I fancied a spot of
geocaching with my dog this morning. When I first started hunting
tupperware it was (relatively) easy to plan a walk to find a
cache, Nowadays four thousand four hundred cache finds has made it
somewhat trickier. The closest unfound cache to home is up a tree; I
can see it, I just can't get to it. After that the next closest was
just over five miles from home. So, with little else on the agenda
today me and my dog set off on foot to Wye.
The route was rather
straight-forward; a combination of my standard dog walks took us to
the Conningbrook roundabout. From there we followed a couple of
geo-trails.on to Wye. There's no denying I was expecting to have to
turn back because of mud, but (unlike the last time I was there)
we didn't encounter any. The ground was surprisingly dry.
I lost count of the times
"Furry Face TM" got told off for
rolling in fox poo. Fortunately evey single one was old and dry.
There was a near incident
crossing a footbridge. You go through a gaate, then onto the
footbridge. I let my dog through the gate, then I crossed. I got to
the other side and looked back. He was on the other side looking at
me. Despite being called, he would not cross. So I went back for him;
and he scrambled away trying to crawl under the gate. He did *not*
want to cross that bridge. I carried him over; as I did he was
trembling in fear.
The walk to the foot of
the Wye downs was relatively flat. However once at the downs there
was a serious climb. I puffed a little; my dog flew up the hill. At
the top we met a pair of posh old ladies who asked if we'd walked all
the way from the bottom. I told them we'd walked out from Ashford.
They seemed to take offence at that. Was it so hard to beleive?
From the top of the
Devil's Kneading Trough we walked along the North Downs Way to our
target geocache which we found straight away. We took a moment to do
the secret geo-rituals, then followed the path down into Wye village.
We both deserved a drink. The Barber's
Arms had a bowl of water for dogs aand a pint of mild for me.
In one of life's great
flukes we arrived at the railway station just as the train was
pulling in. Mind you "Furry Face TM"
had to be carried on to the train; he didn't want to get on. He
seemed scared at first, but soon became entraced with looking out of
the window.
From the train station we
came home via the kebab shop. Dogs were bathed, and then we shared
the kebab meat. My dog then wormed himself beside me on the sofa and
snored for much of the afternoon.
I
took some photos whilst we walked. It's a good walk. If any of my
loyal readers fancy a stroll one weekend we can reprise the entire
walk (as a prelude to a visit to the Barber's Arms) which
would take about five hours, or we could just walk straight to the
pub which would take about three hours...
I could have gone out
pubbing tonight. I turned down an invitation reluctantly. But I have
got to work tomorrow...
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