Saturday 29 May 2010

Bad habits die hard

The 14000 box benchmark is now very close. A few walks have left us just one good day's boxing from reaching the milestone.

However, impatience and anticipation had taken over. This sudden urgency neutralised the slightly iffy weather forecast for today.

Letterboxing in the rain - a brave or stupid idea? Unless it were for a first-in-book, we would normally just take a look out the window and, if it's tipping down, put the kettle on.

Once this morning's heavy rain had passed we genuinely believed we would get a few hours boxing in.

After lunch, the clouds were heavy and low, but we continued anyway.

We were not alone. The car park was full! We took huge comfort in this.

Bearings impossible, the GPS came into its own. However most of the clues on the list lacked GPS references and were reliant on paces and close bearings.

We put up with the heavy showers and thick fog for 4 hours before giving up.

Every piece of walking gear soaked through, only 7 boxes found, 2 of which were unexpected, and we are still 12 away from our target.
The moral of the story is don't letterbox in the rain - its just not worth it.

2 comments:

4 Winds said...

Never much enjoyed walking in the rain but love running in it - nice and cool! Where are the pics from? Guessing Bellever and Corndown Down area, but not very confident!

whoisthechallenger said...

Ah, we cheated a bit with the photos - they are two different walks, both in heavy rain. One is the side of Ugborough Beacon above Owley Corner. The other is the lane from Norsworthy Bridge towards Combeshead Tor (taken about a year ago, when the bracken was up).