Park at the gate or on the grass verge opposite. You can head straight up the hill or meander your way through this nature trail. There are other caches on the site to pick up on your way around.
You are at the site of one of the biggest holes in Europe. Look down and the huge machines look like Tonka toys. This land has been quarried since Roman times, so you are looking through hundreds of millions of years of history. Croft hill is a Pluton - formed deep underground as magma cooled into a block. The land has eroded around it leaving this hill in the middle of the Leicestershire countryside. You are only seeing the tip of the iceberg as it were. The pluton goes deep into the ground and joins up with similar rocks which outcrop in Stoney Stanton and Enderby. The rock being taken from the quarry is estimated at 450million years old.
You need to answer the following questions:
1. Take a height reading at the entrance to the quarry walk near the parking waypoint. When you get to the top, take another height reading. How high have you climbed up this intrusion?
2. Near the start point are some boulders dug out of the quarry. What is the texture of the rock? Smooth, rough or medium?
3. The hill is composed of several rocks that are quarried. The main rock is closely associated with Granite. What is it called?
4. Which very famous stone is made from the same rock? It is a named Stone not a type!
5. Walk around to the waypoint where you will reach the trig point and can look over to the north eastern face of the quarry where you had been standing. The stone at the top is not grey the way that most of the quarry is. What colour is it and can you name it?
6. I'd really like a photo of you at the quarry but this is not a logging requirement.
To log a find, send your answers to me via email or the messaging service. Please do not put them in your log. You can feel free to log your find straight away. If there are any issues with your answers, I will let you know.
It would greatly help me if, when sending your answers, you tick the box allowing geocaching.com to send your email address as I have been known to just reply to them only to have folk think that I didn't answer.