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So it’s worked out that I’m going over to South East Londonish for two days on the trot. I am again parking up at Birkbeck Station and getting buses down to the area around Crystal Palace FC and then heading north to the Lewisham area to gather what I can. Here’s how things went.
I parked up near Birkbeck Station and caught the 354 up the hill to Anerley. I had hoped to get the 80 down to Norwood Junction but I had seen a few trads on the way so I walked up to Tree Treasure and struggled to find a way into the woods. I eventually found a path and luckily walked downhill to a well hidden cache.
I continued down to the main road and walked down to CM Upper Norwood. There were a number of hint items here but I soon struck lucky. South Norwood Lake was the next on the list and it had had a few DNFs recently. I immediately spotted the cache laying on the ground and after carrying out the paperwork, replaced things as they should be.
I waited a couple of minutes for the 80 bus which took me down to Norwood Junction. I gathered the ST here and set off towards Selhurst Park, the ground of Crystal Palace FC. There was a series of trad caches celebrating the Glaziers winning promotion sometime.
I quickly found Glad All Over #1 and #2 as well as Goal! - Crystal Palace before being drawn towards the CM South Norwood ~ St Alban multi. This turned out to be a mistake because I covered a lot of this ground a bit later. From the final stage, I dropped down to pick #3 and #4 of the Glad All Over series. Did you know that the Dave Clark Five, who had a number one with Glad All Over, had a residency at the Basildon Locarno just before their pop career took off?
I continued south to pick up ST Selhurst trad, noting that the time was 0828. Now was the time to head north up to the CM Thornton Heath trad. It was here that I realised that I had done a wrong’un earlier as I passed the final stage of the St Alban multi.🥴
It was a bit of a slog walking up to Grangewood Park but I was looking forward to the reward of another three trads. 2nd chance stump was an easy find but I couldn’t see the elusive a cache in the bush, for love nor money. In the end I gave up and went up to the head of the park for the. 3/1.5 Brick in the wall. Boy, was this well hidden but I finally spotted it.
I now needed to get up to Crystal Palace but had to walk a fair way to find a bus stop. However I was able to jump a bus and use my bus pass for a freebie. I had breakfast in a French style cafe opposite the Bus Stand whilst working out my next plan of action.
After a splendid breakfast roll and I coffee, I caught the 22 bus up to Lewisham. It was really bustling here and I did explore getting out to Lee but decided against that and headed for the centre of town. It seemed to be market day and right in the middle of the market was a trad, the 3/1 The small Ben. This was a very quick find despite the presence of so many people and I was glad to move away to the quieter DLR Station for the 3/1 trad. It had the same MO as Ben so I had another quick find.
I walked down to the boundary of Lewisham and Ladywell for the easy Welcome to Ladywell trad and then cut back into town towards a small, seemingly forgotten park. In its day, Silverdale Sculpture Park was quite a thing. Straddling the Ravensbourne River, it was the host to a number of sculptures that have all been removed either legally or illegally. 🤔 Now it seems to be a place that you wouldn’t want to visit in the dark.
However there were two trads in there and this daredevil, intrepid explorer was going in. That was when I could find the entrance. SSP - Funny Corner #1 was an easy find for an experienced cache but #2 was a right bastardo (in spanish). It was seemingly right in the corner near the railway bridge and I now realised that it had a string of DNFs to its name. This was helped by a photo from over the other side of the river that was supposed to be helpful.🤔 I travelled back and forth across the river for about thirty minutes but eventually found this very well and I mean very, very well hidden cache near the spot where the photographer was standing.🤬🤬
It was now 1222 and I had wasted a lot of time here. I jumped a bus a few stops down into Ladywell and immediately dipped out at ST Ladywell. It was obviously missing and it turned out that this one had a habit of going MIA and has now been archived. I walked up into Hilly Fields hoping to have more luck at a small series of trads here. However I couldn’t find The Wood - Hilly Fields and noted that the hint actually said watch out for the used toilet paper 🥴 and actually seeing that but no cache, I decided that the area was less than salubrious as my old dad would have said and cut and run, watching where I stepped, of course.
I had quite a walk down to Ladywell Cemetery for the WM multi. The cemetery only had one entrance which added a load more steps to my Fitbit. I worked out the multi and checked out some of the memorials. I was staggered by the number of civilians killed by Zeppelin and Gotha bombing raids here during WW1. I was sort of hoping that one of the Gothas was the one that was shot down in Rochford. This one was the subject of a long archived trad.
The final stage took me out of the cemetery and I found another trad, GCB & CPBC (whatever that meant🤔) on the way. It was short distance down to Water Tower 2 Ladywell and I was now in a dilemma. It was 1328 and I had some distance to get back to the car. I needed to get down to Catford Bridge Station so I could either hunt around for a bus stop or walk through Ladywell Fields to get there. I decided to walk. I passed by the Ladywell Fields multi but the final stage was well out of my way.
I arrived at the station and quickly found the ST trad. I checked out the bus stops and found a 75 bus would get me down to Penge where a 358 bus would take me down to Birkbeck Station - RESULT.😀 To top it all, a 75 came along.😀😀
The connections were flawless and I arrived back at the car with time to kill. So not being a time waster, I headed over to Chislehurst where I had been yesterday. I had gathered some info for the very cunning WM multi. Luckily I managed to work out the coords and had a quick find of the well hidden cache in the woods. I was back on track time-wise and it was time for home
3 Multi 21 Traditional
#15874