Thames Path: Get Your School Compasses Out Traditional Geocache
2202: Removed from location, the city needs some new caches by fresh faces.
Thames Path: Get Your School Compasses Out
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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A stroll around Iffley, one of Oxford’s villages, an excursion down
to Iffley Lock with a beautiful Norman Church and two decent pubs
thrown in as well.
The micro cache is located within the structure of the so-called
‘Mathematical Bridge’. It was constructed in 1924 and appears to
have been a conscious copy, of the bridge at Queens' College
Cambridge. The Iffley bridge was even called Newton's Bridge, after
the said scientist and mathematician, in perpetuation of the false
attribution of the Queens' bridge.(he died 22 years before its
construction). THE MATHS BIT The main members of each rib are set
at tangents to the circle describing the underside arch of the
bridge. An engineering analysis will show that, in the arch itself,
each member is in compression with little or no bending moment, an
ideal application for wood as a structural material. Where the main
members cross, the wood joint is designed to transmit the
compressive stress from one member to the next, with a bolt serving
to hold the joint together laterally, rather than carrying any
stress. There are also radial members which both support the top
rail and lock all the overlapping tangents into a rigid structure,
by creating triangles out of quadrilaterals. Park either in the
immediate vicinity of the Prince Of Wales PH (N51 43.815, W001
14.245) or by the church (N51 43.670, W001 14.271)(take a look at
the west door at least) and then follow your nose to the site.
Again this is a popular destination and like
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=66115 becomes
dramatic when the Thames is in full flood. And like the
aforementioned site, the trick again here is to retrieve the cache
in full view of the public (pretty easy). This site could be
described as a multi cache site as the first micro cassette fell
into the river below and sank straight to the bottom! If you want
to get your waders on then give it a try. If you are with young
children then bring your old bread to feed the many ducks etc
although they get full towards the afternoon. You can watch the
various river craft come and go through the lock, purchase ice
cream and other goodies at the lock keepers shop, or take a short
stroll upstream and visit the Isis Tavern, the last of the 5 pubs
on the river as it passes through Oxford. Watch the crews
practising either in the eights, the sculls etc etc or glance down
at the two weirs for any signs of dead bodies (an Oxford river walk
hazard…..it happened to me so your are warned) The cache is a black
SD holder, with a small log, (but no pencil). Happy
Hunting!!!!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Fvg qbja, fzvyr ng gur ybpx xrrcre, naq srry qbjafgernz fvqr, zntargvp.