About 8:00pm one night I realised that it was Wednesday… it’s the Bank Holidays and school holidays and such, no idea what day of the week it is.
Anyway it being Wednesday meant two things, I was due at the Pub quiz shortly, and the blank day on my geocaching calendar grid hadn’t been filled (as I was a day out in my thinking)
So I went to the pub to see my mates and do the quiz (we didn’t win this week) and then at 11:15pm I headed out to find the nearest drive-by cache to home.
29th May 2013 – Strait Lane Sheep Tin GC – cache #2573
It was drizzling a bit and the sky was completely overcast and I drove through Pool into Huby and turned up Strait Lane, saw the ‘Sheep Tin’ and pulled off half onto the path at the side of the road. Then I got out of my car… and realised that I couldn’t see a thing, absolutely pitch black on a road with no lights on an overcast night…
I felt my way round to the back of the car and then tripped off the kerb (I had turned the car lights off hoping that my eyes would adjust to the light levels) walked across the road and stumbled over the kerb at the other side.
I had gone a few yards past the cache before I parked so I had to walk down the hill a bit, by this time my eyes had adjusted enough that when looking down I could vaguely tell the difference between the dark grey of the white street sign the inky black of everything else so I could orient myself and feel for the cache – which was where I expected it to be… No chance of signing the cache in the dark, so I went back to my car, tripped over the kerb again – and the grass banking, and got back in my car where there was light, and signed the log… then back over the road to replace the cache and back to my car, and yes, stumbling over the kerb and the grass banking again.
To anyone else who attempts to find this cache on a pitch black night I would recommend a) that they approach from the other end of Strait Lane… then they can pull off where I did but leave their headlights on pointing down the hill, thus illuminating the area,
and b) take a torch !
