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I had a spare couple of hours to myself this afternoon and I wanted to lose myself. So where else to go than to the back of beyond. I knew that I probably wouldn’t see a soul and only a few miles from the heaving metropolis of Southend.😀
I started my walk in Barling Magna, quickly finding the VS and then the cunningly placed CM. It was a dry day, little wind and very quiet. I walked down to the sea wall and was pleased to see a WW2 concrete barge being used as a landing stage. I have an interest in this sort of stuff and have seen these used as house boats in Burnham on Crouch and there are a lot of derelict ones decaying at Stone Barges Point on the Thames at Rainham, Essex. I spent a few minutes here and then set off along the sea wall along Potton Creek towards the Grays Walk #2 cache.
There wasn’t a great deal of natural activity today apart from a few waders such as Oystercatcher and Redshank being disturbed by the rising tide. The time whizzed past and I was suddenly approaching the search area. I soon found the well concealed cache, connecting up the new battery that I had remembered, to gain access. It had taken me twenty eight minutes. It would take me almost as long to retrace my steps. That’s a healthy walk for a 1.5 terrain cache.
Once back at the car, I drove down to the Church Micro at Little Wakering and then set off for another long walk for Grays Walk #1. Straight off, there was a choice but I knew that I was on the right side of the creek. It was a long quiet walk out to the search area. One thing that struck me was the lack of boats. There are normally a few dinghies moored up on a Creek and a few hulks but there was nothing on this stretch of water.
As I approached the search area, I was joined by a herd of cows. As I got closer, I could see that the cache was guarded by a young heifer but not a brave one as it scooted off leaving me to work out how to open the cache. It was now time for the long walk back to the car. Thankfully the rain had held off.
The next port of call was Friars Park in Shoebury where there was a series of newly published trads set by the local Scout troop. Not a lot of thought or guile had gone into setting the series. In fact one had been placed in an easy setting had never been found.🤔 Nearby was the Cake Conundrum mystery which was tricky though.
I was now winding down for the day and the rain, that had been holding off all day, started to fall. In Gunners Park, Shoebury, I had a quick find of “Pampa“ Me, then I drove down the seafront to the clever Starfish cache. The last one of the day was the well disguised CM in Thorpe Bay in a very busy area. Now I’m off to sit in the traffic jams on the Southend Arterial.🙁
1 Mystery 10 Traditional
#8400