Balaam's Wood
Within the boundary of Balaam's Wood is the former Rubery
railway station, on the old Halesowen railway branch line. Close to
the cache you will find some relics of the tracks, and further west
you can find the former station, with platform embankments still
remaining, and an old gatepost, a relic of the old station. Rubery
station was opened in 1883 as part of a line running from
Longbridge to Old Hill, through Halesowen. Passenger services
stopped in 1919 but the line remained in place until the 1960s. The
wood is now looked after by a local conservation group (who are
aware of but do not maintain the cache) and the City Council, and
is particularly beautiful in the spring when it is covered in
bluebells.
Balaam
Balaam was a prophet from the time of Moses, whose story is
recounted in the Book of Numbers. He was sent for by Balak, the
king of Midian, who wanted to save his kingdom from the same fate
as the Amorites and Bashan (the name of whose king, Og, I found
amusing when a chorister) who had been defeated by the Israelites.
Balaam sent back a message to Balak saying that he could only
follow God's commands, and that God had told him not to go. After
being visited by high priests, God instructed Balaam to go, but to
repeat only what He says. Balaam sets out on a donkey but this
refuses to move as it is stopped by the Angel of Jehovah. Balaam
starts to punish the donkey, but it is miraculously given the power
to speak and complains. The Angel then shows itself to Balaam, who
repents for his behaviour. Balak and Balaam go to the high places
of Baal to offer sacrifices on seven altars, which lead to Balaam
receiving a prophecy which blesses the Israelites. Balak then takes
Balaam to Pisgah where they offer sacrifices on another seven
altars and get the same prophecy. So Balak takes Balaam to Peor
where they offer another seven sacrifices, but Balaam again blesses
the Israelites.
Baal and Elijah
Baal, who is a deity where Balak and Balaam made their
sacrifices, is one of the subjects of the story of the prophet
Elijah, who spends a lot of his time challenging the Israelites'
belief in Baal. There are many narratives of these stories, but the
one I want to pick up on is used by Felix Mendelssohn in his
Oratorio "Elijah", where they are summoned by the priests in
rousing choruses. In 2008 I had the pleasure of singing in a
reconstruction of the premiere of Elijah in the Birmingham Town
Hall (in the day when Birmingham's Music Festival was one of the
most prominent), and so, in a very round about way, this cache is
dedicated to Mendelssohn.
The Cache
To work out the co-ordinates of this cache, you need to decipher
an audio track which contains brief excerpts of music, most of
which should be popular Mendelssohn tunes. It is not a difficult
cipher but the difficulty will be identifying the pieces. In the
order given you should get the letters ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO.
Alert: You are about to visit an external site containing an
embedded audio file in order to obtain further details needed to
find this geocache. As the cache owner, I represent that both the
site and file are safe to download although the files needed to
complete this geocache have not been checked by Groundspeak or by
the Geocache Reviewer for possible malicious content. As a result,
you are listening to this file at your own risk: http://www.reevery.net/geocaching/balaams-wood/
The cache can be found at N52 NI.BHK, W002 GG.DCL. Your answer
can be checked at
geochecker.com which, due to tree coverage limiting GPSr
accuracy, is set to give you a correct answer if you are within
0.005 minutes/25ft/8m. The final co-ordinates are the average of a
few long exposures at ground zero.