After a nice lay-in to recover from that long walk, Heather, Ike and the Mr Men set off later the next day! This day was beautiful and sunny, so they started with a walk by the river. It was beautiful and sunny, and in this lovely weather, the river looks pretty, safe, and completely innocuous, however, when Ike passed some of the flood protection gates, he realised this could look very different when flooding was threatened!
However, it was a beautiful day, and a good day to find a cache hung in a tree near the river, the Mr Men advised him, this may be the kind you can’t find in the winter….they reckoned from experience, it could well be too muddy to come here in winter! But they found it easily today. Ike then found a river side friend to sit with for a few moments.
Ike then walked passed the Railway Station and found a second location that had another Fine Pair Cache. The Mr Men explained this was another different type of Cache. When you want to highlight a location of historical importance or of interest for another reason, but it is impractical to place a cache at the exact location, the Cache Owner will use a Multi-Cache. This means the finder needs to go to more than one location to find the information first, then do some sums, which will give them the coordinates to go and find the actual cache. Normally it is nearby (less than half a mile), but not right next to the place of interest.
This Cache was a Multi-Cache, so the Mr Men gathered the relevant information, then went to sit on a bench nearby to work out the location of the Cache. In the meantime, Ike learnt this about the Malton Telephone Service, as the Cache was highlighting another “Fine Pair”, telephone box and post box near to each other.
Ike learnt that It is possible that the telephone may have been in use for about ten years before the telephone exchange in Malton was actually opened. c.1890 the National Telephone Company began laying the trunk line from York to Scarborough. However, the Earl Fitzwilliam would not allow the wires to cross the town. Mr. Page, a corn merchant of York, spoke at the annual dinner of the Malton Farmers’ Club about how the town and district were suffering from the want of telephonic communication. He argued that Earl Fitzwilliam should not be allowed that much power over Malton as to cripple its trade.
A telephone exchange and call office eventually opened in Malton on 25th March 1903 looping in to the York – Scarborough trunk line. The exchange offered a service during the week from 5am to 10pm, Sundays 6am to 10am and again 5.15pm to 7.30pm. Direct dialling was not available. Rental of a line was very expensive with few, if any individuals being able to afford it. The call office at the Post Office gave residents the opportunity to try the service.
Ike and the Mr Men having obtained those coordinates, saved them for later, as they would walk passed later on. Instead they visited the War Memorial next. This was also part of the Malton Heritage Trail, so Ike made sure to check out the sign about it.
Of course Ike and the Mr Men are very respectful around War Memorials. After gathering the information needed and admiring the impressive lions, they set off walking to find the actual cache. They realised they were walking back where they were yesterday! This was a very unusual, but very appropriate cache!
Ike and the Mr Men then walked back towards town. Malton is famous for its livestock markets, so Ike had a look at the sheep who were all in pens, being sold in lots.
He then found a shop very interesting to him and his friend GC! Postcards! Having bought nearly all the postcards in Malton last time, Ike had been looking around for some different ones to send to his friend GC. Now some people don’t like second hand presents! But Ike knows that GC loves postcards of all varieties, including ones sent by other people in The past (oooo think of the stories behind those!) so when he saw an Antique/Curios shop with a BIG box of postcards, he spent ages choosing his favourites for GC’s collection! (These photo is with kind permission of the lady who owns the Antique/Curio shop).
After all this walking, caching and number crunching, it was time to find a cafe, and enjoy the fact we could no go INSIDE! Ike drank tea and ate cake, and let the Mr Men crunch the numbers for another cache! The third Fine Pair Cache.
They then headed off to find the one they solved earlier, Ike recognised where he was, as he visited this same area in October while completing the Virtual Cache about Charles Dickens. This time he and the Mr Men found another VERY unusual cache! So after 3 Caches today ( multi-caches take longer to solve), and absorbing the history of Malton, Ike and the Mr Men headed home to their holiday accommodation again, to put their feet & paws up!