Again I woke up feeling
grim, but I was determined not to waste the day feeling sorry for
myself. I was not alone in this. Five of us and two dogs set off on a
mission.
First of all we made our
way to Reculver where we did our geography homework. Earthcaches can
be somewhat akin to homework, but I was in an interesting place
learning about RipRaps; not every church has one. And from the
RipRap we walked along the North Kent coast for a mile or so and
came back through the countryside. it was rather beautiful
countryside; not that muddy really. Those of our number that like
looking for sandwich boxes found ten; those that like playing
chicken with the waves got soaked to the fur.
There was a minor
incident when one of our dogs (Not "Furry Face TM"
thank heavens) startled a passing cyclist. To be fair to the dog
she was a sensible and safe distance from the path, but for no reason
I could fathom the cyclist looked at the dog, skidded and then went
straight over his handlebars face first into the tarmac. I didn't
actually laugh out loud (Earle did though).
We hurried back to the
car and moved on to Margate. Last night I'd spent three hours on a
puzzle cache. GPS + HUNT = CACHE. After three hours I solved this
only to be faced with ANSWER = ABCDE. The solution was actually
obvious. When you know the solution it is always obvious..
I came up with said
solution after an hour's head-scratching over this morning's brekkie,
and so wanted to pick up this cache.
If the puzzle was tricky,
actually locating the cache itself was difficult. But we got it, and
then moved on to Botany Bay. Another Earthcache, and then we had
something of a challenge.
We'd seen that there was
a terrain5/difficulty4 (nigh-on impossiible) cache nearby. It
was apparently fourteen metres from us when we sat at the top of the
cliffs and ate our picnic. I made the witty comment that it was
probably in a tunnel in the cliff below us.
How prophetic was I? I
think it actually was in a tunnel in the cliff below us. I say
"think"; we didn't find it.
We went down to the beach
where we did find a tunnel beneath where we had eaten lunch. We read
the clue, and scrambled to where we thought the thing might be found.
The chap who had hidden it said that if it goes missing again he will
eat his hat. Whilst I wouldn't suggest he starts sprinkling salt and
vinegar on his trilby just yet...
We will be back - with
more tunnel rats.
The birds were noisy in
Broadstairs. They looked odd; yet familiar. I got the binoculars
out. There was a flock of wild parakeets. I've never seen that
before. But by now time was pushing on, so we made our way back to
the car and came home. Via a graveyard. Did you know that the chap
who wrote the song "Silver Machine" by Hawkwind was
buried in Thanet? He died a long time ago. If anyone had asked me I
would have thought he was still alive; he died round about when the
fruits of my loin were being born.
And with the grave found
we came home. Small dogs had sand and seagull poo washed off of
them, and as er indoors TM" set off
out with her mates I settled in front of the telly to watch the
antics of Bertie Wooster. I do love an evening of Jeeves and
Wooster...
As is so often the case I
took one
or two photograaphs of our day
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