Small Tortie's First Hide...
The cache itself was stacked with a host of trackables from my travels in central Wales. It also included the White Jeep travelbug which I nabbed in Cardiff. The Jeep and my Liverpool 2008 geocoin are visible here amongst the diverse array of other travelbugs. Note also the cammo bag in the foreground - a sign that this cache is in it for the long haul after 3 short-lived attempts to place a cache in Cardiff.The final two photos show the general location of the cache. On the way up, there are superb views over Burry Port, the Loughour Estuary and Gower. The cache is located on a footpath, just north of the stone in the photo. However, the footpath is one of a labyrinth of paths that cut across Mynydd Penbre. Surprisingly, this "easy" cache flummoxed one of Wales' most experienced cachers, Satellite Kid, who was First to Find on this cache.
The "geoswag"...His exploits underline the democratic nature of geocaching - a relative upstart like me can flumox a virtual pro like Satellite Kid. On this occasion, it was the multitude of possible approaches to the cache which undid him...
"Crickey moses!! What a to do!! Set out early as I had a busy non caching day planned and got to Mountain Road at 8.45am....found the cache at 11am and was surprised to find I was the first visitor which was a hard earned bonus!
Drove to the parking spot at Penymynydd only to find it locked so I drove up the road a bit to a bridle path and pulled onto the side. I was 1.1miles from the cache but it was such a beautiful clear and frosty morning I thought it would be a good walk. Walked down the bridle path for ages before the path turned and I was actually heading directly towards the cache. Lovely walk through the fields over the hill on the public footpaths. Eventually came out on to a road near Carmel Chapel to be confronted by a scarey Gravestone, see pic, and then took the wrong route up St Illtyds way.
Lovely views - but which way to the cache?When I reached the top I realised there was no way over to the cache so had to retrace my steps back down the hill. Found another hill and headed up that. Then at the top of this hill I ran into a troup of cadets coming the other way. they were all a bit muddy and two of them were caked in mud up to their armpits. The guy in charge warned me that the path at the bottom was seriously muddy and two of their number had fallen in. How bad could it be, said thanks and headed off. They were right, some of the deepest, slimiest, sucking slime I've seen for some time and it stretched for yards. Forced my way through without falling thankfully and took a pic of my boots as proof. Then headed on up the hill. I ended up going away from the cache again and came back out on the Mountain Road. At this point I'd walked over 2 miles and had only got to within 0.3 miles of the cache. So I headed back to the car which was now nearly a mile away and decided to try the Burry Port approach.
Didn't fare much better here at first as I took the wrong road and ended up half way up the hill at a dead end, returned to the car back past the impressive chimney and found the correct road. Walked up the relatively short path and found the cache 'easily' at 11am....at long last!!!2hours and 15mins to find a cache that you can almost park next to! Great walk though on a lovely morning...enjoyed it immensely despite all my errors....knew I should have taked an OS map!!! :-) TNLN Cheers for the cache..."
