I'd like to take you back in time for this cache...a good few thousand years.
Imagine re-hiding this cache carefully, and upon standing up the whole landscape around you has changed. Instead of the proud and towering forest, there is rough open ground dotted with short weathered native trees…. You return to the track a bit confused, but turning towards the murmur of human voices you see a few small plumes of smoke, so you decide to continue southwards to investigate. As you get nearer, you can smell wood smoke, drifting gently in your direction. It is mingled with the juicy smell of some meat that you can't quite place. Before you emerges the source; a settlement about a dozen small round huts. Their short solid stone walls are topped with turf, and prop up thickly thatched roofs. As you walk curiously towards them, you can hear subtler noises; a soft scraping sound; a chapping noise like two stones being knocked together; and a constant methodical grinding. You realise as you approach the huts that you are walking on ridges of soil, and there are little grassy green shoots gallantly pushing through. You pick your steps carefully so you don’t tread on them. The nearest hut has an entrance facing south and as you remain un-noticed, you peer inside. It is dark. Dark, and smoky! As your eyes adjust, you can see the fire sits in the middle of the earthen floor, small, but not abandoned. You startle at a noise behind you, and quickly dart into the suffocating space. Through the doorway comes a young girl of early teens carrying a couple of pots. She is wearing a long tunic-style dress of mossy green, with a loose light rope tied round her waist, and her long golden brown hair plaited over her shoulder. She doesn’t seem to know you’re there, and smiles as she lays the pots down. She picks up a small crudely-woven blanket that she wraps round her shoulders, and hurries out the hut. You wait until you hear her footsteps get quieter, and carefully step out too, into a chilly breeze and start walking. Over at one of the other huts you can see where the noises are coming from; a group of women sitting around a doorway busying themselves with various tasks and all dressed similarly to the young girl with plain simple clothing and braided hair. You must get a picture of these people, could you imagine putting this in your log? Geocaching would never be the same! You fumble with your phone and drop it at your feet on the grass. As you bend down to pick it up before you are noticed, your hood suddenly gets blown up and over your head by the wind. It disorientates you; you stumble to regain your footing before standing up again. The wind…well it must have been a gust. The sun has gone – no wait – it is still light above, but the forest has closed in again, and all is still and silent save for the little bird in the canopy above. You turn back to the hut you were in, to see a low circle of stones covered in moss and grass. No thatched roof, no plume of smoke snaking its way into the sky from the middle of the roof. The ground around you is all overgrown; it now smothers the noise of scraping or grinding, the murmuring tones of the women. Did you just imagine it all…..?