Up earlier than I would
normally have been, and after a swift spot of brekkie I got my bits
together. And then I got my
dog together. Lisa
arrived, and we set off to Ham Street to collect Steve,
With the team assembled
we took the short cut to Robertsbridge. Regular readers of this
drivel might recall that three weeks ago Steve and I went geocaching
on the first half of the Gypsum Gyratory. Today we went back to do
the second half. The Gypsum Gyratory is a series of one hundred
geocaches laid out in two loops across the Sussex countryside. Going
along lanes and paths, through fields and woodlands, up hills and
down dales. The Gypsum Gyratory in its entirety covers twenty three
miles. Having survived (just) the first loop we thought that
we'd have a go at the second loop today.
We started walking
shortly after 10am. the first cache of the day (G.G.#51) was
actually my six hundredth geocache. There are those who say that
finding six hundred in three months is somewhat obsessive, but what
do they know? The second and third caches were both good; it was at
this point that the geo-hound was allowed off the lead.
We then had a moment's
panic. With the clue to the next cache being "base of tree"
we found a major area where forest clearance had been taking place.
We failed to find the
sixth cache of the day, and possibly spent too long searching. From
there we found one of the hills that we'd been warned about. And some
of the mud. When we did the first half of the Gypsum Gyratory we'd
got seriously muddy. But that was absolutely nothing compared with
today. The mud was chest deep on poor Fudge.
Last time we'd been
gyratory the weather had been against us. The weather (pretty
much) held out today. Once a third of the way round we stopped
for lunch and had a rather pleasant pic-nic in the sun by G.G.#66.
Mind you, just before G.G.#72 the rain did start. Fortunately we
could see a pub,
and so stopped for a crafty pint. In Sussex one drinks Harvey's, and
it slipped down very nicely. The barman was very friendly, and plied
Fudge with dog biscuits (which he enjoyed).
After fifteen minutes the
rain stopped so we ploughed onwards. The next cache (G.G.#72)
was.... well I won't spoil the surprise, but let's just say that I've
given it a favourite point.
When we walked the first
half of the Gypsum Gyratory three weeks ago there were two points
where we got seriously lost and wasted hours. That never happened
today, but there's no denying that we think we may have gone a bit
awry at G.G.#80. We never actually found anything resembling the
description in the clue.
It was shortly after this
that Fudge went missing. He was only gone for maybe two minutes, but
that two minutes seemed like an eternity. And when he did appear,
charging through the forest, there's no denying that you could see
the panic on his face.
As we went on so the
terrain got more and more muddy. And the sky got darker and darker.
We'd forgotten that the clocks had gone back. It was getting
noticeably dark at 3.30pm. Perhaps if we'd had more time we might
have found G.G.#85 and G.G.#86, but time was pushing.
A word of warning to any
potential gyrators. For all that I can't recommend this series of
geocaches highly enough, caches 91 to 98 are spaced out along a sea
of mud. Rather deep mud as well. By the time we'd traversed the mile
of quagmire the light had failed entirely. We were grateful for the
light from the fires of the charcoal burners. In fact that gave us an
idea for a
geocaching challenge.
We didn't find cache 99.
From the description it sounded straight-forward. But it was dark.
Mind you we did find G.G.#100. We found it with quite a sense of
achievement.
So we have survived the
Gypsum Gyratory. In its entirety. However of the one hundred caches
we have only found ninety. Ten have eluded us. We will have to
return...
Next year! Lisa x
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