During an idle moment, looking at local Adventure Lab caches, I spotted a number at railway stations. The setter had placed question at each station on the Birmingham Cross City line.

I was scheduled to spend ages on buses the following day, so decided to have a go at most of these stations utilising my bus pass which is also valid on local trains in the West Midlands. The pass doesn’t cover all of the stations but I am able to travel between Blake Street north of Sutton Coldfield to Longbridge in the south.

After calling at the local shops for a drink and some nibbles for the day, I awaited the arrival of the 96 bus to Erdington from where I’d catch a train to Blake Street.

I arrived with about ten minute to wait but as the departure got nearer the station announcer advised that my train was delayed and would leave in twelve minutes.

Two minutes later the train pulled in – some got off, some got on and the train pulled out.

At Blake Street, I had to cross under the railway and come up the other side onto platform 2 for a train back the other way. Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long.

The Cross City train passed through all of the same stations then through the city’s main station (New Street) and out to Longbridge.

First port of call at Longbridge was the SideTracked cache which was easily discovered.

Longbridge is probably most famous as the home of British Leyland cars, formerly Austin Motors and still often referred to as ‘The Austin’.

The massive car factory, which once employed over twenty five thousand people, is long gone and is now the home of City and South College, a shopping centre and a growing residential area.

Luckily a lot of green space is being retained or created including a strip along the River Rea. This is where I was heading with five AdLab locations and a similar number of ‘real’ caches.

First stop was an art installation called The Colours of Longbridge, with steel panels painted in some of the colours of the cars produced here.

One of the sites where I stopped featured a cracking piece of art by artist Annatomix.

The walk along the Rea was about a couple of miles and back at Longbridge, I made my way to the station for a train back as far as University.

Luckily, as I was crossing the bridge to platform 1, a train pulled in and I had enough time to catch said train.

The train paused at Northfield station where I glanced a Kev’s Coaches bus. I considered alighting and catching the bus just to say that I had riden my namesake but resisted the urge (this time).

Passing through Selly Oak, I hardly recognised the place. In my youth, my mom would take me to visit her parents home in the, what they called, the village.

It now has a posh canal basin and is popular with students from the nearby university of Birmingham.

As with Longbridge, first stop was a SideTracked geocache. This was quite exposed so I had to use stealth to retrieve and return it.

As a reward, I treated myself to an ice cream before moving on to the nearby Queen Elizabeth Hospital where another Adventure Lab series beckoned.

The AdLabs didn’t take long and all the questions were easily answered. I now know how many ambulance bays there are at the QE – thirteen.

With that series completed, it was back, past the station, and onto the university where two separate AdLabs took me around the campus.