Geocaching

Heron Hunting in Cambridge

 A few years ago Herons started mysteriously appearing on the streets of Cambridge. 

Urban art bringing Cambridge its very own Urban mascot.

I’ve always been quite fond of spotting the occasional heron sprayed throughout the city.

 Herons are much to my family’s amazement, my favourite birds. Something which horrifies my parents with their cherished heron food fish pond. 

Why do I like them? Maybe it’s the fact they are tall, leggy and graceful – just like me! 😉

I’m also a big fan of graffiti, well urban art rather than mindless vandalism. 

I love the idea of these well designed works of art suddenly appearing to make our world a more interesting place.

Imagine my delight then when I stumbled across a geocache based on the Cambridge Herons. A multi cache which takes to you to various places (waypoints) to gather numbers which will give you coordinates for the location of the final cache. I’m not the biggest fan of Multis on the whole, I prefer my caching much more instant fix, but, you know…HERONS! 

With a few days left of the summer holidays, it was finally time to go and hunt down some herons.

The waypoints for this multi involved trips to locations of herons in the city, mostly centred in one area but we did use the car between areas.

 

Up until now the children have only seen one Heron, sprayed on a festival sign near to home, so as soon as we neared the first waypoint they were giddy with delight at spotting their first heron. I might have been a little bit too 😉

Three Herons with three Mudlings

A morning spent gathering numbers from around the city. We didn’t need to visit all of the locations to get the necessary numbers, but we did visit most of the waypoints, because, well just because…Herons! 

To quote my children….’Who’s Banksy?’

A quick lunch break to crunch the numbers and the geochecker soon gave us the green light that we were on the right track.  

A mini heron for a mini cacher.

 Now for the exciting bit. 

After all our hard work and fun heron discoveries, time to claim our cache. The final cache itself just a standard film pot with a logbook to sign. However having been watching this cache for a while I had seen that it had recently been found by a new cacher in town. 

A new cacher who has a busy sideline in spraying Herons about our fair city. Cool!

It gets better.

So enamoured with the cache in their honour, Heron artist extraordinaire has added an extra cache to the final location and filled it with Heron swag to be enjoyed by all.

 Which obviously meant that I really now had to find it.

 

And find it we did. 

A delightful haul of stickers and a badge. 

Thirty something year olds can still wear badges right? 😉

The heron spotting still not quite over, our most local heron to be seen on the festival sign, on the journey home.

It just so happens I’m visiting this particular festival at the weekend, coincidentally with my friend who is a bit of a sign stealer*. 

Want to come home with me little Heron? **

* Ok she was stealing her own sign back. Not technically stealing.
** I wouldn’t really. I’m not stealthy enough…😉

17 thoughts on “Heron Hunting in Cambridge”

  3. What a great idea 🙂 I drive past a pond every morning which often has a heron standing on a particular tree stump. I know that one day I’m going to end up driving into the pond whilst trying to spot the heron!

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  4. I notice that this cache has sparked off a discussion about its ethical nature on the Geocaching UK facebook group. I personally haven’t read the thread – I find most threads on that group just excuses for arguments. In my opinion it sounds like a really cool multi 🙂

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    1. I seem to be the controversial catalyst, even pinched my bloody photo. I’ve refrained from commenting. The poster knows my views, I know his.
      I tend to avoid that page, it’s quite ridiculous. The devil certainly makes work for idle tw… thumbs! 😉

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  5. Love this cache idea!!! Super fun and the herons make it extra fun for kids!!!

    When you were talking about sign stealing, I pictured you driving down the road in a teenie car (because smart cars make me think of over there-ish lol) with your friend and sign sides hanging obviously out the car with the police hot on your trail. Both of you sporting wicked grins! 🙂

    Glad you had a fun find!

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    1. Thanks 🙂
      Mini fashionista that one, she even sneaks accessories into school which is hilarious given how young she is! I dread to think what she’ll be like in ten years time! 😉

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