Nine Elms Orbital

Thursday March 7th 2024

During the week, a circular walk of caches around the old railway engine sheds which were demolished in 1968 has been published. There were such a mixed bag of caches plus some others in Battersea, I just had to return. Here's how the day panned out.

I was up early and exiting The Oval tube as dawn broke. I sorted out the coords to the TUBE ST multi before heading over to the cricket ground. I had never been here before but had come for the virtual. All I had to do was take a photo of myself in front of the Hobbs Gate. Funnily enough it reminded me of the only grandfather that I knew, Benny, whose real name was George.🤔 He was born in Stepney in 1905 and he used to proudly tell that when he was young, he won a Jack 'Obbs bat.😀

I started on the NEO series at 16 and had decided that the best way would be clockwise instead of the way that the series was set out. I found the final stage of the ST multi and carried on to the CM Vauxhall ~ Calvary Church trad. I followed the series down to 11 - SEO - Stepney which was a Letterbox. There was a bonus in the series needing numbers from three Letterbox caches nearby and this was the first.

I moved on to the next Letterbox at CM Courland Grove ~ Baptist and noted the number at 0906. It took me the best part of 25 minutes to walk back to the Clapham Road for the ST Stockwell trad. I spent time heading south picking up 10 - NEO, CMs Clapham ~ St John and then Love of Christ followed by the cunning TUBE ST Clapham North trads. I broke off for breakfast at the delightful Cafe Nile a few yards from the ST.

Still heading south, I added the CM Clapham ~ Methodist multi and the CM Clapham ~ St Mary trad to the tally. Unfortunately the last one was at traffic lights with a stationary omnibus full of passengers wondering what I was doing.😀 I could see Clapham Common from here and once I sorted out the ST multi, I embarked on the Clapham Stroll AL series.

I found one base by the station and then one of the Clapham Common Cubby series of trads at the bus stop. As I strolled across the Common, one of the others was long term missing, now disabled and the other had someone eating their lunch so I thought it best not to disturb them. I only visited four of the AL bases as I didn't want to venture into South Clapham today.

I took the short walk to the Clapham Holy Trinity which was built in the reign of George III. There was a recently published CM Wherigo and a WM Letterbox. The former was a reverse wherigo so with triangulation it was easy to work out some coords. The WM wasn't so easy as I was sure that the formula was incorrect. I contacted the last published finder who confirmed my suspicions.🤔 I followed my gut and went to my final stage but couldn't find the cache.🙁 I yo-yoed between two possible hosts until I found the deeply buried cache.😀 I was surprised to see that the log had been signed by caskhunter that morning.🤔

I started back on the NEO series at 9 - NEO and steadily worked my way up to the stated start of the series. This was near Battersea Park station and a few more caches had been released near here in the past week. A new mystery, Battersea Dogs & Cats Home was up first. I found this one on the way to the Power Station. A proper AL series had been published as well as a bonus. These six caches were soon completed.

I went back on the NEO series and found 22 and as I turned into Kirtling Street to get to 21 - NEO, I saw a face that I knew. As I approached the chap from the side, I startled him saying "you are caskhunter and I claim my five pounds."🤣 I had met him briefly at an event in Croydon a few weeks back. He said that he had started from Clapham Common going anticlockwise this morning. I said I'd guessed that as I'd seen his name on paper logs only. I chided him over the Holy Trinity cache.😀

We parted company and I found 21, followed by 20 and 19 - NEO. So that was all that I had time for. A bus came along that took me to Vauxhall Station and I started my journey home by train. I have left mentioning that I found the NEO Bonus too until now so as not to leave any clues.😀

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