4 May 2014 (Sunday) - The Kent Mega

Although there was was no frost on the car this morning, last night was rather cold. Incredibly cold. And I was tired. In the past I've done geo-walks of twenty miles, of one hundred caches. But nothing was quite as wearing as yesterday's eleven icons in one day challenge.
After everyone had (eventually) emerged from their pits and brekkied we went for a little geo-stroll. Nineteen geocaches, all letterbox hybrids. All with simple puzzles to solve, and all with a rubber stamp insiide. We solved all the puzzles and got all the stamps.

By now it was mid day, so we made our way back to the Hop Farm where the Mega - Event was in full flow. Over one thousand people were in attendance. There were cachers from all over the UK, from Europe, and people from Africa and America. Even My Boy TM" had come over for the day. There were all sorts of things going on, goodies to buy, and (literally) tens of thousands ot trackables to be found.
We then went back to the Lab Cache woods and finished off doing the first ten of these available to people in the UK, and having said godby to Dave we then sat about activating our new trackables. Not an easy task on a phone.

Pausing only briefly to laugh at someone stuck in the mud (so much for a 4x4) we drove into Padddock Wood for some shopping, then drove out to Maidstone for the Barn Dance event. It was here that we realised we'd acheived minor celebrity status; not only had I obtained a series of groupies (that was a result), but we weren't the only people to have tried for eleven icons in one day this weekend. However we were among a small minority of people who had been successful.
I'd seen this challenge coming and had specifically not done the Tunbridge Wells webcam before, and had solved puzzles in advance and had picked the easiest Earthcache and virtual. Others hadn't been quite so pro-active.

With hog roast scofffed we drove back to camp and sat round the camp fire for a while. Others stayed longer than I did. I was falling asleep and soon went to bed. I was tired out...


No comments:

Post a Comment