Late For The Mega

Wednesday 9th August 2023

I was up ultra early this morning and reached my first target at 0640. I parked up just off of J12 of the M1 and quickly claimed the 4/1.5 A Full English (Challenge Cache). It was an easy find but all you have to do is find one cache in every English county to qualify.😀 Nearby but quite a challenge to reach was the Motorway Madness M1 J12 (Challenge Cache). For this one you have to find twelve MM caches on different motorways. It turned out that I only had eleven.🥴

I drove north up to Milton Malsor in Northants as I was after another challenge before heading south. I had a problem as I couldn't find the road to the 366 Challenge. I decided to park up in the village and hike the mile or so to the search area. There were a couple of easy trads on the way but I was delayed because inexperienced cachers hadn't put everything back as found.🥴 I had to spend time tidying things up for the next cachers. I reached the 5/1.5 mystery but it took about thirty minutes to locate the "at bottom of post - easy find" cache.🤬 It was probably buried about six inches down but at least I found it.😀

I worked my way back to the main road and walked back to the village picking up a couple of trads on the way. There was an easy CM trad near where I had parked the car. After I had found that, I drove down to the village hall to sort out the multi associated with it. 

I was heading off to Blisworth but I stopped on the way for the RST ~ Blisworth (1830s) multi. This was an important cache as it was SideTracked Week and I could claim a special souvenir for finding a ST cache. I parked alongside the magnificent railway bridge built by the renowned "Father of Railways" George Stephenson. Once I had found the cache, I took off down the road. Whilst I was walking around the village picking up a couple of bases of the Blisworth Ramble AL series, I added the CM trad to the pot.

I drove about five miles down the road into Bucks to the village of Hanslope. My first call was the VHs mystery. I had solved the jigsaw in anticipation of the visit and the cache was an easy find. I had noticed a small shop/cafe on my way through so I popped back there for brunch. After a bacon sarnie and coffee, I walked down to the splendid church for the CM and took a while to work out all stages of the multi but it was worth it. I picked up the VS trad on the way out of the village.

I had hoped to add the RST ~ Castlethorpe trad to the tally but I knew it would be difficult. Unfortunately I dipped out here but made do with the nearby CM trad.😀 As I passed over the Grand Union Canal at the Navigation pub, I remembered that I had found a cache here that had Violet in the title. I needed that for a Rainbow challenge cache. Arriving in Cosgrove, I quickly found the CM and VS trads.

Moving on, I found the trad at CM ~ Old Wolverton (Holy Trinity) and one of the bases of the Wolverton History AL series. I headed down to the 'Lock Out Below"' trad. I was amazed to find a gem of industrial architecture at the old Wolverton Lock. I walked back over the fields to the church and picked up the Holy Trinity Panoramic View trad on the way back to the car.

I was actually heading for MK now but detoured slightly to Bradwell for the RST trad.🤔 The main prize for today was the MK's "Friendly" Cows virtual. I had heard about the cows over the years but never actually seen them "in the flesh". I did the necessary and then thought of winding up for the day as I still had to negotiate the traffic on the way home.

I drove to Campbell Park where parking seemed to be as rare as "hens teeth" and quickly found the Campbell Park Meadow letterbox. For good measure, I found one more cache in the park and that was the My Favourite Challenge Cache - Silver, just to end on a high note.🤣

NB. I attended the SideTracked event at Wickford Station the next night to add another unofficial souvenir to my profile page.

1 Event 1 Letterbox 1 Virtual 3 Mystery 4 AdLab 4 Multi 15 Traditional

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