Chess themed Geocache No.4 - WHITE ROOK (Bucks)
Your starting point is a White Pawn best reached from a small lane that branches off the A41 to Upper Winchendon road, near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.
Drive down this lane until you see the cluster of footpath signs on a post - as pictured below. Park beside the road near here and take a footpath into the field heading for N51° 49.907 / W00° 54.037.
Here you need to make a note of the four digit number which is on a plate near its base. Let's call this number ABCD.
Now return to the road and walk towards your second target, a metal plate on the ground with six letters on, which can be located at:
N51° B(C-D).(D-C)(B+C)(B+C+D) / W00° BA.AB(B+C+D).
Once there, convert the letters into numbers in the time honoured way. i.e. A=1, B=2, C=3 etc.
Now times all these numbers together to give you a six digit number.
For example, if the word was BELLOW, the numbers would be 2, 5, 12, 12, 15 and 23. 2 x 5 x 12 x 12 x 15 x 23 = 496,800.
Take your number and divide it by ten thousand. The easy way to do this is stick a decimal point in after the first two digits. Add 16.432 to this number to get ANSWER-ONE, as used below. ANSWER-TWO requires you to take your original six figure number, ignore the first digit, divide the five digit number by a thousand
to give you a ii.iii type figure. Add 12.098 to this number and you have ANSWER-TWO, as used below. (Well done!)
Your third target is a road junction at N51° (ANSWER-ONE) / W00° (ANSWER-TWO).
To get there, follow the footpath behind the buildings and down into the woods. Continue along it until you reach a farm road and turn right to follow the arrow to the co-ordinates. Along this road you'll cut across the route of a Roman road, Akeman Street.
It's worth noting that to reach your target you need to dog-leg around the grounds of a house - which for the purposes of this cache I like to think of as An Englishman's Home. That is to say, a Castle or White Rook, if I may stretch the point a little.
If you've reached the correct location, you should be able to see a road sign which gives distances to
Quainton, Oving and Whitchurch. In that order, the distances are XYZ.
Your fourth target can be reached by backtracking and/or via the road. If you choose to risk walking along the road,
please take care and walk on the right-hand-side to face on-coming traffic. In the cause of safety,
I'd recommend people caching with children backtrack. The fourth target is located at:
N51° Y(XxX).(X+Y)Y(X-1) / W00° ZY.Z(Y-X)(Z-Z).
Your quest is nearly at an end! There's a 'mounting block' to take the weight off your feet for a while, before making a note of the year this building was built. This Chapel is also the site of Happy Hippo's Visit the Friendless* 'cache. So why not pop into the churchyard while you're here and do that one too! Looking at the Chapel, perhaps this is another White Rook? The date of construction is above the door or on the
information sign by the gate. Call this number EFGH
Your final target, the Cache, is located at:
N51° AG.(G-E)Z(E+F) / W00° ZY.(Y-A)ZB
You need to backtrack along the road to reach the cache. Again, please take care as this can be quite a busy stretch and is narrow in places. If you see 'The Sign of the Big Dog' you're going in the right direction. Happy Hunting!
The cache originally contained:
1x Handy tin box
1x Thing for cleaning fluff out of your keyboard
1x Squeezy stress ball
1x Toy plastic girl I found while researching this cache
2x Tealite candles
1x Music CD. No adult lyrics. I checked.
Plus the usual: Cache notice, log book, pen, pencil, plus a bag to keep them dry, or to pinch to use 'Cache In Trash Out'-ing.
While you're in the area, I suggest you check (another vague Chess reference there. Did you spot it?) out my first cache, Chess themed Geocache No.1 - BLACK ROOK (Bucks) or Chess themed Geocache No.3 - BLACK KNIGHT (Bucks).
They're both within energetic walking distance.
A small experiment - Please feel free to rate your visit to this cache out of ten in your log.
* Click here to visit The Friends of Friendless Churches web site.