After a fair nights sleep, I was up early and wanting to leave Sue snoozing, got dressed and headed out to find another nearish geocache.
Not as bad as last night, mainly because there was no hill, I came to ground zero after a walk of around fifteen minutes.
Nothing was obvious, even with the hint, so I checked the previous log to discover that the whole container is no longer present.
After further searching, I found the remains of a plant pot, under which the cache was hidden, which no covered a tube containing a limp of papier mache (presumably the log) and a plastic hand.
Unable to sign the log, I logged a photo as evidence of my visit before making my way back to the hotel in time for breakfast.
Once breakfasted, we jumped in the car and navigated our way to the town of Leighton Buzzard where the LBNGR were holding a gala weekend.
Arriving at the railway station we drove into a not too busy car park, bought tickets and made our way out on to platform one.
Our first trip would be hauled by Gertrude running on one of the last remaining two foot gauge lines.
The line runs through housing estates, industrial areas and features sharp turns and, at one point, a gradient of 1:25.
There are no gates where the metals cross roads and the traffic is halted by guards, leaving the train and standing in the road holding a red flag in front of them. Once over the crossing the train has to stop again to let the flag bearers back on.
As railway galas go, this was a very low key event without the usual anoraks and beer-swilling nerds waffling on about engineer sheds and the like.
We had a couple of round trips stopping a various points to grab a cache or two.
We left the LBNGR and instead of heading for the obvious motorways headed for Milton Keynes where we could pick up the A5. As we were technically still on holiday, we agreed to follow Watling Street as far as Atherstone from where it would be but a short drive to The Griffin.
The A5 was a lot more scenic than the parallel M1 and we made good time arriving at the watering hole just after half five.
Not long after arriving, our friends Stuart and Chris arrived so we took the opportunity to catch up.
The evening was finished off with a Chinese from the Rice Bowl.
That’s our late summer holiday over.
Five railways, loads of AdLabs and a few caches.
Also, we visited a few National Trust properties and had a few scrummy meals.
Next break is in November, a day before my sixty sixth birthday and my retirement, when we’ll be taking a steam train from Coleshill to York for the day.
