Back home...

Once back from our break we started to get out and about in earnest.

I had moved to the beautiful village I live in about 11 years previously, but had made no real effort to explore the surrounding countryside or towns. I was amazed. We were finding little woodlands, hidden paths and secret walks only moments away from roads we'd regularly drive on. It was such an eye-opener connecting places to other places, and realising that point A was only a field away from point B - something you'd never connected in your head as it was normally a two mile drive or a round-the-houses trip.

I've a dozen or more stories to tell about the caches I've already found but, for now at least, I'll have to leave them in my own head and I shall cut this intro short.

In summary over the last six weeks we've bought a proper GPS device (Garmin Vista eTrex HCx that's fabulous.) We've both also upgraded to the iPhone 4 which is also phenominally better than the 3G for GPS performance. We've tracked (using the Garmin) over 70 miles of walking, both passed our first 100 finds, hidden our first cache and then also a small series of three.

I've also spent a small fortune on rucksacks, water bottles, water-proofs, hiking boots, cache containers, log books, pencils, cache logs, nano-caches, paint (to disguise my hides), cache swaps and "furtling" sticks. It's been worth every penny. My legs are 100% fitter, I feel 100% fitter and I've lost 5lbs.

Now to shift the beer belly... oh, and to hit the 1000 finds mark!