Down by the Riverside I Traditional Cache
Team Marzipan: 69 [:)] in 2.5 years so thank you to all the cache visiters, time to put this cache to bed and open up the path to somebody else [;)]
[b][green] ™[/b][/green] [:o)]
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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Please watch out for muggles when retreaving and replacing the cache, thank you.
Another nice level walk along footpaths on the banks of the River Clwyd. ***Care should be taken with children and dogs beside the river.***
There is FREE parking in the village of Rhuddlan, where you can visit Rhuddlan Castle. Also pick up a couple of close by caches, before or after your walk along the river bank.
In the cache you will find half of the coordinates for Down by the Riverside II, so why not extend your walk a little further.
On your way you will encounter sheep grazing next to the river and other wildlife. Plenty of open countryside, peace and quiet (except for the traffic on the Rhuddlan by-pass !!) with mountain views in the distance. Lots of drift wood, and trees washed down from up-stream.
Rhuddlan first appears in recorded history in the last years of the eighth century, when there was no town of Rhyl and the shore road from Prestatyn to Abergele did not exist. Instead, the Clwyd and the marshes off its estuary, now reclaimed and drained and cultivated, formed a natural barrier athwart the coastal approach to the mountainous heart of North Wales. The settlement of Rhuddlan is likely to have owed its origin to the presence at this point, from very early times, of the lowest fording-place on the river, from which a track led across the marsh to the mountainous heart of North Wales and beyond. Its position thus marked it out as a key point in the racial struggles which for some 600 years (c.700-c.1300) swayed to and fro across the Welsh and English border.
This place, which is of very great antiquity, is supposed to derive its name from the red colour of the soil on the banks of the river Clwyd, on which it is situated. It appears to have been of considerable importance from the earliest period; and the adjoining marsh, called by the Welsh "Morva Rhuddlan," is distinguished as the scene of a memorable battle that occurred in the year 795, between the Saxons under Offa, King of Mercia, and the Welsh, in which the latter, after a severe and obstinate conflict, were defeated with dreadful slaughter, and Caradoc, King of North Wales, with many of his principal chieftains, was slain. Such of the Welsh as escaped the sword of the enemy, perished in the marsh from the influx of the tide; and those who had been taken prisoners were inhumanly massacred, without much regard to age or sex. In commemoration of this disastrous event was composed the well-known Welsh air of "Morva Rhuddlan," which is so deservedly admired for the plaintive sweetness of its melody. According to the Welsh Chronicles, it would appear that Offa himself fell in the engagement; but the Saxon annals place his death a year earlier.
Congratulation's to Caneou who was the 1st to find this Geocache on 10/2/07.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Haqre ynetr ebpxf
