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My family would rather that I tramped around the busy London streets in the cold weather geocaching than wander around some isolated woodland. I can see their point so I’m taking the opportunity to look for some Greater London and City of London caches for yet another challenge cache that I’m working on.
The plan was to start in the City, work my way east and up Spitalfields collecting some more of the Sherlock and Jack the Ripper series. I’d then go down to the Monument to pick up some ECs and then go for a promenade along the Thames up to the Millennium Bridge. From there, it would be a short hop into St Paul’s for some more ECs and then finish off walking down Poultry for some more. Here how it all went.
I started off the day with a quick find at the Gherkin trad and took the short walk down to the Gilt of Cain Earthcache. Crossing Fenchurch Street to the Dunstan’s Delight multi, I bumped into BombNaviguesser aka John from Virginia USA there. After a chat we sorted out the coords and found the cache. After another chat we went our different ways.😀
I moved on to Tower Hill for the Liberty multi and then down to the Tower for the Catastrophe Part One virtual. I now set off on the Ripper Trail. I visited the sites of the Elizabeth Stride, Martha Tabram, Annie Chapman and Mary Jane Kelly murders. I then found the first of the Sherlock series. If Mr Holmes had not been fictional, he would probably have found the Ripper in an afternoon. However I then realised that I had forgotten about poor Mary Ann Nichols over in Whitechapel. This was a 15 minute walk away but had to be done.🙁
Once I had found the info that Mary was guarding, I retired to a nearby cafe for brunch. I tried crunching the numbers for the bonus but no joy. It turned out that there were two sources of Huguenot information that fitted the requirements at the place of Annie’s demise but I had found the wrong one.
I needed to get over to the Monument for the next stage of my journey so decided to take the tube. As I entered Whitechapel tube, I spotted Vanguard3 aka Bob from Rayleigh, Essex (not North Carolina). Unfortunately he was visiting his wife who had been in the London Hospital for the past few weeks.
Alighting in Fish Hill Street, outside the Monument, I bought the cheap rate ticket and set off to the top to gain answers for the Catastrophe Part 2 virtual. These seventy year old legs made it to the summit where I gathered the necessary info. I had taken the pedestrian route up so I had to go down and was now “resting“ trying to gather enough information on fossils in Portland Stone to claim the Monument EC.🤔
After looking closely at the Look Closely EC in King William Street, I got down to the riverside walk. I worked my way west finding more trads of the From a Swan to a Canary series, finishing with the Boozy Swan multi on my way to St Paul’s.
Unfortunately as I got to the steps of the Cathedral, further entrance was denied due to an event that was happening later. This gave me a chance to spend some more time here so the virtual will have to wait for another time. I sorted out the information for the St Paul’s Teeth and the Limestone or Marble ECs. I then studied the front of the Cathedral to gather what I needed for the Church Micro and retired to a nearby cafe for coffee and cake whilst sorting out some coords for the multi.
Once I had found the cache, I walked up to St Paul’s tube for the easily spotted Clock Tower mystery and then on towards Holborn for the St Sepulchre without EC. I had passed this place thousands of times during my working career but only now understood the significance of the place. I then set off on a path down towards Poultry picking up the Hidden “footprint” and the Postmodern ECs. So this was to be the end of my day’s geocaching journey. My feet hurt.😂
2 Virtual 5 Traditional 5 Multi 6 Mystery 8 Earthcache
#8537