I attended the Essex Meet #40 tonight in the Cricketers Arms in Danbury. There must have been forty cachers eating, drinking and chatting in the back room. I‘m a solo cacher and these events give me the opportunity to put faces to the names that I see on log sheets. After previous introductions, I feel more confident to strike up conversations with people who I now know.🤔 This time, I had chats with HelennTribe, Tractor Andy, Scarecrow Rog, Bean&Sprout, cazmockett, Doggy Walker, nathanjhunt and his mate Ollie Steadman, kareninwb and snoopyus. 1 Event #6309

After a late night at the 1st Hereford Blues Festival, I was up early enough to be in Pandy in Monmouthshire just before dawn to claim my first cache in the county. It was such a well placed cache and big enough so I left five TBs there. I turned back towards the border picking up the Llangua CM on the way. I found three trad CMs in Herefordshire, including the pictured St Mary’s at Kenderchurch, on my way back into the outskirts of the city. I filled up with petrol at a Tesco’s after finding the close-by Off Your Trolley trad. After two more trads in Hereford including the CM in Eastnor, it was time to put some miles on the clock. The next stop was Eynsham in West Oxon, where I picked up a couple of trads before getting another quick one at Cassington Village. I picked up some more trads as I picked my way through the City of Oxford. I had decided that I wanted to get home before 3 o’clock so there was to be one more port of call. This was Wheatley, still in Oxon, where I had my eye on a few CMs. Two in Wheatley and one in Holton were quickly found. So that was that, the end of the trek to Hereford and back. What I haven’t mentioned is that I’m working on a challenge cache - GC52N3H - called 360 Degrees of Great Britain. Before the start of the trek I had accomplished 112 of the degrees but now I have 132 so quite a successful journey! Still a lot of journeys to go though! 🙁 1 multi, 16 traditional #6308

My old mate, Dave Butler, invited me to a Blues Festival that he'd organised in Hereford where he now lives. The five band line-up looked pretty good so I decided to go but it meant an overnight stay. It also gave me the opportunity to get a few caches and a few new counties on the way.😀 I started early with a multi at the CM Stokenchurch which added Buckinghamshire to the county list. I added a few more before bouncing into Oxfordshire. I‘d spent a lot of time in Oxon before but this was my first geocaching visit. My qualifying cache was the CM in South Weston. I tried to do too much in these first two counties gathering up CMs so whizzed through Gloucestershire only picking up the SideTracked cache at Andoversford. To qualify for Worcestershire, I decided to stop off in Upton-upon-Severn for a couple of trads in the Cromwell Circular series. I followed this up with the CM in Little Malvern. As time was getting on, I finished off the day’s caching with a few of the Ledbury Town Trail Series with the last cache at the multi at the CM in Hampton Bishop, which I have pictured. Ledbury is in Herefordshire so I had cached in four new counties today. 5 multi, 13 traditional - 8 CMs, 1 SideTracked #6291

I have been avoiding caching in the centre of Colchester for a long time now but I decided that the time had come and started planning. As always I had too long a list but too many is better than not enough! 😉 I started off in Stanway at a mystery cache that I’d solved some time ago but DNFed. This time I had a quick find of Soldiers Code. My next stop wasn’t for a cache but for a letter box.📮 I had to survey one for the LBSG. It turned out to be a “C” type (two apertures) 1055/2004 box as stated in the Directory but at least I could add the number from the other aperture to the records. From here I picked up a couple of well placed trads including The good old days which commerates the old Layer Road Ground of Colchester United before driving over to some of the Surburban Street Art series near Blackheath. However I realised that I was passing CM Berechurch which I had DNFed a couple of months ago some I decided to tackle this one again. It’s a multi in a very small disused chapel. It’s a fantastic slice of history with monuments maybe 300 years old hidden away but always open to the public.😀 I did the quiz again and searched for ages without luck almost to the point of giving up. The GPS was all over the place so I searched a lot of places. I thought I’ll just check that ————- over there and blow me that’s where it was. I was so pleased to have found it. 😀 I then got back on track, gathering up two Suburban Street Arts caches, three trads and the St Margaret CM before heading over to the Maldon Road for the Colchester - New church trad. I’d DNFed this one a year or so ago but my Geocaching antenna has become more tuned since and I had a quick find of a cunningly placed cache. This had three more trads on my horizon before getting into Colchester town centre. They were quick finds including the well placed Not The Boat Race duo. One was situated right next to a type of letter box that I hadn’t seen before. This Anonymous box(it doesn’t have a royal cipher on it) could have been standing in this spot since 1879! 🤭 Parking in the Balkerne Gate long stay car park, I put four hours worth of money in the machine or rather tapped my credit card against it and set out on the next leg of my journey. I quickly put right the previous DNF of the Balkerne Gate View Nano. The Water Tower Multi was next and soon had the coords to hand. Now if there’s a choice of two paths to take, I‘ll invariably choose the wrong one so I had a circular route to GZ. I did, however, pick up the Roman Wall Cache on my journey before adding the very cleverly placed 3/3 multi to my tally. I had planned to get the earthcache CM at Colchester - St Martin but there was a bunch of yoofs sitting right where I wanted to look so I had to give it a miss. I did get On The Run, a trad that made me chuckle when I became aware of what the cache was about. The thought of Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane dressed as nuns stayed with me for quite a while that day.😂 I added the Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Nursery Rhyme Nano #2 multi to the list and moved on to Castle Park. I found most of the A Walk In The Park series, failing on one and just realising that I missed another. On the walk around I also found two of The Viewfinder Trail series before tackling another Earthcache - Colchester Building Stone Tour - Septarian Nodules. This one fascinated me for about 30 minutes or so. This type of cache is my favourite! 🤔 I so enjoy learning about the geology and geography of our land. I gathered all the information that I needed to answer the COs specific questions and later in the day, I got the “perfect” message back to allow me to claim the cache. I had now finished my long walk in the park but just outside was a new Virtual cache based on the War Memorial. I quickly gathered the answers and retired to a little coffee shop across the road for a well earned hot drink. I sent the answers to the CO and had an instant response from the CO before I’d had a sip of coffee! Reflecting on the day so far, I’d done well with just the one DNF but the day wasnt done yet! I found two trads on the way to the Lion Rd URC CM which I’d DNF before. This time there was no problemo! The penultimate cache was the SideTracked at Colchester Old Station. This one had had its fair share of problems. I could see that it was missing so I put a replacement down hoping the CO would approve. (No complaints so far!) I found the last cache of the day in the failing light. This was the Humpty Dumpty Nursery Rhyme Nano #1 cache. I found this very cunningly placed 3.5/1.5 multi tucked away near the old redundant church where the Colchester Art Centre is situated. The last time I went there, I saw Bob Brozman RIP. 1 Mystery, 1 Earthcache, 1 Virtual, 3 Multi, 28 Traditional #6273

For various reasons, I have 90 minutes to kill in Billericay for three days a week for 12 weeks. 🤫 So I have decided to use this time to survey letter boxes within the area and pick up the odd cache that I could get too. There‘s some surveying needed out near Stondon Massey but near to that is a trad called - How To Blatantly Furnish A Bus Pass Holder. 🤔 It still doesn’t make any sense to me and I’ve found the cache now. Now you have to clamber over a great big tree trunk, walk across a muddy field and then rummage around in trees near a ditch but the CO has deemed it a 1/1. 😡 I found the cache and not a bus pass or even a bus in sight. In fact you wouldn’t get a bus down this little lane. For the record, I found a splendid old G5R wall box in Stondon Massey .👍🏻 1 Traditional #6239

NathanJHunt has produced a novel cache pushing the boundaries even further with his latest offering - What Does A Geocache Sound Like? Without giving too much away, you have to listen to music sounding like something from a 1970s experimental rock band and come up with coordinates. 🤔 I solved the mystery and my ears have now recovered so it was off to familiar territory on the Dengie to find the cache. I got to it fairly quickly and then realised that I didn’t have a pen with me or back in the car! This is the first time that it’s happened to me. I’ve genuinely lost a pen getting to a cache and returned later to sign the log but never this. However, I decided to improvise.😬 I didn’t write my name in blood but using a twig and moss/mud, I produced quite a decent signature and then took a photo for proof. I don’t think I’ll bother with pens again.😀 1 Mystery #6238

I hadn't been into the Dagenham parklands for a while so this morning, I'm off to Daggers territory. However my first call is the trad at Hornchurch Station. It was a pity that it hadn't been published as a SideTracked but there's still time to remedy that.🤔 The cache should be rated more than its present 1/1 but I finally tracked the little sod down. I had a quick find of a very suburban trad before getting the Elm Park CM in the bag. Next stop was Dagenham’s Eastbrookend Country Park. I must have passed this park a million times going forwards and backwards to London on the Fenchurch Street line. However today’s welcome was damp and sodden underfoot so I had to make the most of it. Tearing around the park, I found another 12 trads from the Tales From The River Bank and the Country Park series before it was time to go. I will return sometime to clean up over here. However, I’m now wondering what I’ve done with all the bonus numbers that I found. 🤬 15 Traditionals #6237

After my foray into Harlow during the past couple of weeks ago, I noticed that there was a large figure of eight series right on the West Essex border. The River Lee & Stort Navigation forms the border between Hertfordshire and Essex and this long series, Roydon Wander, follows it. However, my day started at dawn in Little Parndon, north of Harlow not at a cache but at a letter box. I'd gone looking for one recently for the LBSG but the information that I'd gleaned raised another problem with their records. This time I was on the track of another missing box and I found it. The CM20 2 that nothing was known about turned out to be a rather fine G6R type "B" Wall Box. Another mystery solved but nothing to do with geocaching.😀 Whilst in Little Parndon, I found five trads including a CM and two near the splendid Pardon Mill and Lock. I was then off to Roydon to start the long walk. First, though, I found the tricky cache at Roydon Lock. As the Wander started near the station, I had to park some way off before I could get going. 🙁 The walk took about four hours and was mainly on the straight about for a sharp incline later on n the walk. When I walked down the Lee and Stort, there were many fine narrow boats, mostly moored but many were working their way up and down the Navigation. The caches were mainly 1.5/1.5 with a couple reaching 3/1.5 so caching was easy, little more than a route march. At the end of the series, I crossed over into Hertfordshire, picking up one cache - Old River Stort and back into the safety of Essex.😀 After completing the route and devouring my lunch, I drove down to Dobbs Weir and walked down a bit of the River Lee series, which actually starts in Limehouse Basin in the heart of the East End. At the cache at the Dobbs Weir Lock, I met another cacher Cere who was working at the nearby power station for the day and who was picking up a couple of caches before driving back to Gatwick.👋 I had the opportunity to look over Don't Tell Nano, a 1/4.5 trad on the side of a road bridge over the Lee. The cache page says that the cache can be seen from the tow path but I couldn't so I didn't want to risk falling into the canal if the cache was missing so Imleft it for another day. 🤔 42 Traditionals #6222

I used to have some SideTracked caches that I'd set up at stations on the old London, Tilbury & Southend railway. However, a fellow cacher wanted to get into the top ten of SideTracked caches owned so I donated mine to him plus all my ideas for some Really SideTracked caches in the area. However, that now makes those caches available for me to "find" now. Rather than have little green dots locally, I've "found" one of them and have now got a yellow smiley. It don't seem right somehow! 🤔 1 Traditional #6180

Today is the 10th anniversary of the setting up of the Church Micro series, perhaps the most popular one in the U.K. There are two souvenirs up for grabs, one for attending a CM event and one for finding a new CM cache on the day. There are two events in Essex today; one in Fordham near Colchester this evening and one this morning in Panfield to the northwest of Braintree.😀 They are both about the same distance from me, about 50 minutes by car but I could get so much more done today if I went for the morning one. However, the CO, that fiendish Infinison, has set the start time for 0545 for a 30 minute Flash and Dash. 🤔 Now I struggle to get six cachers at one of my Sunday meetings starting at noon but such is the pull of the CO that SEVEN cachers attended this one. However it worked in our favour because the CO was in a benevolent mood giving hints, nudges and winks about some of his most troublesome caches in the area! The meeting finished promptly at 0615 as Infinison and Gillywig were setting off on a CM challenge day in Surrey but planning to attend four CM events as well.👏 We all went our separate ways but I had a challenge of my own! I need a CM to get the other souvenir. Luckily the multi at CM Gosfield was only about ten minutes away so that was my next port of call. With sunrise at 0704, I was going to be working in the dark but having found the sundial bearing the necessary information, I made quick work of the sums and soon had the cache in hand. I took a photo of the church just before dawn and it didn't turn out too bad. I was home at 0730. Happy days! 🌞 1 Event, 1 Traditional, 2 Souvenirs 🤗 #6179