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.

Island hopping

Well well well what shall I do tonight, theres nothing on the TV and I fancy doing something different?
Well now this is different!! I got email notifications of 4 new caches in the Oldbury area placed by a friend, Paul., Well I can get there pretty quick as it's only 1 junction up the M5, so I downloaded them to the Oregon and set off into the unknown- I say this as I didn't read listings or take much info as to where they were.
As I was on the way I had a call off Dave (Dibboid) saying he was on the way to them.
I got there first so parked up at McDonalds and got prepared.

Kara & Kieron None Circular Circular series by BlokieBloke

http://coord.info/GC3AZ7H

There are 4 smilies up for grabs here plus one extra for the bonus, which wasn't published at the time.
You need to get the numbers out of 3 of the caches, which I  didn't do as I hadn't read description.

As soon as Dave turned up we knew where the caches GZ was, it was right in the middle of a traffic island, infact all 4 were. Luckily I went straight to the first one and we were in business, no torches required thank goodness. We bagged another before bumping into Becky and Adam (AdamandBeckyChater) who then joined us on finding the last 2.
At the last one Marcus and Debbie (Darlaston Duo's) had beat us to it.

We could not stop giggling at the cheekiness of these caches and the fact that they will be so hard to do in the daylight when the traffic is heaving.
Great fun.

4 caches bagged and 3 were FTF's.