Perhaps I should explain.
I spent most of yesterday on my computer. I went on the Internet to find out about something and got distracted, and spent several hours reading about all kinds of stuff. By six o'clock my eyes felt like they were about to explode, so I decided I needed some fresh air and natural sunlight. Now, one of the things I'd been reading about on the Internet was something called geocaching, and this seemed like an ideal excuse for the desired f.a. and n.s., so I decided to give it a go.
What's that you say? 'This geocaching sounds intriguing and I would love to hear all about it'? Well, if you insist. Basically, there are thousands of geocaches hidden all around the world. You can find the lat and long of caches near you at www.geocaching.com, then attempt to track them down with your trusty GPS. A geocache is a box containing a logbook and a variety of goodies, planted by another geocacher. When you find it, you log your presence in the book, and can, if you wish, take one of the goodies, provided you exchange it for something else. That's the idea, and it seemed kind of fun, so, as I said, I thought I'd give it a try.
The one I chose was only about three miles away, so I thought I'd find it in no time. It proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated. I tried to get as close as I could in the car, parked and set out on foot. I soon found myself on a bridge over the road the cache was near to with no means of getting down, so I went back to the car and drove to a more suitable spot. I then got out and walked.
It was in a sort of nature reserve in Loughton. I found myself 0.25 miles from the cache - this is going to be easy, I thought. Then I came to the river.
The cache, of course, was on the other side of the river. I walked along its bank for about ten minutes before I got to a raised bank with a metal fence at the top, on the other side of which was a narrow verge and a major road. I scrambled up the bank, climbed over the fence, crossed the river, and climbed back over the fence. I was now on the right side of the river, but surrounded by very tall nettles. Oh well, I thought, I'm sure if I wade through them for a minute I'll get to a path.
The further I waded, the taller they got. I was wearing a tee-shirt, so I had to raise my arms above my head to avoid getting stung, and as the nettles grew taller I raised my arms higher until they were so high my tee-shirt was coming up at the bottom and coming very close to exposing skin. I decided then that this wasn't a good idea, and turned back.
I headed back down the wrong side of the river and finally found a bridge. I crossed, and followed the GPS to the correct lat and long. I was now in a little copse of trees, but couldn't find the cache anywhere. I'd taken with me a printout of the webpage about the cache, which included a clue in code. I translated the clue - it read:
In an area of scrub/woodland to the left of the Motorway. There is a grey motorway box the other side of the fence. Standing with your back to it, walk 40 paces forwards (westish). The cache is in the left-hand side of a large rose bush which is surrounded by five fir trees.
I managed to find the fence seperating me from the motorway, and the motorway box on the other side. I walked the specified 40 paces, but still couldn't find the cache. I managed to find four of the five fir trees, but the area they described was quite large, and there were all kinds of spiky plants any one of which could be a rose bush.
Suddenly, there it was - a little metal box under one of the bushes. Ooh, the excitement! Can you feel it? I thought so. I sat down and opened the box. At that moment my phone rang.
"Where are you?" asked my mum. I tried to explain. She seemed to think I'm insane. Strange that.
Anyway, I logged my presence in the log book and looked through the goodies. There were a couple of CDs, some candles, a Bob the Builder toy, a pack of cards, a novel, and The Consolations of Philosophy. I decided to take the C of P, replacing it with the book of limericks I'd taken along for the purpose. It was then home to a nice hot bath and a well earned can of Dr Pepper.
It was great fun, and remarkably successful. Usually when I decide to do something crazy sounding on a whim at the last minute, it's an unmitigated disaster.
I think I'll do another one next weekend.
