In the City
Another fine day of geocaching down in the city. London is always good for a day of geocaching. There’s always a lot of new caches to be done, and often they take you to parts of the city that you otherwise might not see. I’ve found geocaching to be an excellent way of exploring one of my favourite places on the planet.
So what follows here is a description of a long, but very genuine and quite tiring, walk through London. My hit list included a bunch of labs and physical caches over towards Farringdon, the Barbican and the Tower of London.
Being a trip to London, the car was solidly left at the station and a train was taken. As in “I went by train” not as in “I stole a train”.
Off we go
My first job in London was to finish off something started the previous year at London Calling 2023. There was a puzzle down by St. Pancras Station that we couldn’t find on that day. So I went for another look. I found it.
From here I went south via Southampton Row and Russell Square down to Holborn, where my current employer has an office. From here I walked east towards Farringdon and Clerkenwell. I remember it was fairly quiet. I’d gone fairly early and it was a Saturday, so no office workers and no late risers. That made my walking speed quite quick. The caches were a bit spread out though, so I wasn’t hitting a massive number up here.
It started to speed up when I reached the Barbican Estate – the upmarket brutalist concrete monstrosity. There were a group of labs called “Pocket Park Perambulation” here, based around various pocket parks in this area. Along with a few others that got the hit rate up rteally quickly and put me in a better mood for walking down to St. Pauls.
There’s a Church Micro at St. Pauls that I’ve never found, and today was no exception.
Down to The River and Back
So from St Pauls I wandered down to the Millenium Bridge for a gander. There was a virtual cache at its base. I didn’t croos it though, just in case it was still a bit wobbly. Seriously, they fixed that, but my path lay east rather than south.
By “east” I clearly meant north. I got well frustrated here trying to figure out the hint on a multi. I know I had the right answer but the coordinates came up in the middle of a busy road junction and the hint was of little use. It was getting on a bit by this time so I gave up on the multi and retired to a nearby cafe for a drink and a sandwich. It was the sort of place I wouldn’t normally go, but maybe I need to broaden my outlook a little. The cafewas a tiny space with a couple of bar stools and a couple of blokes hacking out basic but effective sandwiches to a passing trade of mainly taxi drivers.
Suitably lunched up, I continued my walk up towards the Guildhall, where there was a clutch more caches.
Zigging and Zagging
There’s a series of labs dedicated to churches in the City of London. My route planning for these was quite poor, so my walking track looks like I couldn’t make my mind up. From the Guildhall I came all the way back to the river, and then all the way back up again past Bank, and then all the way back down again to the Monument.
From here I continued eastwards towards the Tower of London. At Tower Hill Station there’s a set of labs around a big sundial set into the floor. You had to find five things in the images around the dial. It took me ages to find Margaret Thatcher riding on a broomstick. It wasn’t very prominent.
South of the River
It was definitely mid afternoon by this point, so I needed to get a move on. I crossed the Thames over Tower Bridge and made my way to London Bridge Station for a Sidetracked set of labs. They were easy apart from one. I couldn’t find it but thankfully had been “into the zone” so I was able to google the answer later in the day. I wandered around outside and into Borough to grab a couple more labs before jumping on the underground for Waterloo, where there was another set of labs and a couple of virtuals.
Meeting Up
I’d agreed to meet Kas and Minimus in Trafalgar Square. They’d spent the afternoon at the Tate Modern, so were happy to meet up for some diner before going home.
When I added it all up, I’d found well over 70 caches, which is a good total for a day in London where they were so spread out.
