12 April 2015 (Sunday) - The PuCK Butterfly Series

I was very comfortable in the caravan last night but I didn't sleeep well. The reason - entirely my own silly fault. I whinge so much about my CPAP machine but for all that when I am wearing it I feel like an old man on his death bed, it keeps me asleep. I'd left the thing at home, and consequently my sleep apnoea kept me awake. And when I'd finally dozed off, the alarm on my phone that I'd forgotten to turn off woke me.

I got up and it wasn't long before everyone else was up as well. Dave provided some rather good coffee and Tracy gave us bacon rolls which we all scoffed. We then drove up to Ditchling Beacon where nine of us met up to do the PuCK Butterfly geo-series.
The PuCK Butterfly geo-series is something I've been working on for some time. It consists of thirty geo-puzzles supposedly designed for children. I must admit that although I solved all tthe puzzles I found them difficult (and I've got post-graduate qualifications). But I'm not complaining; an easy puzzle is no challenge.

It was windy as we started walking; but we were at one of the highest points in Sussex. Last week one of our number had had a miishap with barbed wire and I had openly laughed. Today karma came into play with a vengence as I too ripped my trousers open; and for good measure I took a serious tumble skidding in (and getting smeared with) fresh cow poo.
As the day went on I also twisted my ankle as my knee bend backwards as my foot went down a rabbit hole.

We had a good walk; as we went people found milestone caches. At one point we had a joint 500th/1500th find. I especially liked the route; it's not offten that you find a route where you can look back and see where you were several miles previously. As we made our way back to the car park we could hear something noisy. The local bonfire society was practicing their drumming. We all found ourselves whistling along to The Souceror's Apprentice.
And once at the car park it was good to discover an ice cream van; even if Dave's cone did collapse.

Before we'd set out we'd done our homework. Reports of how long the walk would take varied. Some claimed the walk could be done in four hours; others said they'd taken eleven hours to get round. In the end we took just over five hours to do the walk. That would have been shorter had we not diverted off to pick up a couple of other caches and had we parked at the recommended spot. However the instructions did say that the recommended spot only had space for two or three cars. Our party had five cars.
As we walked past I think we could all have comfortably parked there.

There was a geo-meet we could have gone to this evening; instead we came straight back to Ashford. We collected "Furry Face TM" who had apparently been a very good dog. Once home I soon uploaded a couple of photos I'd taken over the weekend and then had a rather good bit of curry for tea.
Early night I think - I ache...


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