Geocaching In The Park | Photo Diary

Hello guys! Today I managed to check something off my summer bucketlist! I went to a lovely big park in my hometown to find a geocache. If you've never heard of this hobby before, you can learn more about it on my 'All About Geocaching?' post. The weather was nice enough to go out for a walk with my camera and I hadn't been to this park in such a long long time, years in fact! It was so much more pretty than I remember it and so I thought I'd share a photo diary with you all. It's a nice way to document my geocache find too! Enjoy! 

The park that I visited today is called Bold Venture Park. I think that's such a cool name for a park! It was established in 1889 so it's a historical landmark for my hometown, which is Darwen in the county of Lancashire. In 1921, a monument was put up at the entrance to the park to pay tribute to the 1,200 soldiers from Darwen who fought and died during World War One & Two. This includes my great grandfather on my mother's side. There are five steps leading up to the monument to symbolise the five years of WW1. The monument has a beautiful angel on top and also a statues of a soldier and other war officials on the side, both made from bronze. It's the first thing you notice when you walk into the park, with a backdrop of trees and the big ornamental pond. So, without any further ado, here are some photographs...

This stunning pond is sometimes filled with ducks, but today I only saw a few hiding in the shade around the sides of the pond. I did see the cutest little Moorhen and its chicks. They were so adorable! There's quite a few ponds in the park, although this is the biggest, since the grounds are located on the Bold Venture Brook, which flows down the valley that Darwen is situated in, through the woods from the moors. There's even a pretty impressive little waterfall hiding in the park, which I'll show you soon! Another feature in the park sits where there was once a lovely aviary housing peacocks amongst other birds, which was gifted to the park at the end of the Victorian Era in 1901. Where the aviary once was is the Hindle Pergola, which is named after Mr & Mrs FG Hindle who gifted the aviary to the park all those years ago. I didn't know the name of those pretty wooden or metal frames covered in climbing flowers but they are apparently called Pergola. There's no flowers growing on the Hindle Pergola at the moment but I'm sure it will look beautiful when there is!

I really wish that I'd taken a tub with me to collect wild blackberries now! It was near this area of the park that my Geocaching app was telling me that I was close to the cache I was looking for. Geocaching is a hobby that is a little like treasure hunting. People hide caches and it's your job to find them. Caches are containers of any size and shape, often filled with little brick-a-brack 'treasures' which are great for children. There are also coins in some and other cool things, but most fun part of this activity is that you never know what to expect! It took me around 10-15 minutes to find the hidden cache, and I thoroughly enjoy climbing over tree trunks and exploring across the leaf-covered terrain to hunt out the cache. I was super happy when I finally found it :)

As you can see, this little cache had a cute pirate eye-patch inside that I know my nephew would like if he was to find this cache! There is usually a log book or sheet inside the container for finders to note when they found it and who they are. There wasn't one in the cache so I popped in a piece of note paper for others to sign. I also brought along this little heart charm that I got in a Christmas Cracker, so I left this little 'treasure' behind. Yay! Another geocache found; I wish there were more close to my house! I'm planning to search for caches next time I go to a city because there are usually lots hidden in such busy urban areas. I think it's pretty amazing that this little hobby goes on under everyone's noses everywhere! The geocachers even call people who don't know about the hobby 'muggles', haha! After finding the cache, I explored some more of the park. My next step was to the old historical drinking fountain that I wish was still in working order, but it was built in 1902 on the coronation day of King Edward. Lastly, I went to see if this waterfall was just as big as I remember it being when I was a kid. Fantasically, it was!

That waterfall is apparently 40 feet high! So, we've come to the end of my very picture heavy post; I hope you all enjoyed reading. I had a lovely day at the park, looking at the flowers and trees and squirrels and butterflies and ALL OF THE MAGPIES! I seriously saw so so many! It was nice to appreciate the history of the park and I started daydreaming about what it would have been like to see families walking around it in their Victorian attire, in the old days when the park was first opened to the public. I can't help but daydream, my imagination is vivid :) Who's the same? I wish that the playground was empty, because I totally wanted to play on it! Oh well, it was an awesome afternoon nonetheless!

Thankyou for reading! 

 ♥

Have you ever been geocaching? 

I also love to hear all about the last park that you visited. 

Here are some related posts:

| Finding My First Geocache | Summer Bucket List | Afternoon at Avenham |  

 

#30DaysWild | Week 4

Hello lovelies! Yesterday marked the end of the Wildlife Trust's 30 Days Wild challenge! I had a lot of fun taking part and it had a great effect on my mental health. It encouraged me to get outside everyday, even if it was only for a little while and I've always found being surrounded by nature therapeutic. I feel so relaxed just looking at the flowers and leaves and trees, watching their branches swaying in the wind and listening to the birds tweeting to one another. I find that my imagination really runs wild when I'm laying on the grass and day-dreaming. I've written quite a few short storie over the last 30 days. I hope that you've all enjoyed my last three photography posts. It's definitely been a challenge within itself to keep up with taking photographs each day! So here's my fourth & final week of the challenge... Enjoy! 

Last Wednesday, I spent the day visiting Blackpool with my mom, scrolling along the sea front and trying not to melt in the boiling weather. It was a very physically draining day and not only were my feet sore and throbbing by the time we got home, my body ached. I woke up on Day 22 feeling dreadful and in pain; the trip had really taken it's toll on my fibromyalgia. There wasn't much I could do so I decided to search through the prompts on the Wildlife Trust's app, and found one suggesting people 'pen a wild poem'. I hadn't written a poem since my college days, when I was studying English Literature. I thought I'd give it a go and this is all I mentioned to come up with but I hope you enjoy it anyway, haha :)

Oh beautiful is the natural world, 

So bright and colourful and free,

Sitting amongst the tall green grass is where I'd rather be.

Speckled with sunlight that shrines through the trees,

And lost in a whimsical dream.

Listening to the song of tiny birds,

And the rustle of crunchy brown leaves.

My fingers exploring a carpet of soft moss,

And my toes dipped in a cold stream.

Oh beautiful is the natural world,

So vibrant and full of wonder and glee.  

After I finished writing my poem, this little fly came to explore my notebook :)

Of course, little Miss trouble joined me in the garden :)

I really didn't do much for 30 Days Wild today, other than relaxing the garden for a little while with my family chatting and drinking a good cup of tea, and watched Aurora attempting to chase the birds and bees. Whilst exploring and sniffing throughout the garden, she managed to scare a few moths from their daytime hiding places but they flew away too fast for me to snap any photos. I thought I was dreaming when I could see something red fluttering in front of me, until I realised it was a Cinnabar moth! I completely geeked out and got so excited, which my family found quite amusing :)

Lovely Mock Orange Blossoms :)

Does anyone know the species? They remind me of tiny cabbages!

Not the best quality photo as I had to take it quickly before this little male House Sparrow (Passer domesticus) flew away. I am always so happy when I see birds feeding on the fat balls I've put out for them!

For most of the day, I was getting ready to go out for the night, as my best friends & I had planned to hang out and get drunk, haha! Before getting picked up by my friend, I headed to the pub at the end of my street to take some photographs of the beautiful flowers they'd just decorated with outside. They really do look fabulous so I wouldn't not take photographs of them! As you can all probably tell by now, one of my favourite things to shoot is flowers :) I took A LOT of photos but here's a few that I liked best... 

I absolutely adore yellow Begonias; they are definitely one of my favourite flowers!

Hello there tiny Hoverfly :) ft. the loveliest lilac and pink fuchsias.

The local insects are as delighted with the new flowers as I am!

Well... as you can imagine, I was very hungover on Sunday. I was in bed on and off throughout the day and my friend was feeling very sick so we just chilled around his apartment for the entire day. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get any photographs of nature on Day 25. I did however sit by an open window for most of the day and listened to the birds outside. I watched my favourite Urban Explorers channel on youtube, Hell on Earth, and although this isn't about nature, it does fascinate me how nature grows throughout abandoned buildings, almost reclaiming the space after humans have gone. I think it looks so awesome! On the drive home from my friends place, I spotted quite a few species of bird including swifts swooping over the river that's close to the Brockhole's Nature Reserve near Preston, Lancashire. I really need to go and check that place out.

Today was a insect watching kind of day! I watched a lot of bumblebees in the garden as I lazed around on the grass for a few couples, my fibromyalgia causing me so much pain that it was difficult to move much at all. Earlier in the day, I saved a little spider and took it outside :) If you follow me on instagram, you'll have seen the photograph of a bumble bee investigating the mess that the birds have left all over our castor oil plant/tree. When eating one of the fat balls I put out, the birds have scattered loads of crumbs all over the tree below and I'm not sure if the bee was eating these or was attached to the oily secretions from the castor leaves. Nevertheless, the little guy gave me the perfect opportunity to do one of the prompts from the 30 Days Wild app, 'Find a Creepy Crawly. Be gentle. Get close & watch the way it moves'. 

I always think bees look so unnatural and strange when they are crawling around, and when I feel their tiny black legs it immediately bring back a memory from back when I was with my ex-boyfriend. I was staying over at his house and in the morning I awoke to a trickling feeling on my leg, which I of course assumed was him trying to annoy me or something. So I told him off and tried to go back to sleep but it continued. My poor ex got 'scolded' for nothing because when I lifted the covers to investigate, there was a huge bumble bee crawling all over my leg. It was horrible and I completely freaked out! The poor bee must have been as scared as I was, but my ex moved him onto the window sill and he soon flew away. ugh bumble bees are adorable but that was dreadful, haha! Oh, today a Red Admiral Butterfly came to visit the garden too :) 

I spent the majority of Day 27 in bed trying to deal with the pelvis and back pain I was experiencing, then in the evening I made a silly decision to walk to the shop with my parents thinking that the exercise might have a positive impact on my pain. It didn't. However, the trip wasn't a waste as I got some munchies from the shop, some chips and sausage from the chippy for my tea and I spotted some very pretty roses in some of the gardens along the way. I really wish that we had more varieties of rose in our own garden, so that's my project for next year :)  

Taking inspiration from some of the prompts on the Wildlife Trust app, I decided to collect a range of colourful natural bits & pieces from around my garden, and then use them to make an animal design out of. This would have been a great task to do with children, so it was a shame that my nieces and nephew were around to help. It was still fun, even if the puppy thought I had food and kept barking at me and trying to get things out of my hands! 

It really is amazing how many colours appear throughout nature!

I made a butterfly, using random leaves, ferns, moss, a petunia stem, a geranium petal, buttercups & daisies! I think it looks so cool :)

This Thursday was not a great day for me, after having dealt with intense pain that didn't look to be going anywhere soon it had started to really affect my mental health. My depression was bad and then things were made worse by the fact that I had an appointment to see my psychiatrist. I knew that I would be seeing a new doctor this time which is daunting, plus with the anxiety of going out/the thought of socialising with people and having to talk about symptoms that are personal and hard to discuss as well as my fear of leaving the house when experiencing a lot of pain, I was just not in a good place mentally at all. So, I didn't do much at all for 30 Days Wild other than spend about fifteen minutes in the garden to check if I needed to put out more fat balls for the birds. 

Everytime I see Geraniums anywhere now, I always think about the Mother's Day Ladybird bath bomb from Lush :)

Mr European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) was being very noisy!

How adorable is the logo for the final day of the 30 Days Wild Challenge! I'm sad that I didn't see a hedgehog at all this month as I usually spot them in the bush around my garden. Hedgehogs are lovely little quintessentially British animals, with the cutest name! I recently borrow my dad's binoculars as I was planning to mark the last day of the challenge by going on a walk to a hill near my house where I used to play around as a kid, which has some cool views nearby over the next town. I thought it would be cool to take a look through the binoculars to see what far away details I could pick up. I was sad that I couldn't do this because of the pain I'm in, so I had to turn to the app ideas to see if I could find something I actually could do. I settled on take a blue photo... so here is the bright blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds, and some pretty blue Lobelia flowers. Thankyou for following my progress through the challenge :) It's been a blast! I hope that next year, I can get out and about more... visit some nature reserves, find some species of butterfly that I've never had the joy of seeing in person before, go to a big pond or lake :)

If you missed my previous weekly #30DaysWild updates, here are the links... 

Week 1, Week 2 & Week 3. 

 Thankyou for reading!

♥

Did any of you guys take part in the challenge?

If not, I'd love to hear about any wildlife, pretty scenery or any nature-filled day trips you've been on in the last month? Nature is beautiful & should be appreciated :)

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