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Thursday 2nd June 2023
You may remember that last week the purpose for visiting Wimbledon was the series of Mystery and Letterbox caches on the Common. Well, for one reason or another I only got to the fringes to do a couple of the Pop Quiz AL series. This week, I am coming in from the north and hopefully will fulfil my plan.🤔
I was up early and hit Fenchurch just after 0630. I jumped the District tube to Putney Bridge. I planned to do a couple here and then head down to the Common on the 93 bus. I logged the Old Putney Bridge trad at 0711 and then followed up with the CM Fulham - All Saints multi. I crossed the river on the pedestrian footway adjacent to the railway bridge and picked up the ST Putney Bridge trad at the bottom of the stairs.😀
I worked my way through the back streets near the river until I reached the 2/2.5 Slippery Slope trad. When I arrived, I was thankful that the tide was out otherwise it could have been tricky.🥴 I carried on the river until I reached the CM St Mary multi and made a complete meal of this one. It took ages to find the info source and I must have failed the checker test about ten times. Once I had found my error, I quickly found the well hidden cache at the final stage. I was very surprised at the size of the Putney High Street trad considering where the CO had placed it.
It was time for buses so I caught a 93 down to Tibbet's Corner. I had a look at the 2/3.5 here but the trad lived up to its T rating and I didn't have a ladder in my geobag so I moved on to the Common. I think that the first one that I found in the Wombles series of mysteries was Orin Wandle. I immediately removed myself from the park, crossing under the Kingston Road to look for the Oscar's Treasure trad, and then returned back into the park to continue the search for Wombles. I soon found an unexpected monument to the Tangier Regiment of Foot, which was first paraded here in 1661.
The names of the Wombles tumbled easily ; Frau Heidelberg, Bermondsey, Hoboken etc., until I hit a wall at Old One-eyed Jamaica.🥴 Ole Jamakey didn't want to be found and I didn't want not to find it so we tussled for about thirty minutes til he beat me.🤔 I continued picking off the Wombles but still had time to find the 2003 vintage Womble's Walk trad. I reached Shansi and knew that this was missing so sent a photo off to the CO just to check that I was in the right place.🤔 I was close to the Windmill Tea Rooms so I stopped off for lunch which consisted of a coffee and a lump of delicious bread pudding.
Whilst I was nibbling at the bread pud, I suddenly realised that I had ignored a vital piece of information contained in these letterbox caches.🥴 I had a look at the windmill, not realising that it was here in 1908 that Lord, Robert Baden-Powell had written part of "Scouting for Boys" which proved to be the template for the worldwide Scouting movement. There was a base for the Wimbledon Common, Home of the Wombles AL series and I soon sorted this one.
Now armed with the vital piece of info, I took off to do battle with Ole Jamakey. He almost beat me but with the last look I found him in a place that I had passed a dozen times.🤔😀 I then visited the bases of four of The Wombles Pop Quiz AL series, interspersed with more of the Wombles letterbox caches. All this zigzagging across the Common was making me tired and time was getting on. So I settled for a little trio of caches to finish off the day.
I battled through the bracken to find the Speyer and Heilbronn mystery and the followed the compass over to the Culvain trad. This one was guarded by a rock with a ladybird painted on it.🤔 Next up was the 3.5/1.5 Caesar's Well (not any more) mystery and by now I was really flagging.🙁 On checking the map, I could see that I was only 1.2Km from the bus stop.🥴 Luckily when I arrived, a 93 bus arrived almost immediately to take me back to Putney Bridge station.😀 Whilst waiting on the platform, I spotted a splendid WW2 relic.
2 Multi 4 Mystery 9 Traditional 10 Letterbox 21 AdLab
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