19 January Geddington

Jeff works at a US Military base, RAF Molesworth, and had Monday off because of Martin Luther King Day. It was decided that this would be another caching day in and around Geddington. A fellow parishioner, Phil Rogers, suggested I should visit Geddington to see the Eleanor Cross, the best preserved of three remaining original crosses. Eleanor of Castille, wife of Edward I, also known as Long Shanks. He was in the process of trying to illegally invading the sovereign nation of Scotland. Eleanor was travelling to meet her husband in Scotland when she died at Harby, North Lincoln. Her body was taken back to London and entombed at Westminster Abbey. The King was so grief stricken he gave orders that every place where her bier had rested, a cross be erected in her memory.
It was raining when I first got up but by 10:30 the sun was out and we set off for our first cache. This one was titled Shockingly Easy Cache, and it was; unfortunately it was full of water. In this rather damp country I would have thought that anyone placing a cache would make sure it was in a waterproof container.
Our next stop was not a cache, it was Eleanor's Cross in Geddington. I was surprised at how well it had survived 700 years of exposure. I suspect that the lack of nearby heavy industry and carriageways has kept pollution to a minimum.
It was close to noon so we stopped for a pint and a meal at the Star Inn. Upon entering the establishment we were greeted with a "y'alright" instead of a 'hello, how are you', strange but to the point with fewer syllables.
I enjoyed another cask ale, Black Hole Brewery's Red Dwarf, another fine English Ale. Jeff had a pint of Scrumpy, a traditional Irish cask farm cider. I will have to try this cider at another time as one pint of ale was enough with more caching ahead of us in the afternoon: although, I must admit it was very tempting to spend more time by the fire. But, onward and upward!!
On the way to our next cache we made a detour to Lowick to view a church with a rather strange spire. At first glance I thought the spire was being used as a transmission site for radio, but on closer inspection we found the "antennas" were actually wind vanes. The church sat on a hill above the surrounding farms and on that day it was very easy to tell from which direction the wind was coming; it was blowing a small gale so all you had to do was watch in which direction your hat was blown off. We counted 12 smaller wind vanes with a large central vane pointing to the north.
The coordinates to the next cache took us to St Michael and All Angels Church in Wadenhoe. This was a rather frustrating cache because we were unable to locate the container. Both GPS receivers kept taking us to the same point on a stone wall but we were unable to locate the cache. We gave up after about 30 minutes of searching. Jeff later checked the cache log on the Geocaching website and found that the last person to find the cache did so by calling his friend, the person who placed the cache, and getting directions from him. Even with those directions it took him a few minutes to find the cache. Twenty-two people have found the cache so far and twenty-two people were unable to find the cache, so, thought frustrated, we didn't feel too bad about missing this cache.
Our next set of coordinates took us to a cache near Brigstock. This boosted our confidence as it was an easy find. The next cache was on down the road, but we found that the public road stopped and we were travelling on a lane way to a farm We soon found the lane blocked by a gate and it was a choice of parking and blocking the lane or parking in the farmer's yard. As neither option was viable we turned back and went on to the next cache.
The coordinates took us to a group of abandoned buildings. The logs of those who had found this cache earlier speculated that it may have been an abandoned air base from WWII. As soon as Jeff saw the water tower he was sure it was a military base. Many old bases were abandoned with the water tower left standing. We found the cache and rattled around the old buildings, finding rusted out logging equipment, hay storage and a huge supply of fertilizer spread among many buildings.
The next set of coordinates were nearby and took us to a memorial to the, and I quote from the memorial; In memory of the 351st Bomber Group (Heavy), Eighth United States Army Air Force. 311 group combat missions were flown from this airfield over occupied Europe between 1943 and 1945. 175 B-17 Flying Fortresses and their crews were lost, 303 enemy aircraft were destroyed in aerial combat.
The clue to the cache location was "check the eleventh tree from the memorial end." We had one major problem. There was a muggle (any person not involved with the hunt) in a truck parked near the memorial. I counted eleven trees and guided Jeff to move the car to place it between the tree and the muggle so he would not see what we were doing. After both of us looked at the tree we moved out to other trees with little success. Jeff returned to to the tree and found the small cache container hanging from a branch.
We decided to call it a day and head home. On the way I spotted an abandoned water tower and Jeff pulled in to show me another memorial to an airbase, the 457th Bombardment Group.
We arrived home to Alexander standing in the hallway with his hands on his hips telling us that we were late and he had been worried sick (I am pretty sure it was with tongue in cheek). After a quick cuff to the head to straighten him out we proceeded to make dinner.
Another fine day in the country side. I get as much enjoyment in seeing little, out of the way villages as I do visiting cathedrals.