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As you know, I'm looking keenly for possible caches that will help me fill my D/T grid. It's getting very difficult to find suitable ones although I'm looking in Eastern and South East England. However one has come up which looks doable and it's a 4.5/4!😀
The Far Away Tree is in Panshanger Park near Hertingfordbury not far from Hertford, the main town of the shire. It's a tree climb but judging by some of the photos in cachers logs, it could be a free climb.
I set off at 0530 and it's supposedly an hour's journey. Bang on 0630, I pull into the park's empty car park. Looking at my app, the distance to my target is 2km or one and a quarter miles in real money.😉 No wonder it's called The Far Away Tree, it's well Outta Sight. Checking my route, I see that there are four trads on route and I pick these up fairly quickly.
The Far Away Tree refers to an ancient protected oak supposedly planted by Queen Elizabeth 1. I know that she was at Tilbury Fort addressing the troops on 19/8/1588 so she could have planted the tree on her way home.🤔 As the tree is fenced off, the cache has been placed in a nearby tree. I quickly found the tree in question and surveyed the scene. I could see the cache and knew that the ascent wouldn't be a problem. To be honest, compared to the Green Troll 2, a 3/4.5, that I tackled last Thursday, this was a doddle. I was up and down the tree in a couple of minutes with my feet touching the tree say four times on the way up.
Mission accomplished, I set off on the route march back to the car. It was a great morning, spotting a few Muntjac deer, plenty of Green Woodpeckers and maybe a Raven. I also noticed Squirrels looking much darker than the normal Grey. I shall have to look up whether there is a sub-species of Grey Squirrel in these here parts!
Checking my list for the morning, I saw that the CM at Hertingfordbury was next. Just down the road, this was a quick find, noting the time as 0750 and Holy Communion at 0800. I did a circular route in 70 mins, taking in Nos. 1 to 5 of the Birch Green Wander and Nos. 9 to 4 of Cole Green Wander as well as #20 of the former. These were all trad caches.
The last section was along what looked suspiciously like a former railway trackbed. When I found Footpath Fumble : Tree Treasure, I was pleased to see that the section was part of the former Hertford and Welwyn Junction Railway which linked Hertford with the London-York railway line.
So another great morning with a 4.5/4 cache found along with another 16 trads. My goal caches found has now hit the 5800 mark.👍🏻 Btw, I was home for 0950.