Three earthcaches, plus lots of trads to do on an excellent walk, including an ascent of Thorpe Cloud for one of the earthcaches, a short but steep climb!
With just three caches left to do, we started to hear a PA system blaring out in the countryside, and as we got nearer, we found that we had stumbled upon Manifold Valley Country Fair, so we dropped on for a walk round.
They were having some bizarre sort of dog racing, using their own pets. An arena of sorts had been set up, around which some 500 people were gathered. The course itself was about 50 yards long, and consisted of a rather rickety box in which the runners were placed, and a fluffy penguin (yes, a penguin) attached to a piece of string. The "hare", or "penguin" was propelled from the start line to the non-existent finishing line by way of a loop of string tied around a bike wheel (with the tyre missing), this was further enhanced by the use of the pedals on the bike to make the fluffy toy fly along at a rapid rate of knots!
Utterly bizarre, but they loved it! They were getting themselves into a right frenzy, it was only a matter of time before a fight broke out!
We had a quick look at the owls, the market and one more glance at the "dog racing" before beating a hasty retreat.
One of the strangest things I've seen while out caching!
Caches found at time of posting......2460.
