I’ve been appallingly lazy today. Not even walked a mile! Basically, because I’ve been sat on my bum all day conjuring up evil puzzles for my Brains Not Brawn series. By this evening, I was going stir-crazy and needed to get out to find something – so it was a cash and dash from the car to find nathanjhunt’sFuturama-themed puzzle near Mundon. I had solved it a few weeks ago, but not really been in the area since.
As we all know, it’s not about the numbers. Except when it is…
I’m trying to keep up at least 200 finds/month this year (of course, it’s for a challenge!) and I looked at my stats to realise I was just 14 short for May. So today I set myself the target of finding all 14 to finish the task with a day to spare.
I had picked the M2M Series around Mundon (which used to run all the way to Maldon), in theory giving me 12 caches. However, things didn’t start well with 2 DNF’s! Argh! I was very glad to find the first one of the day at the third hide I tried.
Strange Fruit!
It was typical Bank Holiday weather – cloudy, windy and perishing cold! Boy was I glad of my fleece hat. Ridiculous for almost June.
Not This Gate Post
There were a few pockets of civilisation, but the main walk was largely rural, thankfully without the added menace of bovines to cross my path. I did see some unhappy shivering sheep – freshly shorn of their fleece coats!
Shorn Sheeps!
Someone is proud of their garden – and has even acquired their own phone box to adorn it. Perhaps its a potting shed?
Phone Home
Unlike the cows, it’s always nice to smile politely when you’re pleased to see someone…
Smile! You’ve Found It!
Eventually I had 10 in the bag from the series, so relocated the car to Maldon to do a few short walks and drive bys – finishing off most of my unfound caches from the No Mud series. I found an extra one for luck, bringing the tally to 15 for today, and nudging my monthly finds over my total. It was quite hard work!
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!
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
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. 🙂