Trad: 7 Multi: 1 Challenge: 7
Walked: 6.6 miles

Why go the most direct route home when you can detour to pick up some interesting caches? This was my reasoning for a 40-mile round trip in the wrong direction to start my day from Oxford. Uffington has a lovely Church Micro which I needed for a Challenge cache:

As well as a pretty church, it also has a grand old cache nearby, Uffington White Horse which filled my  empty June 2002 Jasmer month.

The weather was perishing cold (plenty of ice in the puddles!) but beautifully sunny. And I was wrapped up warm, so I decided to take a little walk along The Ridgeway while I was in the vicinity, and pick up the first five caches of the Uffington White Horse Trail series.

Business was done in Oxfordshire, but I had plans to pick up a few Challenge Caches which I’ve qualified for, around Little Brickhill, just south east of Milton Keynes. The first was Return 2 Sender which required fording a small stream but earned me the first of three new DT squares today, 1/4.5.

Six other caches were picked up in the area, giving me another new DT of 1/4 with What’s My Name Challenge. The one below (Reviewing The Reviewer Challenge) was a particularly difficult find in the woods, with 15m error in the co-ords, but a previous finder had thankfully provided some better ones which meant I eventually did see the wood for the trees!

Back in September when Alistair & I had picked up the excellent Perplexity Puzzles west of St Albans on Day #64, I had failed to notice that nearby was another cache which would fill an empty DT square for me, Bedmond Ratrun 2. Well, today I wasn’t really “passing”, but it wasn’t that much of a detour either, so it was the last one on my to do list. And thankfully although the bank climb was quite steep, I made it up and down again with my dignity intact, and bagged another DT square, 1.5/4.5.

I’ve realised that since the beginning of January, I think I’ve now completed 11 DT squares with “only” 15 left to go. Quick progress, although I know the ones I have left are mainly T4.5 or T5, so it isn’t going to be easy as I don’t climb trees and don’t own a canoe!