Got another early start, left our room at 6.15 and walked down to St Pancras International to catch the 8.04 Eurostar to Brussels. We were more than a little early, but we were a bit paranoid about this bit as we looked at the arrival time on the ticket last year rather than departure and completely missed the train!!

After a couple of hours and an hours time change, we caught another train to Antwerp. Our hotel had upgraded us to their sister 4 star hotel so we trundled around the plaza to get there. This year there is a ferris wheel in the plaza, last year it was a large blow-up dinosaur that you walked through to see all its innards, lol.

We had a strategy session and then started walking, lots of walking, not much sitting and not as many munzees as the previous days, but still a substantial amount for an afternoon and another 15 kms.

One of the interesting things about munzeeing is that you walk through some fascinating streets and see all sorts of things, however, I think one of today’s street will be hard to top in the ‘keep walking and don’t stop’ category. We looked up from our phones to discover we had walked into the red-light district of Antwerp. Ladies wearing not much at all, posing in windows and even opening doors and posturing on the pavement, and men walking up and down perusing them. We kept eyes down and walked fast, definitely an eye-opener, lol. We will see where tomorrow takes us.

Today we actually managed a bit of touristy sightseeing along with the munzee hunting. Started off in Green Park, then on to Buckingham Palace, down through St James Park and then Westminster Abbey capping all the way. Next was Big Ben, Houses of Parliament and London Bridge, still capping. Along the Thames to the London Eye (which is enormous) and then back over the Thames on one of the Golden Jubilee bridges. Then Trafalgar Square and the giant blue rooster on the fourth plinth. Caught the Underground back to the hotel, getting a very nice lunch from Sainsburys on the way past. A bit of a rest, then caught the Underground to Clapham Common and capped a few more munzees, lol. We caught the train again to Sloane Square and walked down to the Chelsea Embankment Almost every light situated on the wall had a magnetic munzee attached. It was gone 8 before we finished, so a bus and a couple of trains back to our room, picking up a burger dinner on the way. In all we managed around 3800 each over the 2 days, which is a lot! Photos will be coming as soon as I can get a few minutes to get them off the camera.

Up early as usual, let out the dogs, had the door key this time, and let out the chooks for their early morning foraging. We packed and loaded the car early, said our goodbyes to our great hosts, who all went back to bed, lol. We had had a wonderful little hiatus, but now the serious stuff was about to start. Today was the first day of the new clan war and we are determined to do well.

However, first we had to get to Heathrow to return the car. The motorway was relatively quiet being a Sunday, so it took a couple of hours, basically this trip we did the whole circuit of the M25 around London! Finding our way to the hire car area involved a detour or two including finding a petrol station to fill up at. Lol, not quite lost just confused.

Hopped on the free bus provided to get back to the terminals, and caught the Underground to Kings Cross which was about an hour. Trundled our way through the streets to the hotel and were allowed to check into our room a little early at 12, so that was great. We the walked over to Regent’s Park and Primrose Hill and walked and sat and capped and walked and sat and capped and walked and sat and capped until it was dark, 22.07 was our last cap in that area.

We then had a long walk back to the hotel, taking a little detour to see if we could find a cache, we didn’t. Stopped at a chicken place for a burger, they had run out of rolls so it was going to be pitta bread. However when we got back to our room, all they had given us was the chicken!!!! Had dinner at 10.30, asleep by 11.30, and walked 17 kms.

Another rather lazy day, didn’t do much early on. I did get up early, but didn’t know where the key was to open the back door, so the dogs had to stay in until Billy got up. After that I let all the chooks out (well all except the lot I didn’t know about!) Cathy breeds bantams and has lots of really pretty chooks running around the place.
Helen, Cathy, Billy & I (and Tawny) then went off geocaching for a while, doing a couple of church based ones.
From there we went to the Prince of Wales pub for lunch with Jessica & Keith and Judith (Cathy’s mother-in-law), lovely meal and great company.
After a quiet afternoon we then went down to Jess’s for a game of scrabble and cards and a light snack. A bit of a chat and blog writing and now off to bed. London tomorrow!

Today is a day for doing nothing much, a rest before our next 3.5 weeks of full on munzee hunting.
Waking to the sound of many roosters crowing was great, and then I stayed in bed and read a proper book, from now on it’ll be e-books.
Breakfast and helped with a few chores, and then went to visit Aunt Jessica and Keith for lunch. They are now living in a renovated cottage on the farm with Cathy & Philip so it’s great to have them all in one place, rather than that really long drive north to visit!
After lunch Helen, Billy (C&P’s son, so our 1st cousin once removed), and I did a little geocaching. Found 5 out of 7, so that was really good. Having dinner with Jess & Keith this evening and then taking Cathy & Billy out caching tomorrow as long as the predicted rain isn’t too bad! It’s quite sunny at the moment, but the clouds are building up.

Okay, let’s get some photos on here

Hamworthy Park

Christchurch

Southend-On-Sea

Up, packed and out of the hotel by 6.30, so arrived in Christchurch around 7 and parked in a side street near the church. Had a quick breakfast in the graveyard around the church, most of the headstones so old and covered in lichen that there were no visible letters remaining on them.

We then had a walk along the moat around the church and up to the waterway doing a little munzee hunting on the way! Met Knightwood for a coffee and a chat! We had previously met him when he visited Perth earlier this year. So that was lovely.

Leaving just after 10 we drove for 4 hours across the southern counties and then up through the Dartford Tunnel. The traffic queuing was horrendous as there is no electronic tagging for paying the toll, every vehicle has to stop and pay.

Not long after we arrived in Southend. We had talked about coming here but didn’t think we would have had the time, but as we have managing early starts this visit was now possible. Well every holidaymaker in Essex and beyond must have been here as well. We drove along the waterfront, and there was not a parking place to be had and people everywhere. The sight of all those deck chairs was so amusing, just so English, LOL.

We finally found a parking spot up the top of the cliff and after eating a very quick sandwich we found a way down the cliff face to the waterfront promenade and managed to capture all the virtuals and a couple of physicals along the mile they had been placed. Then the climb back up the cliff stairs, not fun, lol!!!

From there we headed north to Little Leighs, only problem, my gps took us to the wrong Church Lane entirely!!! We finally arrived and had a cuppa with Grandma Janice, and a visit to Grandpa’s memorial. We hit a little problem when leaving here as we discovered that the mi-fi was not getting a signal so we didn’t have any internet access which meant we couldn’t navigate to the virtual I had put at cousin Cathy’s drive so we could find her easily. So using Helen’s proper gps we managed to find the house and a great lasagna for dinner. We finally got to bed at 10 and it was still light enough outside to have been able t walk around without a torch and it’s like that again at 4 am!!!! Currently it’s 5 and all the roosters are crowing!!!! Will have to get Billy to connect this to the Internet so I can post the blog, so apologies for it being late, but it was too late to write and setup last night!!

Photos will follow.

We left the hotel half an hour earlier than yesterday (6 am), after having abut 3 hours sleep, I just am not sleeping well, LOL. Anyway, we followed the advice we were given last night and drove just west of Poole to Hamworthy Park. It was really pretty with rows of those little beach huts running along the beach side. The virtual munzees where all over the park, with an occasional physical munzee on a beach hut, a sign or a fence, so we just wandered!
There was a man digging up the rather rocky beach looking for rag worms ( a fishing bait) and a few dog walkers, it was a lovely morning.
Stopped off at another Tesco Express for some BLT sandwiches for breakfast which we ate in a park with lots of weeping willows. From there we walked the rest of those mysteries we did that small circle of on the first afternoon we were here, so now all that lot is as red as we could get it. We were lucky in the fact that most of these lamp posts hadn’t been got at yet by the council, but I’m sure they will get to them, they definitely needed painting.
We grabbed lunch at a Lidl store (supermarket chain) and then we finished off the last road of mysteries. Back to the hotel for a feet up session and then we walked down to the rover collection point and gathered those that had been reassigned for taking to London. Then back to car and just a bit north east of Bournemouth to a large area know as Queen’s Park. It’s a multi-use area, some grassed, some wooded and a golf course running through it as well as all the dog walking pathways, crisscrossing the lot. There is a large collection of virtuals in specific colours delineating the flag of Dorset, sadly it’s now all red, LOL. Back to the hotel to park the car and find dinner. We had a great burger and sweet potatoes fries, and are now relaxing and getting ready for bed and packing in the morning. Leaving here for Chelmsford tomorrow, but meeting another munzer in Christchurch on the way. Helen is doing a great job driving us around, the roads here can get very confusing especially with all these roundabouts, we have only had to go all the way around a couple of times so far, LOL, and I haven’t managed to get us too lost, not like last year in Essex!!!  Catch you later!  L:-)

  
This is one of those sights I really like on the English coast. At 7 am no water and the boats all on the ground. At 10 am water and floating boats.

After our afternoon sojourn in the hotel, we walked down the road, over a roundabout and into a Tesco Express to pick up some bottled water and some snacking stuff including some very nice wraps for a very very late lunch. From there we drove up to the main road and parked in The Grasshopper car park, all ready for our meet with some local munzee hunters. As we were early we went for a walk down to a line of rubies and diamonds, which took us 10 minutes to get to, but it was a pleasant suburb to walk through. We managed 15 km today. We met Herbie, Jamspongeandouzy, Pilsleyguy and Ubique (the latter was our clan leader a couple of clan wars ago!). Had a very pleasant evening chatting munzee and life in general, and left about 9.30 when the breeze starting getting chilly, still in twilight, it’s light so late here, it’s great for munzeeing, lol.