Another cache in what has the potential to become a National Numbered Series of Letterbox Hybrid caches, placed to mark one of a diminishing number of post boxes placed in Queen Victoria’s reign and still in use for regular collections by Royal Mail.
A few simple guidelines will apply to the series (subject to amendment):
- The post box must carry the Royal Cipher of Queen Victoria (in whatever format)
- The box must have regular collections by Royal Mail
- The box must be in the British Isles (so United Kingdom and adjoining Crown Dependencies).
- Any style or colour of box are valid as long as the above all apply
Now to this Cache
The cache is not at the published co-ords, where you will find a Victorian Post Box set in a brick wall. Naturally, you will need to visit the Post Box to obtain values for the final coordinates.
There is no safe parking available near the postbox, - when setting this, we parked at N51 44.133 W000 29.699 and walked carefully along Felden Lane facing oncoming traffic.
Please take care whilst gathering the information from this letterbox as it is built into the wall of a building very close to the crossroads and as there is no path, you will be standing in the road and vulnerable to any traffic turning left into the lane who will be unsighted till the last minute.
We strongly recommend that you do what we did and take a photo of the information that you can refer to somewhere safer.
From the Postbox you need to find the following numbers -
The Postbox Number, which is HPa bc8D
Now turn to your left and carefully cross to the nearby triangle of grass bounded by roads.
Here you are looking for 2 Blue Water signs one above the other. -
From the Bottom sign, you are looking for DVdef
From the Top sign, you are looking for the single digit at the bottom for g
The cache can be found
bg(e-d)c feet away
on a bearing of (e-c)a(b+c+d).f degrees
You may need to let your GPS signal settle when you get close to GZ, hopefully the hint will help if your GPS is still struggling - Happy Hunting
The self-inking rubber stamp in the cache is NOT a trade item, and must remain in the cache!
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
There is a Bonus Cache associated with this cache and the 4 caches listed below, so don't forget to make a note of the values in each cache.
- Victoria's Post Box #64 - Bourne End - GC8NR7N
- Victoria's Post Box #66 - Water End - GC8NX9N
- Victoria's Post Box #67 – Gaddesden Row - GC8NYZW
- Victoria's Post Box #68 – Great Gaddesden - GC8NZET
Please click on GC8P0F0 to visit the Bonus cache page for more information.
If you know of an eligible post box and would like to add to this series, please apply to Team Hippo for a series number, giving the following:
- Location as in place name (and street if applicable)
- Location in Lat Long format (DD MM.MMM)
- Postbox number