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I had a couple of spare hours so the plan was to shoot down to Shoebury and wipe the green dots from the map.😀 I decided to also wipe a couple of local stragglers off the map too.
The first cache was Stambridge Mills just outside Rochford on the River Roach. The mills are now a sad shadow of their former glory but there was still plenty to look at. The trad was a very quick find so back along the footpath to the car.
I had to pass through the Fossets Farm area. Will Southend United ever build their new ground here? I took the opportunity to look for SEE:IT 11 Woody. This was a very clever trad but I struck lucky. I peered over the fence and there was the cache. 😎 It was so clever, it earned a fave.
My first stop in Shoebury was St Mary's Church, North Shoebury multi. I once had a CM here and allowed someone to adopt it. Unbeknown to me, they recently archived it and replaced it with this one. I quickly got to GZ and found the cache, retrieving a geocoin.
The next was another multi based around a public library. I've got something similar and wanted to see how the CO pitched his. I followed the stages and got to the right place but there was a mistake. I had to enlist the help of the library staff to solve the problem and they were keen to know what it was all about. They just knew that there was a geocache there and very interested in geocaching. I must have impressed them because they waived my late book fines.😀
The last two caches were very difficult trads! The first, The Ivy Tree, a 2/2, deserved a much higher rating and was one of the smallest caches that I'd ever seen. Add that old favourite, an ivy clad tree and you can understand my relief when I finally spotted the cache.🤗
The final cache of the day was called Grassy Spot. It had caused so much grief that the CO had upped the D/T to a 3/1.5 and added a spoiler! A long perusal of the spoiler suddenly gave me an idea of what I was looking for. Eventually I found the cunningly placed cache, in full view.🤔
So Shoebury is now a smiley face zone. I found six caches today, four trads and two multis. I awarded four favourites so that gives you an idea of how good the standard was. I also earned the next souvenir in the Mary Hyde series, happy days.