The Quarantine Diaries

26-28th June: The thrilling conclusion Friday it was 27 degrees so we were looking for a series of drivebys that we could grab without having to walk in the heat.  T spotted a route that looked promising but when we got there it turned out to be a fenced off, no access road.  The first one of the set was right on the road front though so I jumped out to go get it but no luck.  We decided to just drive home a weird wibbly way via as many caches as we could be bothered/find.  The first couple we tried were also no go's but we eventually managed to find 7.  Each time just jumping out the car into the heat for as little time as possible before retreating back into the air-con.  Total: 7.  Running total: 90 Saturday we went to the zoo with my mum and dad to see them for the first time since lockdown.  On the way there we pulled over and grabbed 2 cache and dashes, both of which we had tried before and not found.  Turning a blue face yellow is ...

23-24th June This week the temperature has shot right up and so we've had to be quite careful about how/where we cached.  So Tuesday we went and explored an old airbase which has been abandoned since the war and is now just some ruins in the woods.  It's a cool location that we never would have known about without geocaching and had the advantage of being heavily wooded and therefore not too hot.  The original route (placed 10 years ago) had 12 caches and there are 9 still active but of those about half haven't been found in over a year and are probably missing so we weren't expecting much.  We found 2 fairly easily and tried a third which has been found recently-ish but had no luck.  Total: 2. Running total: 77 Wednesday was supposed to be even hotter so we made sure to go out first thing before it got too hot.  C had outgrown her sandals and so I found some bigger ones on Facebook marketplace and used the excuse to go to a town we don't go to much....

17th-20th June: Best Day Ever We weren't particularly planning to go out on Tuesday partly because we've already done loads of caches on that day on the 365 grid and partly because it was raining but we weren't going to manage any the next few days and so we used a trip to the butchers to grab a couple of drivebys.  Total 2: Running total: 56 The next day we didn't manage to go out at all but T had to go to work (I know right - the excitement) and so he grabbed one on his way home to fill in that day on the 365 grid. Running total: 57 M found a cache all by herself   We didn't get any on the 19th but the 20th (Saturday) proved to be our best day ever.  I've been eyeing up a route of 15 caches around a village and out through the fields but I didn't think we'd manage it in a single day with a 3 year old in tow.  But we did it, we totally did it and I am still very excited.  We left bright and early in the morning, parrked at the church, grabb...

14-15th June By the time we got to the end of the 12th we were exhausted.  Which seems ridiculous.  But we'd done a lot of long walks that week and not really had any lazy days so we awarded ourselves a weekend off. On the 13th I had a virtual conference and T looked after the girls.  It was wonderful and felt like a holiday.  For me at least. On the 14th we didn't attempt to go on a walk but we did have to go to the supermarket and so we stopped off on our way home to collect a cache and dash that seemed fairly simple and ended up involving climbing through a fence and fully inside a very spiky bush, avoiding a lot of nettles on the way.  The cache hadn't been found for almost 2 years and I'm pretty sure the fence of barbed wire wasn't there when the cache was put in and was at least partly why nobody had found it for so long.  So it turned out to be a bit of an adventure after all.  Running total: 48 And then on the 15th (yesterday) we finall...

11-12th June Both yesterday and today we've been over to our main big route and managed 5 caches.  4 from the route and 1 extra each day.  Yesterday we also completed the second half of the multi from the day before only to fail to find the actual cache at the end.  Both days we narrowly avoided getting very wet in the rain.  Total for the 2 days: 10.  Running total: 47 Side note - 47 is our current biggest caching month ever (from Feb 2019) and today we equalled that.  So that's one milestone we've hit. Pictures: A ford that M got very excited about splashing in. The one dry one of us.  Happy babies having a snack break whilst mummy and daddy climb into a bush looking for a particularly hard cache.  And C walks back the last little bit to the car.  

7th-10th June We had a day off caching on the 6th and on the 7th we started too late to go far away so we popped to a nearby village to try for some cache and dashes/caches with just a little pavement walk.  We found 5/6 we tried and C got to actually walk a bit of it for the first time which she was very excited about.  Total: 5.  Running Total: 26 On the 8th we returned to our main big walk again, we only managed 4 of the actual walk but we also swung by 3 cache and dashes on the way/way back.  The final of which involved a very exciting wild-poop on behalf of the baby, following which she managed to pee on herself before I'd managed to get her dressed again.  The drama.  Total 7.  Running total: 33 On the 9th we went to a local park to try a multi we've been meaning to do for ages but the walk proved too long to complete in one go so we'll have to return to that one another day.  At the end we also went back for a second attempt at anothe...

A swing and a miss Yesterday, the 4th, we went to a little (like 25 houses little) village at the next point on our loop and attempted to get the 6 caches in and around it.  We made it to 4 before the cold/damp/grumpy child became too much to bother with and we bailed.  Running total: 21. Today was an even worse attempt.  We weren't ready to leave until 4.30 and so decided not to go all the way to our ongoing route and instead just pop out to do a couple of new caches that popped up only a couple of miles away in the last 2 weeks.  2 swings and 2 misses.  Don't know if we were just being daft or if they've disappeared.  But given that we did so well the first few days I'm not too devastated, mostly just sad to have not filled in today on the grid. And so on we go with the grand challenge. 

The Great June Adventure This month we have set ourselves the challenge of finding 100 geocaches.  That's 3.33 a day, or 5 a day x20 days, or something approximate to that. Today is the 3rd, we didn't manage any caches on the 1st but the 2nd and 3rd have both been good caching days.  Yesterday we began a route of 34 caches between 4 villages about 25mins away.  We parked in one village and walked along for 7 caches before turning back.  We then collected a bonus Church Micro multi from the other side of the village.  Total: 8. We started today's walk by driving to where we left off yesterday and collected 7 more along the route before turning back.  On the way home we tried and failed at a cache and dash and then I jumped out the car and walked across one bonus field to collect 2 puzzles, one under the stile on each side of the field.  Total for the day: 9.  Running total: 17. When lockdown started this seemed like a fun challenge to attem...