Learn More
I'm spending a lot of time in this place, I should get a season ticket. I think I found 33 caches here last week with Frantica and I got as many this week when I came to mop up a few more. I started off early at the missing VS in Harwich and I proved again that it had gone. The CO agrees and has replaced it nearby now.
So I worked my way around the streets picking them off, failing on a couple but having another look at HighStreet trying to establish a plan of action. Working my way done through Dovercourt, replacing a missing cache and some sodden logs, I got down into Little Oakley, failing at the VS but find a missing trad at Up The Acorns before I struck off across the fields for a couple in the middle of nowhere.
As I approached the final one in this stretch, A Place For Orville, I noted that it was a 3.5/4! Orville, bird, dummy, it's gonna be a climb. There it was, a bird box at the top of a tree and no way to get up the first 7 feet to a branch. But I improvised and was soon lifting the lid of the cache, maybe 20 feet off the ground!
Back at the car, I looked at my plan of action for the day to find the next one was called What, Not Again??? which was a 3.5/4 magnetic trad with a hint as sea level? At GZ, there was a couple of crash barriers near a river bridge, mmm magnetic. Then I noted that in a previous log someone had fallen in the water so it was time to don the wellington boots. Getting down to the river, I could see a large circular corrugated iron tunnel carrying the water under the bridge. So I'm looking for something magnetic! It was time to get in the river which wasn't much higher than my ankles and sweep the tunnel for the cache. I missed it on the first run but got it on the way back.
I haven't mentioned what the highlight of the day was going to be. I had planned to be at The Sunken Barge at low tide cos at high tide, it lives up to its name. I picked up a few trads en route including Bradfield Shoreline, another tide dependent cache and got to my destination exactly at the right time. I gingerly threaded my way along the seaweed covered hulk until I got to the Titanic bit and managed to get the log out of the tiny nano in the howling wind. Carefully replacing my steps, I was back on "dry" land and striding back to the car.
For my next cache, I walked out on part of the Essex Way on the Bradfield coastline, finding and dipping some more caches until I decided that it was time to head for home. But not before I picked up two more trads and finally a multi at Wix CM. Always good to end on a CM or a ST😉
So it was 33 caches on the day, a CM, a multi, loads of trads and some high D/Ts but no new Jasmers unfortunately. However I was more than pleased with the day!