Dick Turpin’s Ride

You remember that I was in Epping last week to do the Epping : the other churches AdLab series. I didn’t have time to collect the bonus cache so I thought that I’d come back to finish off. So I based my morning’s caches around that plus another idea that I thought might be decent.🤔

I‘ve been looking for more challenge caches to see if I qualify and spotted a group of challenges based on finding Jasmers. You have to find one cache in every month in 2001, two in 2002, three in 2003 etc., 2001 Jasmer Month Accumulator Challenge Cache GC7EK94 is one example.

I fancied having a go at the series as I only need 2/2001 and 3/2001 to complete 2001. The trouble is the nearest two to qualify are in Ireland and Denmark. However I scrubbed the series when I saw that they are all in Newcastle upon Tyne. Still, I thought that I should have a go at mopping up the golden oldies nearby.

I started the morning at first light in Theydon Bois. Now is it pronounced Boys or Bwa? I‘ve always called Bwa but what do I know? I was in town for the Theydon Bois Wander, an AdLab series starting at the Underground station, wandering around the green and ending up at the church. I was hoping to get breakfast at a bagel shop near the station but they were queuing out the door.🙁

I picked up one of the everyone likes a C&D series of trads on the way and the mystery at the Village Hall. This mystery was a jigidi and jigidis can only be mysteries, right? 🤔 There will be more on this later.

I was now after Dick Turpin’s Ride (Epping) a 2/3 trad that has been in position since March 2005. This is on the way out of Epping going into London. It‘s always good to find an old ammo box complete with the original log and I was pleased to add this old timer to this list.

I had spotted a small trio of trads, a couple of miles down the road in Upshire, a small village nestling in Epping Forest that I don’t remember visiting before. It was very pleasant tramping over the waterlogged fields but unfortunately only one cache Back To My Roots was at home. The others were MIA as I found out when reading previous logs.🥴

Now was the time to go for the AdLabs bonus that I was telling you about. So I clicked on the list to check the hint and FFS 🤬🤬 the cache had been disabled yesterday. Well, that just about put the tin hat on things but as I was soon to find out, the game isn’t over until the fat lady sings.🤔

I was a bit dissolutioned driving down to the next cache but I needed a Little Bridge series cache for some reason so went to find Fee’s Cache. This was over the muddy fields and far away in the woods above Epping but I trekked through the cloying mud to the bridge. Previous logs showed that the coords were out, the hint misleading but I stuck to the task. I wandered around for about 20 minutes and eventually found the well hidden cache stuck under my nose.

I needed cheering up so parked up in Epping High Street and bought my usual brunch in Cafe Nero. Whilst feeding my face with a Butcher’s Sausage bap, I spotted a Blue Badge that I hadn’t seen before. Now I always thought Winnie was the long time MP for Woodford but I now know that the Epping constituency was subsumed into Woodford in 1945. So he served the good (and bad🤔) people of Epping from 1924 until 1965.

Feeling better, I decided to head for home by driving in completely the wrong direction up the couple of miles to Epping Upland, a place that I had definitely not  been before.

I was after the CM multi so parked the car in the church car park. I spent a few minutes watching a couple hedge laying. This is an ancient art using hedges to form stock proof fencing. I had actually done a course on this about 15 years ago on an Essex nature reserve turning neglected hedging into a healthy hedge. It’s deeply therapeutic and I quietly envied them. I still have my Kentish bill hook or brishing hook as they call it down there.

Now the multi, so what am I looking for to get the info to “magic up” the coords. Is it a flag stone or gravestone, a church notice, something to do with the architecture? So I walked over to the posted coordinates and open the cache page. WTF, It’s a f.....g 190 piece jigidi.🤬🤬🤬 I revert to my original question Me Lud, surely a jigidi jigsaw puzzle has got to be a mystery or puzzle cache, hasn’t it? It can’t be a ‘king multI.🥴 Another lesson learnt.

So that’s it I’ve had enough. I pick up another everyone loves a C&D trad just down the road and then the RST North Weald trad on the way home. I’m going home to lick my wounds.😀

1 Mystery 5 AdLabs 6 Traditional

#11842

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