A Large Anniversary

You know me and my challenges.🥴 I need to find five more caches on the anniversary of their publication to qualify for a 4.5/3 cache that I signed a few weeks ago. I’m also keen to fill up some of the cache type D/T grids again for challenges. I find it very interesting and it adds a bit of spice and variety to a day’s or even a morning’s caching. I only need nine or so D/Ts to fill half of my Large grid.

So I planned my day out around three anniversary caches and filling some gaps in my Large D/T grid. Part of the trickery of the Anniversary cache is that you can include one date in the qualification so I can’t get five caches today published on the same day. However I had found the three that fitted the criteria.

So as dawn broke, I parked up in Old Warden, just outside Biggleswade in Bedfordshire for the Parish Perimeter - Old Warden: Willow Tree Farm trad.One down and two to go.😀 I drove a mile or so into the town and parked up in the carpark of a large supermarket to start off the Biggleswade: Set In Stone AdLab series. The town is particularly rich in caches so I had a bit of a field day.

On the way Ito the centre of town, I picked up two CMs, a trad and a multi as well as a trad Milestone cache. I parked up and continued on the AdLab trail. I interspersed these with a trad ST, two more CMs, a multi and an unknown. I ended up at the WM multi. The memorial was the first that I had seen that had mentioned the fallen from the Malaya campaign.

I haven’t mentioned that today is the anniversary of the start of the War Memorial series so by finding this WM, I can now put the special souvenir in my Geocaching profile.

Whilst I was finishing off the AdLab series, I saw a chap wearing a Doctor Feelgood tee-shirt. I just had to say - “great shirt”. I now had to work out the coords for the AdLab bonus so I headed back to the car taking in an Off Yer Trolley trad on the way. The final stage of the bonus was about a mile away so I drove down there and made,a quick find of this well hidden cache. I felt safe about leaving a TB there.

I wasn’t too far from the VHs multi and there was a nice independent coffee shop nearby where I worked out the coords and had a coffee and a sausage sandwich. There was a LB trad not too far away but getting to it was a nightmare. Many of the roads were one way, no entry, parking permit only. I eventually found somewhere but it cost me about thirty minutes in time to sort and I still had a mile or so walking to get to the cache.I took in one of the local Green Wheel series of trads on the way through.

I now set off south meanderings through the Bedfordshire villages picking up series caches. I fleetingly passed through Broom, Langford, Arlesey, Norton and into Letchworth. When ever I hear the name Arlesey, I think of Scott Houghton, the Southend United midfielder who became the manager of Arlesey Town FC. I understand that he is now a Cambridgeshire policeman.

Whilst I was trying to solve the multi at the Village Hall, a lady did come out and ask if she could help. I explained about our hobby but she wasn‘t too interested. After finding the VH, I drove down to the magnificent WM shown in the photo but sadly the cache was missing.

I had a list of caches to get in Letchworth but I was running out of time and I still had some “important“ caches to find. I DNFed a CM multi but there were three possible sources of info so I tried one and gave up. I gathered the info for a reverse Wherigo and took a few readings for another time and decided to move.

However as I was heading out of town, I saw a sign saying that the first roundabout in the U.K. was here and I knew that there was a Virtual so I stopped. I wandered round and round the roundabout. I even stood in the roundabout but still couldn’t see the information source so I gave up. Letchworth proved not to be a happy hunting ground.🥴

I moseyed south and picked up some of my target caches around Welwyn. First up was the Finder Felix III trad which was published on 7/1/2019 and I followed this up with the 4/3.5 Matilda’s Secret Library. This was a Large trad.        

I‘m trying to remember why I went for the 3.5/2.5 Stickman trad but I can’t.🤔 I drove down into Essendon, a place that I had not visited before. The target here was I LIKE BIG ONE’S, which was as you’ve guessed a Large trad. This had a 1/2.5 D/T rating which I needed.

Now it was time to head for home but about three miles from wher I live was the aptly named          On My Way Home : EIIR.😀 This was an anniversary cache and the last one of the day. I had had a great day out even though Letchworth was a bit of a let down.🙁

4 Mystery 5 AdLab 7 Multi 18 Traditional

#12819

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