Caching Tales

As any geocacher worth their salt will know, this year Geocaching is celebrating its 20th anniversary. So many great activities and events were planned to take place, but sadly so many have bitten the dust, as Covid-19 has swept around the world forcing us all to live completely differently.  However, it was great to see that the postponed souvenir challenge, Memory Lane could now get underway, albeit with a hugely extended finish date. Usually, we get a matter of weeks to complete these challenges, but this one was now available for 6 months, to enable all cachers, everywhere to take part. Seeing what we had to do, I giggled slightly, knowing I’d probably complete it within days not months...and I did. On my first weekend out all of the souvenirs appeared on my profile and this is how I did it. Memory Lane souvenirs were awarded on a points basis, with certain types of cache earning more points. For example, a found mystery cache earned 7 points, whilst a standard cache gave 5 poi...

The week started with a trip out with the other half to find the cast of Dynasty!   Ok, not quite! We didn’t actually travel to Denver, Colorado in the US, where the famous 80s soap was set, but to the village in Norfolk of the same name.  There may not have been any shoulder pads, quarrelling families, oil rigs or UFOs in sight - yes in one ludicrous Dynasty episode, one of the cast was picked up by a UFO, which is possibly why the soap met its end soon after - but we did meet some equally colourful characters as we traversed the banks of the stunning river and admired the huge sluice gates.  The other half had come along for the walk, eager to escape the confines of home, but also because I’d promised we’d pop to the coast after our walk, for a paddle and some fish and chips.  Parking was great, with a free car park right near the giant sluice gates, and we were soon heading up the tow path towards Downham Market on Poshrule’s Denver Downham Doodah series.  Ca...

  Finally, it was the first week of Lockdown easing and whilst the past two months had given us all a great deal of time to reflect on our lives and all the things we would change once life got back to ‘normal’ , one thing that hadn’t changed was my passion for trekking miles, through mud and singing nettles to find that elusive Tupperware box. Yes, I had made certain decisions during lockdown and one was to make the most of every minute of my free time and find as many caches as possible once I could travel again. But in reality, that’s not quite what happened!  Being able to go out again beyond the village, suddenly felt very alien to me. I had become a bit clingy to the safety net of home, and wary about visiting unknown places. I’d also become very unfit! The serious lack of exercise over the previous two months had led to a fair bit of weight gain and lethargy! So mustering up any energy for a long drive and walk was challenging.  I decided to start small...taking ba...