Arran Industries

As the week on Arran draws to a close, Team Balders has dealt a devestating blow to the island's tourist industry. Today, I found the last cache of the series so there is no need for anyone to come to Arran (actually there are lots of other, less important reasons to come.)

The Arran Industries series by Jango & Bobba Fett, is a series of twelve caches dotted around the island at sites of past or present industries. The full list includes, Whisky, Fishing, Coal, Slate, Bobbins, Barytes, Limestone, Sand, Iron, Cloth and Cheese. Those who can do adding up may be saying "Eh, that's only 11!" and how right they would be. In each cache is a number and in two, special instructions for calculating the co-ordinates of the missing "Quarry".

Of the eleven, there is one cache inside a cave, one in a very long hedge (not quite an ICT) and one which involves a three hour walk (which I had to do twice). Just to add to the fun, two of the caches are not listed on Geocaching.com (apparently, there are two other listing sites, Terracaching and Navicache.)

The series was placed in 2007 and I have been picking at it on our regular breaks to the island. This time around, I was determined to finish the series and through Geocaching.com, I made the aquaintance of JackieC who also likes to visit Arran and had the same plan but arriving a week later. We compared notes and although, I think, she was a little niffed, wished me well and was also myArranach PAF.

Earlier in the week I tried the Terracache listed Coal . This cache is a multi but I couldn't find two of the numbers (although one was easy to guess) so resigned myself to not finishing the series this time around. I then decided to mop up a few of the island's other hides including an FTF on Blue Lagoon.

Although not actively trying to finish the series, I found the rest leaving just coal and the final. After talking to Jackie, I was persuaded to give coal another go, which I did this morning. This time I spotted the missing number and made my way to the cache which was soon found. Inside, I found the last piece of the jigsaw, in this case, a big formula to plug in all the numbers so far collected.

Just in case the bonus, Quarry, was placed nearby because I'd hate to have to do this walk yet again, I sat down on the beach and plugged in the numbers. Horror of horrors, the numbers didn't add up. In my notes, from an earlier trip, I had put a question mark by one of the numbers; I substituted other values and came up with three possible solutions.

Back at the car, an hour and a bit later, I set off for the three possibles (all within a few hundred metres of each other). I had to bushwhack my way up to the first but after a search I couldn't find anything that matched the clue so battled my way through a gale to option two. After a short hunt, I came up with the goods. I opened the ammo box to find a blank logbook (now wouldn't that be a bummer if someone had beaten me to it?), and a bottle of Arran Milestone beer. On the label it states that it's bottle conditioned. It is also now ammo-can conditioned - it must have been frozen up there over two winters. I have yet to open it but I shall keep you all posted.

The descent was marred by sinking up to my nether regions in a peat bog but, hey, I'd completed the series!

So as the holiday draws to it's conclusion, I am a very happy bunny and what a great way to end. I've had a week of caching (well, mainly, caching early and then family stuff later) in some brilliant terrain. I've had a variety of cache types and two FTFs. Best of all, not a single 35mm film pot in an ivy covered tree.

Arran

Tales from a Scottish Isle

As followers of this Blog will know, I am up in Bonnie Scotland just off the Ayrshire coast on the beautiful Isle of Arran. Know as Scotland in miniture, Arran has just about something to offer everybody, from Golfing (waste of a good walk) to rock climbing calling in on canoeing, cycling and walking on the way. There are also nearly 50 caches on the isle which measures only about 30km by 15 and rising up to 874m (Goat Fell). We are staying in a lovely house on the shore of Lamlash Bay overlooking Holy Isle.

Team Balders has been to Arran a few times in the past and we have managed to find a few of these caches including an FTF after 9 months (wouldn't last nine minutes back home - eh, Graham?)

There is a series of caches on the island called "Arran Industries" with caches place need sites of past and present industries on the isle. For such a small place, it's had a lot of stuff happening, including the obvious Whisky, cheese and fishing to Barytes (?), sand, coal and satellite technology (I may have made one of those up.) Each cache has a number which somehow give the co-ordinates of the bonus cache (quarry). Anyway, I've been slowly picking away at these but totally failed to find Coal (listed on Terracaching) so am unable to complete the series. I have e-mailed the cache owner (CO) a number of times but he is yet to reply.

I have also been trying for an FTF this week but with little success. King Hakon, on the nearby Holy Isle, is a puzzle cache which I was sure I had cracked but on the ground it just wasn't right. Again, I've contatcted the CO but it's the same guy as already mentioned so that's that one scrubbed.

Another puzzle, Teddy's Picnic also looked promising with no logs on Geocaching.com. I solved the puzzle and drove into the hills to look for this one. There was the cache just where it should be so I opened the log - to find that someone had logged it five days earlier! Perhaps they're still on holiday and haven't got the luxury of mobile internet so that one's on the watchlist.

Looking further down the GSAK list I spotted Ard Bheinn - Into the Volcano. No logs but on the top of a 512m extinct volcano. There are no paths on this hill so it was going to be hard going, then on the day, the clouds and rain came down. I was going to make the ascent today but a new friend, JackieC, told me of a new Arranach cache, Blue Lagoon, so I went for the easier option and finally bagged my long deserved FTF. How sad am I? I changed my Facebook profile to ... at 350m signing a log as FTF while at GZ! (and I took a photo.)

JackieC, also enjoys caching on Arran and was a little worried that I was going to beat her to the Arran Industries series, but with my earlier DNF, it's her's for the taking next week when she is on Arran - good luck girl.

The geo-mutt and I have walked many kilometres this week over terrain including sandy beaches,
grassy glens, muddy swamps and boulder fields (and that is hard going). The dog is totally knackered so we're having an easy day tomorrow. All this walking should be good practice for the upcoming Blackburn Letterbox trail - if it doesn't kill me first!

Well that's enough for now - I dare say I'll have more to add when I get back to Brum.