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Well, there‘s only one thing on my mind this morning and that’s the 2.5/5 VS Hartley multI. I knew where the trailhead was and I had the final coords so let’s go. I parked up just after dawn so I could see what I was doing and walked into the search area.
Well thirty minutes later, I was still undecided which tree I had to climb.🥴 I went back to first principles and soon spotted the prize. Let’s just say, I soon had the cache in hand, as I don’t want to give anything away. 😀 Still now I had qualified for the 3/1.5 Tribulation & Topography Challenge : Multi (which I had previously signed) down in Shoreham so I can claim that one now.👍🏻 Whilst I was in the area, I popped down the road to the CM Hartley ~ St Frances de Sales multi to gather the info for another time.
The second cache of the day would be the 1/4.5 VS New Barn Mystery which I reckoned would be a tree climb. I had worked out the puzzle some time ago but would a climb at my age be beyond me? No it wasn’t!😀 It was an easy climb and retrieval so I was more than happy.
I had chosen this cache today because I could walk from here down to the Corinthians Sports Ground and carry on with a section of the Fawkham Green Gamble. It was downhill all the way to #14 but I knew that I would have to climb back out of the valley later. This was a multi which I soon worked out but it was off my route so I left it for a C&D on another day. #13 was just up the track in full view so easily spotted.
I got to #11 and the worst disaster of my Geocaching career struck. Whilst shuffling into position at the wrong tree as it turned out, I stumbled and caught my right hand on some old barbed wire. 🤬 The skin opened up on the back of my hand into a three inch gash and blood started pumping. So what do I do now? I could see that it probably wouldn’t need stitching, just butterfly plastered together. I cleaned the wound with antiseptic wipes and put the glove on that I should have been wearing anyway.🥴 I needed plasters but the supermarket wouldn’t open until ten so I carried on with the hike.
I sorted out the #11 trad and then the 1/4 #10 trad just into Redlibbets Golf Course. I carried on along the ridge collecting another trad until I had to drop down into the valley past the lake (see the photo) to get to the #7 trad. Very nearby was the clever #8 Letterbox which I soon solved.
It was time to turn back and luckily #8 was on the way. It was a slog to regain the height but the Letterbox was quickly found and that would be my last cache of the day. I had allowed myself enough time to get back to Corinthians and then trek back up the hill to the car. The cotton covering on the back of my glove was getting redder so when I got back to the car, I started to have a good clean up of the wound. Amazingly it seemed to be knitting back together again but I still needed some plasters.
1 Letterbox 1 Multi 2 Mystery 6 Traditional
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