This is going to be a quick post about a walk we did geocaching around the woodland and country lanes in Uffculme. For those of you who aren’t aware, Uffculme is a little village in Mid Devon, close to Cullompton. We chose this geocaching route as it seemed to have quite a lot of ‘favourite’ points, and I hadn’t really explored this village much before. Jo has family that live nearby, so we decided we would do it one morning with his dad’s dog, before seeing his family in the afternoon. Just a warning…this post does contain photo spoilers of some of the geocaches we found on this walk!
Gadded Woods.
We started this walk by parking in the Magelake Pavillion free Car Park in Uffculme (EX15 3DP), from here we exited back through the entrance and walked up the road to the right, where we soon found our first geocache along the roadside. I’ll try not to give too much away about the caches on this walk, but there will be some photo spoilers! We soon turned right up a road named Cocks Hill, here we walked up the hill, past a house that was selling french beans, and another green house that stood out, not just for its colour, but also the witches broom by the front door! We ignore the turning on the right and continue up the hill. This road, although not very busy, does get narrow for a while so those with children or dogs will need to be careful. It’s not long before we find a public footpath on the right, through a metal gate. This leads us up through some farming fields and then crossing over two stiles. As we walked up this track, I turned back to see beautiful countryside views of the Culm Valley, and Uffculme village below. We could even make out Coldharbour Mill, a woolen mill in Uffculme just to the left.
Countryside views, looking down on Uffculme.
Once over the second stile we entered some Gaddon Woods. There are plenty of paths here to explore, but as we were following a geocaching route, we walked straight on ahead, keeping the trees and bank on our right the whole time. As we stopped to find another geocache in the trees here, we looked down once again at the village and rolling hills beyond Uffculme. The weather had been quite unpredictable today, but we could see the rain was about to start again as we saw the rain clouds and mist come in over the village first.
Walking through the woods, with the countryside views to our right.
Once we found our geocache we continued on ahead through the woods, ignoring a kissing gate to our left, but making a mental note to come back and explore this area another time. The track soon turned into a gravelled path where we saw some cyclists pass us, just as we were about to find another geocache! The trees looked beautiful here, sheltering the path, making me think it must look even more stunning in Autumn, once all the leaves have changed colour.
The muddy track down a hill.
Soon we came to a sign post at the end of this path, here we took the track to our right which took us down a hill, still sheltered under trees. I would definitely advise you wear walking boots or wellies for this walk as this stretch of the track had become quite muddy in places due to the rain we’d had in the previous couple of days. As we walked down this track, we continued to see the beautiful views of the countryside through breaks in the trees on the bank on our right as we descended deeper into the woods. This track soon became a bit narrow and more stoney as we followed it round some bends and then out of the woods. Here we found another great geocache, before continuing on past a high brick wall, which we soon find out is someone’s garden, as we walk further on along this path and hear chickens clucking away over a gate. This path soon becomes less stoney and then turns into a country road just after we passed a beautiful big white house called Gaddon House.
Two of the geocaches we found today on our walk.
As we walk past Gaddon House, we continue on down the hill, on what has now become a country lane, ignoring a signpost pointing towards some houses to the right. We find another geocache in this area, then walk down the lane and pass a red brick house on our right. We soon reach the end of this road, with a tree in the middle of a junction, here we turn right up the road, where we stop at a farm gate to find another cache and look over the fields at the views of Coldharbour Mill chimney in the distance. We both agree we’ll have to come back and visit the mill at some point, as it’s closed at the moment due to the current Coronavirus pandemic.
Views over the fields of Coldharbour Mill in the distance.
As we continue our walk up the road, we walk past a footpath sign on our left, leading through some fields. We don’t go this way as we are following a geocaching loop, but we will be coming back another day to walk this route as this footpath leads towards the River Culm walk which appeared popular today, as we saw several dog walkers in the distance. It’s not long before we reach our next geocache, then walk up a hill and past some houses on our left. We notice one had a lot of old brick buildings in the front garden which made us think it used to be a farm. We pass another house with horses in some stables and an old vintage car on the driveway. On the other side of this lane we see a vegetable patch and some cows in a field, there’s also a footpath here but we ignore this, which would have taken us back to the path just after Gaddon House. Instead we continue up the hill, past a house that had eggs for sale in their garden, where we meet our last geocache.
Down the road, passing houses and stables.
Sadly we didn't find the last cache! We stayed here for a while, determined to find this one as we had managed to find all the others of this circuit, but eventually we decided to give up and both agreed it wasn’t in the place it looked like it should have been. We logged our ‘did not find’ then walked down the road and past a house with some happy chickens digging around in the front garden. On the other side of the road was a yellow house with a garden full of eye catching flowers, here we came to the junction at the beginning of our walk, with the green house now on our left. We then turned left down the hill which brings us onto the road we started on, with the car park just a short walk up the road on the left.
This walk is only around 2.5 miles long and not at all strenuous so it would be perfect for families with young children, especially those who enjoy some fun geocaches. The walk is dog friendly, it does have some country lanes to walk on but they don’t get that busy, and the footpaths through the woods really do make up for it. As I said previously, you can make this walk a bit longer by exploring the woods a bit more, or taking the footpath towards the River Culm. There’s a pub in the village centre called The Ostler Inn, which looked rather inviting from the outside. Bridwell Park, on the outskirts of the village is also temporarily open to visitors to have light refreshments in their Orangery’s pop up cafe, all produce from local suppliers and is also dog friendly. This was something we were tempted to do if we had more time, we’ve made a note to come back and visit it soon when we do a walk along the river.
My favourite geocache of the series.
