Oh, there’s only one target today, the 5/4.5 MultI/Earth Challenge Cache - Gold in New Ash Green. Having qualified for it, two days ago, I’m busting a gut to get down here.😀 Once here, I had a quick find of a well placed cache. It was a bit of an anticlimax for a moment but I soon was buzzing and put a message on twitter at 0650 that I’d filled my D/T grid.😀 I followed this up with Traditional/Event Challenge Cache - Silver that had eluded me before and then set off for the nearby CM Ash by Wrotham multi. I worked out the coords and they fitted well with the hint but no joy here. The CO had a look and said it was there and the cache has been found since So gawd knows what I was doing?🤔 I was safely parked up in the church car park which was going to be the base for a circular walk of some of the Rivrds Ramble and Rivrds Ramble Part II series. I made a great start with a DNF at #15 of the RR Part II series but it’s a MIA.🙁 I found #14 to #10 and then #20 & #19 before starting on the Rivrds Ramble series. I found #6 to #1 and then got back onto the other series. I had a DNF at #18 though. I had stupidly left my power bank lead in the car and the battery was down to about 5%. I’d have spent more time here but there were two more caches between me and the church car park.😢 I sprinted to #17 and #16 and luckily found them before the iPhone died.😀 Back at the car, I had to wait to get a bit of charge in the battery to fire up google maps to plot my way home. So a great morning and I had finally completed my D/T grid. So that’s it, there’s nothing left in Geocaching to achieve. Anyone need a used GPSr?😀 2 Mystery 14 Traditional #7101 On the fitness front, I took 11,864 steps, walked 8.9km and climbed 29 floors according to my fitness app.❤️

I need to complete my D/T grid. I need a 5/4.5 somewhere. I qualify for the Know Your Reviewers Challenge but that is up on the Northants and Beds border. I might also need a ladder to get a leg up on to the tree. Unfortunately I don’t have room for a ladder in my Ka.🙁 I espy another in Kent, the Multi/Earth Challenge Cache - Gold that needs 20 multis in a day or 15 multis and an Earthcache. I see that some geocachers have totally misread the qualication criteria and having found four ECs in a day, used that as a qualification.😡 How can the CO allow that? I have found five ECs in a day but as far as I’m concerned, that doesn’t qualify me for this cache. So this challenge cache is the one for me but it will take careful planning.😀 Luckily there is a surfeit of multi CMs in Kent overlapping in Greater London which should give me the ideal opportunity to qualify. Normally I would avoid Kent and the Dartford Tunnel like the plague on a weekday but this school holiday week so the traffic on the roads should be a little lighter.🤔 I worked out a route through Crayford, Slade Green, Erith, Belvedere, Northumberland Heath and Bexleyheath and now is the time to put the plan into action.👍🏻 As day breaks, I am just outside Crayford at Coal Post #213, a fine example of these Victorian coal tax bound markers. The info was quickly found and the first multi of the day was in the bag, we‘re off and running. I parked up in the big Sainsbury’s in Crayford. I wasn’t planning on paying for parking so had done some research on this too. In about an hour I had added Captain Crayford and the CMs, Crayford, Crayford - St Mary’s and Crayford - St Paulinus to the tally. Up the road in Slade Green I found the easy trad CM Slade Green - Christian and the blooming difficult 3.5/1.5 CM Slade Green multi. This took me a while until I worked out where I was stupidly going wrong. Then it was a swift find of a cleverly placed cache.😀 On the way to Belvedere, I picked up the multi at CM North End and the trad at Slade Green - Baptist. I also had a look for the CM Erith but GZ had been “landscaped” so I just wrote a note on it. Now Belvedere is rich in CMs and multis so I was expecting great things here. I found the Belvedere - Pentecostal and Unique Road Signs #1 multis and picked up a TB at the latter. I then had a decent run round Belvedere collecting up the Ichthus, St Augustine, Methodist, All Saints and Free Grace multi CMs. I had a DNF at Baptist but as someone else did the same the same day, I reckon that it’s more of a MIA. Later on when I logged the day’s finds, I spotted that Moore4us and myself were following each other around all day.🤫 Leaving Belvedere behind, I added the multi CMs Northumberland Heath and St Paul to the total as well as the trad CM - Our Lady. Then a quick find of the multi CM Barnehurst - St Martin’s and then I was on the way to Bexleyheath. Having a count up, I was on 17 multis and it was getting on for 2 o’clock. I really didn’t want to leave it late and I had hoped to get the D/T filler in New Ash Green today, so I’d better crack on. I had a quick cache & dash at the Bexleyheath - Bethany trad and then drove around to the free car park at Asda. Just the three to get and I quickly work out CM Christ Church but the coords put it back the way I had come so I shelved that until later on. I got to but saw that it would take a lot of time so gave that a swerve.🤫 I walked out to the CM St John Vianney, solved the multi and signed the log. The next multi was CM - Community and that was a quick find. I’m up at 19 so go back to CM Christ Church. This has be put in a place that’s passed by thousands of people a day. However no one batted an eye-lid as I sign the log sheet. So that was it, 20 multis on the day.😀💥💥 However, the grid filler would have to wait for the weekend. It was now 1500 and I needed to get through the tunnel before the traffic got bad. So time to finish a splendid day’s geocaching.😀 20 Multi 4 Traditional #7063

This is becoming a good habit. I’m getting a couple of hours on my own on a Tuesday and what better to do than look for a couple of caches not that far away.🤫 Today I’m visiting another island, Canvey Island, to look for - can you see the castle which I had DNFed and Take A Seat. They are both trads and the former has recently been replaced. This one took a while to find the cunningly concealed cache. I took a seat in the bus stop but it was very busy and two buses came in whilst I was working out where the cache was.🙁 Once I was in the right place, I had a quick find of a well placed cache. All this caching had made me hungry so I went in a nearby cafe for coffee and a bacon roll. I used the cafe’s wifi to log my finds and then enjoyed lunch. I walked out of the cafe and ran into an old mate who has been living in France for the last 20 years! What were the odds on that.🤔 2 Traditional #7060

I’m back in Shoreham, not the one by the sea, wherever that is but the delightful little Kentish village just 30 minutes from home on a very quiet run, especially at 0600. The plan is to find some, hopefully all of a couple of series of challenge caches on the outskirts of the village. I parked up in a lay-by on the A225 just outside the village. There is a linear series of five challenge caches set by Rubyshoos that I’m after. I’ve qualified for them all and the D/Ts range from 3.5/2 through 4.5/3.5 to 5/3.5. What I wasn‘t expecting was the sudden rise in altitude though. I found #1 and #2 without problem but suddenly the going got steep.☹️ By the time I got up to #3, I was gasping. It might be a good idea to hide the cache in a defibrillator station as one day someone is going to need it.🤫 Luckily the terrain flattened out and the rest of the series was easily found.😀 I reckon the going down was more dangerous than the way up. I got back to the car and decided to leave it there. I walked down to SideTracked Shoreham which is so cleverly placed that it has had a number of DNFs recently but I struck lucky. The next series - Tribulations and Topography Challenge, again set by Rubyshoo, started almost immediately on a footpath running alongside the A225. I only qualified for three of the five, On Tour, Traditional and Unknown but I found all five easily enough. I only have to qualify for Multi and Ethereal now.😀 I now set out on a short walk round the village back to the car picking up three reasonably easy trads. Next stop was the CM in the village. I’d had this on my list for a few visits down here over the past months and never got to it. This time I got all the info for the multi but the final coords didn’t make sense. I did contact the CO for help later and yet again, I’d got everything correct, well I would have done if I had read the requirements properly.😡 Now in the centre of the village, I revisited 2WW - Revisited, a multi based on a model of an Ostler near the local pub. It was MIA last time I was here but thankfully had been replaced recently. It was time to set off for home as the arrangemen is that I’m back home to make a cup of tea for the memsahib at 1000. On checking the best route home, I spot another two of the 2WW series, a trad and a multi just out of the village so #9 and #10 bite the dust. 2 Multi 6 Traditional 8 Mystery #7058 On the fitness front, I acheived 10,974 step, 8.7Km and amazingly 33 flights of steps. I said that hill was steep.🙁

Mersea Island is a large island stuck out there at the mouth of the Rivers Colne and Blackwater, connected to the mainland by a long causeway called The Stoop. You have to plan your visit taking account of the tides. If you just turn up, you could wait to get on but even worse, if you are on and The Stoop is covered by water, the stress is magnified. As you’ve guessed, I always check the tide times. I had a look earlier in the week and low tide was at 0930 today, a Thursday, so it seemed a good idea to have another visit. Mersea Island is made up of two halves, East and West. It’s more busy and inhabited at the west end and that’s where I have done the majority of my geocaching. In fact, West Mersea is predominately yellow but the East is a different matter. So today, my plan is to find all the caches on the East end and turn Mersea Yellow. It won’t happen.🤔 I leave home about 0700 and to kill a bit of time, I hunt for a couple of missing letter boxes for the LBSG in Tiptree and then make my way into Jam Town to have a look at an Earthcache - “Geology and the Fruit Picker.” The questions are based on the geology of the plinth of a bronze casting of a fruit picker. I have researched this type of stone before so I’m confident that I have all the answers.😀 Now I’m on route to Mersea but there are a couple of caches on the way. I pick up Oxley Meadow, a trad in Tolleshunt Knights and the VS mystery in Salcott before arriving om Mersea. There is a series of trads, I think it’s a series, along the sea wall to the north of the island. They look easy enough but it’s going to be a route march to get them. I decide to attack three from the west end and the rest from the east end near Cudmore Grove CP. I parked up on the muddy lay-by on the East Mersea Road and set off down the footpath that hopefully would end up on the sea wall. It seemed to be private land with notices everywhere stating that Samphire pickers will be shot.🤔 After a while, after clambering over a couple of broken bridges, I do get on the right track and get to the first trad. All that is there is a half burnt bonfire of cut down bushes and no cache. However, after a bit of prodding, I find the log sheet and the cache lid. So my luck is in! I placed the remains of the cache in a safe spot and set off, eventually arriving at Before East Is East and then East Is East. I took a detour back to the car as I couldn’t face the trudge back the way I had come. There were only three caches left to find on West Mersea. I get the first one, formerly a DNF quickly and then drive down to the front to find Hutchy’s Hutch, a trad hidden in the back of Hutchyweb‘s beach chalet. The next cache was Beyond The Green Plateau about half a mile along the beach. This was a quick find but a long walk back. Next up was the CM in East Mersea. This is a multi with half the clues missing.☹️ I’d DNFed before because one of the grave stones was missing. I found out that it had been removed because it was now a double plot rather than a single and additions had to be made. However when it was replaced, all the information needed for the coords was not on the stone. Fortunately a kind cacher has put the required numbers in the log so I was now able to work out the coords.😀 The cache was a very quick find, can’t say anymore than that. I was now at the east end of the island and instead of paying for parking in Cudmore Grove, park closer to the sea wall for free. Now it was time to tackle the rest of that trad “series” on the northern seawall. The thing about these trads is that they are too low in the D/T rating. How can a walk of three miles there and back to The Remote One, on a hot day, rate a 1.5/1.5! I pick off four trads but Pyefleet Channel, a good mile each way was missing despite first being reported missing for six months! I had another DNF at Islands End but had a good walk around the pill boxes at this end of the island. Talking of walking, I have had a very tiring day and can’t face trudging around Cudmore Park for multis and Earthcaches so the plan to turn Mersea yellow has to go on hold.🤔 However, I do have a couple of caches up my sleeve. I’m keen to put the Tollesbury Triangle series to bed. This is based on trios of CMs in the Tolleshunt and Tollesbury area providing bonus numbers for three bonus caches, which in turn provide numbers for the Final. The Tollesbury Triangle- D’Arcy Bonus has been missing for about 18 months. As it holds bonus numbers, I’ve been unable to get the Final cache. However, the cache has recently been replaced and immediately DNFed so I’m not holding out much hope.☹️ So I got to the tree where the coords said that the cache would be at. However the cache wasn’t there. I checked the details and thought that there was no place for a cache of that size on this tree. Then I noticed that the CO had said that the coords would have to be adjusted.🤔 There was a large tree about 70 yards away so I walked down there and immediately had the cache in hand. Unfortunately there were no bonus numbers 🤬 but I had the cache at last. I had time to do two more caches in Maldon. Gilly’s Secret Garden was a trad in a delightful park off the beaten track that earned a fave. Maldon Water Tower #1 was a multi that had eleuded me before. This time I gathered up all the answers and set off for GZ. I couldn’t find anything there so it was time to call it a day. I was going to check over the road but seeing a dead badger there, I decided not to.😬 I did contact the CO to check the coords. They came back to me asking if I had noticed in the blurb that the cache was across the road from GZ! One for another day. 1 Mystery 1 Earthcache 3 Multi 13 Traditional #7042 Updating my fitness progress, today I managed 28,084, walked 22.8 km and climbed 7 flights.

I needed to go shopping and I needed a cache too, so I popped over to Hadleigh to pick up a couple of newly placed caches. I parked in the nice big free supermarket carpark near the centre of town. The supermarket has been built on the site of the former Kingsway Cinema and the first cache that I was looking for was commemorating the Kingsway. Tractor Andy, a recently retired local cacher has an interest in old cinemas and is starting a series called The Last Picture Show. He has one in Walton-on-the-Naze which I have found, The Kinema. However he has plenty of opportunities around the Southend area, which used to have numerous picture houses. I look forward to Andy expanding this series as I too have an interest in old cinemas. The trad cache, itself, was quite tricky but I got there in the end.😀 Andy had set another trad cache a few hundred yards away called A Cache To Cache A Scarecrow. This was set on the boundary fence of an allotment site. I’m sure that the cache had been placed to wind up his geocacher brother, who has an allotment here. I can’t remember if Scarecrow Rog got the FTF here but if he didn‘t, I’ll bet things were frosty for a while.😀 This was another tricky hide but soon found with the generous hint. 2 Traditional #7024

I’ve reached the stage in my geocaching “career” where I’ve amassed enough caches to meet some of the Challenge caches that are out there in geocaching land. As I’ve met a challenge, I’ve written a note. As part of the changes to Project.gc, these now pop up in a challenges section so I can keep tabs on them easier. I’ve been working on a series of challenge caches in Scadbury Park Nature Reserve near Bexley. Rubyshoos, the CO had posted that she was going to archive the series very soon so I thought that I’d better make them a priorit. They are all placed on a circular walk around the park so I decided to get there as the sun rose and gather up all twelve that I qualify for.😀 I pulled into the free car park as the sun was peeking through the trees. The first cache, a 4/1.5 was Arboreal, based on gaining three tree climb attributes in a day. The rest of the successful caches were from 5/1.5 to 2/1.5. After completing the series, my next plan was to pop into Bexley to look for some Church Micros. I added two multis and two trads to my CM total. Now all I had to do was get home through the tunnel by 1000.🤔 2 Multi 2 Traditional 13 Mystery #7022

Up nice and early, despite the head and the nightmares brought on by The Woman In Black. How two actors and an old laundry basket generate that much terror on a stage is beyond me. Such talent. Right the plan is this! I need four caches to reach 7000 found. I have found a challenge cache where you need to find a different icon at each milestone so I need to get a puzzle or a virtual for cache #4. I’ve got onto this one much too late but I might get there sometime in the future. There’s also the added bonus of meeting the Inter-Planetary Challenge this morning too. That’s the plan, here’s how it went.😉 0650, out of the hotel and off to the other side of Lincoln’s Inn Fields for a quick find of the trad, It’s Not Easy Being Orange. What that’s all about, gawd knows. Quickly cutting through Great Turnstile and across High Holborn into Brownlow Street looking for Gray’s Inn : One Arm, Two Mouths. I wasn’t sure what I’d find here but this trad brought me to an old relic of London that I wouldn’t have seen ... etc. I had a quick find and moved on towards cache #3. I crossed Theobalds Road looking for another delightfully named trad - It’s Not Easy Being A Purple Whatever. Another quick find and still no idea what the titles are about but now to move on to a significant milestone, cache #7000. I had chosen a virtual for this landmark and it was at another significant place, Trafalgar Square. Virtual Reward : The Fourth Plinth was what I was looking for and I had a quick find of the information. As I claimed the cache after sending the info off to the CO, I had a geospeak message saying that I had reached Pluto on the Inter-Planetary Challenge and also gained the Official Space Traveller souvenir.🚀💥 I had about an hour left before I had to be back so it was a quick walk down to Fleet Street for The London Rainbow Cache 1 : Red, a Virtual based on Doctor Johnson and the nearby trad, An Other GPS. Who would have expected a cannon in this quiet London Square? I then dropped down Whitefriars Street for Capturing the Moment, another well hidden trad. Blackfriars Bridge beckoned me for one of The Lost River Fleet series then I was quickly walking along the Embankment for LQ:CITY - Bazalgette’s Bank. I’ll have to find out more about the LQ series.🤔 There was just enough time to get up to the cunningly hidden TUBE SideTracked at Temple before I got back to the hotel room with two mugs of tea for 0900.it couldn’t have been planned better.🤔 2 Virtual 8 Traditional #7006

Our daughter had bought us a surprise hotel & theatre trip to London as she’d had a bonus at work.😀 We were staying in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and the theatre was in Covent Garden. A quick look at the map showed that there were a couple of nearby caches that needed finding.🤔 We checked into the splendid hotel and then had a wander. The deal was that I could get a couple of CMs and then we would take off and do some sightseeing. We wandered down Kingsway towards the CM at Aldwych and found the well concealed cache. Whilst exploring the back streets, we spotted the splendidly name alley shown in the photo. We walked up the Strand to the CM at Westminster - Queens Chapel for another quick find. I am sorry to report that it had started raining by now so we retired to The Harp, one of my favourite little drinkers nearby. The rest is as they say, a blur.🤔 2 Traditional #6996

My plan for today was for me to get enough caches to reach 7000 caches and get a Virtual Cache for the milestone. All I needed was about 45 caches.🤔 I knew I would struggle but I’m ever the optimist.😀 I’d planned a route from North Essex into Cambridge that could help me reach the target and there was a juicy Virtual in the Wandlebury CP below Cambridge. It was going to be a rainy start to the day and I pulled into the carpark next to the CM in Little Chesterford just after 0745. It was a bit of a trek over the field dodging the sheep poo but I had a quick find at GZ. The trad cache was in a safe place so I left a TB there.🤫 In Great Chesterford, I worked out the VS multi. The rain was getting heavier so I went to the boot of the car for my goretex cagoule and realised that I’d left it at home. 🤬 After a short walk along the river bank, I found the well hidden cache. The next stop was Ickleton just over the border. I sorted out the VS multi based on a tragic helicopter cache in the Scillies that killed a local family of four. After finding the trad CM, I made a quick find of the multi up the road. The Ickleton Plough was a quick find but the Ickleton Bridge was a bit of a git. It took me a good 20 minutes searching around the bridge until I found the cache. In future, I must amend my geocaching technique as a result of this one.🤔 The next village was Hinxton with two VS trads which were quickly found. Next up was the Hinxton Ford which was intriguing. Wellies were essential for this one and so it proved to be. In the water, running fast of the road, and reaching up under the bridge, I blindly uncovered a monster’s hand or was it a crocodile‘s claw holding tightly onto the cache.😬 I drove through the ford, luckily it wasn’t too deep, and on into Duxford. I found a trad of the Moat Micro series, which was new one on me, and then up to the VS multi, which was easily solved. North of the village was Lofty Perch. However, it was by an extremely busy roundabout with nowhere to park.🙁 I had to leave the car about a half mile down the road and walk back. I found the trad and the Beware Overtaking Geocachers trad up the road before I turned back towards the car. I found a couple of easy trads before getting to the SideTracked at Whittlesford Parkway. Free parking was at a premium here and I couldn’t find any. I took a chance and parked in the station carpark 🤫 and very quickly gathered up the ST and the nearby CM at the Duxford Chapel before whizzing down the road towards Sawston and Pampisford. On the way, I found the Sawston South Triangle. Again, absolutely no parking so I had to leave the car on the main road and quickly retrieve the trad. It was easier in Pampisford, finding the Fine Pair with its splendid G5R Wallbox next to the cache, the multi and trad VS and a letterbox CM. I left another TB in the multi VS.👍🏻 In Sawston, there was a series of four trads in the Sawston Saunter. It was a linear walk with a Little Bridge cache at the end. #4 was a really easy find but I couldn’t find a hint item at #3 despite searching for about 20mins. I wrote a note on the cache page before moving onto the rest of the series and the litt bridge in its lovely setting. After retracing my path back to the car, I checked my emails whilst eating lunch and noted that the CO had come back to me.👍🏻 He said that the cache was still at #3 so I went back and after another long search, I finally found the cache. So cunningly hidden, it had to have a fave.👏 There were another four trads in town including the CM and the Sawston North Triangle which were all added to the found list. It was around this point when I realised that the milestone wouldn’t be reached today. The CO who had helped me earlier had another interesting set of caches on the way to the Wandlesbury CP. The Mile Road byway was off the A1307 north of Brabaham. There were three caches along the mile stretch with a interesting field puzzle at Can You Sign The Log. I was looking forward to the challenge but unfortunately the cache was missing. Further along the track, the CO came back to me and confirmed that I was in the right place. So after finding In The Middle and A Walk Down The Mile plus two of the Silver Tin Trail caches, where I left another TB, I was on my way back to the field puzzle. In the meantime, the CO had contacted the previous finder and he had left it underneath the logs that I had described to the CO. So this one was MIA.☹️ The next day the CO contacted me to say that the cache was indeed missing but he graciously told me to claim the cache.👍🏻 So I’d ended the day, six shy of my goal. However, in the Interplanetary Pursuit challenge, I’d passed Neptune and was now on the final leg of the journey. On the Health front, I had done 21,201 Steps, walked 17km and climbed five floors.😀 31 Traditional 4 Multi 1 Letterbox #6994