Trad: 1
Walked: 1.7 miles

I had a rather sticky experience this morning, trying to find Peachick’s Puzzle in Mill Meadows Nature Reserve in Billericay. It’s been several years since I was last there for a previous cache, which took several fruitless visits before finally locating the prize. But that cache got archived ages ago.

Today I made the mistake of heading into the reserve from the nearest footpath to where I had parked. This turned out to be at the bottom of a very steep, muddy hill. It was a quagmire of boot-sucking mud which, at times, I wasn’t sure if I would get out of with both Wellies still on my feet!

Eventually made my way up the hill but found myself obstructed by a fence running around the little patch of woods, with 190-odd feet still to go. Argh!

So I had to backtrack through some more evil mud, and finally made it to a much firmer (but still muddy) path. Once at GZ I was most relieved to find the cache quite quickly. Phew!

The way back was much more obvious (I wasn’t going back the way I came in!) and the path led out to the main road without much mud at all. Now why hadn’t I found that in the first place?