Never the Twain Traditional Geocache
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Size: 
(regular)
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OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!
The Ballad of East and West, Rudyard Kipling
Those of us without access to two strong men from the ends of the earth, whom we can handily position face to face, can recreate the experience of “neither East nor West” by visiting this cache, which is situated on the WGS84 meridian.
You are looking for a plastic food box, containing a smaller plastic food box.
Public parking is available at Botley Hill (TQ 39861 55463) followed by a steep descent. Access by train is best from Oxted (about 2km as the crow flies) or Caterham (about 6km as the crow flies).
The Meridian
If you have an OS Explorer map No 146 of recent vintage (post 1998) you will see the Greenwich Meridian is marked as a green line a little way to the West of the cache. Why is this? Well, the WGS84 meridian is actually 102.5 metres East of the “Airy Meridian” used by the Ordnance Survey. There is an explanation of this here
You can find a plaque that marks where the Airy meridian crosses the Vanguard way at (TQ 39499 54628). See also this waymark. You may wish to log a visit to this waymark when logging a visit to the cache.
If you're interested in caches along the meridian, why not have a look at Team Sieni's UK Meridian Caches bookmark list. If you're interested in meridian markers, check out the Greenwich Meridian Markers waymarking category.
Places of Interest
There are quite a few interesting places near to this cache.
A little way to the North-East is Titsey Place stately home and gardens. There is Betsom’s hill (TQ 43555 56332) which is the highest point in Kent, but the actual top is on private land so there is nothing to see, not even a trig point. Then there is Botley Hill (TQ 39607 55346), which has a Trig Point and is a Marilyn . There is also Westerham Heights (TQ 43634 56485) the highest point in London, hooray! Unfortunately it is rather anonymous, but there are decent views towards London on a clear day.
Nature notes
Nearby we found the shell of a Roman Snail, Helix pomatia which is rare in Britain, but locally quite common on the N Downs. We came across a live specimen in June 2008,and Deepdiggingmole found several when he found the cache in Mar 2007. In Oct 2007 we found some hericium fungus nearby (H. Coralloides? or perhaps H. Erinaceus), another rarity. Less rare, but still interesting was the Dryad's Saddle (polyporus squamosus) that we found in May 2011, and a boletus in Jul 2011 which we did not fully identify - just snapped a photo as we went by. See gallery for pics.
This cache was placed with the kind permission of the Titsey Foundation.
Please check out the Geocaching Association of Great Britain
for the home of Geocachers in GB. Please visit www.gagb.org.uk
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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