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My Geocaching week used to be to go out on one weekend morning and be back for ten plus a whole day out on one other day of the week. As I’ve been getting back into the swing of things, I’ve only been out until ten during the week. Now I’m starting to build things up. I just haven’t got the stamina to go out walking all day so I’m going to keep adding an hour a day to the week day trip. So today, I will be back home for eleven.
I was over the Dartford crossing before six making my way down to Swanley to do some more of the NHS series. Once I’m back to all day trips, I will be going further afield but for now, Kent is great for short bursts. I parked up near Swanley Station in the dark but as the first few trads were down footpaths lit by lamp standards, I knew that I wouldn’t have much trouble and I didn’t.
I started at #20 and picked up two trads and a mystery before I parked the car in a safe place to tackle a fair sized circular route. I collected #23 : Doctors and set off for a long walk. I had 22 caches on my list with the scope for more if I had enough time.
I walked through the underpass of the A20, picked up another trad and then headed north towards Hockenden. There were a couple of tricky trads at #28, a 2.5/3 and #29, a 3/3.5 but I soon got the better of them. When I got into Hockenden, I made an error by continuing along the route of the series. I had intended turning into the village but once I’d realised my mistake, I thought “sod it, I’ve got enough time, let’s go.”
I had continued on a footpath going from #32 up to #43 in St Paul’s Cray. These were all trads except for one multi. However, you remember last week when I found a cache attached to a heart and I said that there weren’t many body parts left that I hadn’t found, well I can add one more to the list. At #35 : Neurosurgeon, the cache was attached to a brain and at #36, the cache was attached to a hand. I’d seen a hand before though.😀
Once I had got to the end of the line, I swung right through Ruxley Park Golf Course, picking up more trads and a mystery until I reached the A20 again. There was a silly moment when one cache involved a tree climb so I went up a few yards until I spotted the cache. This is great, still climbing trees at 72 but when I got down, I could have probably reached the cache from the ground.🥴
I crossed over the A20 on a footbridge and continued along a narrow fenced footpath collecting trads until I reached the Maidstone Road. I picked up more before turning off onto the Old Maidstone Road. I could see a farm cafe across the road and thought of a bacon sandwich and coffee. It was made all the worse when I remembered that I had stowed my wallet in the car.🥴
The next cache down the Old Maidstone Road was the trad #54 : Prosthetics and was expecting to find the cache hanging off a false leg but it wasn’t to be. I turned off onto a dusty track that would take me back into Hockenden. I collected more trads on route until I reached Hockenden Lane. I added two mysteries to the tally before diverting down Trunks Lane. This unmade road would pass some more trads of the series and take me up to another footbridge over the A20.
Unfortunately this was fenced off but I didn’t have time to detour so I overcame the obstacles and crossed the bridge. I could see that something had crunched into the structure but it must have been at least fifty foot high.
I had one more cache to get, the mystery #62 : Radiology Nurses. Now these ladies had spent a lot of time hiding this one. It took me about 20 minutes to find this one and was on the point of recording the day’s only DNF when I spotted it. I had to hotfoot it back to the car which reminds me that I bought my first new CD in a long time on Tuesday - Peter Green’s Hot Foot Powder which comprised of covers of the legendary Robert Johnson’s recordings.
Just to make sure that I was going in the right direction, I checked where the car was on google maps and realised that either the car had been stolen or the map was wrong. So I followed my excellent sense of direction by following part of the NHS series that I’d found earlier and am pleased to report that google maps was wrong.
1 Multi 5 Mystery 35 Traditional
#11273