17 February 2019 (Sunday) - Hunting Unicorns in Conyer


The data cable for my sat-nav “Hannah” hasn’t been right for some time. I think it’s got a loose connection inside. Over brekkie I had a look-see at the Internet to see if I might get myself a new one. I *really* wanted to get it via Amazon so I could have it delivered to the Amazon locker at work. Amazon were selling the cables for thirty-six quid. I thought that was a tad expensive, so I had a look on eBay. The same thing – three quid with free postage. Nice one, eBay.
There wasn’t much kicking off on Facebook, so I turned off the lap-top and started getting myself organised.

It wasn’t long before we were driving off. Having just worked for the last seven days it was good to have a day off. We firstly went to the co-op where their cash dispenser was again out of receipts. I get money from there at least once a week and it *never* has receipts.

We drove up to Tenyham church where we met Karl, Tracey and Charlotte. After a little wheri-diversion we then walked the local paths following a series of geocaches. Regular readers of this drivel may recall I had fun and games recently straining my brain solving a hundred puzzle caches loosely based on unicorns. Today we went out to actually find some of the things. Finding a hundred geocaches in a day is ambitious (I’ve done it six times) but we had originally considered it. However having plotted the things on a map it didn’t look as though they lent themselves to one epic route march. So we thought we might do the series in smaller sections.
Today was the northern stretches. We’ve walked the paths and lanes round Conyer before. The paths are well-marked, the lanes aren’t busy. Ideal for walking the dogs.

As we walked we kept getting whiffs of dog farts. Pogo git the blame, but it could have been any of them. When I take my hounds out for walks with friends that are dog-less I am very keen that they get the “full dog experience”, and when you experience a dog fart you soon know all about it. Perhaps if Pogo and Treacle hadn’t eaten dead mice yesterday?...
We also saw what I can only describe as “pylon spotters”; some of the normal people were standing on the roadside intently staring at a pylon through pairs of binoculars. I suppose it is an extension of bird-watching or train-spotting, but with the advantage that a pylon isn’t going to go anywhere very fast. They seemed happy enough. It was pointed out that having spent the day looking for film pots under rocks hardly gave me any hobby-related moral high ground, but I think geocaching would trump pylon-spotting every time.

At one point we left the unicorn trail to hunt out four other caches across the marshes. We had a rather good lunch looking across the river to the Isle of Sheppey. It was at this point that we decided not to go for a particular cache. Reading that it involved a tree climb had made us dubious about attempting it, but it was the drunk tramp who was nearby that put us off. It is difficult to be stealthy with three dogs when climbing a tree, and having a drunk tramp offering to share its White Lightening wasn’t really something we would have relished today.

Today’s walk was unusual in that our customary pub stop was half-way round the walk rather than at the end. We sat in the beer garden. Mid-February and we were sitting outside!

Geocache-wise we had a walk of two halves. The unicorn caches were close together along well-marked paths. Across the marshes the hides were rather spaced out and seemed to involve a bit of bushwhacking.
We were rather concerned to see that many of the unicorn caches were looking rather poorly. Many had leaked, and the paper logs weren’t what they might be.
Mind you I was pleased how “Hannah” held up. Yesterday I’d programmed my sat-nav directly through GSAK (as one does) and it had (mostly) worked.

I took a lot of photos today. Once home I put them on the Internet. "er indoors TM" did some painting and I did some Lego. Over dinner we watched the latest episode of “The Orville”. For a show that started off frankly terribly, “The Orville” is getting better and better. Tonight’s episode was in many ways a remake of the Star Trek episode “In Theory, but was done far better.    

I hope the dogs settle tonight – I’m a bit tired after today…

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