just another morning here

Anyone looking for a great little geocaching walk with children on Dartmoor should definitely check out the Animal Kingdom series of caches. We went down to Cadover Bridge today to do it, and had a fab time walking up over Wigford Down. Our trip started well with the most delicious picnic we’ve had for ages, made up of bits and bobs that we bought yesterday at the South West Festival of Food and Drink.

The series of caches is a short circular walk, and each container is listed as ‘small’ but actually they were all variations on a theme – toy animals made into cache containers! The kids loved them.

At one point we caught up with some other cachers who we’d obviously been following round the trail, so we stopped and messed about with the camera for a while before carrying on!

Finished the walk by finding the bonus cache, (oh and one more that I sneaked in at the end) then headed down to the river for an ice cream – always a good end to a walk, as far as this family are concerned! More caching due tomorrow, I’m having a very good weekend

I never seem to tire of taking pictures when we go up to Dartmoor … sorry if they’re as samey as ever. Dragged myself out of the house for a couple of hours because it was getting to the point where I would have been mightily cross if we hadn’t done something on such a beautiful day.

Had a lucky escape on the way up there; we were on the A38 (dual carriageway) when a car pulled out right in front of the Astra van Steve was overtaking. The one that pulled out didn’t even notice they’d done anything and carried on going, leaving the van trying to avoid it – and in doing so it span around right in front of us. Steve managed to avoid it too, but we ended up having pulled onto the central reservation in front of it, and it was behind us, facing the wrong way. Bit scary. Amazing that no-one went into the back of us, either. I was phoning the police when an unmarked police car pulled up behind, Steve gave them his name in case they need witnesses etc. Not sure what the end of the story was but just grateful that no-one was hurt, no real damage done, and we carried on our way.

We went up to Haytor, as Abbie wanted to go climbing Got just a couple of caches done, including an Earth Cache which is logged by taking a photo instead of actually finding something. Made a change! Ice creams at the end were a very good cure for my still-exceedingly sore throat.

Came home for a delicious roast dinner which is the first meal we’ve all felt like eating all week, so hopefully we’re finally getting better.

Another gorgeous day here, which we ended up spending on Dartmoor. Steve had arranged to go to a meet-up of some Subaru people from a forum he visits. Interesting conversation on the way there about how I would chat on a forum first, and then meet people in real life, whereas he prefers to meet people in real life first, and then chat on the forum …

Anyway. We had a lovely (and huge) carvery at the Plume of Feathers, and then went up further to find an ice cream van for pudding! After that people went different ways, and we stayed on for a walk, which is when I really needed a caching system that works on the go – we found a letterbox which we thought might have been a cache/letterbox hybrid but having read logs etc. from caches in the area I don’t think it was.

No photos of the cars as I wasn’t interested enough to get the camera out (we didn’t take his subaru in any case as it is (a) in pieces in the workshop and (b) only has 2 seats). Instead the usual subject matter

Home after that for X Factor repeats, laundry and a few essential jobs before falling into bed again. Need an extra day in this weekend!

Abbie has had a fab time at the Dartmoor Training Centre over the past couple of days with school; they did orienteering, scrambling, abseiling, rock climbing, and generally had fun; a lovely end to the term for her.