Objectives
The beginning of the year promised much entertainment, with us already having planned trips to Tokyo, Paris and Italy at various points, however, in discussion with the girls, I set a single objective for the year. That was to find 2018 or more caches in the calendar year. You would think that was possible, despite being considerably above any other year so far. In the event, I was a couple of hundred short, despite having my cachiest year ever. So here is my 2018 Caching Diary.
January (88 finds)
- 1st January – we grabbed a single cache on the way home from double parkrun just so I could get the souvenir – 1 find
- 14th January – I made the majority of finds for the month up near The Giddings (see You’ve Got to be Gidding) – 71 finds
- 18th January – I attended a “Roundabout MK” event – 1 find
- 28th January – we had a near-death experience on the hills above Brighton (see Close to the Edge) – 14 finds
- 29th January – we slipped in a single cache whilst visiting Brighton – 1 find
February (36 finds)
- February was a fairly slow caching month, with my only finds being over the period of the Tokyo marathon weekend trip with Kas from Feb 23rd to Feb 26th – 36 finds
March (434 finds)
- 10th March – I got off to a decent start with a trip over to the Bourn Bonanza series (see Bourn Bonanza) – 56 finds
- 22nd March – I attended a “Roundabout MK” event that I’d organised myself – 1 find
- 24th March – I scooted over to Hertfordshire to do the Sandon Sloth series with Izzy (see Sandon Sloth) – 40 finds
- 28th March – was Day 1 of our epic journey to try to complete the MTVO series just north of Paris (see Frouville) – 120 finds
- 29th March – was Day 2 of our MTVO quest (see Livilliers) – 128 finds
- 30th March – was our third day in France and we took a day off the monster caching for A Day Off in Paris – 15 finds
- 31st March – was our fourth day in France attacing the MTVO series again after doing a French parkrun in the morning (see Hérouville) – 74 finds
April (361 finds)
- 1st April – was our fifth day in France attacking the MTVO series, and we attacked it pretty hard (see Jouy-le-Comte) – 151 finds
- 2nd April – was our sixth day in France and we managed to finish off the MTVO series (see Valmondois) – 134 finds
- 3rd April – was our seventh and final day in France, and we spent it trying to visit as many different French Departments as we could manage (see Colouring In) – 11 finds
- 29th April – I travelled over towards Royston to (see Litlington) – 65 finds
May (82 finds)
- 2nd May – I was on a business trip to Guernsey and dashed out for a few finds in the evening – 7 finds
- 19th May – we were in Liverpool for the annual running weekend – 3 finds
- 24th May – I grabbed a cache on the way to the pub – 1 find
- 25th May – I popped out to find a nearby puzzle – 1 find
- 28th May – I drove down to Stockbridge with Pesh and the Happy Hunter (see Stockbridge) – 69 finds
- 31st May – I made another find on a business trip to Guernsey – 1 find
June (3 finds)
- 3rd June – I made a couple of finds locally during a lunch break – 2 finds
- 9th June – there was a Saturday afternoon event in Milton Keynes – 1 find
July (176 finds)
- 13th July – I was with Izzy and the Happy Hunter at the GeoNord event in Dunkirk (see Forts & Dunes) – 44 finds
- 14th July – I was with Izzy and the Happy Hunter at the GeoNord event. We went to Lille (see A Lille More Time) – 33 finds
- 15th July – I was still with Izzy and the Happy Hunter at the GeoNord event. We were near Dunkirk (see Deux Sans Frontieres) – 76 finds
- 24th July – there was an event locally in Milton Keynes – 1 find
- 29th July – we were on our family holiday in Italy and spent the day in Milan (see Milan) – 14 finds
- 30th July – we spent the day in Bergamo (see Bergamo) – 5 finds
- 31st July – we spent the day at Lake Como (see Lake Como) – 3 finds
August (72 finds)
- 1st August – we were in Turin reliving the original Italian Job movie (see Turin) – 10 finds
- 2nd August – we drove down to the Cinque Terre for a very special ice cream (see Cinque Terre) – 4 finds
- 3rd August – we were in Pisa (see Pisa) – 3 finds
- 4th August – we were in Florence and attended an event organised by a French family across in Montecatini Terme (see Florence) – 9 finds
- 5th August – we were still in Florence (see Florence Again) – 2 finds
- 6th August – we made our way from Florence to San Marino via Urbino (see Urbino) – 4 finds
- 7th August – we were in San Marino in the morning before making our way to Bologna (see San Marino) – 8 finds
- 8th August – we were in Bologna in the morning before making our way to Venice (see Bologna) – 7 finds
- 9th August – we were in Venice doing the full tourist job (see Venice) – 14 finds
- 11th August – we made our way to Verona (see Verona) – 9 finds
- 12th August – we were heading back home again but made a random find on the way (see Lake Garda) – 1 find
- 14th August – I attended a nearby Beds, Bucks, Herts event – 2 finds
September (48 finds)
- 13th September – we attended an event to say goodbye to dear caching friend who sadly passed – 1 find
- 15th September – I met up with a couple of friends to walk around a new series at Souldrop (see Souldrop Revival) – 31 finds
- 17th September – there was a caching event in Milton Keynes – 1 find
- 28th September – I dashed round a few local caches – 15 finds
October (155 finds)
- 6th & 7th October – we were on a family running trip to Bournemouth – 3 finds
- 27th October – it was Winter Geolympix day at the Ashridge estate (see Winter Geolympix) – 53 finds
- 28th October – the ladies of the house were away so I went out caching up near Peterborough (see Morborne Monster) – 99 finds
November (12 finds)
- 4th November – I made a single find whilst Kas was doing a run in Dovedale – 1 find
- 6th November – there was an event in Milton Keynes – 1 find
- 17th & 18th November – I grabbed a few caches on our lads’ weekend away (see Lads in the Lake District) – 7 finds
- 26th November – Kas grabbed a few caches on my account while she was in Cyprus – 3 finds
December (67 finds)
- 26th December – I made a single find at Stowe while we were having a nice Boxing Day stroll – 1 find
- 30th December – I went for a final “big day” out for the year (see Weston Underwood) – 66 finds
So that’s the 2018 Caching Diary. 1,533 total finds was well shy of the initial 2,018 target, but it was a good year nonetheless. The holiday in Italy was fantastic, and the Easter trip to France was a very memorable trip, both for the caching and the general “ambiance”, as it were.