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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
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This is the twenty-fifth of a series, the “Caerphilly Collection”, that will explore the whole Borough Council area. This cache is also the third of a subset along the Sirhowy Valley Walk. The cache, in a small plastic box, can be reached with an overall walk of less than ½ mile from the nearest roads, but care will be needed to park safely. A short sharp descent and ascent are involved, while a stream crossing can be tricky! It may be wet and muddy.
The Caerphilly Collection is distinguished with a unique CC number and is made up of 50 caches. The caches vary in difficulty and type and usually have other “C” word connections – castle, cheese, coal, canal, etc. There may even be Cryptic Clues for Clever Clogs! The current Caerphilly unitary authority grew out of the former Rhymney Valley and Islwyn Councils and stretches from the outskirts of Cardiff and Newport in the south to the Brecon Beacons, north of Rhymney. Despite a past dominated by coal and heavy industry, it has a diverse history and varied and dramatic scenery. We hope you will enjoy exploring it with us.
Towards the end of the Collection is CC48 The Accumulator, the location of which is given in coded form. The translation details of the code are distributed around the whole Collection, but only about a third of the caches will contain a piece of the code, which is on the back of the Log Book. To do the Accumulator, you will need to keep a note of each piece of code that you find. Unless you are very lucky, you will need to find the majority of the Collection in order to do the Accumulator. The Accumulator cache is hidden in an area of difficult terrain and demanding navigation, with a 5, 4½ rating.
CC25 is also in a subset of the main series following the Sirhowy Valley Walk (SVW). This 26-mile long distance path links Tredegar House, in Newport, with the Nye Bevan Memorial Stones, which are just above the Sirhowy area of Tredegar. Caches in this subset are on the middle two thirds of the route that fall within the Caerphilly area and also avoid the section where this walk almost duplicates parts of the Raven Walk and Rhymney Valley Ridgeway. The Walk name does not seem entirely appropriate, since it extends someway south of the confluence of the Sirhowy with the Ebbw. Those expecting a gentle stroll along the valley bottom would also be surprised! At the time the cache was first placed, the SVW followed a slightly different route, seemingly acknowledging an unofficial diversion. The route has since been restored to the legal right of way leaving the cache off the SVW, but still accessible from another public footpath, albeit involving a stream crossing which can be tricky in wet weather, as the bridge that used to be here has gone and is unlikely to be replaced. The cache has also been subject to repeated theft, resulting in its location being moved to a slightly more remote and difficult position. For these two reasons, the cache is now about 100m off the SVW.
The cache takes its name from the nearby hamlet of Gwrhay for no better reason than we thought it might cause any non Welsh speakers to blink (or could it be that it was because CC could stand for Cymru challenge?). But you can always approach from Rock on the west side of the valley. If you have followed the long distance path from the north, this is the first time that it has dropped right down to the valley bottom – briefly, in this case, to cross the Sirhowy. In fact, the Walk will criss-cross (another CC) the river three times in the next few miles. Since we are encouraging exploration of the long distance path, this cache could be linked with CC23 and CC24 and tackled in a circular, via Pen-y-fan Pond (another Collection cache location), walk of 10-11 miles with about 1200 feet of ascent. If you can organise transport to each end, a less demanding linear walk of about 5 miles may be preferred.
Additional Hints
(No hints available.)