We were up with the lark
this morning. Realistically today's planned walk would have been more
suited to being a summertime one when the days are longer. But in my
world idiot enthusiasm usually triumphs over common sense, and today
saw another such victory. We were brekkied, dressed and out of the
house by 8am. There was a minor delay when we had to drive back to
Lisa's house to collect her phone, but we were at the starting point
by 9am.
"The Alternates"
is a series of over fifty geocaches in the Sevenoaks area. The series
features some of every kind of geocache, open ones, premium member
ones, multis, puzzles, even letterbox hybrids - and you rarely see
those. It also includes the longest and shortest multis I've ever
seen. It was a cold day, and windy at times. But it started brightly
enough, and five of us soon solved the first puzzle and off we went.
We found the first
half-dozen caches really easily; and then I had a minor worry. The
seventh cache was a puzzle cache. The co-ordinates were given along
the lines of Paris multiplied by Rome minus Munich. We'd seen this
earlier in the week; I'd put out a message on Facebook asking for
help. I'd been given some suggestions and I'd tried them and came up
with a solution which was in the general vicinity of where it should
have been. And (would you believe it) my solution was correct.
The cache was where I thought it would be. Oh, I was so smug about
that.
And on we went. Fudge
made himself ill by eating horse poo. We got shouted at by some old
harridan for being on a public footpath used by her horse. We had a
snigger at "Pennis Lane" and "Pennis House".
It was at Pennis House that we took a bit of a detour. The entire
series of caches are arranged in a circle. If you run short of time
you can cut out part of the circle by following five "link"
caches. We thought that we'd just do the five link ones as well as
all of the others. And we did. It was a lovely walk through some
beautiful scenery. At a couple of points the route went through a
golf course where golfers had to smack the ball over a lake to the
holes. I would be stuffed there.
Cache 42 of the series
was my eight hundredth geocache. Eight hundred since the first one
on the last day of July. That's not bad going. Cache 42 was also
where the weather turned. The rain started. Gentle at first, but more
and more persistent. But walking in a circular route meant we had no
choice but to push on. And we did. Despite the rain getting heavier
and heavier, and the light failing, we carried on. The last hour was
done in darkness in the torrential rain with me carrying a small dog
who, after the twelfth mile, had refused to walk any further. But we
did what we had set out to do; and more. Over the course of eight
hours and thirteen miles we found sixty three geocaches:
- Fifty three in the series
- Five "link" caches
- The Final and the Bonus
- Three random ones that we were walking past anyway
So far this is my most
prolific day's caching. Much gratitude is due to those who set the
trail. As always there are photos
of the event on-line.
Meanwhile my mo grows.
There's no denying that I hate the thing, but it is raising some
money for a good cause. please feel
free to sponsor it; in five days it is coming off.
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