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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