The Sketch
Having spent a day of vacation walking around Therfield on the previous day I decided I still hadn’t done enough caches in the year, so I headed of for a day doing London labs.
I’d studied the form to some extent and knew I could find a large number of stages of Adventure Labs if I walked eastwards from Euston, then south and back westwards towards Westminster. Beyond that, there was no real plan, to be honest. It was a Sauturday and I had all day available. However it was December, so it would be dark not long after 4pm. That set some parameters for me.
Starting Off
I began by getting a very early train from Milton Keynes down to London. Clearly. I would have done a lot of caching if I’d tried to walk to London first. I grabbed some coffee and pastries at the station to eat on the train.
The train trip was dull, as ever, and I arrived in London just as it was getting light.
After a couple of quick finds near the station I progressed on to Tavistock Square and then on to St George’s Gardens, heading east from Euston. I was quite surprised when I came across the Foundling Hospital and the associated playing fields. Those were busy with loads of kids playing some Saturday morning football. It was surprising to see such a large area right in the middle of the city, I guess.
A Religious Experience
I made my way from the King’s Cross area through Farringdon and down towards The Temple. My biggest problem here was finding a way in. Once I did, again I was surprised the the pristine and peaceful nature of the place. I mean, the church appears in The Da Vinci Code but I’d never really considered that might be an “actual” place in the middle of London. Nor that it would be so quiet. I guess barristers don’t work on Saturdays.
I was in there because there was a set of lab caches in the area. It’s public access, despite being the home of two of the Inns of Court. It took me ages, to be honest, to find the way in. I wasted an amount of time there. I also struggled with a couple of the pieces of information required. And to cap it all, I then couldn’t figure out how to get out. One piece of information I needed was near the exit out to The Strand, but you could only get out with an electronic pass, and I clearly didn’t have one. Thankfully, after a while, someone arrived who did have one, and they were happy to let me tailgate out. The information was on the outside not the inside.
Into the Afternoon
As time moved on into the afternoon I found myself wandering towards the West End and picking up a few caches that I’d failed with on the last time I was in London. That was London Calling day, back in August 2021. I failed those due to a lack of time, a lack of patience, or a lack of phone signal.
Some of those issues were still present on this trip, especially the phone signal, and I once again found myself wandering around aimlessly trying to find a free wi-fi to enable me to complete what I needed. I got there eventually, but it was slow and there was some swearing involved.
After this, I was getting a bit tired and needed a sit down. I availed my self of some lunch at a certain well-known multinational chain whose name rhymes with Pack Ronalds. That was right next to Charing Cross Station. It wasn’t an entirely pleasant experience, to be honest. It took ages to get served and then I couldn’t find a seat for ages.
To Parliament
From here I picked my way down Whitehall to Parliament Square, where there were a few new sets of Adventure Labs that weren’t there on London Calling day. I also didn’t have time on that day to walk through the area to the south of the Houses of Parliament nor round St James’s Park. The park was quite nice. It was a little busy, and it was starting to go a little dark by this time, but it was good. There was one locaiton where I struggled to find the information, but got there eventually.
I needed another rest, so sat on a bench for 15 minutes to give my feet a rest. This gave me a final burst of energy, and I used it to walk through Waterloo Place and up to Piccadilly Circus, then throuogh Soho.
Enough
It was “proper dark” by this time and frankly my legs had had enough, but I wanted to walk round everywhere. Well, I didn’t want to have to use the tube on a Saturday evening, to be honest. So I legged it up to Tottenham Court Road and then along Goodge Street back to where I’d started.
I was kind of glad to get back to Euston and also to be able to catch a train back fairly quickly. All-in-all another excellent day of caching with a disgusting quantity of finds, as you can see from the map.
The house and the remaining members of the family where pretty much where I’d left them, so that was all good.