Chester has been out
on many cache hunts with us and has rather got to enjoy this
pastime, so much so that he now recognises our GPSr and gets
excited on seeing it. Recently he has been asking if we could help
him create some caches of his own, so of course we agreed as he is
not too good at this internet thingy (and if the truth be known he
is only really any good at three things, walkeeees, spotting
squirrels and burying bones, but don't tell him I told you that).
He said that he would like them to be located in some of his
favourite types of places that his doggie friends would like and
suggested that one in each of the Oxford City Parks would be a good
place. Foolishly we agreed to this before checking out how many
parks Oxford actually has, and to our surprise their is eighteen of
them. I hope you all enjoy this series of eighteen caches, and do
post some picies for Chester, especially if you have one of his
canine friends with you.
Cowley
Marsh Park
Cowley Marsh is laid out
as a sports area with tennis, cricket and football facilities.
There is also a floodlit Streetsport site with markings and
equipment for roller hockey, basketball and five-a-side football.
There is also a children's play area.
In contrast to the busy sports area, in the wild top corner corner
at the edge of the recreation ground is a nature reserve. Common
Spotted Orchids flower along the edge of the copse and many other
wildflowers can be seen in the shorter turf along the edge of the
park. From the back of Cowley Marsh it is possible to take a walk
along up and over what was formerly known as Lye Hill, now
Southfield Golf Course, down to the Boundary Brook and up through
the Lye Valley Nature Reserve.
Originally this cache
was going to be placed at Cowley Road Gardens, but we decided it
would be hard to hide and the area has a bit of a bad reputation.
With this in mind we have placed it in the nearby and rather more
pleasant Cowley Marsh Park, which for some strange reason OCC have
not designated as a park!
You will find suitable,
but a little untidy parking at N51 44.328 W 001 13.146, although
you may wish to start at one of the many entrances to this
park
Chester has hidden a
Bone'us cache full of special doggy treats for all those cacher's
who have managed to complete his COPQ series. To find this cache
you will need to collect the letters on the lids of all the COPQ
caches, and use them to work out the start location for
Chester's Bone'us. Be warned, you will have to go for Chester's
favourite type of walkieeees to complete it; a long one.
As my employer has decided that it would be a good idea to
move the whole organisation to Bristol, the Phillimore's (Mad H@ter
and Muddy Legs) will be moving on to pastures new and some fresh
caches. Unfortunately this will mean that it will become difficult
for us to maintain our Oxfordshire caches, so we will therefore be
gradually archiving the majority of them. We shall start our
program of collecting the caches and archiving them in the new
year, but as we have one or two caches out there this will not be a
five minute program! If you would particularly like to find this
cache before it is archived please get in touch and we will try and
hold off archiving it.