Geocaching is the best medicine Traditional Cache

This path follows part of the West Deane Way.

As you walk down the metalled road with the works on your left, it gives way to a field which contains parts of the Grand Western Canal, long filled in.

There is a footpath on your right, just before the gateway, which leads behind the houses on this side of Tonedale.

The cache is a camo pill bottle hidden from the numerous muggles and their dogs that walk here.

A sewage operator who has lived in Wellington all his life and spent more than three decades working here has memories which date back to his childhood of a friendly neighbour who was the site’s supervisor from the 1920s to 1970s. Shortly after his neighbour passed away, Trev was closing the site’s iron gates unaware that a distant memory was about to come back to haunt him.

" ...a group of walkers questioned why I was shutting an old man and his dog inside the site... The group said he was a short man with a black, white and brown Jack Russell dog. He had a flat cap and jeans on and wore his Welly boots in an unusual way, folded down below his knees." "As soon as they mentioned the boots I immediately knew they were talking about the supervisor. I could picture him in my head from my childhood memories and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I didn’t want to go back to investigate but knew I had to.”

Trev said he had been suspicious for a while that the spirit of the supervisor had returned to his former work place after he passed away. First there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs which halted outside the mess room – an area the supervisor never entered as he didn’t want to part with his faithful dog who was not allowed inside. Then there were the noises of a vehicle’s wheels crackling over the gravel between the site’s buildings, which like the footsteps on the stairs, could never be traced.

“The last time I heard the footsteps was as recently as two months ago and the sound was as clear as crystal. It can happen any time of the day or night and you don’t have to be alone to experience it. I believe the unexplained activity happens more often than we think. The sound of footsteps barely affects me anymore but I’m glad there have been no more sightings."