Sunday, and that can only mean one thing – another Beastie Meet along the coast.
Blustery Beastie-Meet In Burnham
This time it was a Burnham-on-Crouch, and although the sun was out, it was also very windy! We nearly got blown off the sea wall. I went along with Alistair who is staying for a few days, and we took Geoffrey The Geocacher with us for a walk.
Alistair & Geoffrey The GeocacherFlags A’ Flapping
Afterwards, we found a few more around the town, but eventually we were so cold and windswept we decided to come home for tea and cake!
Another Sunday, another Beastmarsta “Meat”, this time at Bradwell Waterside. There was a good turn out again, with quite a few of the usual suspects turning up.
Another Beastie Meet
Shifty and Little Quacker met some other ducks who are still taking part in the HQ Duck Dash. There wasn’t much rivalry, but quite a lot of quacking going on.
Ducks Everywhere!
During the meetups, infinson and I managed to extract a little nugget of information from Gilly Bean & Sprout about her D5 cache, 9 PLUS 5. It has had us both fooled for some time, but with new intelligence, we headed off there after the event and had another go at it – and what do you know – we got in! Finally!
We’re IN At Last!
I found a couple of other caches with Ian and then we went our separate ways. Next on the agenda was King Of The… Hill? which required a little climb on an old tanker – job done.
Scaling The Heights
Another great themed cache was Fish Supper, which I had solved quickly a few days ago. There was a nice surprise when I eventually fished out the pot.
Fishy Business
There were some more straightforward hides too, this one was an easy find and Little Quacker made a lady friend.
LQ Meets A Lady Friend
Another highlight of the day was finding my 100th Letterbox cache, which now qualifies me for a letterbox-based challenge cache. A good day out.
More fun and games today, with another of BEASTMARSTA’s silly half-hour Flash Mobs by the coast, this time in Holland-on-Sea.
Holland Flash Mob
For a change, I took along a random couple of geocoins from my own collection to be discovered at the event. One was my 2010 Lackeys coin, a monster 2″ thing which I’ve never seen another like.
Except today! Someone had brought it along to put in the TB bucket as it was out in the wild, travelling! What are the odds? All rather weird, considering I rarely take my own coins out for a spin, they tend to stay at home!
Twin Trackables!
A large geo-mob set off after the event to find a couple of caches along the seafront, and then I continued on my own to find a few more in the opposite direction as people went back to their cars.
On The Hunt Along The Sea Front
I enjoyed a tasty bacon butty from a kiosk on the prom for lunch, and Shifty decided he wanted to paddle in the sea! All good fun. 🙂
I had a good excuse to go to Dovercourt and Harwich today for Mr BEASTMARSTA’s latest Mini Meat #3. It was a good turnout despite the blustery conditions.
Meet Me By The Lighthouse
Before the event, I found several caches as drive-bys and short walks. Afterwards, I teamed up with Sidsgranma and Kareninwb to find some more around the town. The first was overlooking a large pond with swans, but they didn’t take much notice of us as we searched!
Swans A’Swimming
Harwich Sea Defences was a stinker, thankfully one of us had already found it, so with the aid of my mirror-on-a-stick, it didn’t take us too long to locate it again and sign for the two who hadn’t visited before.
Sea Defences
Eventually I left the ladies to head off to Dovercourt in their car, while I walked back towards mine, picking up a few more stragglers along the promenade. I enjoyed The Light’s Gone Out – not trouble for me on a grey, windy Sunday afternoon, but I can imagine it being a nightmare during the summer when the place is heaving with muggles.
Felixstowe Is Over There
So it was a great haul of finds and apart from the biting wind, the weather turned out better than predicted. I didn’t get wet, either – which is the biggest result of the lot!
Mr BEASTMARSTA was hosting the first of his monthly flash mob events for the year in Mistley today, so I took the opportunity of arriving early and finding plenty of hides as I hadn’t previously been caching around the area. There was a great turnout for the event, and folks stayed on longer than the half-hour advertised time.
Lurking By The River
Mistley Towers are a well-known local landmark – and looks rather ornate compared to the rest of the town. It was the view I had from my first cache find this morning.
Mistley Towers
There was also an Earthcache to be logged, so I took the requisite selfie as well as emailing the info to the CO.
The Museum Of Rare Stones
After the event, I did another loop walk to pick up some more caches around Manningtree. The first was overlooking this view of the River Stour, which was rather nice in the afternoon light.
River Stour View
A great haul today, the numbers are now going up quickly again.
I was in Highwoods Country Park this morning for a quick Flash Mob organised by Mr BEASTMARSTA. It’s a while since I’ve found any caches in the park (the old ones have all been archived by now) so I stayed on afterwards to have a walk and look for some new hides.
Whispy Clouds In Highwoods
I had also solved three puzzles around Colchester which I decided to look for too – gillywig‘s excellent Romaes eunt domus, BEASTMARSTA‘s X Marks The Spot and Murrkin‘s Sidetracked Lexden & Stanway – a location I last visited years ago before there was a cache there. The Sidetracked cache was my 3400th find, a mere fortnight after the 3300th. I mopped up a few stray trads while in Lexden as well. All in all an excellent day’s caching.
I’ve attempted to find The Wivenhoe Wonkle several times. I must have got the numbers wrong because I was never really in exctly the right place. Turns out I was close!
But at a recent geo-meet up, Mr BEASTMARSTA, the cache owner, took pity on me and told me where I was going wrong. So today I headed off AGAIN to the Quay to bag my find – and yes, FINALLY the Wonkle was MINE!
Here’s a pic of Dry Dock along West Quay as I was passing.
