A marathon series in Cheltenham.

Well what a hectic week its been, I won't go into too much details but I have been in and out of Eye Clinic this week. I was due to either attend a camping event in Notts or take Ben to Butlins, however due to a bit of laser on Friday I was unable to drive.
Dave and Shan had been planning this day for a month or so and I said that I may go but it was doubtful, however with the kind offer of being picked up and brought back home, it was just the tonic I needed.

I set the alarm for 4.30am and was picked up at 5.30am and then it was off to Frankley services so the others could bag a cache.
Today there was Shan (the Griswalds n dogs) Dave (BaggieDave), Paul (Blokiebloke) and myself.

The Cheltenham Circular Caching Challenge

http://coord.info/GC3MVDB

The Cheltenham Circular Caching Challenge (CCCC) is a walk of over 26 miles with more than 100 caches to grab on the way.  The first half is quite hard going in places due to ascent and mud and the second half is completely flat. 
The trail starts and ends close to Cheltenham racecourse taking in some great views along the way.

We dropped Shans car off in Churchdown as a get out clause 3/4 of the way round the circuit and then drove on to some parking opposite the racecourse where the adventure began.

The Racecourse.

The first 5 miles were nice and easy but the next 7 miles were a bit up and down with a steep bit between miles 7 and 8. After mile 12 is was almost totally flat.

We had a big task today considering how many miles we had to walk and how many times we would have to stop to look for caches but as always there was lots of pranking each other and it was right from the off.

Dave was in contact with a couple of the c/o's beforehand and during the day.  He had agreed to do maintenance and replace caches that were definately not there.....We teased Dave a bit and made believe he was on the phone to an imaginary friend, I think in the end he pretty much believed it. Poor bloke!

On the up!

 

 

This bit ended the climb, we were shattered.

Most of the caches were easy to find but towards the end of the walk we did DNF a few but think it was possibly more down to our tiredness and lack of light.

Lovely blue sky

Further on in the series we bumped into the c/o DanDruff, it was very nice to meet her and we had a nice chat before finishing off this epic marathon.

Another excellent day in great company, smilies bagged was 112 by myself, but the others found more as I had already found some.