The Bucks Berks Border Crossing Wherigo has been on our to–do list since it was published but the DNFs soon afterwards suggested it had a few problems. We contacted the CO a few weeks ago and he very promptly checked and confirmed it had been washed away in the floods. As soon as it was re-enabled we made plans to complete it ASAP.
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| All quiet on the Thames at 7.30am |
Luckily the weather forecast was very good for this weekend so we made an early start from home, arriving in Marlow at 7.30 am and were ready to launch the kayak before 8am.
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| Good to go |
The river soon got busy with ‘boat race’ type boats in training so we had to be careful not to get in their way, not to mention the many swans out on the river!
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| Paddling with the swans |
Halfway through the process, Mark mentioned that there was a disconcerting amount of water in the kayak and that we ought to tip it out so we landed at the side of the river, clambered out, hoisted the kayak out and when Mark went to remove the drain plug.... Ah! That might explain a thing or two. The drain plug hadn’t been closed since our last trip! Doh!
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| Boat selfie |
After about two hours the mission was complete and we were able to locate the cache. This Wherigo was brilliant fun and we will remember this one for a very long time. It was quite hard going at times, the downstream paddling was fairly easy but upstream much harder and my arms and shoulders were certainly aching after. This is the fifth ‘fox, chicken, grain’ Wherigo we have completed so working out the order in which to do things was not a problem but this was certainly the most authentic!
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| Heated seats essential cache gadget |
We’d spotted that the CO also had a series of Challenge caches not too far away so we went to find those as well. Mark had skimmed through the requirements and figured that we qualified for most of them so we’d go and find them anyway. We were chuffed when, after returning home, realised we actually qualified for them all.
These were:
Challenge Cache - Christmas Vocabulary - Find and log 12 caches that contain a Christmas word/phrase from the specified list.
Challenge Cache - 100 club abroad solo - find 100 caches, on your own, within one calendar day abroad.
Challenge Cache - Icon Collecting - Find 11 caches each with a unique icon before logging an on-line find.
Challenge cache - The Well Travelled Cacher GB - Find a cache in each 5-mile interval from your home co-ordinates up to a distance of 250 miles
Challenge Cache - A Large Leap of Caching Numbers - find 29+28+27...etc...3+2+1 caches on 29+28+27...etc...3+2+1 days respectively
Challenge cache - Do You Know Other Cachers - find different kinds of caches hidden by 10 different cachers
Challenge Cache - Fantasy Favourites - find 25 caches with at least 25 Favorite Points each, with a mixture of 8 icons.
Next on today’s ‘itinerary’ was another Wherigo. East Grinstead this time. This one was recently published and we had toyed with the idea of waiting until the Mega Kent weekend but we decided to do it today as we were only a hour or so away. This Wherigo is a pleasant town trail which we completed by bike. It was great fun and a really enjoyable bike ride around East Grinstead in the sunshine with its lovely old buildings - although I had to push my bike for the last half mile or so as I got thorn in my tyre.
As we were in the area (sort of ) we decided to nip down to Tunbridge Wells to do the Mole Says "Stick em up" Webcam. We pulled onto the car park just as [presumably] the owner was just locking up. Cachers have to wave their hands for a valid claim on this webcam cache to prevent people from just saving a picture of a passer by etc. The traffic was very busy this evening so we felt a bit daft waving at no one but you know how it is...
A nearby church micro and then a YOSM on the way home rounded the day off very nicely.
SUNDAY
As it was Mother's Day I decided I'd like nothing more to celebrate than a lovely walk in the sunshine and to go caching of course. So after breakfast made by Pegz and some beautiful flowers and cards we headed off to Cookhill to do the new HKMHill C Series.
A great series with a good variety of hides and sizes and good, clear instructions on the cache pages. A really enjoyable, peaceful walk in lovely countryside. We enjoyed finding the bonus info required on the way round and completed the 5 mile walk in under 3 hours.
Then there was just time to do the new Geocacherscott Around Pulley Lane series. This had caught my eye when it was published earlier in the week as it had a trigpoint en route.
This was another really enjoyable walk with a good variety of hides and sizes. We made the walk to be just under 2 miles which we completed in 1 hour. Then a couple of drive-bys before heading home for a lovely Mother's Day meal.
All in all a perfect weekend.
