GC1J371: Cairn Top

Found on 2009-07-31 at 19:00:00
Placed by: pklong
Size: Small (Difficulty: 1.5 / Terrain: 3)
Location: South West England, United Kingdom
Geocaching.com: GC1J371

After a 3km hike this morning and a rainy afternoon spent on the 2p slot machines in Ilfracombe, when the rain ended we thought this wouldn't be too difficult to do a short hike and find this one.

Parked as suggested and headed up. I don't know why but I always to get a bit of tunnel vision when I stare at the GPS and so just after the gate off we despite my wife's pleas to stick to the path, off we bushwhacked in a straight line until we met up with the path again. For future hunters, no need to bushwhack this one.

As we ascended to the peak, it then began to rain again, and the already slippy path got muddy in some parts. But what's a bit of mud eh?

Got to the top and surveyed the bay of Ifracombe under heavy grey clouds - took some pictures, then looked around for the cache. After reading the hint we started looking round the most obvious place, wind and rain now beating against our windbreakers and whistling around our ears.. it's all about the cache.

So we dug around, found a few holes around this concrete slab and no cache did we find. To tell you the truth we were starting to get a little disheartened and testy. The obvious questions of doubt were starting to rise "has it been muggled?" we asked. After about 30 minutes of searching and being battered by the elements, I sat down on the bench got out the BlackBerry and started reading through previous logs for a clue - but to no avail.

It was then I mentioned the words we do not speak.

"I think we may have to log this as a D__ N__ F___." Even the wife who passionately did not want to give up was starting to feel it. "Well, at least we got the view,." said I trying to put a positive spin on it.
"I don't care about the view!" my wife yelled sulkily.
"Well, let's just get out the GPS and do one last check" I said.

I walked away about 10m then walked back again, and the GPS seemed to lead me past the concrete slab and towards the path again. I said to the wife we should just check along the sides here before leaving. Lo and behold a minute later, an excited noise from wife as she spotted a new concrete.

"Cement!" she squealed. Well she got the idea anyway.

And there we found your deceptively hidden little cache. I'm sure you have a giggle to yourself when you thought of all those geocachers who will wander around that bench scratching their heads. Well, we found it, and we put it back.

Took thrupence, left a micro stamp collection. Also took TB and GeoCoin. Dipping Canadian Tourist.