17/03/12 - Personal Best in Ullenhall

Caches - 40 out of 40
Distance - 9.3 Miles
It was only going to be a matter of time before I attempted this marathon circuit of caches.  Kept an eye on the weather reports last night and it didn't look too good.  But what do they know?  Took their advice and dressed suitably for a drenching.

My long term caching partner had been worn out on the ladies 5 hour sherry walk over Clent yesterday.  Quite how you make a 5 mile walk last 5 hours, I don't know.  I could tell the geohound wasn't up for it when I got downstairs at 7am to put the kettle on.  In a new display of cunning, she waited for the crumpets to pop before sloping off to hide.

40 Caches, 9 miles, jog on Billy no mates

So, its just me then.

Head on up to Ullenhall.  Look at the first suggested parking and it looks like the sort of place that I would struggle to get out off, so move on and park up at number 15 where there is a nice layby.  Will I meet anyone on the way around?

The route is made up of a number of loops but there is very little repitition on the round.  The countryside is all similar so no one section stands out.  Just lots of nice houses, fields with horses, country lanes, a railway line and lots of unusual and handcrafted caches with not a magentic micro amongst them.

Near Cache 16 - my second of the day.

Cache 25 - And sound advice for Cachers

Last time a weather report was so wrong - 15/10/87

Cache 10 - I thought I was at Cheltenham on Thursday

Some of the highlights of today...

• Persevering with 3 tricky caches - in a post, in a bracket and in a strange hole in the ground
• Seeing a car at Parking for cache 1 and seeing Shortmat is out from cache 40 to 4
• But then the logs just stopped.  Where did he go :-)
• Getting muggled by a lone dog in the middle of nowhere. 
• Having a horse nudge my water bottle looking for food whilst I was reading a clue

See a few bike riding muggles and then right at the end, a woman with two dogs on a lead.  I could see the cache I wanted at number 13, but the dogs refused to walk past me.  I then moved on and the woman just looked at me a bit strangely.

It wasn't until I got back to the car, that I realised my bedraggled look was only emphasised by a geoinjury picked up somewhere along the way by stuffing my head into a prickly bush.

Suffering for my art

So, unusually for me I get 100% on a round and beat my previous best caching day by 6.  Thanks to Butttercup & Stormystorm for a great round.

PS.  Liked the dynamite.