28 April 2013 (Sunday) - Haywards Heath

An early start; it had been suggested that we went off to Haywards Heath for a walk. I was game, but being a little way away meant for an early start. Three of us and two small dogs were out of Ashford before 8.30am. I'd not been to Haywards Heath for some years - in fact the last time I was there was 29 May 2006 with the kite club when (after an unexpected gust) a huge Manta Ray kite broke its tether and flew off for nearly two miles before it was recaptured.
On the way this morning we drove through the village of Newick - I must admit to a snigger when I saw the posters for their am-drams. The abbreviation for Newick Amateur Dramatic Society (N.A.D.S.) which was emblazoned everywhere really hadn't been thought through.

We parked up shortly after 9.30am and set off. Had we actually planned our route we would have found a lot more caches than we did. Instead we rather made up our route as we went. But it was a good day to be out inn some rather beautiful scenery. As we walked we saw horned black rams, grey sheep, oxen, and even some deer. We had an iffy two minutes when Fudge slipped his lead in a field full of sheep. But he was really good. His natural reaction was to chase the sheep; which he did. My natural reaction was to bellow at him; which I did. And the little dog stopped dead and waited for me to come and get him.

We found total of fifty four geocaches (and couldn't find a further half-dozen) along a rather convoluted route off some fifteen miles. We were out for some nine hours and through the wonders of GPS technology we were rather amazed to find that we were only actually walking for six of those nine hours. One third of our time was spent not actually moving. Obviously we waste far too much time on secret geocacher rituals and fannying around. We shall have to work on our efficiency for next time.
And there will be a next time - there are loads of places to walk in the Hayward Heath area; Today barely scratched the surface of geocaching along the East/West Sussex border.
As always there are photos of our walk on-line.

We got home just before 9pm and once I'd hosed the mud off of Furry Face, er indoors TM" went up to the KFC to get tea; it was too late to be cooking. Chicken, chips and episodes of "Big Bang Theory". It don't get better than that...


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