Learn More
I wasn’t sure to go for my caching day this week but then I got a call from the LBSG to do some post box surveying around Braintree. I started the day in Black Notley and quickly found the very well hidden - The Cache Of Snaky Lane and the recently DNFed VS.
My next stop was Braintree Town Centre and I had caches and boxes to find. I parked up in Sainsbury’s car park and found that I could get 30 mins parking for free.😀 Just enough time to survey three boxes and find two of Infinson’s caches that I’d failed to find before. This time, the very cleverly hidden Trolley Dash #1 and #2 were quick finds.
On my way out of town, I had hoped to stop and look at an old post box that had formerly been used exclusively for Airmail. However the traffic was so heavy, I could find anywhere to stop so I left that for another day. On the outskirts of town, I found Rockman, a trad that I failed to find before. Then in open country on the way to Church End, I found Rory’s Brother and Friend, two well hidden caches with very muddy fields in between them.🤬
In Church End, I joined the list of failures at VS Shalford but worked out the coords for the Rest A While In Shalford multi. This was based on benches around the cricket field and the final for the final was inspired.👍🏻 As it had started to rain, I bought a takeaway coffee in the P.O. across the road and drank it in the car until the deluge ceased.
My next port of call was Wethersfield. I had only been here once before when I was researching Thomas Raven’s Wethersfield Brewery. This enterprise ceased brewing in 1901 but the Malt House now houses the Village Hall. Now I was after some caches thatbImhad been looking at for quite a while. I didn’t expect to have much luck at the K6 - Wethersfield, the No TV Soap Here and the multi CM. 🤔
As much as I tried, I couldn’t find the magnetic cache inside the K6 phone box but I knew that it wasn’t a 1/5 for nothing. The No TV multi depended on finding clues around the village green to build the coords but I couldn’t find three of them. However, I did find the source info for the CM but took it home to work out the coords for my next visit.😀
On my way out of town, I had a quick find of the very cunningly place FIRE! FIRE! situated next to the on-call Fire Station. After a shport drive, I was parking up in Finchingfield. Before I got booted up for my next adventure, I quickly found the well hidden “most photographed village” cache. Luckily I didn’t drop it into the water.
I now set out on an Infinson series of 16 caches inspired by the Cluedo board game. There was also a bonus cache to be solved by collected info from each cache so I would have to be alert knowing the CO as I do.🤔 The series got off to a bad start as The Garage was now behind HEDRA fencing and inaccessible. Then from nowhere, a very strong wind appeared and carried on blustering for about 90 minutes. I had to take great care to stop the cards blowing away; that really would have put the tin hat on things.
I worked my way around the circuit trying to resolve the puzzle. I had Cluedo cards, playing cards, cards with D=6 and other bits of info to contend with. To be honest, I still don’t know how to get the bonus coords. Perhaps it’s all a nonsense and the listed coords are the actual coords. Now theres a thought.🤫
I touched on the outskirts of Great Bardfield and headed north on a footpath. On the way to The Desk, I was very pleased to encounter Great Bardfield water mill. Straddling the River Pant, this corn mill turns out to be very important and maybe the first in the country to have used an oil engine to drive the mill. However the engine has been removed and all the extant machinery is capable of being renovated to become a functioning mill again. The photo shows some of the machiner.
Parts of the track were very muddy and the wind persevered but I battled the elements as a trouper such as myself would.🤭 I had a huge mishap at The Cupboard when I needed to walk in a stream. One of my wellies had split at the back and was taking on water. The end of the trail was in sight and at the final cache - The Kitchen, I found that I had an audience.
There were a couple of tree surgeons working here. I quickly found the cache which was in full view (from the right angle). One of the tree surgeons asked if this was Geocaching so we had a chat about that. They had looked in the cache a couple of days ago to see what it was and had replaced it.
They were tidying up after three Black Poplar trees had been felled to give the nearby householder a better satellite signal.😢 They had refused to do the felling but somehow were involved in the tidying up. Anyway we parted company and I walked back to the car via the E2R Wallbox at the P.O.
A great day caching and according to my Health App, I did 21,890 Steps, 17 km walked and 39 flights of floors climbed.😀
1 Multi, 24 Traditional
#6841