Manea Meander

I've been out of the loop a little recently, the Geocar broke down and having retrieved every local cache, it left me totally stranded. This weekend, I have managed to obtain a new car (Woohoo!) and once we get past a few teething problems, I'm back on the road completely. So, we took it out today.

Pip_Squeek is ill and El-Woodio working, so I collected the Geodog and took my Anticaching OH off to seek out the Manea Meander. It's glorious weather, so it would be rude not to!

I had no idea that the RSPB was out here, and Welches' Dam is very pretty! The first find was easy and set a good tone for the trail, obtaining each cache quickly as we went around. Even though the wind was strong, the sunshine was glorious and the Geodog really enjoyed being somewhere different.

We collected #1, #2, #3 and #4 and then the reservoir  around the corner caught out attention. We set by the bank a while and ate a snack, and the Geodog spend a while trying to get to the water to drink (The clean water we provide is clearly sub-standard!)

At the next cache, we found a beautiful memorial garden, as promised by the cache description. It's such an odd place to find something like this, but it was still stunning. With the Geodog on a very tight lead, we spent some time here before moving on.

At #8, I discover a new trackable which I collect as I'm not travelling with any at the moment and I feel I can definitely help this one! We discuss our plan of action, and decide that fatigue will win us over and we cut the loop short as suggested by the CO, heading back towards Welshes' Dam. This is where I strike my first DNF of the day, which is always disappointing, but I wasn't able to update my PQ before I left, and it's about 3 weeks old, so it's possible this is MIA. (Having gone back and checked, this one has been archived. Glad I didn't spend too long here!)

Coming back up to Purl's Bridge, we pause outside the (unfortunately closed) Ship Inn and regather ourselves, before the other half spots something very unusual. Along the road back to the Dam, there are 6 abandoned houses in various stages of being built. One has just the foundation struts in place, but another further down has half the cladding around the outside, and had windows until they were smashed. We spent some time wandering through them, and wondering what their story was. At home, I can't find any information about them but I can only assume the recession hit them too hard. It's a shame, they had stunning views across the Fens - I wonder if someone will give me one and finish it off for me!!

On the way back to the car we hit another DNF but I was tired and didn't really put a lot of effort in. We spent some time exploring the RSPB visitors centre, then headed home. It was a really nice day. :)

-RFF
-Finds Today: 11
-Total Finds: 358