It’s time for a foray into Kent to pick up some of jazzyjessups challenge caches situated around Swanley. Just after dawn and I’ve pulled off the M25 and parked at the top of a residential street near a cluster of challenges.

I needed a long walk. I have had my eye on a long circular just across the Essex And Suffolk border. In fact, the first part starts in Clare and travels along the northern part of the River Stour into Cavendish and crosses the river and trundles through Essex and back across into Suffolk into Clare. So today, I am tackling Shush, It’s A Secret, a 38 cache circular with another couple of caches chucked in.😀

So what do you think about these Team caches that are out there?

As usual, I’m heading down in to Kent early doors at the weekend. The plan was to mop up some of the stragglers around Istead Rise and Meopham. The trads and the multi VS fell pretty quickly and then I moved on to a few of the Nash Street Bash series. I had hoped that these were C&Ds but there was nowhere to park down the street or was it a lane?🤔 So I left the start of this series for another da.

This week I’m going to spend a day to the south of Colchester. I‘m after a few caches that I’ve had on my list for a while. I started early and just after dawn, I’m at Joran Dax (Star Trek), a trad cache just opposite Copford sewage works. This is a good source of Yellow Wagtails in the Spring.

We are off to Italy for eight nights. The itinerary is to fly into Rome, do some sightseeing and stay for four nights, then get the train down to Naples/Sorrento for four nights, do some sightseeing and fly home from Naples.

This was our last day in Sorrento and to be sure of getting to Naples airport in time, we had to catch the bus from the train station at 0630. We were there in good time, in fact I had time to whizz down to the trad Vallone dei Mulini (Sorrento) and get back in ten minutes. The cache was not far from the port. The bus came and it was arriverderchi Sorrento. I need to plan a visit to San Marino to clear off the Italian states.🤫

It’s Saturday, it’s early and it’s time to get some caches in Eynsham in Kent. Just 30 minutes away, this time of the morning and as dawn breaks, I cross the bridge in the picture and park just down from the ford. I quickly found the well placed - down by the riverside and then walked across the bridge up to the High Street to tackle the CM and the VS multis. The CM was fairly easy but the VS was more of a challenge and the cache at GZ was a very clever idea. It took me ages and I was standing next to the cache for most of that time!😀 Looking at the map, I checked what else was about and spotted the mystery Really SideTracked Lullingstone Station Cache. I had solved this some time ago but I put the coords on the map and it was nearby, well a mile up the road. It was difficult to park but I found somewhere and the cache was very cleverly hidden but I had soon unraveled the tiny log and put the cache back as found. There were a few challenge caches on my list today but I wasn’t sure if I could find a decent path from Eynsford. I could see that there was a footpath along a track up near Eagle Heights but wasn’t sure if I can park there. It was early so I took a chance. I broke records getting down the track to two trads JJCL13 and 14.😀 I thought that I could get down to 9WTF and 10WTF Challenge so I broke more records getting down there. Buoyed with my speed, I rode my luck one more time and got down to The “Dark” Month Challenge cache, a 4.5/2 beauty.😀 I scorched the path getting the mile back to the car and thankfully, there was no one around and no clamp on the car.🤫 Pleased with my efforts, I drove to Lullingstone Roman Villa, hoping that I could find somewhere to park to try to pick off a couple of the WW Revisited series. I found a decent spot and quickly found #15, a multi and #16, a trad. I realised that I had time to get down to get down to #11 and back in the time that I had. This series alternates between trad, multi, trad etc., so there were two of each to find. They were all fairly easy to find apart from #14, a multi. I couldn’t get any decent coords for this so did the others and came back to it. The idea was to use the digits from the emergency telephone number on an electricity pole. However on the return, I realised that I’d been looking at the wrong number.🤬 After sorting out the coords, I had a quick find of a well placed cache. 😀 This brought me nicely to 0920 so I had enough time to get home by 1000, if the Dartford Tunnel permits.😀 4 Mystery 5 Multi 6 Traditional #7139

You may remember me being delusional a couple of weeks ago about turning Mersea Island yellow. 🤫 Well it’s still bugging me so I’m going to have another go today. The tides are in the right place but I want to get a few caches on the way to the island first. I had managed to solve two of Mr Crow’s cunning mystery caches in Little Totham and as these were also CMs, I wanted them badly. I parked up in the Evangelical Church car park at 0730 and soon had CMs Little Totham - Evangelical and Little Totham- Revisited found and logged. It must have been the first day of Spring as I was able to hear and see a female Cuckoo flitting around the fields.😀 My next target was the Tolleshunt Triangle Final Bonus which was in Tollesbury. I’d been working on this one for nearly three years so I was elated when I turned over a very large piece of bark to reveal the Bonus cache.😀 As I was in this delightful village, I tried to find the remainder of my unfound caches here. I cleared the deck with the trad Pink Gold, the multi VS and the EC at Tollesbury Salt Marsh. So Tollesbury was now yellow (until the next day when nathanjhunt stuck another multi in the middle of the village.🤬 So now it was onto East Mersea. The two caches that I’d DNFed last time had quickly been replaced (thanks PureWarrior) and the CO had even told me about a short cut to shorten the long haul out to Pyefleet Channel. As I walked along the footpath through the woods going out to the seawall, I met a couple of chaps with very decent cameras with telephoto lenses. Thinking they were birdwatchers, I mentioned the Cuckoo and a Common Buzzard that I’d seen. However, they were looking for Red Squirrels.🐿😀 I’d forgotten that Mersea Island had been a Squirre free zone due to The Stoop and the Essex Wildlife Trust had introduced Reds about five years ago. The chaps said that there were now 100 - 150 Reds on the island so fingers crossed that they continue to thrive.👍🏻 Btw, the cache was a quick find but still 15 minutes walk each way.🙁 For once, I paid a parking fee at Cudmore Park (it goes towards the upkeep) and walked out to Island End to find the replaced trad. I walked back and sought out the answers for the Earthcache- Collapsing Cliff, an interesting saga regarding hippopotamus bones excabated there. Then I DNFed the Hidden Pillbox trad, found the WW2 Pillbox trad and walked over to do the two multis. It was hot, humid and the park was full of punters. The ice-cream shop and cafe would have made a fortune had it not been closed.☹️ Do these people check on the weather forecasts and think, today could be an earner? Wherever I went there were people so I gave the multis a swerve and set out towards what turned out to be a lovely but lonely beach path going west. After a long walk I found the very cunningly placed Clear Pointers Far Away trad, following up with an encore of the trad Church View. All I had to do was walk back to the car and get off the island. So I’m left with three to get on the island so when the tides are right, it’s freezing cold and the CO replaces the Hidden Pillbox cach, I will return.😀 The remaining plan for today was to head up to Rowhedge via Fingringhoe to find a few. I stopped off at a trad that I been looking at for ages - Pete‘s Common Problem near Fingringhoe and then on to a new addition to the Gravel Pit Trail in the village. Another new one in the village that had caught my eye was River View. This trad was some way up a dead tree which was decorated with nails? I was looking for a hanging nano but in fact the cache was hidden in a hole in the tree. There was a splendid view of Wivenhoe across the River Colne from my vantage point. I was now almost in Rowhedge or East Donyland as it used to be called. I had another look for one of my nemesis caches - Nutty Nano - The End. It has recently been replaced and can only be in one place but it wasn’t!🤔 Maybe one day, I’ll find this one. Now I‘m actually in Rowhedge.😀 I’ve been meaning to get here for years and now I‘m here. The first cache on my list is Rowhedge Football Cache which wasn’t where I was expecting. There’s not much football played in a wood with steep undulating terrain.🤔 It was a tricky find despite the accurate hint. There‘s a series of murals dotted around Colchester on pillboxes, walls etc., that form part of the series of multis called Suburban Art. There’s an excellent example here in Rowhedge on the Village Hall wall. After counting ducks, butterflies and badgers, I had the coords to a cleverly hidden cache. Also in town is the trad CM and a multi based on the Water Tower. I found both of them despite the DNF last time out on the multi. It was hot and I needed a drink so I drove down to the water front but parking spaces were at a premium.🙁 Once parked, I walked down to The Anchor pub, right on the water’s edge. This was an old Mann, Paulin and Crossman pub with splendid old windows showing that connection but I liked the one I have added here. Did I mention that there is a trad here, well, it isn’t it‘s MIA.☹️ This left the one remaining cache in the village, the mystery VS. A cunning cache to solve but also well hidden in a place commemorating some of the events that have happened here. Now time for a well earned soft drink and away home. Just checking the route and I spot a trad just up the road a mile or two, so White Gates turned out to be the last cache of the day.😀 2 Earthcache 3 Mystery 4 Multi 12 Traditional #7124 On fitness front, 19,704 Steps, 15.9 km and three floors climbed.❤️

If you go down to the woods today, you‘re sure of a big surprise. I’m going to Belfairs Woods but I’m not expecting teddy bears, I’m looking for bunnies.🐇🐇 The only problem is that they are invisible bunnies.🤔 I’m going to try out a wherigo cache - Invisibunny Hunt (Belfairs Woods). I downloaded the wherigo onto my iPhone and I’ve got myself into the start zone. It all went well for a while and I captured three invisible bunnies. It was quite fun wandering around the woods an golf course but I’m sure it wasn’t working properly. I had a spate of bunnies splitting the scene just before I got there and when I did get into zone with an invisible bunny, nothing happened. I restarted the iPhone as well as the wherigo and somehow I had captured six bunnies when I only needed five.🤔 More by luck than judgement, I somehow opened up the page giving the final coords which I quickly wrote down. So the program worked after a fashion and I was glad to have the final coords. However it had taken me 70 minutes to get this far.🤔 For the record, I had a quick of a well hidden cache at GZ. I only had time for one more cache, the trad Belfairs - Branching Out. Once I got to it, it was an unusual type but one that I had come up against before. The routered broom handle takes some type to sort but eventually it opens up. Sometimes it takes longer to put back together than to dismantle it.😡 1 Wherigo 1 Traditional #7103