favourite is Abbey Road, not only for the Beatles connection and good quality camera, but also for the fact the website is live streaming and has 24 hours of archive footage stored on it so if there's nothing on TV and you're bored stiff, this will make for an amusing few minutes of fun watching.

Listen to the irritated taxi drivers beeping as tourists try to quickly grab a photo!

Click for Abbey Road Web Cam!

Geo Art: Maps and Logs

I love a good bit of geo-art, i.e. caches placed strategically so that when seen from above they make up a pattern. Normally this is done by using puzzles. The real coordinates are elsewhere but unsolved they make up a pretty question mark, smiley face or some other motif. Here are some of the ones I've seen on the maps...

A very nice big smiley face which is even better when made up of lots of little smileys!

This is quite commonplace: a series of puzzles in the shape of a question mark!

Seattle is home to a set of puzzles which form the peace sign. They are over water, presumably to stand out more, but I believe the caches are on terra firma! 

We had a couple of sets of Olympic rings pop up around the time London hosted the Olympics. Weymouth's have gone now but these still remain in Sussex.

What I find even more impressive though is when the caches are not puzzles but someone has carefully found the right place to put a series so that traditionals can be used instead. That means that when you find the caches you will actually trace out the shape of whatever it is. My favourite examples are in the United States. Clearly the desert is a good place to get your caches where you need them without the problem of housing, water etc.!

The ET Highway power trail in Nevada.

Kokopelli formation in Utah.

A very nice fighter plane. The guns were all Letterbox Hybrids but from a distance they look the same as Traditionals.

Geo-art extends to beyond cache maps, however. I've seen some pretty impressive flags on people's logs. Notably on the 2,000,000th published cache - people from all over the world were sending their congratulations and adding a flag made of smileys. Some of the best below:

2,000,000!

Canada

Germany

Czech Republic

Norway

United States of America

And of course the United Kingdom!

What do we think of Lab Caches?

The concept of geocaching started off simple: there's a container out there somewhere. Here are its coordinates. Now GO FIND IT! Traditional caches are still like this. Multis and puzzles throw another stage or two into the mix, whether physical or mental. Then of course there are letterbox hybrids, virtuals, webcams, Wherigos, and a range of event types.

Groundspeak always wants to keep geocaching fresh and interesting, and so they should, but in the last couple of years they introduced "Challenges" which was a total flop and for me was unnecessarily confusing as they were not like the existing Challenge Geocaches where you need to meet a requirement before logging. Groundspeak is clearly trying to find what works and what doesn't with geocaching and their new "lab caches". I've found 11 now and I'd sum them up as being "mildly interesting". The concept could easily become as tedious and abused as Challenges though. No idea what lab caches are? Read on.

According to Groundspeak, lab caches are the product of the Geocaching HQ's Research and Development team. They are rare and experimental. The ideas are going to come through this type and then, presumably, if they work, they'll be turned into real cache types.

The Groundspeak HQ offered cachers the chance to try them during its annual Block Party but they've since become a little more widespread. In February they plugged the idea of sending a lab cache invite to your Valentine, although to my knowledge people tended to just pair up and make a lab cache for each other. The idea was to set a location and ask a question about it or post some info there that you'd only know if you visited. So for example, you could site your lab cache at a park bench and ask what year the memorial plaque has on it. In that way it's a bit like a virtual cache or the first stage of a multi. But you could also do the whole thing online and just make your answers Googleable. Does that not defeat the object of geocaching? I've never understood why some people "armchair log" their finds without heading outdoors. If the caches are to take off, they need to be things you will be finding outdoors.

One of the locations for a lab cache at the Kent Mega. The code you needed was in the socks on the line.

But there are no cache containers! You don't go to a certain location, find a box and sign the log book. No, you're simply information gathering. Once you have your info, you log it online and claim a find. A bit strange but as I said, perhaps Groundspeak's attempt at resurrecting virtuals. Seriously, guys, just bring back the original virtual cache type! (And webcams, while you're at it).

The Kent Mega I attended recently was a good chance to find 10 more lab caches which were created specifically for the Mega Event. That's another thing about this cache type: they aren't long-lasting. A set of 10 exhibitions were set up in a woods near the Mega venue and each of them concealed the code you'd need to log a find. For example there was a large ball pit and you needed to find a silver ball with a code written on it. That was then what you put into Geocaching.com and a find was yours. That ball pit can't stay in the woods forever so ideas will need to be more permanent if they are to work.

There's a code in here somewhere!

All in all, I found the ten lab caches at the Kent Mega interesting, and certainly good for kids. It could work well with a murder mystery type theme where you are trying to find answers in your surroundings. Beyond that, I don't know what the future is for lab caches but if they scrap the idea then I hope the finds will still count unlike Challenges did. A lot of stats will be screwed up and it's confusing enough at the moment that GC.com says you've got X amount of finds and yet the lab caches aren't really re-accessible or counted by other stats generators. You can't write a log either - you just submit your code and bam, another find. I'll be interested to see how this pans out and what other new ideas crop up. Any thoughts?

3rd Annual Meon Shore CITO

2012 brought very wet weather; 2013 glorious sunshine. This year was somewhere in between but the aim was the same as ever: a team of eager geocachers meet with members of the Fareham Society and take to the Meon Shore beach to clean it of as much litter as possible. If you haven't attended a "Cache In Trash Out" event yet, try to get to one because they're just as sociable as standard events but you're outdoors and doing what you enjoy plus you are probably making a considerable difference to the local habitats and general appearance of a patch of land. What's more, you may pass a cache or two as you find rubbish so another find under your belt is no bad thing! Don't forget you'll get a rare icon for attending!

CITO Meon Shore 2014 was a successful venture and dozens of black bags of rubbish were collected off the coastline, some dropped by beach users, others washed up from vessels out in the Solent. As ever, there were the usual bits of green string which I used to tie my bag up with, plus bottle tops, cans, bottles and usual litter, but then you find weird things like a washing up brush and a workman's helmet.

 

If you're going to attend a CITO or any other litter clean up operation, be sure to bring some additional supplies than what you might bring with you to a standard event (note book, pen and trackables!) For a CITO, you are going to be handling dirty and unwanted stuff. A good tough pair of gardening gloves will help with broken glass as well as anything you don't want your skin to come into contact with. If you find a needle, make sure it does not make skin contact with you and dispose of it safely in a hard container so it won't puncture anything like a bin bag and cause injury and potentially disease. I take my reacher with me to CITOs. I half use it to grab caches I can't physically reach and half use it handling litter during CITOs. Great tool - every cacher should have one! I got such a suspicious look from the mobility shop I bought it from though!

I spotted the tip of this one but needed a lot of help dislodging it from the beach!