Tag Archives: bean and sprout

solo

McWombling On The Dengie

Trad: 1 Puzzle: 5
Walked: 4.1 miles

It’s been about 7 years since I started on McWomble‘s linked Church Micro series, scattered about on the Dengie peninsula. I’ve had a few of the numbers safely written down for ages, but made a concerted effort to gather a few more a couple of months ago. Then I promptly forgot about them again.

Today I decided to see if I could finally put the series to bed. Several Bonus churches needed collecting, and the Bonus Bonus! (McWomble doesn’t do things by halves). Actually, most of these have now been adopted by Bean & Sprout, but they remain evil and pretty much in their original locations.

The first target was CM541 Mayland which I found eventually after barking up the wrong place for several minutes. It’s a nice neat little church quite a way from the village centre.

CM541 Mayland
CM541 Mayland

I stopped for another puzzle by Bean & Sprout next, Joker – which required a bit of bog snorkelling, but I had come prepared! It’s not a T4 for nothing… Then a quick trad on the way to CM538 Asheldham. Thankfully this was a quick find.

CM538 Asheldham
CM538 Asheldham

CM536 Tillingham was next, which led me a bit of a merry dance. Eventually I spotted it somewhere where I should have noticed it before.

CM536 Tillingham
CM536 Tillingham

One more bonus church to go – CM545 Bradwell St. Thomas. It’s a notoriously difficult one to find, even though it only gets a D2 rating. I’m sure the older ones are harder than some now! Anyway, after much grovelling all I came away with were damp knees and stung hands. Drat.

However, undeterred, I was only missing one bonus number, so I headed off to CM546 Bradwell St. Peter and sat in the car park to think about where it might be. Luck was on my side – the number I was missing was only going to be one of a couple of values, since it would be in the sea otherwise! So I made a guess and headed off to my GZ.

Silent Spinners - Near CM546
Silent Spinners – Near CM546

I was delighted to find the pot, exactly where it should be. Hurrah! So, just the one cache in the series still to find, but I’ll come back for that another day.

solo

Day #306 – Dengie Driving

Trad: 8 Multi: 1
Walked: 4.0 miles

My ankle is feeling a lot better but I decided on more drive-bys around Dengie this evening just to be on the safe side. I managed a good number of finds, including a couple of Village Signs:

VS North Fambridge
VS North Fambridge
VS Althorne
VS Althorne

I made a bit of a cache and hash of K6 Althorne Station, getting the calculations for the multi wrong TWICE! What a dunce. Got there in the end, though!

No Cache Here!
No Cache Here!

This cheeky find was one of a new series by nathanjhunt called Roadside Revelations. Ha ha!

Ooh, Er, Missus!
Ooh, Er, Missus!
solo

Day #184 – Maldon, Mundon & More

Trad: 4 Multi: 1 Letterbox: 1
Walked: 4.0 miles

I had planned to go out for a quick single find today, another of the Bolting Round Ulting loop. But I changed my mind when I was half way there and detoured to Maldon to try my hand at another few of the No Mud hides. Success at three (including one I had previously DNF’d a few months ago) and no luck with two more.

Sneaky!
Sneaky!

Originally I was going to call it a day after that, but addiction got the better of me and I headed off to Mundon to search for a lovely little Letterbox by Bean & Sprout instead. Just for once, I remembered I had my Smiley stamp in the bag with me, so I was able to stamp up the cache’s logbook with mine, as well as my own with the Daffodil stamp which was in the box.

Lovely Letterbox
Lovely Letterbox

After another detour to Latchingdon for a Village Sign multi (and a trad DNF), it was back towards home via Cold Norton – to finally pick up CrazyHedgehogs‘ Mr Crabby’s Cold Bridge Cache – another which has been bugging me for months since my last DNF there. Hooray! Job done. 🙂

puzzles, solo

Day #144 – Two Stragglers

Trad: 1 Puzzle: 1
Walked: 2.5 miles

17th December 2015
17th December 2015

With the car back in action again (hurrah!) I chose two hides south of Billericay as today’s targets, which have been green boxes on the map for ages among a sea of smiley faces. The first was a Bean & Sprout puzzle set before the Mega which I had solved a while back but not had the chance to look for yet, Pitch Up – A Mega Camping Puzzle.

On The Way To Pitched Up
On The Way To Pitch Up

Tales in previous logs of requiring a machete seemed to be greatly exaggerated – the path wasn’t too bad and the prize was quickly spotted!

Gotcha!
Gotcha!

The other straggler was Fordyfamilys Bridge 3 Crouch Cache, a straightforward enough hide but at a place where you’re always just passing through and it’s a bit tricky to park up for a cache and dash. So I walked from Great Burstead and made a quick find at GZ.

River Crouch At South Green
River Crouch At South Green

It’s funny but the road at that point barely looks like you’re crossing a bridge, so the river is hardly noticeable until you are on the pavement looking over the wall.

grand day out, puzzles, with alistair

Day #37 – Bradwell Bimble

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Traditional: 12 Multi: 4 Puzzle: 2 Challenge: 1 Letterbox: 1
Walked: 9.3 miles

1st September 2015
1st September 2015

For today’s expedition I planned a visit to Bradwell-on-Sea in Dengie Peninsula to pick up a variety of caches which were placed for the Essex Camping event a couple of years ago. The majority of our finds were Bean & Sprout hides, again with some ingenious twists rather than lots of film pots. We parked up by the Marina and started our walk.

Bradwell Marina
Bradwell Marina

I particularly enjoyed the Lengthy Log Challenge, as well as caches which completed another two squares in my D/T grid: A walk on the wild side, continued… (an ingenious 5.0/3.0 field puzzle which had us going for about 20 minutes) and Mill End Dandle (a 4.5/3.5 multi which could have had us running around for ages, but we quickly spotted its cheeky 2nd stage).

However, we were defeated by the fiendish 9 PLUS 5 along the way – another field puzzle where we actually found the cache but couldn’t figure out the combination to get at the log. Much head scratching but we drew a blank. Ah well, another time…

Wonky Window in Bradwell village
Wonky Window in Bradwell village

I confess I read the cache page for Sir Henry Bude Dudley and was rather overwhelmed by the information it contained to sort out the second stage of the multi. So I didn’t – but found it by conjecture, which pleased me way more than it should have!

Bradwell Turbines
Bradwell Turbines

Our route took us along the old Roman road almost as far as St Peter-on-the-Wall church, but we turned around short of the end as we needed to be back at a reasonable time.

Yellowcar!
Yellowcar!

When we are out and about, Alistair and I play a silly game called “Yellowcar” where I have to spot yellow cars and he has to spot Minis. Here’s an old Citroën 2CV van we saw along the way, but he wouldn’t let me count it! Spoilsport!

We enjoyed a tasty dinner at a nearby pub but, of course, there’s always time for ONE more cache on the way home… A drive-by which required a photo of us and the GPS next to a post box! Why not?

2 Fools At A Postbox
2 Fools At A Postbox
first to find, grand day out, solo

Day #14 – Little Burstead Ramble

Trad: 26 Multi: 1 Puzzle: 1 Letterbox: 3
Walked: 9.3 miles

9th August 2015
9th August 2015
King Troll!
King Troll!

I had a great walk today caching around Little Burstead near Billericay. The majority of these caches were placed by Bean & Sprout – and were a great collection of quirky, individual caches – very few film pots in evidence. It must have taken a long while to set them all for the Mega event.

I met a troll while searching under a bridge (the usual place for finding trolls, to be sure). The scenery was lovely and the walk of just over 9 miles was a little hilly in places, but definitely worth the stroll. I had made my own route since the caches aren’t specifically given in a particular order.

One of the best containers I found was this beautiful wooden heart-shaped box:

Heart Shaped Box
Heart Shaped Box

However, the most unusual occurrence of the day was before the main outing – I actually managed another First To Find! My 24th in nearly 7 years of caching, The Robin Is Watching is a tricky little hide in Galleywood. I needed two visits this morning before the penny finally dropped, but thankfully it dropped before anyone else could get their paws on it! I don’t particularly chase FTFs (it’s been 540 days since my last one) but it’s nice when the opportunity arises.