You know how it is when you’ve had a cache on your Watchlist for years, you’ve been enjoying reading the logs from other cachers who’ve been there, fallen in, got bruised, got scared, got wet, done it and got the T shirt? And you say to yourself, “That looks fun… must do that one day” but you don’t actually do anything about it? Then what happens is some cacher who’s a bigger nutter than you suddenly bounces into the local forum and puts up a topic calling all those interested to arms, to tackle the cache and… suddenly… you can’t come up with any let-out clause why you can’t do it and there’s that little voice still muttering “That looks fun.”? 

 
 
The river Severn flows from its birth springs in the Welsh mountains, meanders down the west side of England and finally after 220 miles it flows out to meet the sea in the Bristol Channel and joyously drops its load of river mud along the way: It was this alluvial silt which we were soon to become closely acquainted with. The river is also famous for having the second highest tides in the world and at times of the Spring and Neap tides the difference between the high and low water is approximately 40ft. This truly is a boring fact because the Severn has a well-known river bore (Earth cache GCN6EP) and many visitors come to view the Severn bore wave, the more intrepid ones canoe and surf on its crest as it heads north-east up the estuary.
 
 
So we (that’s us Blorenges plus an assortment of other caching friends from south Wales and nearby) ended up on the banks of the river Severn estuary, where it flows into the Bristol Channel, ready to tackle “Flotsam and Jetsam extreme” GC15J1D – After all, what else would anyone want to do on a pleasantly mild Sunday afternoon other than spend several hours wading through mud? The tide tables had been checked… and checked again… and we were all in fluorescent Hi-Vis vests (as advised by the local Coastguards). Our first task was to get down the slippery slope of the river embankment onto the rocks and pebbles – some managed to fall at this first hurdle – then shoes were removed and it was time to experience the full gloopiness of what we were going to walk through. It had an excess of gloopiness: the mud was dark grey and very slippery and varied in depth from 3” to 12” and more if you happened to wander off the recommended track. Once it was past your knees then that was the clue that maybe you should re-trace a few paces and take a slightly different bearing.

 
Using various techniques to keep upright (walking pole/flailing arms/clutching another cacher) we all made it to the first waypoint about a third of a mile out to the water’s edge. Then we had to walk along parallel to the shore for a quarter mile to locate the next waypoint and take some photos. Then the real fun started…

Various small streams flow off the land into the river and where this occurs they form their own mini river valleys across the mud. Here the mud depth gets deeper and the cache owner had carefully contrived this cache so that we had to cross one of these mud valleys. Thanks, FollowMeChaps ;-) By this point most of us had fallen or slipped and were muddy to lower thigh anyway so with great gusto we… well… some of us stood back and waited for the taller and longer-legged members of the group to scout ahead and decide on our best method of attack. Once a couple of the guys were across and we were happy that the mud the other side was OK (none of them had disappeared up to armpits) another planted himself firmly in the bottom of the stream so that the rest of us could use him as a ‘rock’ to pull ourselves through the mud and water and then the others hauled us up the opposite bank.

Onwards to the final objective – the wrecks! (Not us lot… nautical rusty hulks)
During the Second World War a couple of old barges were sunk in the Bristol Channel to be used for artillery practice and we had to get to the remains and answer a few questions to collect the vital numbers. We squelched our way onwards, following the waterline for what seemed ages, passing bits of rusty iron, some unidentifiable, others still retaining the shapes of old artillery shells. After about three quarters of a mile (and an hour and a half of plodding from our starting point) we made it to the heaps of twisted, rusting iron and pulled on our beach shoes to give some protection from the surrounding rocks and general debris. There followed some cautious exploration around the wrecks and we were also glad of the opportunity to sit down for a break, enjoy our drinks and some fruity finger bars kindly provided by cachers Write&Mane. While viewing the riverbank half a mile away and then gazing westwards towards the mouth of the channel and the Atlantic Ocean I reminded myself of the chilling thought that in 6 hours the sea would be back and where we were resting would be under 40 foot of water.

 
After half an hour we were armed with the required figures and started the slow trudge back, accompanied now by the cache owner, who had come out to meet our group and spurred us on the last leg back to the shore.  Well muddied now, from toes to thighs (river mud migrates upwards) and with random splodges of greyness all over us, we scrambled inelegantly over the last lines of rocky pebbles and regained the river embankment. After washing off some of the surplus mud in convenient pools we all ambled off to find the final cache location which was back along the river bank towards where the vehicles had been parked, about a mile away. With great satisfaction the ammo can was uncovered, the log book signed, items swapped and signature items dropped. This was a great caching experience for us all – Some caches benefit from being tackled in a group and I feel that this was such a cache. Everyone had a laugh, we all supported each other… sometimes literally. Some caches will always linger in the mind – in this case, fond memories of “Mud, mud, glorious mud!”
 
Thanks to the south Wales geocachers for their company on this adventure and their great selection of photographs.

By MrsB of the Blorenges

Comments(1):

1. Looks like fun!

   Man, I would like to have done that! I did something similar once, in a marsh in Las Vegas - yes, Las Vegas has at least one marshy area. THis was in January, too!

   Sunday, November 22, 2009 Betsy