2017 Caching Diary

The Gardners » Caching Progress » 2017 Caching Diary

Objectives

At the turn of the year I was party to several facebook discussions on the subject of what targets people were setting for their caching during 2017. I generally don’t make plans, because I tend to cache opportunistically and have learned to be driven by whims rather than plans, but the discussion got me thinking. So here is my 2017 Caching Diary.

Instead of making formal plans I’ve decided this year to just try to pick away at a number of different objectives, continuing last year’s theme of just enjoying my caching. There’s a number of things I’d like to work on, these being:

• Get my total finds up towards 10,000;
• Finish off some more English counties, and maybe the remaining Welsh ones if schedules allow;
• Colour in a few more slots on the Difficulty/Terrain Matrix;
• Attend one or maybe two overseas mega events, especially the GeoNord 2017 – Oxygen event in June;
• Attend the UK Mega in Devon (Devon UK Mega 2017), if holiday schedules allow.

Let’s see how it goes, huh!

January (66 finds)

• 1^st Jan – we walked around Lodge Lake in Milton Keynes to find a couple – 2 finds
• 7^th Jan – we attended the 14th iteration of the Roundabout MK event series – 1 finds
• 22^nd Jan – I completed most of the Banbury Fringe Circular Caching Walk series (see Banbury) – 63 finds

February (114 finds)

• 19^th Feb – I completed the WW series up near Silverstone (see Silverstone Woods) – 50 finds
• 25^th Feb – I scuttled of to Hauxton with Ami (see Hauxton) – 63 finds
• 28^th Feb – I attended a Beds, Bucks, Herts event in Edlesborough – 1 find

March (102 finds)

• 9^th Mar – I attended a “Roundabout MK” meeting – 1 find
• 22^nd Mar – I attended a BBH event down near Leighton Buzzard – 1 find
• 25^th Mar – I felt like I was in danger of having my worst caching month ever, so I addressed the problem by finding 100 in a day near Yaxley (see Yakkety Yaxley) – 100 finds

April (463 finds)

By far the most cachiest caching month ever. Of all time.

• 1^st Apr – the girls and me spend a good day in the company of the Happy Hunter attacking the Shrek series in Kent (see Greenhithe) – 56 finds
• 7^th Apr – Ami and me began our epic trip to Belgium (see Jeux Sans Frontieres) – 73 finds
• 8^th Apr – Ami and me attended the Brugse Beer Mega (see Brugse Beer VII) – 44 finds (including 19 lab caches)
• 9^th Apr – Ami and me attended an event beginning with a “Z” then went to a town with a silly name (see Knick Knacky Knokke Heist Knicky Knacky Noo) – 63 finds
• 10^th Apr – Ami and me made our trip home from Bruges via Calais (see Big White Nose) – 47 finds
• 11^th Apr – I was able to complete a find on a challenge cache I’d signed on April 1st – 1 find
• 23^rd Apr – Izzy and me scooted up to Cambridgeshire for a few (see Lutton Lambada) – 64 finds
• 25^th Apr – I grabbed a handful while on a business trip to Munich – 5 finds
• 29^th Apr – I made a solo run down to Kent for the Kent Mega event, which turned into a bit of an epic day (see Oast with the Most) – 110 finds ( including 10 lab caches )

May (2 finds)

From the best month ever to the worst.

• 2^nd May – I picked up a single local cache to gain a souvenir – 1 find
• 31^st May – I attended a Roundabout MK event – 1 find

June (159 finds)

Giving it some proverbial welly again.

• 4^th June – I drove over to Suffolk and Essex to tick off two missing counties (see A Disappointing Achievement) – 32 finds
• 6^th June – I needed to stretch my legs after work and there was a new cache just up the road – 1 find
• 9^th-11^th June – I attended this year’s GeoNord mega event in Saint Omer (see Saint Omer) – 123 finds
• 27^th June – someone released a bunch of new puzzle caches in Milton Keynes, I got an FTF on one of them – 2 finds
• 28^th June – I did another one of those – 1 find

July (137 finds)

• 6^th July – I attacked a couple more of the new puzzles in Milton Keynes – 2 finds
• 14^th July – I attacked most of them, but missed 4 because it was too dark (see MK Puzzle Series) – 20 finds
• 15^th July – I went out for a “mega” day near Orwell after doing parkrun and came home with a new PB (see Orwell Orbital) – 114 finds
• 16^th July – we all attended an event in the evening – 1 find

August (158 finds)

• 12^th August – we found a cache on the way home from dinner on the first night of our family holiday – 1 find
• 13^th August – I went for a walk around and found a few, some with the family and some alone – 7 finds
• 14^th August – we had trouble finding any caches at all in Girona – 4 finds
• 15^th August – we found a handful around the “Olympic Zone” in Barcelona – 12 finds
• 17^th August – I had a rather fruitful day near to our holiday home (see Santa Cristina) – 75 finds



• 18^th August – we went to Barcelona again for a bit of Gaudi action – 4 finds
• 21^st August – we went for a look at the monastery at Montserrat – 6 finds
• 22^nd August – I had another afternoon caching on my own in Spain (see Pedralta) – 43 finds
• 24^th August – we went up to the theme park on the Tibidabo mountain near Barcelona – 2 finds
• 25^th August – I walked up the hill behind our holiday home to make one more find in town before we left – 1 find
• 26^th August – we grabbed a few final caches in the middle of Barcelona before coming home – 3 finds

September (85 finds)

• 17^th September – I walked around a couple of new series near to home (see Adstock) – 43 finds
• 30^th September – I went over to the south side of Northampton for a new series (see Camo Capers) – 42 finds

October (129 finds)

• 5^th October – I finished off the puzzle series in MK that I’d started back in July – 5 finds
• 7^th October – I scooted over to Souldrop for a series there (see Souldrop Caching) – 46 finds
• 11^th October – we attended the “Puzzle Club” event in a well known coffee shop – 1 find
• 21^st October – I headed in the general direction of Royston while the girls were away up north (see Barkway and Reed) – 66 finds
• 22^nd October – I made one local find whilst setting a load of my Flags series – 1 find
• 27^th October – I went to London with the kids to give Kas a day of peace and quiet at home – 10 finds

November (67 finds)

• 5^th November – I headed west (slightly) to complete a couple of nearby series (see Hillesden Caching) – 38 finds
• 9^th November – there was a “Roundabout MK” event – 1 find
• 12^th November – I did a quick dash around southeastern MK with Izzy – 11 finds
• 18^th November – it was lad’s weekend away and we ended up in Whitby after a long day of walking – 1 find
• 19^th November – we went for a walk at Robin Hood’s Bay – 10 finds
• 20^th November – I made a quick pre-breakfast dash around the village in North Yorkshire we’d been staying in – 6 finds

December (73 finds)

• 3^rd December – I headed over to Knapwell for the majority of my finds in the month (see Knapwell Knick Knack) – 53 finds
• 23^rd December – we were up at Kas’s mum’s for Christmas and I grabbed a few new ones in Whitburn – 3 finds
• 29^th December – Kas wanted a long run so we met her at Rosliston for what turned out to be a very muddy afternoon – 16 finds
• 31^st December – Pesh organised a breakfast event at the Peace Pagoda – 1 find

Summary

So what did I manage to achieve over the course of the year ? A few things, but maybe not that impressive a list :

• A new record for most finds in a single calendar month – 463 in April
• 3 mega events, of which 2 were overseas
• A bunch of new entries filled in on the D/T matrix
• A visit to the English counties of Essex and Suffolk (at last)
• 1559 total finds – not my best year, but not the worst either
• A visit to Catalonia to colour in 2 new provinces in Spain (or 2 or the 4 provinces in Catalonia, depending on how you feel about Catalonian independence)
• I attended my 100th event cache, counting all types such as regular events, megas, gigas and CITOs

So not a bad year, overall.

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