Beachie ❤ 1980s is a series of caches themed around the 1980s, located around Peterborough City Centre. The caches are intended to provide a variety of hides and types, so there'll be something for everyone.
Each cache is related to a different 1980s thing pertinent to a different year of the decade. We've tried to tie the themes in to the location where we can. In addition, there are some bonus caches. These aren't bonus caches in the geocaching sense of information to find one cache contained within other caches. They're just extra caches we added as we ended up with more ideas than years in the decade.
All the caches in the series are "stand-alone" in that they don't require you to complete any others. You can do them all in one sitting or just dip in and do one or two at a time as your time permits. You also don't need to do them in chronological or any other particular order - do them in whatever order works for you.
Click on elements of the magazine above to see the caches in the series. Alternatively, go to this bookmark list...
1983... this happened... Final episode of M*A*S*H is watched by record audience of 125 million in the USA... Flashdance is released.... Breakfast TV begins in the UK with Breakfast time on the BBC and TV-AM on ITV... Auf Wiedersehen Pet is shown for the first time.... Karma Chameleon, by Culture Club, is the biggest single of the year... Roland Rat first came to our screens... Return of the Jedi, the final film in the original Star Wars trilogy, is released... Cabbage Patch Kids were the toy of choice this year...
... and Frankie Goes to Hollywood released their infamous hit, Relax!
Relax, was the debut single from Liverpool band, Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
Produced by legendary producer Trevor Horn, it started off sluggishly, charting at number 67, but after an appearance on Top of the Pops, it started to climb up the charts.
Then, Radio 1 DJ Mike Read announced he was “banning” the record, due to – well, its adult themes. Let’s say no more than that. Radio 1 announced it was extending the ban to the whole station, although some late-night DJs still played it.
Because of the perverse way these things work, because of the ban sales went through the roof, and it went to number 1, where it stayed for five weeks. Their next two singles also topped the charts.
This was their peak as a band, splitting up in 1987, although there was a partial reunion of some of the band in the 2000s.
Frankie says Relax, but for this he also says Pa-relax.... (Parallax) Nope, there's no hope for Mr BH ;-)
(Some of you may remember we had a cache round this way before. If you've done that cache, you'll notice we've moved the starting location to make it a little more user friendly. The final location is significantly different. If you've not done that cache, well the final location is still different, but you'll have to take our word for it) ;-)
Mr Beach_hut was carrying out a recce looking at places to put caches for an event. He was standing on a particular spot, looking roughly north, in contemplative mood, when suddenly he noticed something very peculiar about the very spot he was stood on. Let’s call that point X.
As he looked over to the left, in a roughly north-westerly direction at the junction of Queen Street and Exchange Street, he could see the leftmost vertical edge of the grey metal panelled roof of the shopping centre. From his eyeline at point X, that edge lined up exactly with the corner of another similar section of roof behind it.
(A section of this picture has been deliberately obscured, for reasons which will hopefully become clear in a second)
Turning clockwise, yet still standing at point X, Mr BH noticed that the rightmost edge of the apex of the roof of the Guild Hall lined up exactly with the rightmost of the three tallest spires at the north west corner of the Cathedral behind (as you’re viewing from point X, this is the left end of the visible part of the building where you are)
You only need to move a little way in any direction for one of these two points to no longer line up. It’s almost like Goldilocks – where you’re standing is ‘just right’.
This feature is known as parallax – whereby your surroundings move with respect to one another as you move around, and things further away seem to move by more than nearer things. Notice how the Cathedral spire and metalwork move by more than the things in front of them as you move around?
Anyway, that’s by the by. Your job, dear cacher, is to position yourself on point X. You need to be very precise, however I hope you can see from the below that we’ve built a bit of leeway into it. The published co-ords are our reading taken at point X (as close as we can bring you), however due to the GPS reception in the area and the fact that a set of co-ords will only describe a rectangular parcel of land, (and for this exercise you’re looking for a point in this rectangle) our advice would be to use the GPS to bring you as close as possible and let your eyes do the rest of the work. (Good advice for caching generally!)
Point X is a perfectly safe place to stand and is pedestrianized, however it’s very busy so please keep your wits about you.
Once you’re standing on point X, you need to work out the following:
There are some vertical slatted windows on the section of shopping centre behind the other section at your viewpoint (about where we’ve obscured the view in the first picture above.) How many can you see from here? Call this A.
Follow your eye down from where the two shopping centre roof sections meet, (imagine a vertical line going all the way down) and you see a metal railing, which divides the green area in front of St John’s Church into two. This railing has some vertical metal supports. There is/are B to the left of the line and C to the right.
In front of you, you can see a number of concrete cubes on the pavement. How many are to your left? (If one looks like it’s vaguely in front of you, don’t count it) Call your answer D.
Now look behind you. The brick-sized paving slabs are running in a north/south direction, however, there is a line of four slabs running across in an east/west direction. With your feet still planted at point X, how many lengths of brick away is the edge of this line?
If it’s between 1 and 3 lengths away, let E = 3
If it’s between 4 and 6 lengths away, let E = 7
If it’s between 7 and 9 lengths away, let E = 9
Obviously, there’s some leeway built into the answer based on a little margin of error on exactly where you’re standing.
The cache can be located at:
N 52° DA.(C-E-B)E(A+D) W 000° BA.(E-B)(D-B)A
The final cache is around 10 minutes' walk away.
The final location is a safe place to search and retrieve the final cache. If you find geolitter at GZ - you may be at the wrong height. That said, please keep an eye on geokids in your party at GZ, for reasons that I hope will be obvious when you get there.
Without giving too much away, I'm expecting you to stand on level ground to reach the cache. If you're not on level ground, look for some level ground first.
Please make an educated decision about the level of muggle activity when you arrive at GZ, and if you find it's just too muggly, we'd suggest you return another time - we'd rather you protected the cache. Thank you.
