Christmas 2010

With snow on the ground and the very cold spell continuing, it wasn't the time to venture too far.  Instead we headed for Allesley Park for a romp in the snow.  Well, Shadow had a romp and we just followed. 

It is not worth taking a toy along for Shadow when there is snow as all he is interested in is having snowballs thrown for him. 

Sometimes he doesn't quite manage to catch them



Bath Youth Hostel

Part of my venture of staying in the Youth Hostels in alphabetical order.  this was the first of the Bs.  Bath Youth Hostel is in a residential area on a hill on the outskirts of the city.  Where else can you stay in such an old villa for £18. 

I first stayed here about 30 years ago.  I think in those days we were all given a job to do before checking out in the morning and being given my membership card back.  No jobs to do now and a nice refurbished Members Kitchen.  The lounge is spoilt as ever by having a giant TV in it - one of the things that I think has spoilt youth hostels over time. 

Scenes of child labour on the wall inside Bath Youth Hostel

I didn't meet any fellow walkers here.  Most people staying seemed to be families, couples or students taking a break before their upcoming exams.

More scens from the walls of Bath Youth Hostel

Gloucestershire and Bath

A day out in Gloucestershire and Bath visiting HuMPS (hills with a 100 meter prmontary), trig points and collecting geocaches.  The weather was cold and frosty with lots of fog at ground level but when I climbed the hills I found myself above the cloud and in the sunshine.  A smashing day out!

The Trig Point on Tinkers Hill - the original concrete trig has been encased in bricks. 

Dropping off a travel bug.  I thought this was an apt place to drop it as the cache is specifically for doggy related trade items.

A Christmas sceen at St Bartholemews Church on top of Tinker's Hill.  The berries and bits fir tree that had dropped onto the top of the grave made a lovely picture with the frosty grass in the background.

Robin's Wood Hill, Gloucestershire.  A hill in the middle of an urban area with the added benefit of free parking.  I think I dropped a travel bug up here.  The first one I have ever lost.  I have had to appologise to the owners.

The beautiful view from the top of Bathampton Down just outside Bath.

The highest point on Bathford Hill is this folly.  I found that the door had been vandalised and ajar so went in and climbed to the top.  Pretty scary as the handrails were missing for much of the way up.

The stone stairs inside the folly on top of Bathford Hill.

View from the top of Bathford Hill.  One hand holding the camera, one the wall to stop me shaking.

Geocaching in Tallinn

When you live in a place that receives a lot of snow you need extra ingenuity to place caches.  The ones I found were all easily accessible even though there was lots of snow around - as you can see by the photos.  The trick was to keep the gloves on till the very last moment so that by the time you came to sign the log sheet your fingers were not too numb. 

I'm sure it's under there but what is this thing?

As with all caching, these took us to places in the city we may not have found otherwise and offered a good break in sightseeing and museums etc.

Bet you can't guess where this one was!

We only got in trouble with the police once, and we weren't even caching at the time.  We were in the middle of trying to pay for a tram ticket when the driver kept shoving the money back at us as she didn't have any change.  The police (two of them) wouldn't let us get away with it even though they could see we were trying to pay.  In the end another passenger took pity on us and gave us a ticket.

Tallinn in winter - pretty but chilly.

Bedworth Miners Welfare Park

The snow may have gone but its still pretty cold.  Time for a few caches in Bedworth.  I haven't been around this park since I came orienteering about five years ago. I liked the sculpture and mine wheel.

Miners sculpture - Bedworth

Balsall Common - the Greenway

This unusual cold spell we are having is making for some great scenery and some good walking weather.  The Greenway is a former railway line and now popular with walkers, bike and horse riders. Oh, and geocachers. 

Now how do I make this into a Christmas card? 

A frosty day on the Greenway

It's a bit cold Dad - can we either get moving or go back to the car.

I dropped off the travel bug Noodles and Piggy, Io and Callisto named after some hairless rats - yuck! 

Grand Union Canal

These dark winter evenings give me a change to catch up on some difficult puzzle geocaches.  This particular one has been puzzling me for a couple of years but after a lot of Googling I got a lead as to how to solve it and find the final coordinates where the cache was hidden.  The cache is called Paper/Scissor/Stone? though I am not sure why.

The clues for Paper/Scissors/Stone geocache.  Can you crack it?

Visited the cache location on a cold winter's day and then went for a walk along the nearby Grand Union Canal.  I wonder what it's like living on a narrowboat at this time of year?

These barges ain't going nowhere today.

Lake View Park

Snow! Where did that come from?  Not the weather for driving down country lanes so I headed to the local park.  Who else should be sheltering there but a heron.  It won't catch many fish in the streams that flow through this park. An apple or dog's dropped ball may be but not many fish. 

Spot the heron!

Where did that big bird go?

Coventry Canal Basin

A bright and sunny November day and time for a walk down to the Coventry canal basin to grab the new geocache that has been placed there.  The basin looked good in the sunshine.  Found the cache without too much of a problem, signed the log book and replaced it for the next visitor. At the head of the basin is a statue of canal engineer James Brindley leaning over his desk.  I made a Waymark of this statue a few years ago and listed a bit of the history behind Brindley and the statue itself.

I then had a pot of tea and teacake at Country Crust Tea Rooms for a bargain £1.50 and good service.  Well worth a visit.

Coombe Abbey

With legs still sore from yesterday's trip to North Wales I looked for something gentle to do close to home.  Time for a bit of geocaching.  Dave fancied doing a cache or two as well so we headed to north east Coventry.  After collecting a couple of urban caches in Wyken we headed out to Coombe Abbey.  It's a better place when there is more of one of you as you can share the exorbitant £3.30 parking fee.

The first cache 'Coombe and Feed the Ducks' took us an age.  The clue was 'under a tree. but no matter how hard we hunted we couldn't find it.  Then Dave came up trumps as you can tell by his smile.  I'm sure I looked there before. 

About time I let him find one

Moel Hebog, Moel y Ogof & Moel Lefn

A grey November overcast day was forecast for most of the country but in Snowdonia there was an indication that the cloud would lift. I made an early start and headed for North Wales.  As I drove south from Capel Curig some patches of blue sky did indeed appear.  I parked outside the forestry campsite in Beddgelert. Looking up I could see the Nantlle Ridge was bathed in sunshine whereas the mountains I was heading up were still in cloud. 

Moel Hebog and ridge cleared after I came down - typical!

I climbed for an hour over grassland before hitting the cloud base but was then very pleased that I had downloaded a GPS file of the route I was following form GPS Walking Routes site.  This meant I could follow in the footsteps of someone who had walked the exact same route as before without having to refer to my map, compass or taking GPS readings all day.  This was ever so handy as the route would have been difficult to follow without this.

Moel Hebog summit and trig point in the cloud

A full collection of my photos of England and Wales mountains can be found in my Flickr photo album

Longford Community Nature Area

I found myself at Tescos looking for an urban geocache and wanted to make it into a short walk so looked at the Coventry Walks website and found an area I've never been before - the Longford Community Nature Area. 

An example of the great maps on the Coventry Walks website

It's a pleasant area with some reasonable paths and slopes. I didn't explore it fully as I spotted what looked to be a pretty aggressive looking dog running free and didn't want my Shadow to get into a fight.

Some late daisies near the Ricoh

Longford Nature Area in November sunshine

Black Head and Black Chew Head

The weather didn't look too good for North Wales or the Lake District so instead I decided to go to the Peak District and climb the county tops called Black Head and Black Chew Head.

Shadow next to the trig point on Black Hill

I parked at Crowden and was pleasantly surprised to find that the car park was free of charge. I headed off north east towards Westend Moss rather than just going up and down the Pennine Way.  I kicked myself afterwards for missing the trig point on Hey Moss that is not marked on the map but is on the Trigpointing website. 

Some of the paths were easy whilst at other times it was hard work dodging all the boggy bits.  I worked on the principle that if I saw Shadow disappear  in the bog ahead of me then it was time to find a different route.

On top of Black Hill I met up with another hill bagger Matt who had come up from Leicester.  The mist came down and I headed south down the Pennine Way.  This section was easier as it is flagged for part of the way.  there are quite a few rivers to cross but plenty of stepping stones to make it not too difficult.

To visit Black Chew Head I detoured off the Pennine Way and up the heather bank, across a boggy area and over a fence to the small cairn on Black Chew Head.

Black Chew Head

A full collection of my photos of County Tops can be found in the following: Flickr Photo Album