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I was in bed by ten and up at six. I was soon up and out on the next phase of my Mega journey. I crossed the road to pick up the Tesco Magnet trad at 0626 and then cut back into town to have a try at the Wotocheshede Town History AdLab series. I managed six out of the ten bases and I also found three CMs on the route.
I headed north west to the Dapper Old Grey trad hidden outside the front door of the pub of the same name. Whilst I was searching, another cacher, snakes 77, 👋 pulled up on his bike and showed me where the cache was. You’d never go for this during pub hours.🥴
Just up the road was the Uttoxeter Artwork - Virtual Reward cache. I didn’t realise up until that point that there were five bases around town, some of which I had passed earlier.🥴 I would have to save these until later. I continued north west up the A518 for the Uttoxeter “Mini” TB Hotel. Snake 77 was here with cache in hand which he passed to me and then we headed off in different directions.
I was after the getting the dove over the Dove Bridge to Doveridge Wherigo. This one led me on a route march but at least it gave me a traffic free passage over the busy A50 and the River Dove. Unfortunately the meadow was wet so I got wet shoes but I felt elation on getting the dove home to its nest. On the way back, I visited the old Dove Bridge and soon found the trad there. Now all I had to do was to tramp the couple of miles back into town.🙁
I passed the Dapper Old Grey and Tesco’s to the next stage of the virtual which was opposite my hotel and then gathered the rest of info to find the final stage. I wish that I had read this one earlier as I would have saved a lot of time. I was eating my full English at nine o’clock on the dot as arranged though.
I departed the hotel just before ten and drove down to the racecourse which was the venue of the Mega. I was waiting to pay my fiver to get in and Julie, one half of BTL101092 clocked me and came over to say hello. I paid up and entered and immediately started on one of the AdLab series commissioned for the day. The ten bases were closely contained so quickly achieved.
I made a beeline for the market place and spotted the South East Mega 2024 stand and ordered one of the eye catching tee shirts. I wandered around the venue looking for familiar faces but I only spotted kareninwb and her Norfolk crew. I decided that I would get off down the road as I still had more caches to find on the way home.
The main target of the day was The Pillars, a 4/3.5 trad which would need special equipment. I parked next to Marston Bridge next to the River Dove above Rolleston-on-Dove. I walked about a half mile down to the search area, donned my waders and got into the river. The photo shows three pillars on the other bank but it was a mirror image over this side. There was no way of getting to the cache without a wade. So I had completed my 490 DT grid and I was well chuffed.
I drove down into Rolleston. I found the Lest We Forget trad and the VS multi and would have liked to get some of the FYI multis here but I just didn’t have the time. I hit the road and headed off to the other side of Leicester to a place called Thurnby. There were three Challenges here of which the 5/1.5 81 Challenge was the highligh. This one was a bit of a git to find, not helped by the wayward coords but a snippet of info in a previous log put me straight.😀 I dropped down to Oadby, south of the city and quickly found the 5/1 Traveller Challenge.
Now I haven’t said but I had to be back home six for a family birthday meal today. So I was clock watching a lot and it was now 1501. I had two more challenges on my list on the outskirts of Northampton and I was hoping that I could get them both.
I drove down the M1 and turned off down the A519 to Church Brampton. I turned off down a farm track knowing that there was parking near the search area.🥴 However there were a number of cars there and nowhere to park on the single track so I found a place about a half mile back. I walked back to the 5/1.5 The Puzzlers Challenge to find the parking area clear.🤬 I had a quick find but I had lost a lot of time here. So it was time to hit the road, Jack. I was home for six luckily.
Summing up, I had achieved all but one of my targets so the couple of geocaching days had been a great success.😀
1 Earthcache 1 Event, 1 Mega 1 Virtual 1 Wherigo 2 Multi 5 Mystery 9 Traditional 16 AdLab
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