** THE TRAIL ***
The Meon Valley Trail is a track, managed by Hampshire County Council, along the bed of the old Meon Valley Railway, which runs for about 18km between West Meon and Wickham. The trail is suitable for walkers, cyclists, horse riders, buggys, etc. Being on an old railway trackbed the whole section is relatively flat and firm, although there are sections which can be muddy. The section near Droxford Station was used by Winston Churchill in the run up to the D-Day invasions as a "mobile" base, due to its proximity to the South Coast, and the deep cuttings providing shelter and camouflage for his armoured train.
See Meon Valley Leaflet for details of the trail, including parking and refreshments.
See Droxford Station for information about the WWII activity on the track.
See Meon Valley Railway for information about the railway.
*** THE SERIES ***
The Meon Valley Trail - Entmoot
I'm pleased to say that this series has very generously been awarded an Amberel Top Cache geocoin, feel free to "Discover" it : PCGJQH
This series of caches are all placed in trees that will require specialist equipment to reach, if you don't have the equimpent, the skills, or the inclination to get to these safely then you might want to try my MVT - MTC caches at the Southern end of the trail, which are all free climbs.
The puzzles are all essentially the same, so once you know how to solve one you know how to solve them all. They're not meant to be difficult, their main function is to obcfuscate the co-ordinates to eliminate the walk by "I could see it but couldn't climb it" finds.
The picture in the puzzle doesn't represent the tree you will need to climb.
Please be considerate of other trail users, AKA Muggles, and try to be discrete when retrieving the caches.
If you see horses approaching please ensure the rider can see you in plenty of time rather than the horse noticing you hanging in a tree at the last second and getting spooked.
All caches were placed with averaged co-ordinates and re-visited to check their accuracy, but the trail has heavy tree cover and in sections is in railway cuttings so GPS devices might not be too accurate. I've attached pictures of the hosts for most caches so check those spoiler pics.
All logs must be signed, any finds which don't sign the log will be deleted.
The cache was placed with averaged co-ordinates and re-visited to check their accuracy, but the trail has heavy tree cover and in sections is in railway cuttings so GPS devices might not be too accurate. I've attached a picture of the host to help identify the right tree.
All logs must be signed, any finds which don't have an accompanying sig in the log will be deleted.