Caching On The South Downs

After I was off my pace for the last expedition, I was keen to get out and prove to myself that it was due to the manful rather than the hills. My usual geocaching crew were off doing a series I’d already done and whilst I don’t mind caching on my own, it’s more fun with someone (plus, it’s very difficult & time consuming to get into undergrowth currently with my legs like they are).

Gypsum Gyratory

Not everyone can get up at 4am on a Sunday morning. I’ve learnt that it takes a special kind of willpower to do so, especially when the prospect is a day of aching feet and miles and miles of walking. Still the fact that I couldn’t go geocaching for so long has resulted in a sense of freedom when I now do. And the fact I can walk so far after all that has happened is a reminder of how hard I’ve had to work to get the leg back to a stage where I can do it. Like everything in life, sometimes you get knocked down. You either stay knocked down or you get up and come back stronger.

And I do feel stronger. I actually feel like I’m in the best condition since I started geocaching in 2008. But that doesn’t mean that at 4am on a Sunday I don’t feel like crap. As I did on this day, just over a week ago. I woke with a scratchy throat and was worried I had come down with this cold that is knocking everyone out around me. Still, I’d felt the same when I’d gone and done my record-breaking day near Peterborough so I just put it down to early mornings.

Our target for the day was the Kent / East Sussex border and a place called Brightling. It’s a place with a church and a couple of houses and nothing else. Except under the ground is a huge Gypsum mine. There’s very little evidence of the mine above ground except for a huge overland conveyor which looks like a massive snake working its way across the countryside.

Smashing Another Personal Best

So what do you do when you’ve done the impossible?  Well you raise the bar up and challenge yourself again.

Following my 133 solo cache find day last month I’ve been feeling pretty proud of myself.  I realise that personal challenges are just that and may mean absolutely nothing to anyone else, but for me to come back from the leg injury and set a new solo best felt like a major victory.

But I’m still getting stronger and felt like it was time to take on another challenge.  I’m happy to let my solo record stand for some time.  I can think of only a handful of people who could do that number on their own in a day, and none of them have bad legs.

Instead, this time I wanted to beat my all time daily record which stood at 135 (only 2 less than my new solo record).  I’d identified a route near Peterborough to be able to beat this and enlisted my friend Westie to come help me.