I’d spent a day wandering around South Suffolk a couple of weeks ago hoping to get into Sudbury but I never quite made it.🤔 This week, I was coming back hoping to work my way in from the West via the small villages in the north of Essex. I started off in Great Henny and moving onto Middleton picking up some more of the SEBC series. I had a quick find of the Fine Pair in Middleton followed by the #VS trads in Twinstead and Bulmer. This little Essex village almost on the borderline would be the base for a long trad series - the Bulmer - Belchamp Walter Circular. The series was approximately five miles with some great views on the higher ground. I passed a folly built around 1750, see the photo and the remains of an old Roman Villa. The fourteen caches were all at the lower end of the DT scale but the walk was splendid apart the rise in height at the end. After lunch, I drove the short distance to Borley for the CM and on to Borley Green for the FIne Pair. The letter box was a LB 3223/4 as was the box in Middleton. The cache was cunningly hidden in a nearby resting place.🤫 I worked my way into East Sudbury picking up more trads. One that deserved a fave was Mini Strawberry, a 2.5/1.5 trad outside a mini supermarket. There were peple standing around chatting and a telephone box that begged for a cache. Unfortunately the box wasn‘t the host but as I stood back and thought about it, I spotted the very cunning cache. How did they get permission for that? With time running out, I finally got to find one of the Whts Mssng puzzle series, #3. This series has been set by some friends who I’ve met at various Essex events - OG&B. Their dog is the B and they are the Old Gits.😀 I quickly found their very well placed cache and set off down the lane to the CM Chilton, finishing off the day with another two trads in the SEBC series. There was another SEBC nearby but that was a 2/4 tree climb so I left that for another day.😬 1 Mystery, 34 Traditional #6704

I had a couple of hours but I had to get some shopping so I decided to drive over to Brentwood. I needed to arrange an appointment at my building society so popped in there to sort one out. I wasn’t too impressed to find that the interest on my savings account had dropped again.😡 So to drown my sorrows, I went looking for some caches. I had a quick find not far from the High Street of the trad Highway to Hopefield. This was followed by two quick new mysteries that I’d solved before. One was at the War Memorial and one at the St Thomas Becket CM. From here, I went to the outskirts of town and spent some time hunting for the trad at the County High School. Wow, this was tough, the coords seemed out or it could have been the tree cover. I eventually found the slim tube tucked in its tiny hidey hole.😀 I crossed the road into the woods off Shenfield Common for another trad that has proved elusive. However, I had a real quick find as the coords and hint were spot on.👍🏻 Now came the downside! I had to get the shopping! Well, at least I got free parking there so no all bad. Just time for coffee and cake before the free parking period finished and off to the final cache. A quick find at the very easy trad - A Great View # Brentwood -a contradiction if there ever was one. If this cache stays in place for more than a week, I’ll be surprised.🤔 2 Mystery 4 Traditional #6669

The aches from clambering around Bray Head last Thursday are beginning to ease but geocachers must carry on! This morning, being a Sunday, that it’s an early start in Kent as dawn breaks. I’d decided to come down to Farningham to pick up some more of JazzyJessups Troll Stroll. I’d done some of the northern section before but this time I’m starting near the end of the series in town. I quickly collected nos. #29 and #28 as C&Ds but parked up near #27 to do the remainder of the caches on this morning’s list. According to the log, the previous cacher had spent three hours looking for this one and DNFed. I walked up and plucked it off the sign, strange how things turn out.🤔 I walked up the A20 making fairly easy caches until I got to #24.Here I turned into the fields and began to walk away from the noise of the traffic. It was a cold, crisp morning but the sun was shining, almost perfect conditions. I passed the frolicking sheep, some of which were quite wary of me. I worked my way along the ridge passing the tests set by the CO with flying colours. I reached Gabrielspring Road and found #17.It was here that I decided to turn back and retrace my steps as I needed to be home by 1000. At least I know that there is a decent parking place next to #17 for me to continue the series another time. 2 Multi 12 Traditional #6663

Sooner or later, every UK cacher start earnestly looking at their Jasper list and learns about GC43.🤔 The oldest geocache in Europe placed in Bray in June 2000, soon attracts the attention of a serious cacher. I’d read an article in the GAGB Seeker magazine some time ago about some cachers doing a day trip to Dublin to go and search for their Holy Grail.🤭 So when a new airline started a route from Southend airport to Dublin, I made a plan for my own day trip to go for GC43. I asked nathanjhunt if he fancied the trip and he was in.👍🏻 I also mentioned the trip at my New Year‘s Eve event and infinson showed interest then he was in. We set a date for February 1st and booked return tickets with Flybe for £40. I’d prepared a list of caches to do on the day and shared these with the chaps and they added a few of their own. The main priority was GC43, obviously, and we also planned to get 8/9 different cache types on the day. That was the gist of the day’s activity and we awaited the day. I planned to hold an event near the airport, the first and only one of “The Silly O’clock“ series timed for 0400. This gave us a good start as we could claim a cache in two countries on the day and a cache type which we needed. Hopefully we could attend another event in Dublin. We met up for the event and Ian told us that when he’d tried to book in yesterday, he realised that a glitch in the system meant that he was supposed to fly out a fortnight ago. He’d spent a frantic morning trying to get things sorted out for today! No problems checking in or flying out and we arrived in Dublin’s fair city at 0810. Our first port of call was the Bus & Travel desk where we bought a 24 hour Leap Visitor card for €10 each, which give unlimited travel including the airport bus to Connolly Street station and down to Bray. After catching the 55 bus and then the DART, we were alighting in Bray about 0910. Straight out of the station and the SideTracked trad became Ian and Nathan’s first Irish cache. 🇮🇪 After deciding against a coffee, we set off down the promenade to the Bray Head Inn. Reading the blurb, I was pleased to see that it featured in one of my favourite films - The Committments. After finding the trad here, we travelled a well worn geocachers path down/up to Lord Meath’s Lodge. We missed out an EC early on but the haul was - trad, letterbox, multi, trad, EC, trad and then the EC at the Lodge. Here we girded up our loins for the journey to GC43.😀 So here we were at the European geocaching Holy Grail. Much jollity, photography and flag waving took place.🇮🇪 After signing the log ceremoniously and dropping off, taking and noting the tracking numbers of TBs, we put everything back in place for the next visitors. So what‘s next on the list, a wherigo, where’s that, up there, jeez. 🤬 Well, three mountain goats of varied ages, set off up this 45 degree slope on hands and knees on a path through the bracken battling the wind. Did I tell you about the wind? It was howling straight off the sea at us and the only saving grace was that it wasn’t driving any rain at us. Now I’ve done a bit of mountain walking in my time but this ascent was a creaser. Although, I was the elder statesman of the party, I was much further up the slope towards the summit so I waved back at them and shouted that I’d meet them at the top. I saw the shelter of the dry stone wall and continued until I got out of the wind. It was here that I realised that I hadn’t been checking where the wherigo was. About half way up, I should have branched off to the South West. Now I had to go back down to get the next stage.🤬 So I now had the wind 💨 in my face but I followed the instructions and got into the end-zone. So where were the others? I phoned Nathan but we couldn’t hear each other because of the howling wind. We were reduced to texting each other. We finally met up, found the cache and after doing the admin, we scrambled up to the summit.😀 After a rest at the cross, we worked our way down the hill back into Bray. On the way, we logged two trads and a couple of challenge mysteries until we got to our first IE CM - Our Lady Queen of Peace. After a quick find here, we carried on towards the DART station. I noted that the next cache on route was a trad, Danger Mouses Mate. I asked the others, what was his mate’s name. Ian said it was Penfold. Now as you know, Penfold means something else to me - a post box and I was chuffed to find a green painted 150 year old post box at GZ.😀 Nathan found the cache whilst I was too busy taking photos.🤫 There was just one more cache to find on the way to the station, an easy trad. We walked up Albert Walk and Ian spotted a small Italian cafe so we popped in for a coffee. However they also had individual pizzas with a variety of toppings I’d never seen before, I had the spinach and mushroom.🍕I’d like to have stayed longer but we were on a mission and it was about 1430 by this time. Leaving the Connolly Street DART, we walked down Talbot Road to Gardiners Treat, the first Webcam that I had encountered. After faffing around trying to take a photo on my iphone, I was finally successful and had proof that I’d been there. We carried on down the road to the virtual Stiffey By The Liffey. It’s a good job that Nathan was with us as I’d have spent ages looking for a sign with Shaka on it.🤘🤔 I’m sure that the text on the cache has been changed explaining what the sign means since I logged it.👍🏻 We walked down towards Trinity College and picked up the John Gray - marble connoisseur EC on the way. In the college itself, we hunted around for the right door to claim the virtual here. When we finally found it, we all had our hand photographed waving a tricolour.🇮🇪 Now Ian had been working on the Master of Mystery #32 - Dublin mystery in the build up to our visit. This involves solving other puzzles around the world to find the coords for this one. Although he had solved some of the other mysteries in the series, this was the first one that he had looked for. Luckily we were there when he spotted the cunningly placed cache.👏 Now it was starting to get dark and we worked our way up towards the Bus Station to catch the bus back to the airport. We picked up five more trads including some of the Art Deco Dublin series. I hadn’t mentioned that I had visited Dublin on a cruise a couple of years ago so I had already found a few caches in town including some of that series. So we were left with the journey home which thankfully went without a hitch. We parted company about 2230 and it was sad to say bye to my companions. However we had had a great day. We‘d found GC43, broken a number of individual caching records and felt thoroughly pleased with ourselves. What more can I say apart from “what a great day in Bray.” 😀 1 Event, 1 Webcam, 1 Letterbox, 1 MultI, 1 Wherigo, 2 Virtual, 3 Earthcache, 2 Mystery, 15 Traditional #6649

It’s becoming a regular thing that I can get out for a couple of hours on a Tuesday. 👏 I’d spotted a series of six trad caches appear in Hylands Park, near Writtle. This place is teeming with “music” lovers during August when the V Festival is in full flow but usually it’s pretty quiet this time of year apart from the occasional dog walker and mutt appearing in the distance. 🐕 The set of new trads was set in the north of the park around the lakes. However, one was going to be interesting at the site of the former Ice House for the big house. They were all pretty quick to find but I did run into a couple taking photos of Canada Geese on the larger lake. They were interested in what I was doing so I gave them my spiel about geocaching. They seemed interested. I wonder how many of the people that I talk to actually give it a second thought afterwards.🤔 The Ice House was particularly interesting. There was enough remaining to get an idea of what it was, as long as you know what you are looking for.😀 The cache was the most difficult one of the series. It turned out to be a very clever hint which was great as the GPSr was jumping around like the proverbial Mexican jumping bean. ☹️ Having found all the caches, my mind turned to the only remaining cache in the park - Wellies Needed (sometimes).🙁 I’d failed before and so had quite a few other cachers. It’s next to a stream hence the wellies but they are not really needed. I looked and I looked but no joy. I think that I had at least six last looks and suddenly a was drawn to a place! There was a false rock hidden in a hole in a small group of thin saplings.😀😀 I was so pleased to remove this one from my wants list. All I had to do now was jog back to the car, drive close to the legal limit home and be home for 2pm. Happy Days.😉 7 Traditionals #6622

I’ve been holding an event on the last Sunday of the month for over a year now and I’m always looking for quirky venues. I’d noted this venue on a scan of Essex cafes on the internet. This one ticked all the boxes, it was on an old Thames sailing barge, it had great reports and also fitted in with one more relevant fact. In Geocaching terms, today was Australia Day. Attendance at an event today would earn an official souvenir.😀 There was a fantastic turnout with cachers coming from Colchester, Chelmsford, Panfield, South Benfleet and even two Spanish cachers! Everyone loved the venue and no-one had been there before even locals so I was well pleased. The sausage buffers went down well and everyone was happy. The trouble is that I have to always find a venue to top the last one. This would be the last chance for Infinson, nathanjhunt and me to discuss last minute plans for our day trip to Dublin next Thursday. It didn’t seem that anything had been left to chance so time to go. After the event, I walked down to the above end of the quay to get the answers to claim the new Virtual -MINE. Thankfully, the CO, one of the attendees at the event liked them. Then it was up to the High Street to find the answers to solve the CM Maldon - St Peter Multi. There were no problems here and I soon had the cache in hand.👍🏻 1 Event, 1 Virtual, 1 Multi #6615

For the past couple of years, I’ve been wanting to have a day around Sudbury. I’d met OG&B at various events and they’d often asked when I was going to come up their way.😀 There was so much virgin (caching-wise) territory up there but there was also a very large part of untapped Essex territory that I’d have to work through too! 🙁 I’d often hoped to get up there on the latter part of a North Essex caching campaign but always ran out of time. However, today, I was going to bust through all the barriers and start caching near Sudbury.👍🏻 I was parking up at Little Cornard Church just after 8am and luckily the gate to the carpark was open. Some architectural builders were working inside the church and I found out that they were going to be there until 4pm. As this was going to be my base all morning, this was a result.😀 My plan was a figure of eight walk taking in FORAGE around Little Cornard, a series of 14 trads, then the SIMPLE Cache series of 10 trads and hopefully capture a couple of the Dingley Dell series. However, my first cache of the day was the CM, a multi. I quickly found the bench with the information that I needed and I was soon off to find the well placed cache. Thanks for this one, Mr Beastmarsta. 👍🏻 Rather than bore you with a list of trads found, I’ll say that it was a great walk with no DNFs. The weather was chilly to start with but warmed up during the morning. The only downside of the morning was that the FORAGE series had a bonus cache. However, One of the numbers was missing and it was a crucial one so I didn’t waste any time on it. Luckily the CO sent me the missing number setting I can try for the Mystery on the next time I’m in town. Now back at the church carpark, I had a bite to eat and then strolled off for a nearby Letterbox. I’d worked out 088 - SEBC Little Cornard 1 before I set out. I walked the 300 yards down the lane and into the fields via the footpath. I had a quick find of a cache that was a little too much in the open for me. I tried to hide it the best that I could but it’s not the cache that I’d leave a TB in.🤔 Now it was back to the car to set off for the next cache. I didn’t have too far to go, just the next hamlet but I had a quick find at POST-HASTE. This was a trad on a post box so I also surveyed the box for the LBSG. Next on my horizon was another circular walk.😀 I started at GC Circular #2 and worked my way round the fields and woods until I got to #11. It was all fairly straight forward apart from DNFing nos. #9, #10 and #1.☹️ Finishing back at the car, I had one more on my list to go for - 090 - SEBC: Workhouse Green. This trad was a very quick find. However there was a only a farm here in the middle of nowhere so where was the Workhouse that gave the green it‘s name? Now I set off for home but decided to stop for a comfort break near Bures.🤫 Being silly, I checked to see if there was a cache nearby and log and behold, Buena Bures - Another Brick In The Wall became my last cache of a well packed day. 1 Multi, 1 Letterbox, 38 Traditional #6612

Today, I needed just the cache to keep a particular sequence going. We had popped over to see Kerry in Rayleigh today and I had the chance for a short walk. Well I drove down to the Rayleigh Station carpark and walked swiftly to GZ.😀 Now I knew that the SideTracked trad cache was missing and Nathan had kindly given his permission for me to replace it. Once I’d tacked the new nano in place, I was off back to Kerry’s for a cup of coffee and a slice of cake. ☕️🍰😀 1 Traditional #6572

I’d planned for a walk this weekend and as the weather yesterday was awful in the morning, today was the day. A nice dry window early on with rain starting at nine. I’d visited Where Pigs Fly and when I got back to the car, I found that the car wouldn’t start.☹️ I phoned up the AA who quickly turned and diagnosed a knackered battery.🤬 Luckily he had a spare on board and I was soon ready to roll. I only had an hour of my allotted time left so I vroomed over to the former Warley Hospital site for a quick find of the trad To-Twit To-Warley which was overlooked by a wooden sculpture. Back where in the car, it started first time.🤫 I was now after a cache that had proved elusive on a couple of occasions, Tomb Raider, Another trad was hidden in a very old graveyard near the High Street. This time I saw the cache on the approach.😀 With time running out, I was off to a Mystery cache called the common man. I’d worked out the puzzle a couple of weeks ago so I had enough time to look for it. It was so on show, I was amazed that it was still there.😀 1 Mystery, 3 Traditional #6571

I’ve had a Clacton Day list prepared for a couple of months now and decided that today was the day for the trip up to NE Essex. However, the gales last night threatened to put a stop to that. I checked the weather report this morning and the report on the roads and there didn’t seem to be many problems apart from the lingering win. I left a little bit later than normal to miss the traffic and let the winds die down. 💨 The first cache of the day was the Colchester Road Stamp trad, another one of the splendid series set by VIP Tom on pedestal letter boxes through North Essex. These caches have helped so much in my survey of Essex letterboxes for the LBSG.😉 After a very quick find, I was off to the next cache. There was a cluster of trads including the Great Clacton CM around here and they were all quick finds for me. At the last one, Roxie Remembered, I dropped off three TBs that I had been carrying around. 😀 Looking at my record of the day, it was mainly a procession of trads, quickly found, around Holland-on-Sea and Clacton in parks, car parks, streets and along the seafront. There were a couple of DNFs but the highlight of the day was the Earthcache - Life’s A Beach #55 where I learnt all about Longshore Drift.👍🏻 It seems that I’ve cut this one a bit short and I suppose I have but c’est la vie.🤔 1 Earthcache 30 Traditional #6567