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Today, I‘m off to do the Heal The World GeoArt Series. The art is based on the Ying and Yang symbol and the series starts and finishes in Hadstock, in Essex, just below the Cambs border. There are 78 Mystery caches in the series, half jigsaw and half maths on a theme of Save the World.
I am only doing 77 today as I have already found #78.🤔 This is a 4/1 cache and I needed this D/T for a challenge cache back in March so the final has fallen.
I was a bit late getting to the starting point due to traffic on the M25 but as I looked the first cache, I noted the time as 0800. Another cacher had completed the series without deviation a few days earlier in eight hours so I knew that it was going to be a challenging day. The forecast was going to be dry until early evening so I got on with the task.
It was a bit damp underfoot due to all the rain that we had been having and many fields had been churned into thick mud by grazing cattle. However most of the footpaths were ok but some especially those with a bit of a downward slope were a bit slidy.🥴
There’s not much to report when doing a series, it’s find the cache and do the admin. I was making good time and had found 13 caches in the first hour. A couple of hours later, I was passed by a dog walker, who asked me what I was doing. Once I’d explained it all she took the website address as she wanted to give it a go. I left Gillian and her dog, Isla and carried on. However, Isla kept up with me to the next cache and sniffed all around the search area to check it out.
In the early afternoon, I was half way down a bank near Ashdon, when a rambler, well he was hardly rambling, he was going at a rate of knots, said “you must be a geocacher.” I asked if he was and he said that his children were and he goes out with them. They were the Aldensix.
He roared off up the road and I followed, picking up caches as I walked up the track. Suddenly, I felt the pitter, patter of rain drops. This wasn’t forecast so early and neither was the bloody rainstorm that followed. ⛈ I struggled to type anything into the iPhone due to the wet screen so I just put a time so I could write the log later.
I was walking down the road into Hadstock and the road was flooding. Some passing motorists didn’t seem to care if there was a pedestrian near puddles so I had to be wary. I was attempting to type a time at a cache near a flooded stream when I saw a motorist approaching at speed. I realised that I was going to get more soaked than I already was, so I walked down the middle of the road until he came to a stop. I warned him of the flooded road and to his credit, he did ask if I wanted a lift somewhere.😀
I carried on until I had to turn off the road and I carried on along a straight farm track picking up caches “at telegraph pole, under brick” for a couple of miles until I got to the outskirts of Hadstock. There was one trad cache on route and I quickly found the 2/2 pine cone key safe before finding #77 at 1430. Now I’m not one for setting records but that was a decent time.👏
Back at the car, I dried myself off, changed boots and socks and put a picnic blanket over the car seat as my trousers (and pants!) were wringing. I decided that the VH - Abington Institute trad on the way back to the A11 would be a fitting end to the day.😀
2 Traditional 77 Mystery
#11455