Rowhedge

You may remember me being delusional a couple of weeks ago about turning Mersea Island yellow. 🤫 Well it’s still bugging me so I’m going to have another go today. The tides are in the right place but I want to get a few caches on the way to the island first.

I had managed to solve two of Mr Crow’s cunning mystery caches in Little Totham and as these were also CMs, I wanted them badly. I parked up in the Evangelical Church car park at 0730 and soon had CMs Little Totham - Evangelical and Little Totham- Revisited found and logged. It must have been the first day of Spring as I was able to hear and see a female Cuckoo flitting around the fields.😀

My next target was the Tolleshunt Triangle Final Bonus which was in Tollesbury. I’d been working on this one for nearly three years so I was elated when I turned over a very large piece of bark to reveal the Bonus cache.😀 As I was in this delightful village, I tried to find the remainder of my unfound caches here. I cleared the deck with the trad Pink Gold, the multi VS and the EC at Tollesbury Salt Marsh. So Tollesbury was now yellow (until the next day when nathanjhunt stuck another multi in the middle of the village.🤬

So now it was onto East Mersea. The two caches that I’d DNFed last time had quickly been replaced (thanks PureWarrior) and the CO had even told me about a short cut to shorten the long haul out to Pyefleet Channel.

As I walked along the footpath through the woods going out to the seawall, I met a couple of chaps with very decent cameras with telephoto lenses. Thinking they were birdwatchers, I mentioned the Cuckoo and a Common Buzzard that I’d seen. However, they were looking for Red Squirrels.🐿😀 I’d forgotten that Mersea Island had been a Squirre free zone due to The Stoop and the Essex Wildlife Trust had introduced Reds about five years ago. The chaps said that there were now 100 - 150 Reds on the island so fingers crossed that they continue to thrive.👍🏻 Btw, the cache was a quick find but still 15 minutes walk each way.🙁

For once, I paid a parking fee at Cudmore Park (it goes towards the upkeep) and walked out to Island End to find the replaced trad. I walked back and sought out the answers for the Earthcache- Collapsing Cliff, an interesting saga regarding hippopotamus bones excabated there. Then I DNFed the Hidden Pillbox trad, found the WW2 Pillbox trad and walked over to do the two multis.

It was hot, humid and the park was full of punters. The ice-cream shop and cafe would have made a fortune had it not been closed.☹️ Do these people check on the weather forecasts and think, today could be an earner? Wherever I went there were people so I gave the multis a swerve and set out towards what turned out to be a lovely but lonely beach path going west.

After a long walk I found the very cunningly placed Clear Pointers Far Away trad, following up with an encore of the trad Church View. All I had to do was walk back to the car and get off the island. So I’m left with three to get on the island so when the tides are right, it’s freezing cold and the CO replaces the Hidden Pillbox cach, I will return.😀

The remaining plan for today was to head up to Rowhedge via Fingringhoe to find a few. I stopped off at a trad that I been looking at for ages - Pete‘s Common Problem near Fingringhoe and then on to a new addition to the Gravel Pit Trail in the village. Another new one in the village that had caught my eye was River View. This trad was some way up a dead tree which was decorated with nails? I was looking for a hanging nano but in fact the cache was hidden in a hole in the tree. There was a splendid view of Wivenhoe across the River Colne from my vantage point.

I was now almost in Rowhedge or East Donyland as it used to be called. I had another look for one of my nemesis caches - Nutty Nano - The End. It has recently been replaced and can only be in one place but it wasn’t!🤔 Maybe one day, I’ll find this one.

Now I‘m actually in Rowhedge.😀 I’ve been meaning to get here for years and now I‘m here. The first cache on my list is Rowhedge Football Cache which wasn’t where I was expecting. There’s not much football played in a wood with steep undulating terrain.🤔 It was a tricky find despite the accurate hint.

There‘s a series of murals dotted around Colchester on pillboxes, walls etc., that form part of the series of multis called Suburban Art. There’s an excellent example here in Rowhedge on the Village Hall wall. After counting ducks, butterflies and badgers, I had the coords to a cleverly hidden cache.

Also in town is the trad CM and a multi based on the Water Tower. I found both of them despite the DNF last time out on the multi. It was hot and I needed a drink so I drove down to the water front but parking spaces were at a premium.🙁 Once parked, I walked down to The Anchor pub, right on the water’s edge. This was an old Mann, Paulin and Crossman pub with splendid old windows showing that connection but I liked the one I have added here. Did I mention that there is a trad here, well, it isn’t it‘s MIA.☹️

This left the one remaining cache in the village, the mystery VS. A cunning cache to solve but also well hidden in a place commemorating some of the events that have happened here. Now time for  a well earned soft drink and away home. Just checking the route and I spot a trad just up the road a mile or two, so White Gates turned out to be the last cache of the day.😀

2 Earthcache 3 Mystery 4 Multi 12 Traditional

#7124

On fitness front, 19,704 Steps, 15.9 km and three floors climbed.❤️

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