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I need to bump up my numbers in the London Geocaching region so I have planned a little trip just across the Essex/London border into Romford.
I started early and drove into Harold Wood Park at first light and started a walk across this splendid place that I had never visited. It was wet underfoot but I made good time here finding seven trads including the 3/2 The Good Dinosaur.
I drove up to Harold Wood Station and started on the Welcome to Harold Wood AdLab series. I was treated to a number of unusual facts that I didn’t know about and the final place yielded up the coords for the bonus which luckily was a nearby find.
I was working my way over to Hornchurch and I took in the CM Gidea Park mystery having solved the jigsaw at home and then two ST trads at Gidea Park and Emerson Park Station. I had failed at the latter before but then it was MIA. However there were no problems today.
I‘d solved the WM Hornchurch multi on a previous visit so I wanted to clear this one up. It was a long walk on the outskirts of town and seven months since it was last found. It was so overgrown here that I couldn’t even see the hint item. However I got there in the end and spent the walk back to the car picking the weed seeds off of my jacket.🥴
Back in town, I found the clevery placed TUBE ST Upminster Bridge Station before parking up in the Harold Park Lodge Country Park. I remember coming over here donkeys years ago as it was probably the nearest public swimming pool to Basildon. Thinking on, it must have been mid sixties.
There was a series of twelve trads here but many were missing so I was going to do the best that I could. It was a long walk around the park and it extended way back farther than I had imagined. There was a half marathon taking place and there were hundreds of gaily clad runners going at many different speeds.😀
I found BUMPY’S #1, #2, the 3/2 #5, the very clever 3/1.5 #9 and #11. There were a lot of lakes in the park with a large number of wildfowl species. There were also a number of Canada Geese which were very used to being around humans. It was almost as if the subject in the photo was stuffed.
As always, I was running out of time so I walked across the park, sometimes overtaking the flagging runners until I got to the car. I knew that I had to go through Hornchurch High Street on the way home and there was a lonely 1/1 Upminster Park Cache trad near there. It was tricky to park but this really was a cache and dash.😀
1 Multi 2 Mystery 5 AdLab 16 Traditional
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