At the end of September we had a much needed holiday in Bournemouth; the weather was amazing and we squeezed in a couple of walks which I thought I'd share with you!
Brownsea Island - Tuesday 23 September
What a glorious day we had on our first proper day on holiday! We decided to walk to Brownsea Island and go hunting for some red squirrels ("Like Nutkin?") and some caches. It was always going to be a long day with some significant hills on the route, but it saved on sorting out parking near the boat quay.
This was Ginger Nut and Pip's first boat trip and both seemed to enjoy themselves!
Brownsea Island is a stunning National Trust island, full of birds and animals, including the infamous red squirrel. This peacock decided to come and investigate our lunch; he got a little to close for comfort though. We saw several red squirrels but none of them wanted to pose for a photo!
We walked round the island following the route of the Brownsea Red Squirrel Hunt geocache (GC1556C). This involved gathering clues including the number of view points, distance in miles of walks on the island, the length of a dragon fly, date of birth of George Augustus Frederick Cavendish-Bentinck and date of the experimental scout camp. We had lots of fun gathering the information but a dead phone battery meant we weren't able to get find the actual final cache. Hopefully we'll be back soon and can find it. We did manage to find Purbeck View (GC338HA) and BP's Brownsea Island(GC23AD) before the phone battery gave out.
Ginger Nut and Pip had great fun on the island as we were able to give them slightly more freedom as there are no vehicles there. We did have to keep Ginger Nut away from the cliffs though...
Walk details:
Date: Tuesday 23 September 2014
From/To: Spencer Road, Canford Cliffs (circular)
Distance: 12.16 miles
Total Ascent: 557ft
Route Description: Town and island
Duration: 8h 17m
Ave Speed: 1.47mph
Weather: Sunny
Region: Dorset
Walking With: Steve, Ginger Nut & Pip
Path: N/A
Map: N/A
Hengistbury Head - Saturday 27 September
Saturday saw us heading over the to the other side of Bournemouth to visit a friend who'd just moved from the Isle of Man and two other mutual friends. We've known Hannah (who was renamed Henny by Ginger Nut) for many years so it was nice to meet up with her, as well as seeing Chris and Andy.
We had a lovely walk at Hengistbury Head; enjoying views over Poole Bay and across to the Isle of Wight
Chris and Andy are also geocachers (aka Nashman and Jones) so we had to pick up a few on our walk. Things didn't start particularly well as the first cache didn't want to be found! We then went on to find Bird's Eye View (GCA113) and Alice on Wonderland (GC2PMR8)
Ginger Nut had great fun walking with her 'big girl friends' (Henny and Andy), as well as having some freedom to run free, and Pip enjoyed spending some time with Daddy.
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| Beach Huts |
Walk details:
Date: Saturday 27 September 2014
From/To: Hengistbury Head carpark (circular)
Distance: 3.11 miles
Total Ascent: 246ft
Route Description: Coastal path
Duration: 2h
Ave Speed: 1.59mph
Weather: Sunny
Region: Dorset
Walking With: Steve, Ginger Nut & Pip, as well as friends Hannah, Chris and Andy
Path: N/A
Map: N/A
I walked, I remembered, I cried, I laughed, I talked, I gave thanks to God for such a godly man. And I thanked God for a lovely weekend a couple of weeks previous when we celebrated together as a family; firstly just because on the Saturday and second for the life of our beloved son Caleb on the Sunday. Let me share with you some of my memories:
The walk today was an easy one with stunning views which allowed me the space I needed today. The weather was crisp and sunny, with amazing views across the vale. Pip and I found four geocaches on our walk; they were nice simple finds which was good and I'm not sure I would have coped with anything much more complicated! But our tally for the Aylesbury Ring continues to grow and more smiley faces are appearing on my geocaching map. :)
I woke this morning with a streaming cold and just wanted to curl back up in bed when Ginger Nut had gone to pre-school, but I dragged myself out for some fresh air and exercise! I did, however, decide to find an easy route which could cope with the pushchair. Pip happily slept the whole way, warmly cocooned against the cold and rain.
Next time I return I'll need to bring an OS map so that I can find the route of the footpath - the arrow pointed straight across this field. It will be pretty muddy to cross this at the moment.
One type of geocache that I really enjoy doing is a multicache - these take you on a journey as you gather information which leads to the final cache location. So on a Friday afternoon when I had two tired grumpy children (and was tired and grumpy myself) we escaped out to explore the village of Wendover which is one of the villages that the Aylesbury Ring footpath passes through. Ginger Nut and Pip were piled into the double buggy and off we went...
Pip enjoyed the walk and spent the whole time fast asleep in his sling. However, this didn't end well for me as I seem to hav pulled an inner muscle in my chest whilst putting Pip on my bag last week and continued 'babywearing' is aggravating the muscle, so no more carrying for a week or so whilst I recover. I'm not sure how pushchair friendly the next section of the Aylesbury Ring is though...
We had good fun caching today picking up three caches; Bridge Nano (GC3J7B7), AR18 Mandarin - Eye Level (GC4Q79R) and The wonderful story of Henry Sugar - A piece of Cake (GC47AWJ). We also collected the information for Church Micro 4515 Halton Village (GC4RN7P) but need to return another day to look for the actual cache. And a DNF was logged for AR17 Mandarin - Monopolistic Tendencies (GC4Q790); the cache site was covered in a multitude of prickles (blackberries, nettles etc) and I had nothing to protect my hands and arms, or Pip who was asleep on my back at the time! Today was a sad day too as my trusty geocaching aide died... My phone slipped out of my hand and landed glass side down on the stony path resulting in a spider's web of cracks all over the screen.
It took us nearly two hours to walk the mile as we kept stopping to feed stones to the (non-existant) ducks, make dinner, admire leaves and sticks, look for fish etc. Ginger Nut enjoys being out whatever the weather and is doing more and more creative play out and about. In these photos she's cooking dinner! Pip slept most of the walk this time, but I'm sure as he gets older he'll start to appreciate being out as well. I'll also make sure I get a few photos of him too...
