Le Con Field Traditional Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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Concealed pill container in a suburban park.
This gem of a park situated in the quiet residential suburb of Dunkeld is named after Hugh Archibald Wyndham (1877-1963) who later became the fourth Lord Leconfield on the death of his brother Charles in 1952. He was the quintessential 19th century example of the landed gentry but who was unable to accept and move with changing times. The Wyndham's emigrated to South Africa in 1901 where Hugh served as Lord Milner's unpaid private secretatry. He entered South African politics first as a Transvaal Progressive and after 1910 as a Unionist and sought closer ties to Britain in a vain attempt to preserve the lifestyle of a bygone era in a fast changing political environment. He was based initially in Standerton and helped reestablish the equine industry after the devastation of the Second Anglo-Boer War of independence. On 3 November 1916 General Smuts commissioned Wyndham and another officer Buchan to write the history of the German South West African campaign which had ended in 1915. Hugh held an arts degree from New College, Oxford and rose to the challenge. He went on to write other books documenting various British Manor houses. Hugh and Maud Wyndham lived an ostentatious, gentrified lifestyle in the urban Johannesburg suburb of Parkview. Their home soon became a cocoon of Britishness in an increasingly uncomfortable part of the empire. They had often difficult relationships between themselves and their servants as well as among the servants themselves. It certainly would not have conformed to the modern Conditions of Employment Act. With the impact and uncertainty of the first World War the servants endured the archaic hierarchical structures and duties of servitude for the sake of the tenure of employment. The family returned permanently to England in 1930 because they were unable to adjust to an ever changing South African sociopolitical landscape only to find that the England they had left was no longer. It too was experiencing great upheaval with the effects of the great depression beginning to manifest. The double entendre on the title of this cache is that of a play on words on the title of Hugh Wyndham's barony as well as the fact that the park is also not quite what it seems. Is it a con? What looks like an idyllic place to walk the dog or let you children play could get you quite muddy and dirty. The reason for this is the fact that this area used to be part an old water course. Certain areas of the park are still marshy. The remnants of the two ox-bow lakes which characterised the park in the 60's and 70's have all but dried up on the surface but the water is not far below which you will discover, as you sink ankle deep in the bog when you try and walk through it. Fortunately the cache is located nearer the children's play area and cricket nets. The picnic tables provided are perfect to sit at to sign the log. This area is easily wheelchair accessible and the cache obtainable by persons so incapacitated. It sounds too easy... Time will tell. Enjoy! This is also a high muggle area and I have been pleasantly surprised at how many people use the park, especially families with children. If there is a chance that you will compromise the cache, rather leave it. My first attempt at placing the cache was nearly muggled within the first five minutes. I have therefore downgraded from the lock 'n lock to an alternative container a bit bigger than a micro For the first to find there is an non-activated Travel Bug for the taking. 6 September 2011 - Further reduced in size to a bison tube. 20 April 2012 - Replaced the bison tube in a different location 12 October 2013 Upgrade the bison tube to PET preform - Same place
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Gnxr gur gur crecraqvphyne ovfrpgbe bs gur gjb 22f npebff gur ebnq.
Jurer gjb ubevmbagny ornzf zrrg.