Polebrook and back

Up North today, to do another big ring; 56 caches, plus two extras. And I finished at about 5pm, so I had time to do several more.

I chose my parking position carefully, so that I'd be able to get back to the car quickly after about 2/3 of the circuit. That meant that I could have lunch and a short rest at about 2:30; it also meant that I could swap out battery 6 which was empty, and take with me battery 7. Because I had a problem today with battery 6; when I went to put it in the car, I could see that it was only partially recharged. So I took the charger with me, and plugged that into the car cigarette lighter. But the power drawn, blew the fuse on the cigarette lighter circuit, so I couldn't run the satnav or recharge the Loox ... except that I have with me an extra car battery (from Halfords) which I carry in case the car battery gets so run down that I can't start the car. It also has an air pump, which has been very useful, and a power point, cigarette lighter style.

As it turned out, battery 6 was about 2/3 charged, so I was able to do 20 caches using it, and the other two batteries saw me through the day.

As I was getting ready to kick off, I saw a couple acting very suspiciously - they were Spindlewood, who were doing the same route today. They'd started at number 1, logically enough. Also, they were going the opposite way round to me, and sure enough, we met again at about 2pm.

There were a *lot* of stiles on this circuit, and I had to do a lot of heavy lifting, but the worst part was when I moved out into a field, and got totally bogged down, the mud jammed into the wheels, after ten yards. It was a major effort to get back to the edge of the field, where I dug out most of the mud, and went a different route (a long way round, but on terrain that I could actually navigate).

Later on, there was one cache without a hint, and that, of course, was the one that I just could not find. But I persisted, and eventually found it in a place I'd nearly checked in the first place.

To finish off, I did six caches put out for the "let's go Green" event in Barnwell Country Park, a nice little bike cruise around.

A total of 68 caches, and one DNF.