Trad: 1 Puzzle: 1 Challenge: 4
Walked: 7 miles

It’s a friend’s birthday party on Sunday, in the Southampton area, so I decided to make a long weekend of it and booked a couple of nights in the local Travelodge. I headed down today via a Challenge cache in Woking and then a few more around Eastleigh, which I had qualified for. The first was a nice big Ammo Box (not quite the largest I’ve seen, but getting there) which was for a Half Jasmer Challenge. I love finding old caches and qualified for it easily. The box itself was in a bit of a sorry state when I arrived:

It had been semi-muggled – the lid was off and I had to tip lots of rain out of it. But the contents were safe, just no log book. [It turns out that that was found by another visitor a few days later, about 20ft away].

I dried things off as best I could and re-hid it under some natural camo I found in the area. Hopefully it will remain safe now!

Talking of old caches, there was one hidden in 2005 not too far a walk from the Half-Jasmer, so I made my way there next. Thankfully, the local bovines were safely behind a fence! So I walked on unhindered.

Even when a cache has survived for a decade or more in the wild, it’s unusual to still find the original log book. But here it was – a little damp but still readable!

I added my signature a few pages further on.

Next up, after a short drive, was the Double Digit Blockbuster Challenge – which I had been working towards for several months, targeting finds on specific dates to fulfil the requirements. A lovely 5/5 DT was the reward! I was relieved there was no tree climbing involved to actually pick up the cache today.

After finding a couple more in the vicinity (a regular puzzle and another Challenge), I finally headed off to my hotel for the evening, satisfied with an interesting day out, despite the rain.