#7 White Cliffs Geotrail Traditional Geocache
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For waymarkers and more information on this series, please see #1 White Cliffs Geotrail
**CONGRATULATIONS!**
jasumi FTF on 23 August 2014
This series of caches is a long term legacy of the popular 2014 White Cliffs Walking Festival week. Over a thousand people attended a multiple choice of events, tailored to suit everybody. This is the first time that Geocaching has been provided by Ramblers and featured in the programme.
This is the seventh cache in a series of 25 that have been placed along two National WalkingTrails, The North Downs Way and The Saxon Shoreway from Capel le Ferne to Dover. The caches have been set with permission from Natural England and The White Cliffs Countryside Partnership. Some of these areas are set in areas of SSSI. Please avoid disturbance of plants and animals.
Abbot's Cliff - A forerunner of radar, acoustic mirrors were built on the south and northeast coasts of England between about 1916 and the 1930s. The ‘listening ears’ were intended to provide early warning of incoming enemy aeroplanes and airships about to attack coastal towns. With the development of faster aircraft the sound mirrors became less useful, as an aircraft would be within sight by the time it had been located, and radar finally rendered the mirrors obsolete. br>
At a time when severe flooding is still causing problems throughout Britain, it’s worth noting that flooding was a key factor in Britain’s past. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, one of the largest floods in Earth’s history turned us into an island and changed the course of our history. Britain was not always isolated from our continental neighbours. In the Pleistocene era, we were linked to France by a land ridge called the Weald-Artois anticline that extended from Dover, across what are now the Dover Straits. This ridge of chalk separated the North Sea on one side from the English Channel on the other. For Britain to become an island, something had to have breached the ridge. Now, Sanjeev Gupta and colleagues from Imperial College London have found firm evidence that a huge ‘megaflood’ was responsible. They analysed a hidden series of massive valleys on the floor of the English Channel – vast gouges of bedrock 50 metres deep and tens of kilometres wide. These valleys were first noticed by geologists in the 1970s but until now, no one really knew what caused them. Gupta decided to find out with the help of some modern technology. He used high-resolution sonar to create a contour map of the Channel floor, and found that this hidden world was remarkably well preserved. He saw a clear picture of the huge, linear valleys, branching out in a westerly direction. In and among the valleys lay long ridges and grooves running parallel to the channel, V-shaped scours that taper upstream, and streamlined underwater islands up to 10km long. All in all, these images show that the valleys are geological scars, formed by erosive torrents of water travelling west from the Dover straits. Their size and features are consistent with a massive flood, carving out the land in its wake. Where did the water come from? During the Pleistocene, the North Sea was actually a giant lake, closed off at its northern edge by merged ice sheets from Britain and Scandinavia, and at its southern edge by the Weald-Artois ridge. This lake was fed by both the Thames and the Rhine rivers. That, combined with the melting ice, eventually burst the Weald-Artois barrier, sending the lake’s water surging into the Channel. Gupta estimated that the flood would have lasted for several months and involved at least two episodes. At its peak, one million cubic metres of water flowed into the Channel every second, a thousand times more than the Victoria Falls. The megaflood changed both the local geography and the course of British history. It reorganised the drainage of the Thames and Rhine rivers to the Channel rather than the North Sea. And most importantly, it permanently separated Britain from continentalEurope. The flood made migration into the newborn island more difficult and aside from some early attempts at settlement, Britain was completely devoid of humans for about 100,000 years. Once humans finally colonised this green and pleasant land, our island status has affected our entire history from our power as a naval empire, to our strategies during the Second World War to our national character. From this point on the cliff top you can clearly see the english Channel and very often the coastline of France. It is hard to imagine they they were once joined. The distance between here and France is 21 miles.
Please be aware that there are several steep climbs up and down hill. The chalky ground can get very slippery when wet. The terrain is difficult in places. In some parts the route is very close to the cliff edge.
This route has been designed to start from Capel le Ferne because the ascent is less strenuous when walked from this direction and you will get better views. The multi and mystery cache clues have been designed to suit that direction. They have been hidden along a five mile stretch of the cliff top footpath, often passing through open access land. You will see many reminders of wartime activity. The entire area is shrouded in centuries of history. You will also pass above Samphire Hoe and get a bird’s eye view of reclaimed land created from spoil removed during the drilling of the Channel Tunnel.
Start point The V S bus stop Capel le Ferne N51 05.829 E001 12.052 (Route 101/102) is close to the path entrance N51 05.811 E001 12.024 at the start of the walk.
End point The M Factory bus stop into Dover N51 06.883 E001 18.321 (Route 61 via Aycliffe). Please check the local bus time-table before you set out. Especially during weekends and Bank Holidays. If you take the underpass nearby you can easily walk into Dover town from here.
Please bring a pen for all caches - if you do not physically sign the logsheet please DO NOT log a 'Found It' log online, otherwise your log may be deleted. Tools for probing and extracting will be required for some of the caches.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Nebhaq gur onpx bs gur zveebe - ynaqjneq fvqr. 'Ernpu Va' naq JNGPU BHG SBE ZHTTYRF!!!
Cyrnfr er-uvqr pnershyyl naq hfr gur fgbar gb pbire gur pnpur pbagnvare.