Cache archived automatically

I have been warned by The System that this and its neighbouring opencaches will soon be automatically archived since they have been Temporarily Disabled for too long. So be it. These caches are still checked and maintained but it remains the case that I do not wish them to be publicly logged, should an adventurer be resourceful enough to find them. Since it is not straightforward (or possible?) to view archived opencaches, I believe the html copy at http://abanazar.com/opencaching/OC_ARCHIVE/menu.html will suffice as a starting point, so long as the lure of the adventure outweighs the ability to log online.

This will be disabled for a while and should not be logged.

There is an important update regarding certain aspects of local accessibility. Please revisit the final stage of the solved instructions for more details, if this is on your ready-to-attempt pile.

It is not giving much away to point out that the published coordinates of this cache are for a particularly handsome milestone on the outskirts of Box - you can even just about make out the detail on Streetview. Or at least it was a handsome milestone for I-don’t-know-how-many decades until some thieving scum decided it would look good in their home / car boot sale / reclamation yard. I think this vandalism may have occurred towards the end of 2016. I have alerted the marvellous Milestone Society who are being very helpful in alerting the authorities. It is a Grade 2 listed milestone and there is a reportable crime here, which they have raised. (Although somewhat less important, the Moodstone adventure is not affected by this crime.)

History:  'The study of past events, particularly in human affairs.'

Indeed, study was certainly required for this cache - at first, of the academic research kind and subsequently of the more practical kind in the field, on the ground,  at the coal face up close to the rock.  In true Abanazar fashion, we were led a merry dance from pillar to post gathering information of all sorts in preparation for our final thesis.

No doubt as intended, the design of the cache focused our attention on what would otherwise have been barely noticed background ‘wallpaper’ and brought a whole new dimension to the increasingly familiar underground playpen; school history lessons were never like this!

A great adventure, fascinating education, atmospheric surroundings and physical exercise for all the family – how could this be anything but a top cache?

En route, a historical re-enactment of a past human affair was carefully carried out under the critical eye of one of the younger members of the party, as shown below.

Maintenance visit (final). I'd forgotten that an element of this adventure was recyclable, so it was a nice surprise to be reminded of that when checking the cache container. Thanks to the previous finders for leaving the items behind, and they'll make their way back to the start in due course.

Anther epic abanazar adventure with BradLad and antpeng and another visit that spanned two days underground.

Our trip lasted just over the top end of the estimated completion time but we did stop at a few other interesting locations.

http://www.opencaching.org.uk/viewcache.php?cacheid=803

The journey time was increased by the fact that, in spite of being sure that I had print outs of all potentially useful information, I managed to omit one crucial source from my dossier. That resulted in half an hour of poring over reams of print outs that I had hoped not to need, but then couldn’t resist abusing my work printer to take along just in case. We also spent some time at one location debating what exactly we were looking at. I think we may have been wrong but we managed to successfully reach the finishing post.

As always, the theme of the adventure was very interesting, although I was slightly taken aback by cheek swabs at the genetic testing stage. http://www.isogg.org/wiki/Admixture_analyses#BritainsDNA_-_All_My_Ancestry 

In spite of me being able to rival Homer Simpson’s ability to win a school reunion “least distance travelled to get to the reunion” award, http://www.simpsoncrazy.com/characters/homer    I didn’t come across any pljgs in my research, but I did notice a few surnames shared with my or my sons’ schoolmates in Bradford-on-Avon.

It was also reassuring to spot, during the fieldwork, a note informing us that people’s likes were much the same in the past as they are now. (photo censored even on the libertarian opencaching.org.uk)

Thanks for another generous and appropriate FTF prize.

Extreme research completed with BradLad and antpeng.  Full write up to follow if and when I can get the password to work.

Joiint FTF with pljg and Bradlad. Log signed at 00:15. Excellent cache. Thanks very much. Full log to follow.

And here is that belated log.

My caching recently has been pretty minimal so the first I knew of this cache was when my fellow adventurers contacted me offering to let me tag along. This was very tempting but would have been unethical had I not solved the puzzle first so I leapt into the task and for once made rapid and consistent progress until I finally had all necessary information. I have to admit that I left the deeper research to pljg and bradlad trusting that they would cover all the bases. My interest in the topic would have lead me to over-egg the pudding as I often tend to with abanazar caches/puzzles.

 

We met at about 7:45 and we soon underway and making good progress. I'm sure that with the wealth of resources down there you could to Z to A to Z to A to Z to A, but you'd need a whole weekend. We came unstuck at one location, but thought we could guess the correct answer having narrowed things down a bit. We also struggled to decipher all the text at another location, but again we think we were close enough. We chose a route that left two locations undiscovered, guessing that we could visit them if needed after finding all other clues.

 

It was good fortune that we had proper laminted copies of the surveys and the unlikliest of the suggested tools, as pljgs map was photocopied and didn't contain all the required info.

 

We got to the final location, but as is often the case there was still work to do and with time and energy running out we weren't as dilligent as we should have been. Still, this log shows that we did eventually find the code - I can recommend getting within a couple of feet of all the required waypoints as it will help.

 

We exited the mine at around 1:00 am, so the timings we about right, given we detoured for a few There and Back Again stages.

 

Thanks for another great cache, and I hope the extra info I sent is proving interesting.

Soort bewerking [Notitie] verwijderd.

Soort bewerking [Notitie] verwijderd.

I should have known that, if I wanted help with a new abanazar puzzle, I should call on a Dr. Lower down the cache page I had spotted things that I recognised but, having an appropriate background   (for this stage, at least), Ms pljg MA PhD immediately set me on the right track once she saw the puzzle. 

Not that that means that the mystery is solved.  I have no doubt that I will be wrestling with it for some time but I thought that, for once, I would note my (and BradLad's progress).