The meet is on Saturday 20th August and will start at 1 o clock, I have chosen the same venue as it is very accommodating and serves excellent food, The landlord has again kindly donated the usual 3 course meal for two with a bottle of wine which can be won with the fun I have planned on this event.
Come and chat about your plans for caching and what caching you have done, swap some trackables, you may even win a nice raffle prize. Watch this listing for updates as there is some fun planned.
We have had caching bingo, so this time we are going to have caching poker (no money involved), you will be going on a very nice woodland walk to find five caches, from cache 4 & 5 you will take one card sealed in an envelope which must not be opened until you return to the event, when you see me we will open your cards and match them to the 5 community cards to see how good a poker hand you have, the person with the best hand will win the 3 course meal for two with a bottle of wine.
Cache one will have the Northings for cache 4, cache 2 will have the Northings for cache 5, and cache 3 will have the Westings for both 4 & 5, in cache 4 & 5 will be the cards, in the event of a draw a new hand will be dealt to decide the winner, sorry but only 2 cards per caching member.
The walk is around Drews Pond nature reserve, you can walk it from the pub but it will be a 4.23 mile round trip, or you can drive to the car park and then the walk will only be a 1.55 mile round trip, the coordinates for the caches can be put onto your GPS manually or I will have my laptop so we can down load the GPX file (you may need your lead), bring along some bread and you can feed the ducks.
The Moonrakers
The Moonrakers legend can be interpreted two ways and it takes on several forms as to time and place.
One version is that a traveller came upon drunken Wiltshire yokels trying to rake a reflection of the full moon in a village pond convinced it was a cheese. This one conveys the notion that Wiltshire men were drunk and stupid.
However, another (true?) version says the legend shows these yokels to be very clever and that they originated back in the 17th century in Devizes. A group of smugglers were forced to hide their loot in a pond, the Crammer, when they were tipped off that the Revenue men were waiting in ambush. They returned on the night of a full moon to the Crammer with rakes. This again attracted the attention of the Revenue men. When asked what they were about they pretended that they were raking a cheese, the moons reflection, from the water. No doubt the Revenue men walked away shaking their heads at the stupidity of the ‘simple’ Wiltshire folk leaving them to recover their contraband at their leisure.
This legend has become firmly embedded in the folklore of Wiltshire and the natives of Wiltshire were known. The name has spread throughout Wiltshire with pubs, clubs, hotels and even learned societies named after them.
I recollect hearing of a local after-hours Wiltshire drinking den being renamed the lofty title The Moonrakers Literary Society to get around the antiquated English licensing laws of that time. Thus members could quite legally be served liquor beyond the 2230hr deadline of those days. I believe that the local police were forever encountering drunks after a late night at the Literary Society. A modern take on an old legend shows us again how our ‘simple’ Wiltshire man once again has the last laugh.
The Venue
The Moonrakers is run by Russell and his family and they serve high quality meals every day from 1200 till 2100, there is a nice beer garden where we can meet if the weather is ok, the pub is dog, children and cacher friendly. There are wheelchair ramps into the lounge, parking in the pub car park and if the car park if full there is plenty of street parking
The Event
The event will start around 1pm until late, this will give cachers a wider time bracket so they can try and fit it in their busy caching programs, if you have not cached in this area before then you are in for a treat as there are now 404 caches within a 6 mile radius of the pub, should keep you going for an hour or so.
If you have never been to an event before don’t be shy, this little event is just the job for a first time meet, add this listing to your watch list so you will know about any updates. Hope to see you soon.
Stan.