pecknam blog – adventures in SouthEast London

I was vaguely aware of the thousands of hidden packages placed worldwide by ernest Letterboxers or Geocachers, but until now had never set out to find one.

There’s a cache listed on Peckham Rye – the hunt was on. We downloaded the GPS location and using Cacheberry phone software had a compass & proximity locator to follow. This is obviously designed to make you feel like you’re in a film. It’s great.

A bit of muddy wandering and a search in a bush later and there it was, a plastic tub painted in camo colours. The contents weren’t particularly exciting but then that’s not the point; we wrote in the notebook and left some stickers + a nice Danish coin with a hole in the middle.

Zoe then fed me some wild garlic. You can eat the leaves raw, it surprised me how garlic-y a green leaf can taste. Good in salads apparently.

More geocaches on One Tree Hill, Telegraph Hill, in Burgess Park and just about everywhere else. Some have a puzzle to solve instead of GPS taking you straight there. Go find one and reward yourself with a pint!

It’s summer! I grabbed my new GPS phone and my BMX and went out exploring.

First discovery was this huge piece of land behind Sainsburys on Dog Kennel Hill. I assume it’s privately owned as there’s a fence all around it, but this has a few sections completely removed and there’s well-trodden paths across. The lighter green area on the gmap view is an artifical football pitch.

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Riding on through Dulwich Village I wasn’t distracted by Dulwich Picture Gallery (it closes at 5pm), but did find Belair Park nearby with a nice lake and small skatepark. Now I’m typing this I can’t help thinking of the Fresh Prince; especially as this huge house sits in the grounds.

Soon after came a slightly uncertain turn onto Grange Lane which is marked as a private road and leads up past Dulwich & Sydenham Hill Golf Club, a Scout building and some lovely allotments. A bit of a squeeze got me into Sydenham Hill Wood which is a lovely place for a wander. Spot the ‘ancient’ ruins there, and see the strange contrast of perfectly kept golf grounds just behind the fence:

From there it’s almost all downhill back to Peckham, that made me happy.

I loved having access to an online map and using the satellite view to head towards green spaces, and GPS tracking is a New + Exciting thing for me let’s go all the way and see my route:

Sunny days, bikes, and pocket technology are great.

April sees a canine celebration in Warwick Gardens.