Caching in England?

[+murfster]

We are planning a trip to England in the spring of 08. My wifes family is from the Surry, Devon and Cornwall regions.

 

1. What is the best month weather wise April, May or June?

 

2. When do the tourist type things open?

 

3. Do I need Mapsource for England or will the basic map set be ok?

 

4. Any suggestions for getting about? Train? Bus? I'm a bit leary of renting a car.

 

5. Any other suggestions or links that can provide information would be appreciated!

 

Thanks very much. I'm looking forward to exploring and will bring a few Canadian coins with me.

 

Murfster

[+mongoose39uk]

1) June

 

2) Pretty much all the time in those months

 

3) Basic maps are fine and you can use the ordnance survey "get a map" service to print of more detailed maps

 

4) Public transport varies in availability and can be very poor outside cities (also quite expensive).

 

5) I am sure local cachers will be better at finding transport links etc for those areas than me.

 

Good luck

 

Tony

[+Birdman-of-liskatraz]

Well I'm from the Peoples Republic of Cornwall, next door to England.. So if you want any Cornish advice feel free to contact me.

 

May/June should be nice, but hard to promise anything these days.

 

Public Transport away from the main Plymouth - Penzance Railway line is iffy to say the least. If you can cope with roads not much wider than your car then really a hire car is the way to go. If not let me know and I'll find a list of Caches that be done by public transport.

 

There is a Cornwall/Devon geocaching forum at Cornwall and Devon Forum where caching by public transport has been discussed previously.

 

If you let me know when you're likely to be in the area I may be able to arrange a meet of some of the local cachers - drag you along to a cache or two and a Molson ummm Real English Beer....

[+SidAndBob]

The best month's weather this year was probably February. That may not be the norm, but what is with the weather these days.

[+Pieman]

If you've never driven on the left before don't worry. The first time I drove on the right I was nervous but I soon realised there was nothing to worry about. You quickly get the hang of driving on the other side of the road.

[+Team Sieni]

1. What is the best month weather wise April, May or June?

 

June probably, but our weather has gone crazy of late

 

2. When do the tourist type things open?

 

er ... many are open all year, some close for winter months. I'd have a look at specific things on the Web.

 

3. Do I need Mapsource for England or will the basic map set be ok?

 

Depends what you want to do and what kind of equipment you have. I take it you have a Garmin (Mapsource is a tradename isn't it) in which case I'd tend to say yes as the basemap is a bit rubbish, but it really depends how you want to use your GPSr. If you hire a car you may also be able to hire a satnav (??) and if you buy some maps, so you don't need the maps in your GPSr, just the arrow as you approach a cache.

 

4. Any suggestions for getting about? Train? Bus? I'm a bit leary of renting a car.

 

In Surrey/South East train services are pretty good, but buses vary widely. Outside the SE trains remain very good for getting to/from cities, but are poorer (sometimes non existent) outside that. Lots of info on the web - try www.nationalrail.co.uk

 

5. Any other suggestions or links that can provide information would be appreciated!

 

Plan your itinerary carefully. There's tons of stuff on the web, but without knowing your specific interests it's hard to reccomend.

[+mousekakat]

Well, we just came back from a 2.5 day quick tourist trip to London...

 

WOW... so much to see, so little time! The plan had been to do some caching, but our gps'r's battery is only chargable via car cigarette lighter, and it came on in our backpack on our way over, soooo... no caching for us.

 

We did prepare before we went, we looked at the areas where we were staying using the "map-it" function and printed out the main map-it map and then the caches around it we were interested in.

 

There are a TON of virtual and micro/mini caches in London. We didn't see many that were bigger than that.

 

To be honest, we spent so much time consulting the tube map and figuring out where we were, lol, that we probably wouldn't have had much of any time to do any caching, anyway, with the exception of the virtuals that were directly at the areas where we were going, like Westminster Abby/Houses of Parliament and St Paul's Cathedral, which both have virtuals.

 

If you take the tube in London you will be fine with a 2 zone daycard. It is good for both tube and bus and it takes you to the vast majority of the places you'll want to go in the London major area, it cost 5.10£.

 

Be prepared to spend a bit of money. It costs anywhere between 8 and 20£ per person to get into most attractions, there are some that are free, but St Paul's, Westminster, the London Eye, soforth and so on, they are not cheap, they are pretty worth it, but expensive. It was kind of disappointing that you weren't allowed to take photos in the cathedrals.

 

As for food, there was a great little sandwich joint called Pickles that if you're walking down Birdcage row by the guard museum and then turn right to go to Westminster Abby is on a little side road on the right, danged good sandwiches and other food, we found that those type little joints all had decent food and had better prices than the places that were more "open" and usually a fun, "different" atmosphere and we enjoyed them a lot!

 

Beware that the tube is VERY busy starting around 3ish until 6ish. At one line we had to wait for 3 trains before there was one that had the space for us in it. Walk down to the end of the platform, all the way down, you have a better chance of finding a car that has space if you do that. If you've got kids in strollers be prepared to carry the strollers up and down stairs everywhere as London doesn't seem to be at all friendly for them. There are very few tube stations that have more than stairs, most are stairs only, although there are a couple that have elevators. Most don't. The tube stations, at least the ones that are all indoor and not outdoor, are very, very warm, it's something you might want to remember and keep a bottle of water with you. Because of the heat a backpack style carrier really didn't work, we tried our patapum and it was much too hot for the baby and for Mr Mousekakat. Be sure to keep a good hold on older kids as people push and shove to get on and off the trains.

 

Oh, and if you want to watch the changing of the guard, get there at least 10:30 and go to the big statue facing the castle but across from it. If the castle and its fence is at 12:00, sit facing approximately 11:00 and you'll have decent seats and should be able to see inside the fence, too... we couldn't, kidlet was disappointed!

 

Anyway, those are just some of my observations on our whirlwind trip to a wonderful city!

[+Coppers Lot]

I think Birdman of Liskatraz is your contact on this one murfster.

 

That is a great part of the country, VERY beautiful at that time of year. Driving on the left or right isn't so much of an issue cos a lot of the roads you'll be needing have NO left or right, they are too small!!

 

An influx of foreign coins doing the rounds will be great too, hope you enjoy your trip.

[+soldierblue2]

Well if you are Coming to Cornwall come at any time forget the weather just love Cornwall for what it is, but do pay a Visit to St Agnes

[+Cryptik Souls Crew]

I assume you have a North American GPSr, so I would be surprised if it even has a basemap for the UK. My UK Garmin certiainly doesn't have a basemap for the USA/Canada.

[+Learned Gerbil]

Many visitor attractions which are closed in winter (usually places near mainly seaside resorts open at Easter or the weekend before. Also note that some parts of the country have strange closing times. The Isle of Wight seems to close all day on Fridays for example. Surrey is pretty much open all the time being one green hilly London suburb.