KIELDER COLUMN - KIELDER Traditional Cache
THE SMILEYS: Site no longer suitable.
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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The sculpture is fully accessible to all visitors from parking at Bakethin Weir car park. Walk past the barrier and follow the tarmac road for 200 metres. The Column is situated along the path to the Weir - the cache is opposite the end of the road.
Kielder Water and Forest Park Lakeside Way - 27 miles - now complete.
Tucked away at the top of Northumberland, close to the Scottish Border and Hadrian's Wall, beautiful Kielder Water is the largest man-made lake in Western Europe and is set in the majestic Kielder Forest, one of Europe’s largest man-made forests. Home to one of Britain's biggest nature resorts, housing England's biggest colony of red squirrels, as many as 6,000 roe deer and many species of rare birds. Hills, rivers and open areas add to the diversity of the forest.
“This rich and varied landscape reflects the mood of Northumbria: a wild and romantic place to savour, a place to recharge the spirit”.
Kielder Water is the main reason why there are never any water shortages in Northumberland even though the county as a whole is one of the driest in the country. Constructed between 1975 and 1981 at a cost of £167 million, it is 7 miles in length, covers an area of 10 square kilometres and has a capacity of 200 million cubic metres – it took two years to flood the valley.
Kielder's quiet beauty is enhanced by a range of activities which include walking, cycling, horse riding, sailing, water-sports, fishing and a ferry cruiser.
There is a great selection of walks of varying distances, from easy to strenuous, around Kielder Water, Bakethin Reservoir and in Kielder Forest. The combination of water and forest creates a spectacular environment for walking and cycling with starting points all around the 27mile shoreline.
A 2.5m wide multi-user track around the shoreline of Kielder Reservoir is currently under development and the Art and Architecture programme at Kielder has led to the creation of a series of major new structures and installations around the Lake and in the Forest. An interesting 13 mile Forest Toll road connects Kielder Village at the head of the reservoir to the A68, providing a neat shortcut cross county for just £2 at time of listing all views inclusive of course 
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At all times along with the Country Code, please observe:
THE FOREST CODE
Guard against all risk of fire
Protect trees, plants and wildlife
Leave things as you find them - take nothing away
Keep dogs under control
Avoid damaging buildings, fences, hedges, walls and signs
Leave no litter
NO TREE COVER AT CACHE SITE
The sculpture is a pillar or stack of pink Doddington sandstone. After the individual blocks were fitted together, the surface was more closely worked by hand to create the sense of an ascending spiral throughout the column. The work was originally created for Gateshead Garden Festival in 1990, just in case you’re thinking you’ve seen it somewhere before. The following year it was placed in storage and in 1999 a site was chosen for the work at the southern end of Bakethin Weir.
Beyond the sculpture there are fantastic views over Bakethin Reservoir and a further opportunity for the ‘twitchers’ so take your binoculars – we spotted something riding high on the thermals but without the ‘glass eyes’ we couldn’t quite make out what it was.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Gb gur yrsg bs gur 'Puevfgznf Gerr' nobhg 10 srrg qbja cngu - haqre n ebpx.