2022 Caching Diary

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Objectives

Time to sign off on my 2022 Caching Diary. It’s been a busy year.

2021 was a somewhat improved year compared to 2020, what with there being no pandemic lockdowns for most of the year and with me having the time and energy to meet up with friends and go out caching. 2022 looked like it ought to be even better.

My plan for 2022 was mainly to suck it and see. I mean, planning is tricky while this whole pandemic thing is still around. You don’t know quite what’s going to happen or when. Anyway, I planned to find loads of caches. Over the winter I was planning to stay on roads and paths. I’m done with being knee-deep in clart. The “agricultural” series could all wait until spring and summer. There’s several hundred available within an hour’s drive that are designed for bikes, and hence won’t involve muddy fields.

I’ve kept this post up to date and have moved its date of authoring forward as the year progresses. I’ve been doing some work on presentation of my own find statistics, and as a result I’m now in a much better position to make amendments to this post quickly.

So here we go. A whistlestop tour of my year in tupperware, in the form of a list with links to specific blog posts for the longer days (i.e. those where the caching was significant enough to warrant an individual post).

January (160 finds) – My best ever January

1^st January – Pesh’s traditional “Pastries at the Pagoda” event – This year a “Community Celebration” – 1 find
2^nd January – Ticking off a day from the Shifty Fifty Challenge in Yaxley (see Yaxley Peloton) – 61 finds
9^th January – A quick trip up to Blisworth for a set of Ad Labs and a few traditionals – 15 finds
13^th January – An evening event in Milton Keynes – 1 find
16^th January – A bit of a day out in Hertfordshire (see Animated) – 82 finds

February (386 finds) – My best ever February

3^rd February – A quick one while one of the kids was at Art Club – 1 find
5^th February – If you’re going, go big! (see Brandon) – 90 finds
13^th February – Hacking around a bit more of the “No cheese, Gromit!” series (see Plasticine) – 68 finds
14^th February – Completing my 360° from Home Challenge (see Full Circle) – 18 finds
22^th February – An event and a dash around Towcester for Twosday – 9 finds
26^th February – A monstrously massive day doing poshrule’s peloton (see Peloton) – 200 finds

March (122 finds)

7^th March – A single find for my first ever Traditional on March 7th – 1 find
12^th March – Finishing the Grand Tour by completing poshrule’s peloton (see Pelotoff) – 115 finds
13^th March – A single find for my first ever Traditional on March 13th – 1 find
19^th March – A handful of finds whilst testing out my new bike in Milton Keynes – 4 finds
31^st March – An evening event in Milton Keynes – 1 find

April (236 finds)

1^st April – A single find whilst planning / setting some of my Only Connect puzzles – 1 find
3^rd April – Testing out the new bike in earnest, over at Cambridge (see Girton) – 86 finds
9^th April – Pounding round the Northamptonshire countryside (see Brigstock) – 93 finds
19^th April – I solved an Only Connect puzzle from CASH & Gary, and then dashed for an evening FTF – 1 find
21^st April – I solved another Only Connect puzzle from CASH & Gary, and popped out to find it in my lunch hour – 1 find
23^rd April – I was in London for an event in the Olympic Park – 7 finds
24^th April – I made heavy work of a walk around Harlington and then had some issues with phone signal in Woburn – 43 finds
30^th April – A lunchtime event in Tattenhoe followed by a dash to Wavendon to complete the Shifty Fifty for today – 4 finds

May (108 finds)

1^st May – A return dash to Wavendon on a break between house maintenance tasks – 3 finds
2^nd May – A walk around Rushmere and Stockgrove with the family – 6 finds
6^th May – An evening event and a few local caches – 5 finds
7^th May – The 2022 MK Mini Geocoin Fair – 1 find
8^th May – A morning event after the fair – 1 find
13^th May – A new Ad Labs series at Caldecotte Lake – 8 finds
15^th May – A handful on my way up to see my parents – 11 finds
17^th May – A “Roundabout Milton Keynes” event – 1 find
22^nd May – A birthday bash over in Ashwell for Ryo62 – a day that saw me pass 1,000 finds for the year and 15,000 in total (see Ashwell) – 63 finds
30^th May – A new Ad Labs series in Milton Keynes plus a couple of others – 8 finds
31^st May – One of Pesh’s “Pause for Art” events in Campbell Park – 1 find

June (521 finds – My best ever)

4^th June – A day of insanity driving around the EHB Series (see EHB Series) – 384 finds
11^th June – A single cache required to complete the Shifty Fifty for today – 1 find
14^th June – Four caches required to complete the Shifty Fifty for today, but I did an Ad Lab series, so – 5 finds
25^th June – Finishing off the month with another big day out over towards Royston – 131 finds

July (129 finds)

17^th July – A bike trip round the Letchworth Greenway in ridiculous heat – 62 finds
18^th July – A few local finds – 3 finds
21^st to 31^st July – On holiday in Crete – 64 finds

August (530 finds)

1^st to 4^th August – Still on holiday in Crete) – 50 finds
5^th August – Up to Uttoxeter for the West Midlands Mega (see Knotty) – 109 finds
6^th August – The day of the actual UK Mega in Uttoxeter, spent mainly in Lichfield (see Mega Day) – 83 finds
7^th August – Walking from Sudbury to Tutbury followed by some Ad Labs near East Midlands Airport. Somewhere here I passed 16,000 total finds (see Sudbury to Tutbury) – 68 finds
10^th August – An event in Milton Keynes to celebrate Sidetracked day – 1 find

13^th August – A handful needed to make the Shifty Fifty – Done at Haversham – 9 finds
14^th August – 29 needed for the Shifty Fifty – Mainly done in Great Brickhill – 30 finds
20^th August – Logging the locationless cache GC9FAVE on International Geocaching Day, to get the souvenirs, but frankly because I forgot to do an actual physical cache – 1 find
27^th August – A monster bike and car-based hack near Downham Market (see Norfolk Villages) – 160 finds
31^st August – One of Pesh’s “Pause for Art” series on an afternoon where I’d earned a bit of time off – 19 finds

September (116 finds)

3^rd September – A wander round the woods at West Harling near Thetford (see West Harling) – 106 finds
10^th September – A Roundabout MK event near Wolverton, followed by a new series of Ad Labs up in Haversham – 7 finds
17^th September – A couple of quick ones near Measham on a trip to see my folks – 2 finds
30^th September – One of Pesh’s “Pause for Art” event series in Milton Keynes – 1 find

October (328 finds)

1^st October – Another big day up near Downham Market (see Bouncing Butterflies) – 101 finds
22^nd & 23^rd October – A weekend with the family in Leeds doing Ad Labs in the rain – 54 finds
25^th October – Another monster day up near Downham Market (see Pentney PedalAthon) – 109 finds
29^th October – A day of multiple Ad Labs and other caches near Bedford (see Bedford Walkabout) – 63 finds
31^st October – One of Pesh’s “Pause for Art” event series in Milton Keynes – 1 find

November (139 finds)

5^th November – A walk around Milton Keynes collecting a new series of puzzles – 18 finds
19^th November – A trip to Bury St Edmunds for a load of Ad Labs and an event (see Bury St Edmunds) – 71 finds
27^th November – A strenuous walk near Cambridge around a series that was in bad condition and probably won’t survive the winter – 50 finds

December (251 finds)

2^nd December – A walk Therfield and Kelshall (see Therfield) as a final (probably) mud-plugging day of the year – 105 finds
3^rd December – Down “the Smoke” for a day of Ad Labs (see London Labs). Somewhere here I passed 17,000 total finds – 96 finds
9^th to 12^th December – A weekend in Dorset with the blokes – 14 finds
24^th December – A set of labs in Buckingham – 5 finds
26^th December – A few labs and other in Milton Keynes – 16 finds
28^th December – A quick jaunt out for an hour on my birthday – 9 finds
30^th December – A set of Ad Labs in London that (cough) doesn’t actually require you to be in London – 5 finds
31^st December – Pesh’s traditional end-of-month (and this time, end-of-year) Pause for Art event – 1 find

Summary

So there we have it, my 2022 Caching Diary. So what did I actually achieve:

A total of 3,026 finds
One new country (Greece)
102 sets of Adventure Labs finished
26 days ticked off my Shifty Fifty Challenge
10 days of more than 100 finds
A new one-day high of 384 finds when doing the EHB Series in June

I’m calling that a satisfactory year of caching. I haven’t (still) finished the Difficulty/Terrain grid and I still haven’t finished the “Full English” because I’ve not been setting out specifically to do that. Maybe that can be a target for next year (at least one of the two).