I had my eye on this one since it was published, but with my well known fear of heights it was one I was reluctant to tackle alone - not because I wanted someone else to do the "ape" work for me, but just to be there in case of problems. Today there were four of us on an "abanazar day", and the others were kind enough to humour me by adding this one to the day's itinerary.

We had agreed that, for reasons of time, not all of us would climb every tree, but as things just happened to work out I did scale them all myself, which fits well with my own internal "guidelines" and makes me feel very comfortable with logging the cache. But I relied heavily on Paul's eyes to identify the targets - I'm sure he must have some eagle DNA mixed in with the more usual stuff . My acrophobia means I don't climb well, and I get stuck very easily unless I have a very specific target to aim at. On the final stage I had already decided I could go no higher until Paul's keen gaze identified the hiding place, and that knowledge was enough to spur me onwards and upwards.

There was a lovely little casket in the cache box, with FTF written on it, but I left it there because 1) I wasn't FTF, and 2) I had nothing up there with me to replace it with, and I certainly wasn't going up twice!

Getting down wasn't easy, partly because of the shaking limbs (mine, not the tree), but even more so because of the sweat streaming down my face and into my eyes, but eventually I reached the lowest limb. As with going up, I needed some assistance at this stage, and I don't think I could have done it without a leg up and down - extra credit to those who managed it.

While the cache may not have been RIGHT at the top of the tree, it was undoubtedy another TOP CACHE. And not just for the climbing - on a day involving several walks in lovely countryside, the rolling contours of the green valleys made this the most beautiful of them all.

Four abanazar caches today, and all totally different in character. Thanks for this one too.

Rgds, Andy