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I'm on taxi duty again this morning and not sure where to go geocaching afterwards. The nearest place with a few green dots is Canvey Island, so it's Canvey calling! There are two problems with the series; traffic getting on and off the island during rush hour and finding somewhere near to park!
I decide to park at the Waterside Farm leisure centre and walk back half a mile to the start of the footpath. Now this part of the series only consists of trads but one, No#5 is going to be difficult as it has a string of DNFs and I've already DNFed another. 😟 So I start walking anti-clockwise around the sea wall with No# 2, an easy nano hanging on the back of a fence post.
However there was an interesting feature on the sea wall that looked like a trigonometrical point. I took some photographic evidence for later. Now I found out that there was a trig point in approx the same place as I found the feature so I posted the picture of the YOSM Facebook page. I was told that this trig point was destroyed in 1953 so what do I have here? I'm making further enquiries.
Moving on, I wasted a lot of time finding a pot at #3. I made up time at #4 with a quick find of a hanging nano on a bush down the sea wall. It was a good job that the tide was out! Now #5 was a different proposition, a 4/3 cache that was difficult to find and more difficult to extract the log. I have an idea what is. It could be a bolt that has to be dis-assembled so it might also be magnetic, narrowing down the search area.
So GZ is next to the bridge crossing Benfleet Creek, the GPS is bouncing all around the place and there isn't even a hint! The sea wall is made of steel sheet here so my narrow hopes widen! I hunt for about 30 minutes and think that I've looked in all the places but still no joy. I don't think that this cache will be found very often. 😫
After failing before at #6, I quickly find a nano hanging from a large bush by a length of fishing line. I still have a bit of time so yomp along the sea wall for about a mile to Blossom Hill, another trad that had eluded me before. I was surprised to spot this instantly so my luck was changing.
Just enough time to get to Northwick Sluice, the site of a previous failure so will it be three on the trot? I'd searched for this twice before and for a long time. Biff Bam Pow, my fingers go straight to the magnetic micro! 😎 Wow, I can't believe that I be found three previous DNFs in a row! It's a pity that there are no more nearby for me to find. 😟 All I have to do now is walk at least a mile and a half back to the car. Still, thinking about the six successes this morning and that DNF at #5 keep me going.