Easter Saturday dawned clear and bright. It was still cold but at least the wind had eased. I felt a little better than I had yesterday so we decided that a family day out was in order.<\/p>\n
We wanted to hide a geocache in Cwm Rheidol so we prepared some boxes, log books and cache notes and headed out. The chosen location for our new geocache was a viewpoint set up as a memorial to Nancy Kirk. Nancy Kirk was a geologist at Aberystwyth University that Anna and I worked alongside whilst researching for our theses…. Theses? Is that right, is that the plural of thesis? I think it has to be.<\/p>\n
Anyway, she was quite a character and must have been getting on for 90 years of age while we were there. There were always plenty of stories about her love of naked gardening and the challenges she faced as a pioneer of geological sciences as a female in a male dominated field.<\/p>\n
We always got on well with her, even if she did always call me ‘custard’, so we thought it would be fitting to hide a geocache at the viewpoint erected in her memory after she died in 2005.<\/p>\n
The Nancy Kirk memorial viewpoint is at the top of the Pant Da Woodland Nature Reserve in Cwm Rheidol. The walk to the top follows a steep zigzag path through the woodland passing a number of information points about the trees around you. Sessile Oak, Wild Cherry, Silver Birch, Larch, Rowan and Beech. It was fairly quiet in the woods today and still very wintry with snow on the tops of the hills surrounding the valley and no sign of much in the way of Spring. The Rheidol Valley Steam train could be seen and heard puffing and tooting it’s way along the hill on the opposite side of the valley and we soon found ourselves at the top.<\/p>\n
We hid the cache, stopped off for a look at the view and a little rest, then made our way back down along a different path completing a nice half hour circular walk. The cache has yet to be approved but it should prove to be a good one once it is live.<\/p>\n\n\t\t