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Friday 14th April 2023
I was heading back to Sarf London this morning to visit places that I heard about for ever but never actually visited.🤔 I wanted to get back down to Dulwich and then head west. However my plan was to get down to the Horniman Museum in Sydenham Hill first so that I could get a golden oldie that was MIA last week but has now been replaced.
I caught an early train and waited for the 42 bus at Crosswall that would get me down to East Dulwich Station. I would then get a 185 down to the Museum and start the day there. However I had a slight change of plan once I realised that the bus route would take me into Denmark Hill. This was very close to the William Booth Memorial College EC that I was planning to visit later on. I reached the college and checked on the columns which reminded me of hardened porridge rather than granite.😀 I walked from here down to the 2/3 Greendale trad which I signed at 0757.
From here, it was a short walk down to East Dulwich Station where I soon caught a 185 down to the Museum. I was after the Horniman Nature Trail - Logpile trad. I walked up the track to the gate to the reserve but the gate was locked so I had to improvise.😀 For some reason, I had it in mind that this was a 2007 golden oldie. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that I had got it wrong.🥴
I had decided that I wasn't going to do so much walking today so I jumped a bus going towards the next cache. I soon found the Dawson's Hill - All About The View trad and then took the short walk down into Dulwich Park. There were a number of trads and a few multis in the park and I started off with the Rosebury Gate multi. A few trads and then there was a Little Bridges multi. I continued collecting trads until I reached the final multi - Dulwich Dawdle. I didn't realise that there were ten places to visit for this one, starting back at Rosebury Gate. 🤬🤬
I left the park at the Dulwich Gates and set off on the Dulwich Tour AdLab series which would take me up through the upmarket Dulwich Village up to the CM ~ Dulwich trad. I was looking for a cafe for breakfast/brunch but all I could find was the very upmarket and pricey Gail's Bakery.🙁 However I was hungry and needed to eat. At least I could shelter from the rain.
I headed down Gallery Road and into Belair Park picking up a few trads on the way. Unfortunately it started to bucket down but at least my umbrella passed another test but the muddy paths did nothing for my trainers. I left the park and walked up to West Dulwich Station for the ST. I had a problem here as I could quess where the trad was but it was behind barriers put up by the workers reconstructing the pavement. As you know, fortune favours the brave so I asked them if I could inspect the BT cabinet. No problem, they let me through the barrier and carried on with what they were doing whilst ignoring me signing the log sheet.😀
I jumped a bus here which took me up to Tulse Hill Station for another ST trad. I could see that this one would be tricky with the coords putting me in the booking hall. As I was fumbling around underneath a junction box, the nearby security guard asked me what I doing.🥴 I said that I was on a treasure hunt. He said "you must be looking for the geocache, it's over here" and proceeded to pull the cache from its nearby hiding place.😀
From here, I walked up into Brockwell Park with its fine views into Central London from the Clock Tower which was correct twice a day. There were three trads in here but I could only find two of them. I left the park and travelled east until I got to the CM ~ Brixton Community trad. I found the snail up a lampost and took a round about route to the Big Splash. I had no idea what this trad was about but was totally not expecting the splendid muriel here.😀 With the cache soon found and the muriel admired, I took down the road to the CM.. Clapham ~ St James trad where I had a quick find.
Whilst on my round about route to the muriel, I had noted a 35 bus going to Aldgate. As I reached Acre Lane again, I spotted a 35 coming towards me and heading in the right direction. In the words of my old mate, Malcolm Taylor - "silly not to" so I jumped it.😀 As luck would have it, I could see that the bus would pass the African & Carribean WM in Brixton so Malcolm's words came to mind again. I spent some time here trying to understand what these lumps of igneous rocks actually were until I had some idea how to answer angelou66's questions.
Back to the bus stop and I now knew that I had a choice of two buses to get, the 35 or a 133 to Liverpool Street. The latter arrived first and I wedged my way onto the busy bus. I followed the path of the bus on my app and then knew that I would pass Kennington Park where two elusive trads were. Cue, Malcolm and I was off the bus again.😀 I soon had the Adventureboys and Kennington Common caches under my belt.
It really was time to head back to the City and I realised that the 133 was now my only option. Now all day I had been looking out for a Costa but I hadn't seen one. It was a bit Murphy's Law as they had a discounted cake offer for this day only folks. Checking their list of stores, I could see that there was one at the Cannon Street end of London Bridge so I headed for that. Knowing my luck, they would have run out of cake but I was in luck, perhaps I should have put a bet on - an old Sergeant Bilko gag.😀😀
PS The AdLab series that I found today put me in the qualifying zone for GC9N0PW 4.5/2.5 TOCTA M4 Challenge. 😀
PS1 A trad Royal Routing #1 was published less than a mile away yesterday, so silly not to, and I got the FTF.😀
PS2 I earned the Wheel of Challenges Gold Award too.😀
1 Mystery 2 Earthcache 2 Multi 5 AdLab 26 Traditional
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