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29th February 2024
There was a official Leap Year Souvenir on offer today and all I had to do was to find four caches. If you are a devotee of Project-GC, you will also know that on 29/2 you obtain emblems on your badges. So today, I had a full list of stuff that I was hoping to acheive. I also needed to find 37 caches to reach 200 for the month for a personal challenge. 🤔 Here's how it went.
I had qualified at long last for the 4.5/1.5 International Power Challenge in Woolwich the other day so I claimed it today to grab the 29/2 Acheiver emblem. At 0730, I held VangeRover's Leap Year Day Flashmob in a nearby park which was attended by the local gang and once that had finished, I took off up the A130/A12/A133 to Brightlingsea where I had a large list of caches to accomplish.
On the way into town, I quickly found the Water Tower #36 Brightlingsea mystery. I headed down to the lido where I set about Welcome to Brightlingsea AdLab series. Once this was completed, I found The Lido Letterbox Adventure Labs Cache. It wasn't a bonus but a Letterbox is always welcome. Nearby was the Brightlingsea Lido trad which was soon added to the pot.
I headed towards town and started on the Many Pubs of Brightlingsea AdLab series. At one of the bases was also the RST Brightlingsea multi so I sorted that out too. In the centre of town and parked up and found the CM Brightlingsea ~ St James trad. I gathered the info for the WM Brightlingsea EC and then found the cafe where the Leap Year Breakfast 2024 Event was being held. There were a few familiar faces there including BEASTMARSTA, RachenRedd, foxscout and gillywig. I had a decent breakfast and a chat until the event ended.
I continued with the Pub AdLab series and once it was completed, the bonus. There were two more mystery caches in town that I needed to finish my visit. l luckily found Is there a Nightingale and then The Last Lane in Brightlingsea as a couple of drive bys. I then headed up to East Bergholt for the next phase of the day's plan.
As I pulled into East Bergholt, I found the VHS mystery before continuing down the lane to Flatford Mill. BEASTMARSTA was holding his BOT - Leap Day Tour 2024 - Hey Wayne event in the National Trust cafe from 1245. After coffee and a scone plus more chat, the meeting ended. The reason for attending this meeting was that I'm working on a challenge needing one event in twenty different counties. Suffolk has just brought my tally up to fifteen.
There were two AL series here - John Constables Flatford and Constable's Flatford. I found all the bases but the latter had a bonus. However the river had flooded near the final stage for this so I couldn't get near it but the owner DoggyWalker let me claim it.👏👏 There was a virtual cache at Willy Lott's Cottage - Johns' Neighbour, Willy so it would have been silly not to go for it. 😀 I discovered that one base of the Constable Country AL series was also at Flatford Mill with the rest up in East Bergholt village so I visited that one whilst I was here.
Up in the village, I completed the AL series and spotted that there was a trad on route so I picked up Welcome to East Bergholt! Considering where the nano was situated, it could have been a welcome addition to the VS series but hayho.😀 I was still after a Large size cache for the day and I had my eye on one of the Caching in Constable Country series that fitted the bill. However it turned out that there was no vehicular access, no nearby parking and it was raining so I gave it a swerve.🥴
I moved on to Dedham and parked up as the rain was easing. I quickly found the CM trad and started on the Historic Dedham AL series. There were three quite close but two out of town so I left those. I had to visit Dedham Mill and there were two trads nearby so I added the VS and the Dedham River Stour View to the tally.😀
So I had acheived that I had wanted for the day except for a Large size cache. I checked for one somewhere on the route home and came up with one in Peldon. I knew the area well as that used to be on my route to Abberton Reservoir in my twitching days so I set off for that. I signed the log sheet for the Peldon Loop #6 trad at 1509 and that was my Leap Year Day accomplished. I had added Letterbox, Multi, Earthcache, AdLab, Small, Event Host, Large, Achiever to my Project.GC badges and the official Leap Year Day Souvenir.😀
1 Earthcache 1 Letterbox 1 Multi 1 Virtual 3 Event 6 Mystery 6 Traditional 28 AdLab
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