This was thought up around 5 weeks ago and the aim of the trip was to find 2 Jasmer caches that you can't get in the UK, to find a cache in 6 different countries within 24 hours and to attend a Belgian Mega event. I put a post on the
Group Caching trips group on Facebook and within a few days there were 5 of us all comitted to the trip.
We had booked return Ryanair flights from Stansted airport to Maastricht airport in NL for only £20 each.
Day 1
A very early start to the day, Griff (BaggieDave) picked me up and we drove and dropped car off at Mark & Alison's (colonel&crew) house. Alison then drove us all the way to Stansted picking Kev (Lorri-Ann & Kev) up on way. In between Kev's house and Stansted was to be our first country in the bag....the UK of course.
LQ:GTR LONDON - Oakwood Park
I like to pick up a Little Quest cache if I am ever near one and although it wasn't on the route, everyone kindly agreed we could go for it.
We parked up close to an entrance to the park and entered via torchlight, after finding the cache and heading back to the car it was starting to get light.
So with the first country bagged, we had parked up at airport and had a short wait before flying over to NL.
At airport we picked up the hire car but before setting off we all walked over to the nearest cache.
TRAVEL BUG AIRPORT (edition 4.0)
This was conveniently located close to airport entrance and our first ammo can of the trip. The cache was hidden in the ground slightly with camo over the top.
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| Griff soon finds the cache and NL is in the bag. |
So a quick walk back to the car where I volunteered to do all the driving until we got to the Luxembourg cache. Next stop was Germany.
The first cache we went to in Germany we DNF'ed but that was mainly due to not finding it instantly and not being able to translate into English. We moved on slightly down the road to do 2 caches
Nano am Kronenberg & Kronenberg I - Backenzahn, neither of them were as good as the one in NL but we found a good photo opportunity nearby.
So that was our 3rd country in the bag.
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| Germany just found :) |
Our schedule for the day has started well and no time lost with the DNF, it was time for the longest drive so far (which wasn't much) into Luxembourg, via Belgium.
We had to make a quick stop just after we got over the border I was in desperate need of a loo break so we parked by some lovely woods.
Donkelser Wollef
This was one of our 2 Luxembourg caches and another that we could park up alongside. We had no problem with either of the L caches although Mark had to jump up for the other.
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| Mark with the Wolfman |
After these caches Griff took over the driving where we drove back into Belgium to go after one of the two caches that I really wanted.
Geocache
This cache is one of the oldest surviving in the world. It was placed in July 2000 and has the coordinates
N 50° 00.000 E 005° 00.000. The cache was in a great location on the edge of some woods. It was another one that was in the ground and covered with a nice shaped piece of wood.
We rejoiced when we found it, it was a fantastic feeling to have yet another old cache in the bag. I had grabbed June 2000 two months ago.
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| Oh yes GC40 claimed. |
So 5 countries ticked off and just France to go.
A short drive and we crossed another border, this time we were in France and at our next port of call in a little town called Givet.
Givet is a lovely little town with the River Meuse running through it. We decided to get out of car and walk to a couple of the caches and then have a celebratory drink.
Cologne 2011 geocaching event Givet France cache 1
This one was my favourite cache in Givet and also the one that meant we had completed our personal challenge of a cache in 6 countries in 24 hours.
This is a short walk to the Grégoire tower - it's an old watch tower which would have been erected in the eleventh century and is situated on the edge of the steep Mount of Hauri. Here you have a magnificent view over the river Meuse, the city of Givet and the fort of Charlemont.
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| The cache is up there, by the watchtower |
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| Looking down from Watchtower |
So a quick drink in the town at a bar called "Cafe de la Place" to celebrate our success. We actually completed the challenge in under 12 hours from first cache to last....
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| A quick celebratory drink |
It was now time to cross over the border again in to Belgium and head towards Aalter of which was our destination for the night. We picked one more cache up on the route and Griff handed over the driving to Kev.
We arrived in Aalter early evening and checked into the
Hotel Capitole our base for the night. We had a quick shower and headed into town for a nice meal and a couple of beers before retiring for the night.
Day 2
Griff, Kev & I shared a triple room and decided that we would make an early start in our attempt to grab 100 caches on Mega day,
We woke up at 4am and headed for a series just 20 minutes away.
Langs de oevers
We had roughly 2 hours to grab as many of this 50 cache series as possible. We managed to get 28 of them and a couple of others that were on the route. The majority of them were drive by's but we did have a lot of fun getting to one of them by torchlight....It was really Jungle-like but certainly lots of fun, one of them was up in a tree at the side of a river and #1 of the series had a marvellous "Geocache Maintenance Station". I have certainly never seen anything like it but it was fabulous.
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| Me up a tree |
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| Geocache Maintenance Station. |
So we had 30 caches under our belt and got back to hotel for a quick freshen up and breakfast before heading off for Bruges.
We had decided that we would go and find the hotel for tonights stay and park up closeby and then walk to the Mega event.
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| Our hotel for the night. |
Brugse Beer III
We arrived at the Mega Event and soon spotted cachers from the UK and had a bit of a chat and a small beer. The event was typical of the Mega's back at home and within 30 mins or so it was time to head off and grab some caches so we decided to do some alongside the river on the way back to hotel.
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| Fellow caching addicts from West Mids. |
Kev, Griff and I then decided to grab the car and go and grab as many caches as possible in our quest to grab 100 on Mega day.
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| Down the riverside |
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| The river |
Snif
A series of 9 caches and a bonus over 1.8 miles.
There was some lovely woodland to the side of us and all caches were nice quick finds. We got around the walk in 40 minutes as we were on a mission.
Bones
A series of 14 caches and a bonus over 2.3 miles.
Another easy walk along tracks down the edges of fields. The caches were easy to find and to get the bonus coords you had to match up bones of the body to get final coords for the bonus.
The bonus was yet another Ammo can hidden below ground level.
55 minutes later and this series was in the bag too.
De legende
A series of 12 caches and a bonus over 3 miles.
An easy walk along tracks at the side of fields, with some nice woodland threw in as well. All caches were found no problem and the bonus was yet another ammo can hidden under ground level.
These 3 walks have been fantastic and great to do them in another country on the hottest day of the year so far. We rewarded ourselves with a thickshake from McDonalds and then headed on over to some of the newly published caches and did them as drive by's until we hit 100 for the day.
We then headed back to hotel for a quick wash and then set off to meet Mark & Alison at an Indian Restaurant in the city centre.
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| Beautiful Bruges |
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| The Main Square |
We had a very enjoyable meal and then Kev, Griff & I said we would do a few more caches and have a few beers.
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| 3 - 0.5 L of Stella for 21 euros......ouch. |
We had one beer in main square but due to the cost we decided to move on and hit another couple of bars. We managed a few more caches before deciding we had a little too much to drink to do anymore.
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| Oh dear, look who is trolleyed :) |
At the end of the night (around 3am) we had to get a taxi back to hotel as none of us had waypointed where it was.
Day 3
We had an early start today as we had a big day of driving to do, so after eating a big breakfast it was time to check out of the hotel. As we were putting our stuff into the car we bumped into our geobuddies from the West Mids again....small world!
We had a quick chat in the rain and then Mark drove us to our first cache of the day.
Tjilp, tjilp
Another old cache this one which ticked a square on the Jasmer grid, this one being placed in May 2001.
This one was one we had looked at before the trip as all around the cache were ditches with water in, fortunately with the aid of Google Earth we took the correct approach and one small leap from Mark and cache was in hand.
We did another old cache which I already had the M/Y for and then headed for the highlight of the day and 1 of the 2 most sought after caches of the trip.
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| The ditch Mark jumped to get cache. |
G'ebbes
A March 2001 cache in a National Park of Netherlands. It really is a beautiful woodland and such a fantastic location to be brought to. We parked up in main car park and took a half a mile walk through the woods. The cache was easy to find and it really put us all on a high, this for me is what caching is all about.
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| March 2001 ticked on Jasmer grid. |
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| Some of the woodland. |
We all returned to the car in high spirits and quite excited about the next cache too.
The drive wasn't far compared with what we had drove already and I took over the driving again for a while.
Pegasus Bridge
Pegasus bridge was used in the epic war film "The Bridge too far", it is a virtual cache with an easy question to answer to claim it. The bridge was fantastic and situated in the city of Arnhem in the Netherlands.
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| Pegasus bridge. |
All of our itinery was now done so we were off to our final hotel of the break in the town of Valkenburg.
Valkenburg was a lovely town and I think took us all by surprise. It was a shame that we didn't get to spend more time here but obviously with our strict schedule this was not possible.
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| Our hotel in Valkenburg |
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| Valkenburg as night falls |
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| In the town |
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| Griff getting planking all wrong |
We had a drink at bar with the lovely owner before heading into the town to seek out a Dutch restaurant. We had a lovely meal swilled down with a couple of beers before heading off to do our last caching of the trip.
Day 4
We got up early for the 30 minute drive back to Maastricht airport for our flight back to Stansted and the end of our epic trip.
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The End.
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Totals for weekend:
6 countries
3 Jasmers
1 Mega Event
132 Smilies
