Sunday Morning
Sunday morning greeted us with bright sunshine and another tray full of juice, coffee, pastries and bread at the hotel. Me and Minimus got down a few minutes before our agreed 8 am call (again) and so managed to avoid the massive 8 am queue (again). 
The morning activity for the day was another event cache. This one was held at La Coupole in Helfaut.
La Coupole (see La Coupole) is an old V2 storage bunker and launch site that has been converted into a war museum. We had tickets for a tour of the facility, followed by the caching event itself, which was being held on the lawns just up from the car park. The tour was interesting but I guess I would have liked to have gone there on a day when we weren’t also trying to get some caching done. We spent about 90 minutes inside. Minimus and me left a little early as Minimus was getting a bit cold and hence wasn’t really enjoying herself.
Outside in the sunshine we found a wherigo cache in the car park before HHHP20 came out. From there we walked around the back to grab another 4 of the letterbox series and two earthcaches. At the second of these, we had the bizarre experience of bumping into a very familiar-looking Dutch guy. It was the same one that had given me a look of some disgust at the GeoNord event last year while I was, errrr, dismantling a field puzzle cache with a screwdriver (because we didn’t have the code to do it properly). He signed it though. And we didn’t actually do any damage to the container. Anyway, it was him, and he did recognise me once I’d spoken to him and taken my big hat off. Small world!
Walking in the Sunshine
Adding in the event and another wherigo just over the road that meant we’d found 10 caches in the morning, and we decided we’d better get a move on with our main event of the day, which was a series of puzzles and wherigos that I solved some time ago in anticipation of coming to the event. There were 24 in the series plus yet further wherigos in the vicinity. That made a total of 27 planned for this bit of the walk.
We started heading off on a clockwise loop, having singularly failed to acquire chilled beverages at the main station. We couldn’t see a single kiosk or shop. By the time we’d done three caches we made a policy decision that continuing without drinks was a bad idea. So we did an about turn and headed back to the town to try to find a shop. We didn’t find one. We did, however, find a small bar, so we had the fastest drink ever before moving on. If we were in the bar for five minutes I’d be surprised. We felt a bit refreshed afterwards though.
From that point things perked up for a bit. We were walking alongside a wide canal on the edge of Saint-Omer’s centre, heading southwards. The series was sort of a loop, only one that has been flattened out a bit. Essentially you walk out down one side of the canal and back up the other side. We were going around in reverse order, but who cares.
Time to Start Heading Home
It turned out to be quite a long walk and we’d all had enough by the time we got back to the car. Anyway, time was marching onwards and we’d discussed and agreed that if we had an hour spare we’d go to Belgium so HHHP20 could do a single cache there. So after the walk we decided to head for drinks at McDonalds. The one we went to didn’t have milkshakes though, which was a big disappointment, so instead we popped into the Subway next door and bought a load of cold drinks, some crisps and some cookies (for Minimus). The first bottle of diet coke didn’t touch the sides.
We took the scenic route up to Dunkirk from here rather than the autoroute. It went quite quickly and we were handily placed for hopping over the border into Belgium. The closest town was Adinkerke, scene of one of mine and Ami’s escapades in April (see Jeux Sans Frontieres), so the easiest caches in town were off limits.
We drove around a bit and stopped for a while looking for a cache that looked quick and easy to do. We were in a bit of an empty spot, but eventually we picked one close to where we’d driven in and hoped we could find somewhere to park there. About 150m away there was a lay-by with a space, so we just had to make a short walk and then decide whether to look on top of the bridge or beneath it (a big road bridge). Gut feel said to go below, and the gut was right. So that’s Belgium “done” for HHHP20 with plenty of time left to drive back to Calais, despite the roadworks and queue on the motorway.
Sunday Sums
Adding up all those caches found near Saint Omer took us up to the high thirties for the day. That’s just over 120 for the weekend, which is a tidy sum for a 2-day trip, I reckon. And despite going home on Friday night to collect my walking boots, they remained unused all weekend.
More Training
As we checked in we weren’t offered an early train, however, the terminal itself was far more empty than any previous trip I’d made through there. We barely had to queue to get food. Irritatingly, though, they seem to close the gents toilets at this time of day (about 7pm) for cleaning. That happened in April too. Having decided we could hold on for a while, we went straight to our train. We didn’t have to queue for that either.
As I drove into the start of the lane I noticed a green light at the other end. So for the first time ever I didn’t have to stop at all once we’d left the terminal. We drove straight onto the train and Bob’s yer proverbial. The train we got onto also left a good 20 minutes before the time our ticket said. I guess it was so quiet that they couldn’t be bothered. Excellent news.
Having failed to use the gents in France though, we needed a stop in the UK at the first opportunity. HHHP20 wanted to be eligible for a “three countries in a day” challenge cache. So we stopped at the Folkestone services and did a cache in the car park. And then we pulled into the fuel stop to fill up the car and empty ourselves.
From there it was a fairly dull journey home aside from the mandatory queue to get through the Dartford Tunnels. We got round to dropping HHHP20 of in HP20 (Aylesbury) at about 9:30 and just made it home for 10pm, whereupon Minimus proceeded directly to bed, without passing “Go” or collecting £200. She’d been awake the whole journey, picking her way through another Harry Potter book.
