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16 January 2017 (Monday) - Crockham Wood

I slept through until shortly after half past seven this morning when I woke to find I was cuddling two dogs as though they were teddy bears. It was rather sweet. Admittedly one dog was chewing my wrist, but you can’t have everything.

Over brekkie I checked my emails. I got a little bit frustrated. I’ve been working on a new Wherigo – a GPS game to play on your phone. Basically you’d play out a simplified version of the TV show “The Crystal Maze” in the co-op field, and depending on how many gold tokens you get you would be directed to one of three distinct geocaches.
The local geo-fed liked the concept but yesterday he told me it was against the rules (I don’t think I explained the idea to him as well as I might). However he referred me to geo-HQ. I emailed them and this morning they emailed back to say they don’t answer Wherigo questions. However a two-minute search of the geo-map showed two Wherigos in the south-east which are *exactly* the sort of thing I have in mind and have been allowed by the geo-feds. I emailed back, and then got the dogs ready to go out.

With dogs leaded up we drove up to Crockham Wood; there is a series of geocaches there (would you believe it?) It was only a small series, but that suited me; I wasn’t sure how I’d get on with two dogs rather than just Fudge. We arrived, and very soon met up with Gordon and Mark, and three of us (and three dogs) went on a rather good walk. I got on fine with two dogs on the dual-lead; mainly because Mark took them for me.
The walk was a tad muddy in places, and there was still quite a bit of ice left over from last week’s snow. It must be said that there seemed to be an awful lot of up-hill and very little down-hill bearing in mind we ended up back where we started, but going out for a walk with friends is always good. I shall be starting the new job next week and the option for a mid-week walk won’t be there for some months so I was glad to be able to make the most of it today.
When we were about ten minutes into the walk I got a message that more friends thought they would do this walk today; but they were at least an hour behind us. It would have been good to have seen them… next time we will.

Geocache-wise it was an excellent walk. Just lately I seem to have done a lot of walks in which the caches are (seemingly) miles apart. The caches on this walk were (for me) ideally placed and all took just a little more finding that the average film-pot-under-a-rock would. Most were big enough to put swappable and trackable stuff into. There were three field puzzles to solve whilst we were out, and they were straightforward, and the puzzle to be solved at home was tricky enough to make you think. A two-hour walk over two and a half miles; in all respects it would be the ideal series for anyone wondering what all the fuss is about to have a go at.

We said our goodbyes, and once home I popped the dogs in the bath and hosed off their paws and undersides. Being longer-legged it was very noticeable that the puppy’s tummy was a lot less grubby than "Furry Face TM"’s. Once bathed both dogs went to sleep, and over a spot of lunch I watched the first episode of the drama show about Queen Victoria that had been on telly recently. It was rather good so I downloaded the second episode too.

I then got an email from the geo-feds. I *hadn’t* explained my plans for a virtual Crystal Maze as well as I might have done. Once I’d actually explained what I meant the reviewer was very happy with my idea.
Now I need to start work on it.
I’ll watch another episode of “Victoria” first…

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