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Sunday 9th April 2023
I wanted to revisit Shoreham in Kent today to look out for the caches in the recently published Pioneers series set out by that prolific cacher Rubyshoos. The first one in the series, 2001, needed to find 20 caches set in that year to qualify. 2002 needed to find 40 caches set in that year and so on up to 2009. I hardly qualified for any of these but I would have signed the log sheets. However, I had another reason for being out in this neck of the woods.😀
As I drove down from Eynsford into Shoreham, I was greeted by a thick bank of fog which would sadly dim the magnificent early morning views that I was hoping for. I parked up in the free car park in Shoreham and set off up the footpath which would take me up a hundred feet in height up to the tops. I was expecting a quiet climb but when I approached the war memorial overlooking the village, there were crowds of people.🤔 Was it a solstice or something? I didn't like to ask.🙁
I set off following the Pioneers series putting write notes in the online logs until I got three quarters of the way round the series. I then broke off to drop down into the valley of fog and up the other side to reach the 2006 golden oldie, the St Andrew's benchmark trad.😀 Not far away from this was the 2/3 Cheryl trad with its Corvid guardian.
I continued on through the woods crossing over the noisy M25 into what was probably Badgers Mount and followed the track adjacent to the motorway down to The Trail of the Loathsome Pine trad. Once I got there I understood what this was all about. A cellular radio mast was disguised as a pine tree.🤔 However I was here for another golden oldie as this was a 2007 vintage cache.😀 I found it on open ground but once I had fulfilled my clerical duties, I placed the cache in a hollow at the base of a tree.
So now it was down hill and up vale to get me back to the series. I found the last three Pioneers and headed back along the ridge to the war memorial for the WM ~ Shoreham Cross multi. Once I had sorted this one out, I turned downhill, losing the one hundred or so metres in height back to the village.
Once in the village, I was slightly miffed that the cafe in the Aircraft Museum wasn't open nor the Honey Pot cafe across the road. I felt that I deserved a coffee but alas it was not to be. I set about covering the bases of the Shoreham Saunter AdLab series but I just couldn't work out the five letter word needed near the war memorial.🤔 I did gather some info for the WM EC here though to write up another day.😀
Now I haven't mentioned that I needed to find a mystery cache today to qualify for a Challenge cache. Although I had found ten already, I wasn't sure if I qualified or not, so I had another one up my sleeve.😀 I drove back into Eynsford and off down to Lullingstone Roman Villa. I had sorted out the coords to this one last night and I had a quick find to add a ? to the the tally. I had passed the Eynsford Viaduct on the way down the road and hopefully there would be a Letterbox cache here to round off the morning. As I approached the cache, I could see that a Grey Squirrel was hiding nearby. I let that scamper off and then I quickly retrieved the cache.😀 All I had to do now was hope for a quick transit back through the Dartford Tunnel and home.
PS. Later as I was checking through my old photos and I found some photographic evidence for the Letchworth Garden Cty, goldpot's Earthcache. I decided to write this one up and send it off to the CO who kindly gave me the thumbs up👍🏻 to claim the Earthcache.😀
PS1 These two ECs tipped me into the qualifying zone of GC9MYYB - TOCTA CC6 Challenge so I was able to claim for this too. 😀
1 Letterbox 2 Earthcache 1 Multi 2 Mystery 3 Traditional 4 AdLab
#16827