18 Days on – Oxhey Woods, Whippendell Woods and Ely

Two and a half weeks into August and we are still caching strong. We haven’t managed to find a cache every single day but so far we have found at least one cache on 15 out of the 18 days. 12 days will stand now as our longest streak for finding caches on consecutive days.

Over the last week we have visited two woods that we have never been to before and they were both fantastic for walking. The first, Oxhey Woods has some marked routes for walking and even some natural sculptures along the way. Nice quiet woodland with a surprising lack of nettles and bracken which was great. The boys had a lot of fun running amok in the woods and finding the biggest log they could and attempting to drag it along with us.

The second was Whippendell Woods, which is just the other side of Cassiobury Park in Watford. Despite this being right on our doorstep we had never been here and what a treat we had been missing. These are fantastic woods for walking or biking or even horse riding in certain places. The trees are tall and straight and at this time of year the surrounding foliage is lush and verdant. These woods have been used for location filming for a number of movies over the years including Star Wars Episode I which put a big smile on my face as I am a fan.

Whippendell Woods

We picked up 6 caches in Oxhey Woods and one DNF. One of the finds was truly inventive employing a wireless doorbell to locate the final container which made us all smile big time. Another 5 in Whippendell Woods and our find count is ticking up nicely.

Was this tree struck by Lightning?

As we were dropping our youngest off to stay with Nanni on Sunday we made good use of the opportunity and slipped into Ely to have a wander and see if we could snag a couple of caches too. Lovely place and a truly breath-taking cathedral. It was probably a bit busier than we had hoped as we seemed to have turned up on a day when they were holding an East of England Triathlon even and the whole place was swarming with muggles which made caching a little difficult. We did manage to pick up two here though including one that was on the supposed site of the Mote and Bailey Castle that once stood here. There are a few nice multi caches in Ely including a pub crawl one which looked like a lot of fun, but not when you have to drive home after.

Ely Cathedral

A multi cache is a series of locations that have no physical container at them but clues that you have to collect that when you get them all will help you find the actual location of the final cache. We have yet to attempt a multi but hope to do so soon.

Total find count now stands at 114.