I
probably went to bed too late last night, but I slept well despite
the lurgy. It seemed a shame to be woken by the alarm when (for
once) I was actually sleeping, but I can sleep later (or at
least I will have the opportunity to do so later). I had a spot
of brekkie which I enjoyed with Furry Face sitting on my chest. I
checked to see what was going on in the world; or at least on the
Internet. The previous six hours had been reasonably uneventful.
Which was probably for the best.
Perhaps
I should have stayed home today as I was still under the weather. But
I didn't want to miss out on a day out. And I'd not seen "Team
Wakey" for ages. We set off to Wrotham. There was debate as
to how the place was pronounced. I was told that it was "Root-ham"
(in a posh accent), but I was sticking to a working-class
"Ruffum".
But
regardless of how it sounded, eight of us (and three dogs)
met up by the church there at 10am and followed a rather good walk.
There was a dodgy five minutes when Fudge found his way through a
fence onto the M20, and another dodgy five minutes shortly after that
when he did exactly the same again. But he eventually got the idea of
behaving himself.
We
followed a well laid out series of geocaches; the
Wrotham Ramble. There was a lot of up hill, and a lot of down
hill too. Along the way we found half a dozen other caches too (and
failed to find one other). Two of the caches had been hidden by
my favourite caching team; Pooh, Tig and Lala. I've never met Pooh,
Tig and Lala, but I can't help but feel they've chosen a wonderful
name.
We
found magnetic geocaches the size of my head that I couldn't see; we
miscalculated mutli-cache co-ordinates by hundreds of yards. We found
enormous sheep; the biggest you ever did see. We had great fun
carrying wet dogs over stiles. We met one bunch of normal people
several times who were walking a route of their own in an opposite
direction to ours, and another bunch who mistook our geocaching for
entymology. We even had to re-track a little bit to retrieve a
forgotten walking stick.
This
series would make a splendid walk in summer. However being January
the elements were somewhat against us. The mud was rather thick in
places, and it was chilly. Although the rain held off, the day was
overcast and as the afternoon wore on so the mist rolled in. We were
amazed at the speed the mist came. We saw tendrils of fog coming over
a slope at the fourteenth cache; in the two minutes it took to do the
secret geocache ritual (known only to us) the for was
seriously thick.
We
had started walking shortly after 10am; we got to the end (the
bonus cache) shortly after 3pm. The route had been billed as six
and a half miles; our technology told us we had covered eight and a
half. But an excellent eight and a half miles. And it was another
triumph of geocaching. Left to my own devices I would take Furry Face
walking on the same old dozen walks. Today we had been guided along a
well-laid out route that I'd never walked before; a route I would
like to revisit. As always there are photos
of the day on-line.
And
so home. I dozed in the car a little on the way back. And once home
the pup was bathed, muddy clothes were washed and after a little bit
of tea "er
indoors TM"
set off bowling. Eventually Fudge settled down to sleep. I rather
think he might have overdone it today; he seemed very fractious and
despite not being cold he was rather shivery. Perhaps he's got my
cold...
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