Chester has been out
on many cache hunts with us and has rather got to enjoy this
pastime, so much so that he now recognises our GPSr and gets
excited on seeing it. Recently he has been asking if we could help
him create some caches of his own, so of course we agreed as he is
not too good at this internet thingy (and if the truth be known he
is only really any good at three things, walkeeees, spotting
squirrels and burying bones, but don't tell him I told you that).
He said that he would like them to be located in some of his
favourite types of places that his doggie friends would like and
suggested that one in each of the Oxford City Parks would be a good
place. Foolishly we agreed to this before checking out how many
parks Oxford actually has, and to our surprise their is eighteen of
them. I hope you all enjoy this series of eighteen caches, and do
post some picies for Chester, especially if you have one of his
canine friends with you.
Botley
Park
One of Oxford's older
parks, Botley was purchased by the City Council in 1922. In the
corner of the park is Tumbling Bay Bathing Place. Although it is
now closed for swimming the weirs have recently been refurbished by
The Environment Agency and the site is now managed for wildlife and
conservation.
The facilities include,
a football pitch, a synthetic cricket wicket, a netball court and
two tennis courts. There is also a large children's play area with
paddling pool. There is also a floodlit Streetsport site, that has
markings and equipment for roller hockey, basketball and
five-a-side football. The two bowls greens are rented by the West
Oxford Bowls Club.
At the north-east corner
of Botley Park you will find Tumbling Bay bathing place, this was
created while the building of Osney Town was in full swing in 1853.
It was initially for males only and the only access was by ferry
punt from the Thames towpath. The original pool was below the
lasher and bathers undressed on the grass behind a high hedge. Two
or three narrow openings through the hedge led to the pool side, an
arrangement which was criticised in 1859 because it led to people
diving on to swimmers and made it difficult to ensure everyone's
safety; the complainant also worried that naked males appearing
through these openings were unveiled to Botley Road, to the
inhabitants of Osney Town and even to users of the refreshment room
at the railway station! In the main summer months, about 1,000
males were using it on weekdays and, on Sundays, there were
generally 4-500 present at any one time. The bathing place was
officially closed in 1990 and the wooden poolside buildings -
attendants' huts, dressing sheds and toilets - have since been
removed. The basic structure of the pools survives and you can
still trace the path to the ferry, the concrete platforms of the
dressing sheds and even the base of a drinking fountain. Beside the
lasher, wild flowers now occupy the concrete troughs which used to
be planted out with summer annuals. In its current neglected state,
it has become an unofficial nature reserve, managed by the West
Oxford Wildlife Group.
Quite liked this park as
it has some trees and overgrown areas for wildlife which are great
for exploring and having a good sniff around. You could even take a
paddle in the river, but I shouldn't let your humans in especially
the small ones.
You might find parking a
problem around here so I would recommend using the Park and Ride
buses. There is a small car park at the entrance to the park so if
you are luck you may get a space or you might find some parking in
one of the side streets or you could park in the nearby Halfords
store car park.
Chester has hidden a
Bone'us cache full of special doggy treats for all those cacher's
who have managed to complete his COPQ series. To find this cache
you will need to collect the letters on the lids of all the COPQ
caches, and use them to work out the start location for
Chester's Bone'us. Be warned, you will have to go for Chester's
favourite type of walkieeees to complete it; a long one.
As my employer has decided that it would be a good idea to
move the whole organisation to Bristol, the Phillimore's (Mad H@ter
and Muddy Legs) will be moving on to pastures new and some fresh
caches. Unfortunately this will mean that it will become difficult
for us to maintain our Oxfordshire caches, so we will therefore be
gradually archiving the majority of them. We shall start our
program of collecting the caches and archiving them in the new
year, but as we have one or two caches out there this will not be a
five minute program! If you would particularly like to find this
cache before it is archived please get in touch and we will try and
hold off archiving it.