Westbury White Horse

Decided to do something a little special for my minor milestone of 2100 and as I was in the area, White Horse View seemed a good one. Many times have I been through Westbury on the train to or from Wales and seen the massive horse out the window, but at last I have been able to get right up close to it, so close in fact that I sat on its ear. The are some good views from below but you can get right to the top and see across Westbury and beyond. The history of the horse is uncertain but it's thought to date back to the eighteenth century. Why it's there no one really knows either, although other white horses were made to celebrate victories. Originally the horse was purely the chalk in the hillside but it's been painted and preserved now so that it doesn't have to be scrubbed clean all the time!

The horse is one of several in the Wiltshire area, but probably the most anatomically accurate (which is saying something, really). Other chalk figures tend to be outlines like the Long Man of Wilmington or the Cerne Abbas Giant. I find them a little eerie, to be honest, but also fascinating, perhaps like my love/hate relationship with huge chimneys, cooling towers and other industrial superstructures.

Boris biking in the capital

If you're ever in London and looking to get around, you'll probably go down to the Tube or perhaps take a tour bus or even cruise along the Thames. What about cycling, though? Well, to be frank, I can't think of many things more daunting than cycling through the capital, but I was willing to give it a try what with the fairly recent incentive of Boris Johnson's to get hired bicycles dotted around the capital to encourage green commuting. We spent a while just getting the bikes out, then with much trepidation cycled away from London Bridge, trying to get to grips with these rather heavy and awkward bikes. The next half an hour was spent cycling round in circles through quiet streets and a nearby playground. 

I think cycling through central London is some way off for the likes of me. I'll stick to the New Forest, thanks! Hats off to those who do use eco-friendly transport in such a city though. If ever you're in London, it's worth giving the Boris bikes a go, just for a laugh!

First attempt at action filming

It's not something I see myself doing on a regular basis, but there have been a few occasions when I have thought "wouldn't it have been good to have filmed that?" but my hands were too busy grabbing handlebars, pulling me through a tunnel or gripping a dog sled so I was unable to hold my camera. Typical that the most exciting moments are also the times when my hands aren't free! I decided to invest in a cheap action camera to see if it's something worth pursuing. I'd say that I don't do enough interesting or thrill-seeking stuff to make it worth my while to buy a better one.

Today, biking in the New Forest, I thought I'd take it out for its first spin, with varying degrees of success!

Problems I've encountered include:

• Incredibly poor audio - part and parcel of buying a cheap model
• Inaccurate time - for some reason the time carries on from when it was last switched on!
• Wrong angle - There was only one place where I could attach it to my helmet but that meant that the angle was too high and so to see the road I had to look down the whole time which was a little impractical, if not dangerous
• Seasickness - partly my filming, partly the nature of trying to use it when juddering up and down on gravel. Perhaps the issue could have been resolved by attaching the camera to the handlebars, but I don't know it would have made a huge amount of difference (but at least it would probably be pointing  the right direction!)

In all honesty, I think this little gadget will live in a cupboard doing nothing most of the time. I might get it out for the odd interesting event where holding a camera is inappropriate and I certainly want to take it to Go Ape but I'm not expecting decent footage any more!

May the Fourth be with you!

Groundspeak decided to celebrate 4th May with its tenth World Wide Flash Mob, an event I've never previously attended for whatever reason. But today, being a free Saturday I committed to two out of three reasonably close 15-minute events to celebrate the occasion and earn yet another souvenir for my profile. 

A flash mob event is a quick sudden gathering of people for a common purpose who before the predetermined time act naturally. At the given moment though, there is suddenly a mass gathering of apparent strangers, much to the bemusement of those not in on it - in this case muggles. For several years now Groundspeak has proposed dates when the whole geocaching community should do this type of event and that's what makes it a world wide thing. We might not all be meeting at precisely the same moment (not really fair given the time zones) but we all come together on that calendar date.

So the May the Fourth bit made the theme of a Star Wars nature although having still never watched the films, I am merely drawing upon what little I know to see me through all the references. All the films are on my bucket list but I would rather borrow than buy them just in case I don't enjoy them. 

Thanks Bernie for hosting the first this morning at 9am (not early for me! I had a nice hour's lie-in this morning!) with the blustery wind and a nice view out across the Solent. Plenty turned up - a fair number of trackables to log, new faces (as ever!) to see, as well as old ones. And a queue for the log book. Much the same later on at 1:15pm for Mellers' second WWFM event of the day, this one with a rather delicious cake theme! It was also good to spend time doing normal geocaching with FfiLli after the first event. Always makes a welcome change to cache in the company of others, although there are pros and cons to caching alone.

Next significant event... the West Midlands Mega!

CITO in the sunshine!

Today I was able to adorn my profile with a new BadgeGen badge (Silver CITO) and souvenir (CITO 2013):

But more importantly than that I got to take part in a great event where I had the opportunity to contribute to the upkeep of our local environment by litter-picking with dozens of other cachers on Meon Shore in what is turning out to be an annual event. Much better than last year which was a total wash-out, the sun was out the whole time!

Another highlight of the day was spending time with other people of like mind, particularly Cat a Tonic and Mellers. Many thanks for your company!

I look forward to the next CITO event, whenever that may be. They tend to come only in annual waves and at Megas so maybe I'll take part in one in the Midlands in August. Always feels so satisfying at the end though; wish these were more common event types. 

Reviving my inner orienteer!

It's been far too long since I took up a detailed O map and compass to locate controls at a run. Very glad I got in contact with Southampton Orienteering Club and turned up to the event this morning. I think perhaps the orange course was a little too basic for me, but I thought it would be best not to overestimate it! I was looking forward to going to the next events, but I am otherwise committed for the next few weeks. Oh well, in time!

Cache #2000 in South Wales

I hadn't intended to get my 2000 cache milestone whilst enjoying a four-night stay back with my parents in Wales but as cheesescones, cloudspotter and I went and mopped up loads of caches in Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire and West Glamorgan I thought that I would be within touching distance of this large milestone. Time to seriously consider what cache it should be before I overshoot it and find I've landed myself with a dull cache 'n' dash for the big one!

Bunkered? was a cache I'd been eyeing up for some time, ever since it was published in fact! But living so far away I never really got the chance to seriously consider it! Now was my opportunity though so when I was on cache number 1993 cheesescones and I made our way to Pembrey Country Park via some caches en route (Sluice Gate being another excellent hide). I have been to Pembrey a few times and done some great orienteering there but I love it so much - to me it's like a small taste of heaven right here, right now. There's just something for all the family there. So being able to get my milestone in one of my favourite places on earth (Rhossili Bay and Toronto being the main others) was a real pleasure.

Did the cache disappoint? Hell no! I won't give away all the details just in case you're ever in the area and want to have a go yourself, but basically it involves a bit of crawling through an old disused bunker. When I saw what I had to do, I had doubts for a second then threw myself in (literally) and enjoyed the different caching experience. Cache found, number 2000 achieved, favourite point duly awarded!

When I got home later, I read up more on the history of the area and found that Pembrey has actually got a rather sinister history and the neighbouring forest is supposedly haunted. Make of that what you will, but it was a little creepy seeing the very bunker I'd been in filmed briefly for an episode of Most Haunted! (See below)

Caches that make you laugh

I won't give away the name or location of this, but let's just say that when I found it I couldn't resist a smile!

Caching and nature spotting in Stanley Park

Stanley Park is a lovely large park in Vancouver full of wildlife and plenty of geocaches and whilst finding caches was really cool, as ever, stumbling upon the final of a multi by accident was a welcome addition to my  caching total! Even better than the geocaches (!) were the creatures I don't see in the wild back home in the UK...

Herons (not unheard of in the UK, but not a common sight):

Black squirrels (and very tame at that):

Raccoons (watching one and being snuck up on by another!):

Flight in a sea plane

One of the excursions we got to do was have a flight in a sea plane over Victoria which was fantastic and another thing I would definitely recommend. For once in your life you do hope that your aircraft touches down on water!

Canyoneering at night

Another first for me - going in a canyon. At night. During the winter. With lots of ice. And no idea how to get back. Sounds fun! And yes, it was. During the summer it is flowing thick and fast but it freezes in the winter and we can walk on the frozen river up canyon and admire waterfalls which have frozen solid into some beautiful formations. Although it would have been easier to appreciate in daylight, there was a certain thrill about being down there at night in the quiet and stillness that accompanies it.

DOG SLEDDING!!!

Ever since Solid Snake said in Metal Gear Solid "I ride dog sleds, I'm a musher" I have really wanted to have a go at it. Bear in mind I first heard Snake say this in 1999. But I've never been in a part of the world where it's done and Snake, fictional character though he may be, lives in Alaska which is still very much on my to-visit list.

Sledding was one of the bookable excursions on this Canadian holiday though and was done through Cold Fire Creek Dog Sledding (Sundog Tours), who were excellent. Six sleds went out, each with six or ten Alaskan huskies pulling and we switched over so that we got a chance to mush and chill out (literally) in the sled. Funnily enough the toes got colder quickly when you were under all the blankets in the sled rather than when you were scooting through the snow because they were inactive in the sled and just became painfully cold. We did a 10km track and the dogs just could not wait to get going, all barking and jumping over each other with impatience.

Have a look at their promotional video:

Walking on a frozen lake

Behind me is the frozen solid Lake Pyramid just north-west of Jasper in Alberta. Can't say I've ever ventured out onto a lake before but then the entire coach-load of us went and had a real play like we were all kids again! Forty-something women making snow angels, grown men throwing powdery snowballs and general frivolity that we British don't normally show in public.

Was the ice going to crack any time soon? No, hardly likely - there were several inches of snow on top of all the ice, too.

Cross-country train journey

A big part of the holiday was going across Canada on a sleeper train, which we spent three nights on. Originally the plan had been to get the train all the way from Toronto to Vancouver but I'm glad we changed plans and only went as far as Jasper then got a coach the rest of the way. It meant more time to enjoy ourselves in the Rockies and better views of the scenery to Vancouver. Still, travelling by long-distance train is great and doesn't compare to the trains you'd just use to commute to work or take a day-trip on. There was a very nice dining carriage with exquisite food, a fair amount of entertainment and a few stops en route. The worst part was having to stop often to let very long freighters (152 wagons, I counted on one) go past. The best part was sleeping in an upper bunk, being rocked to sleep by the train thundering along at high speed overnight.

Here's the amazing promotional video for the trip we did:

Niagara Falls in the winter

Before visiting the Falls, I didn't know much about them except that they are half in the USA and half in Canada. What I didn't realise is that the Americans can't really see either of them properly. The American Falls are best viewed across the river in Canada and the Canadian Horseshoe Falls can't be seen in America unless you walk out onto a platform which is often mistaken for being the remainder of the Honeymoon Bridge which fell down. In fact, the bridge was replaced in the same place by the Rainbow Bridge which is one of four major crossing places in the area to get from one country to the other.

American Falls on the left and Canadian Horseshoe Falls on the right.

They are partly frozen in the winter but even so they are very loud and create vast amounts of spray!

There is the option to walk behind the Horseshoe Falls through a tunnel with lookouts but the water here is completely frozen!

What did surprise me is how much the Horseshoe Falls have cut away the rock in what in geological terms is a very short space of time. See the diagram below of how they used to fall off a near-enough straight edge.

The other thing that surprised me is how built up the area is. I don't know why this is such a shock. It makes a lot of sense to use the Falls as a way of making money and having tourist attractions nearby but I was not expecting a Blackpoolesque street of arcades and amusements.

You'd never believe it was the same place!

What was pleasant though was the quaint but attractive little town of Niagara-on-the-Lake a few miles away. We visited a Christmas shop, which, for January was surprisingly busy! We also trudged through a quiet residential area thick with snow to see the perfectly calm and peaceful Lake Ontario.

My first attempt at Geo-event hosting!

I said I'd do it and I did! I was hardly stationary on this Canada holiday as almost every day involved travelling or excursions but we had a free morning in Victoria on Vancouver Island so I used this chance to meet up with some geocachers and to my delight, people turned up! I came fifteen minutes early but was still beaten to it! Passed around a Canadian notebook I'd bought in Jasper for people to sign and ended up taking rather a lot of trackables back to the UK with me but it was great to be able to host the kind of event I'd attended the previous February in Madeira. Nothing to plan - just show up by the side of a road and hope the weather is good.

Here we all are enjoying a quick 30-minute gathering before parting ways and getting back to normal life!

The CN Tower

It's quite an icon and many people recognise the tallest tower in the western hemisphere, the CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario which stands at a total of 1,815ft. As I've said to loads of people on loads of occasions, I just adore tall structures and I got excited just going up the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth. This takes you to another level entirely (and literally) though.

Looking up at this wonder is breathtaking, then ascending rapidly in the elevator so that you're at the Indoor Observation Level (1,135ft) within a minute is great. From there you can eat in the revolving restaurant, drop a level (1,122ft) and to the Outdoor Observation Terrace or stand on the Glass Floor and look down, or you can take another lift up to the SkyPod (1,467ft) and observe Toronto from the highest possible place on land.

I had no qualms lying on the glass floor (skim back a few pages to see me on the glass floor of the Spinnaker) but it'll take some courage for me to try the Edge Walk outside, although I'd love to say I'd done it!

New country and three new souvenirs!

Wow. Canada. Just wow.

This country deserves several posts coming soon, but for now I need somewhere to host my updated country map, so here will do:

And sadly I wasn't able to make it five like I'd intended, but three new souvenirs ain't half bad. When are the UK regions getting them?

  

Time to host an event...

I'm not a natural event host, I'm afraid. I think it's something I could get better at but I just don't normally have the time and resources required to make it a success. But I decided after the random meeting of geocaching tourists in Madeira last year that I would attempt to hold either a flash mob or a tourist-based event myself. My husband and I are going to be spending two weeks travelling across Canada soon and at the end of the stay we get some quality time in Vancouver and Victoria so I thought I'd seize the opportunity to host an event there. No need for a sit-down venue, or food. I'll just bring a log book, pen and some trackables and meet some brand new (and this time, English-speaking) faces. I think it'll be a lot of fun, and it makes my first event relatively stress-free. It'll be a while before I'm hosting Mega Events!!

Are you in Victoria on 2nd February this year? If so, please come to my 30-minute mini event "The British in Columbia"!

Forget satellites and balloons - this is how you tell the weather accurately!

It's a common enough reason why people like geocaching: "It takes me to interesting locations". Well I was only intending to nab Rickmansworth Weatherstone because it was in Hertfordshire, a county I don't think I've ever been to before, let alone cached in, and I read the cache description thinking it was one of those "here's an interesting nugget of history for you" types. If they're longer than two paragraphs, I don't tend to read them, to be honest, but this cache seemed to be a bit elusive. What was so special about this "weatherstone" that makes it very accurate? How does it work? The plaque will explain, the cache description promises. 

So I went to the location, and found the stone:

 

And how on earth does this work? What does the stone do? If it's so perfectly accurate at judging the weather, why does the Met Office not have one? Perhaps because it's less of a predictor and more of an observer:

Even so, I love it!

Prime Meridian in London

I have been planning this cache for ages, because how often do you get to get a cache which has neither E nor W in front of the longitudinal coordinates? To my surprise there was no container at GZ, just a rolled up water-proof log book wedged into a space that fits the coordinates. Well, it works!

Yes, I am still a sucker for views of tall buildings - good view across to the mini skyscrapers at Canary Wharf.

Playing with skeletons in a graveyard over Hallowe'en

When cheesescones came to visit Hampshire to do some caching, we went to get some older caches to help her fill her Jasmer table. One of the caches we did was in a graveyard and was one I'd already done so whilst she was locating the cache, rummaging through the swag and signing the log book, I stood waiting nearby. I stepped back to hear a crunch and looked down to see I had stepped on a skull! Not a human skull, but what I believe was a rabbit's. The more I looked around me, the more bits I found. Some legs, the jaw, the spine. Cheesescones managed to convince me not to take any of it home with me...

 

Puffball in action!

Thank you cheesescones for telling me exactly why puffballs are so named. Fascinating!

This blog is now trackable... if you know where to look

Yeah, so I made it trackable, but sadly the tracking code is not contained anywhere on this site, so only read back through all past entries if you actually want to. The code can only be found on my brand-spanking new business cards from Vista Print. (LOVE THAT SITE!) Yes, it really is just shameless advertising. Coming soon to a cache near you. Feel free to keep a card if you find it; saves on geolitter, right?

London at night

I am a total sucker for skyscrapers, cityscapes and night life. Put these together, go to the O2 in Greenwich and get a photo like the one below. I don't have a fantastic camera and I'm not the world's best photographer (not even close!) but at least I will have very fond memories of looking across the Thames to Canary Wharf and the famous 1 Canada Square.