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The South Wales Salopian Adventure along the Great Western Line


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Title says it all really(!) - a number of us from South Wales are planning to 'hit' the Heart of Wales Line on Saturday December the 5th and visit Shrewsbury for the afternoon. There are several intentions:

 

1. We are coming by railway/public transport - with the use of personal transport encouraged to be as minimum as possible, to the nearest railway station, preferably. Train times from the Cardiff direction and also hopefully for Geocachers coming from West Wales to connect with the HoW, which starts its Southern leg in Swansea, via a (short dogleg to Llanelli) will be made available to anyone who wishes to join us and times for the line itself can be found on the link above. Prices are heavily subsidised along this railway... I found that it was cheaper for me to travel from my home in South Wales to Shrewsbury and back than it was for me to to make a return journey from Maidstone to London (when I lived there)!

 

2. We intend to find caches in the area (naturally!) - which ones will be up to individuals who come - I have my own target after a DNF 2 years ago doing something very similar (that time with a friend who started Geocaching that day as a result and is now a prolific cache finder/setter in his own area despite the entire day resulting in a single DNF!) Others intend to make this a Christmas shopping trip too - each to their own!

 

3. We would love to meet local Geocachers who cache in this area as well. For this reason, I'm currently in contact with someone from the Shrewsbury area who has local knowledge so that we can set up an event cache of some sort - details will be published shortly. It should at least involve a visit to a local pub for a drink and meal and may also involve doing something silly in the middle of town too :(

 

 

Anyone from South Wales (or anywhere really) who fancies making this railway journey along the prettiest railway route in Wales and aguably one of the most interesting railway journeys in the country, please get in contact with me if you haven't expressed your intention already (this has been an ongoing discussion on our South Wales Geocachers forum for a week or so now).

 

Those of you from the Shrewsbury region (or again beyond) who would like to meet up - keep an eye out for an event cache that should be published within the next few days close to the centre of Shrewsbury. Also feel free to get in touch with me if you'd like to know more or just wish to attend.

 

It'll certainly be a different day of caching than normal for some of us I suspect... :)

Edited by Eclectic Penguin
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Title says it all really(!) - a number of us from South Wales are planning to 'hit' the Heart of Wales Line on Saturday December the 5th and visit Shrewsbury for the afternoon. There are several intentions:

 

1. We are coming by railway/public transport - with the use of personal transport encouraged to be as minimum as possible, to the nearest railway station, preferably. Train times from the Cardiff direction and also hopefully Geocachers from West Wales to connect with the HoW, which starts its Southern leg in Swansea, via a (short dogleg to Llanelli) will be made available to anyone who wishes to join us and times for the line itself can be found on the link above. Prices are heavily subsidised along this railway... I found that it was cheaper for me to travel from my home in South Wales to Shrewsbury and back than it was for me to to make a return journey from Maidstone to London (when I lived there)!

 

2. We intend to find caches in the area (naturally!) - which ones will be up to individuals who come - I have my own target after a DNF 2 years ago doing something very similar (that time with a friend who started Geocaching that day as a result and is now a prolific cache finder/setter in his own area despite the entire day resulting in a single DNF!) Others intend to make this a Christmas shopping trip too - each to their own!

 

3. We would love to meet local Geocachers who cache in this area as well. For this reason, I'm currently in contact with someone from the Shrewsbury area who has local knowledge so that we can set up an event cache of some sort - details will be published shortly. It should at least involve a visit to a local pub for a drink and meal and may also involve doing something silly in the middle of town too :(

 

 

Anyone from South Wales (or anywhere really) who fancies making this railway journey along the prettiest railway route in Wales and aguably one of the most interesting railway journeys in the country, please get in contact with me if you haven't expressed your intention already (this has been an ongoing discussion on our South Wales Geocachers forum for a week or so now).

 

Those of you from the Shrewsbury region (or again beyond) who would like to meet up - keep an eye out for an event cache that should be published within the next few days close to the centre of Shrewsbury. Also feel free to get in touch with me if you'd like to know more or just wish to attend.

 

It'll certainly be a different day of caching than normal for some of us I suspect... :)

 

We are curently free that day but will need to confirm with "Min Brat's" swimming diary!

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Just to keep people informed - it's all on plan. I'm still awaiting confirmation from someone local with regards to setting up an event of some sort in Shrewsbury to provide a focus point for meeting up - but more than likely it'll be in the city centre, not long after 1pm when the HoW train arrives there.

 

With the news this week that you can actually now buy a genuine rail ticket in the UK for over £1000 from Cornwall to Scotland, the cost of a rail ticket on the HoW line is considerably less - 2 years ago my return journey was about £14 from Pontarddualis to Shrewsbury and if you're travelling from Swansea, you have to specify you're going via the HoW otherwise they charge more for the ticket!

 

As to people coming from other directions - this is most encouraged of course! The theme is to try to arrive by rail, but if this is impractical or impossible for you it's not mandetory by any means!

 

The main aim originally was to find some caches in a new region and socialise on the train during the journey but with the chance to meet up with Geocachers in a different region, the event cache in Shresbury is also now a key aim of the day.

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It's on track - but could the person who volunteered to help me to help set up an event cache in Shrewsbury get in touch with me urgently as we need to set this set up in the next few days, please, otherwise it won't be accepted an official event. Several email requests have now been unanswered.

 

If nothing is received by Wednesday lunch time I'll have to try to organise this without local knowledge or help which is by far not ideal.

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It's on track - but could the person who volunteered to help me to help set up an event cache in Shrewsbury get in touch with me urgently as we need to set this set up in the next few days, please, otherwise it won't be accepted an official event. Several email requests have now been unanswered.

 

If nothing is received by Wednesday lunch time I'll have to try to organise this without local knowledge or help which is by far not ideal.

 

Interested in joining you in Shrewsbury. Trains not good from this end so would be by Park & Ride. I know Shrewsbury quite well although I live 18 miles away, shout if I can help. Only one cache live in centre of town now.

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It's on track - but could the person who volunteered to help me to help set up an event cache in Shrewsbury get in touch with me urgently as we need to set this set up in the next few days, please, otherwise it won't be accepted an official event. Several email requests have now been unanswered.

 

If nothing is received by Wednesday lunch time I'll have to try to organise this without local knowledge or help which is by far not ideal.

 

Interested in joining you in Shrewsbury. Trains not good from this end so would be by Park & Ride. I know Shrewsbury quite well although I live 18 miles away, shout if I can help. Only one cache live in centre of town now.

 

Thanks - I'll get back to you if needed. All we need to do really is establish either coordinates for a "flashmob" type cache or speak to a pub landlord (and provide coordinates) to see if they're OK with about 20-30 people (rough estimate) turning up around 1:30pm. We'll have a better idea of numbers once the event cache is set up and people can log attendance.

 

Train journey was jsut a theme because it all started out with us lot from South Wales planning on coming up on the Heart of Wales Line - it's not mandetory by any means and my guess is your nearest practical station is ... Shrewsbury!

 

I lived in Oswestry for a year - I have fond memories of that year.

 

The Proud Salopian Cache was completed on September 20th - that's the one I really want to do as I failed to find it on a very similar rail visit a couple of years ago.

Edited by Eclectic Penguin
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Many thanks to those in the Shrewsbury area for helping me set it up - it's now an official event (GC215EN). Go there to find out more. There are between 8 and 15 committed to coming from South Wales so far along the lovely Heart of Wales railway line. As I live only 250m away from a station on the line I have no excuse!

 

I'll try to drum up some support from the people I know don't read this or our local forums.

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I forgot to add train times (we've discussed this at length on the South Wales forum but I appreciate some may read this forum but not that one).

 

Connection time from Cardiff:

0809 Cardiff Central

 

change at Swansea

 

0915 Swansea

0935 Llanelli

0940 Bynea

0943 Llangennech

0947 Pontardulais

0955 Pantyffynnon

0958 Ammanford

1002 Llandybie

1009 Ffairfach

1012 Llandeilo

 

...

 

1307 Shrewsbury

 

We plan to return on the 18:05 from Shrewsbury (and if we miss it we'll be looking for loads of nice Geocachers to put us up for the night :laughing: )

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