Friday, March 20, 2015

GBT: Svendborg on Pi Day

The hardest thing in writing something, just like in a new trip, is to start. For the writing there  is always the question of ”How should I start? What should I write first?” and for a journey, like this one I am telling you about now, the problem is usually ”Do I really wanna wake up so early? But I don't wanna get out of bed!

Yep, that's exactly what happens every time! I get very enthusiastic about the trip so I cannot fall asleep too early, and in the morning I don't wanna wake up :D

The story you're about to read is about a trip I made on March 14, 2015 - Pi Day. You know, because 3.1415926... is Pi? Same as the date 3 14 15! Yep, nice one, right? In geocaching, today you could earn two souvenirs (we talked about souvenirs in the past): one if you find a mystery cache and one if you attend an event on this day.


On Fyn (which is the island I currently reside) there were two Pi Day Events: one in the morning, in Svendborg (all the way in the south of the Island) and the other, in the evening, in Trunderup (MydFyn). I've wanted to go south from Odense for a long time, so this was the perfect opportunity! Therefore, I planned my trip and made the list of caches: almost 38 caches and 116 km from start to finish! It was going to be the biggest trip of 2015 yet!



Since the morning event in Svendborg was at 9:26 - because Pi is 3.1415926 ergo 3 (month) 14 (day) 15 (year) 9 (hour) 26 (minutes) - I had to leave Odense very very early, at about 3AM, as I used to do when I was cycling from Roman to Galați (almost 250 km). Indeed, the distance from here to Svendborg is much shorter but I had to take into consideration all the stops for geocaches :)

That was the plan, but, as I was saying in the beginning of the post, I could not wake up so early. Or actually I did wake up, but I decided to sleep one more hour. So instead of 3:00 AM, I left home at 4:20 AM. It was cold and dark, but it felt great to be on the road again! And I was dressed properly, so the cold was not a problem. I only mentioned the cold because the grass was frozen around me :)

The first cache I tried was a major disappointment and a big big HUGE waste of time! Why? Well, first of all, because of the fact that some construction work on the highway made me take a detour from my first planned route. Then another detour from the new route and only on the third route tried I managed to get close and go to the cache...And there... I searched, and searched, and searched... but found nothing! That is such a bad way to start a geocaching day :(



Fortunately, after that,  everything went smooth! I found every other cache until the first target of the day: my 700 finds Milestone, in Rudme! As you know from an older post, I have a pattern to stick to when it comes to milestones, and it was time now for a traditional cache. That traditional was going to be GC5DVVE - Rudme Station, by 29kenneth:



After this was done, I got back on the road but I did not go very far since the next two caches were right around the corner. The second one of those was Vink til LKF, and by pure coincidence, right after I got it, a train passed by so I took advantage of that to actually do what the cache said:



As you heard in the video, the nest cache was near Egeskov castle, a place I had been last year, with Silviu and Cyrielle. You can read about that trip here (translation needed). The funny thing is, on that day we stopped in the same place for a train to pass. Isn't that a coincidence?  Back then everything was green and blossomed :P Lovely indeed! Plus, the whole day was great because of their company :D
I really miss them!

Ok, the cache near the castle was not to be found today.. It required me to get into the river, and I would have done that if it was summer. Today it was way too cold so, regretfully, I had to skip this cache and continue my trip. I did loose some time searching for it before I concluded it is under the bridge and I needed to get wet :D Another waste of time was in Stenstrup, trying to solve a multicache (GC18MMA).

I soon realized I am running late for the event so I decided to change my planned route and go straight to Svendborg from Stenstrup, in order to get as soon as possible to the event. That meant skipping all the caches I had on my list.... but I was sure I will have the time to return after the event and get them :)

I did get a bit late at the event but at least I was not the only one and I was not the last to arrive :D It was nice to see again some of the geocachers I knew.
After almost an hour of socializing, people started to go home. I was among the last to leave the place, heading now for all the caches I had planned to take in the city, and then back on the road for the ones I skipped earlier.

I must say that, in terms of geocaching, Svendborg was a big disappointment. And getting out of Svendborg did not make things better. The multi I tried (and found eventually) right on my way out of the city, really pissed me off! Even the cache in the forest - the one I found in the video below - even that was a poor cache! I don't know, I became kinda picky. I have seen so many nice caches that I am starting to hate the bad ones. I mean for example, why hide a micro if you have place to put a nice small cache?




Anyway, things really improved when I got to Egebjerg Mill, and then to Kværndrup.



The cache at the mill was absolutely awesome! And the mill itself was amazing! I am so sorry I did not know about this last year. Silviu and Cyrielle would have loved this! And it is actually close to the castle, so we could have taken a detour.. if only we knew!

Yes, the cache at the mill deserves a tone of favorite points, but doesn't have that many. I'm definitely giving it mine for the place it brought me to, and for the way the cache is hidden! A great job from the owner! I spend a lot of time searching for it, but I didn't give up and in the end I was so glad I didn't :)

After the mill, I had to do a bit of push-biking :D to get to the next cache, crossing  Egebjerg Bakke (Egebjerg Hill). When I saw what rough terrain I had to go through, I was glad that I did not come here in the morning, when I was rushing to get to the event. This way, without being stressed by time, it was much better.

So at about 16:00 I was back at the multicache in Stenstrup, having done all the caches I missed in the morning, because of the change in plans. Once again I tried to solve the multi, but again without any success :(

I just continued towards Kværndrup, adding two more caches on my list since I was going on a new route. I was way ahead of time, so instead of going straight to the event, I decided to take more caches in the city, and boy I love the fact that I did. I found a really nice one, from MJTBC. A cache with over 25 FP.. now that would have been a nice milestone... I wish I would have saved it for my #900 :D

Anyway, even with all the new caches added, I still got to Ground Zero for the event one hour before. So I stood there until geocachers came :) I would have started a fire, but I didn't have a lighter, like I usually do :( It's because I keep changing bags according to the trip I am taking. If you remember, the last trip was done by car, so I had a different bag with me, not the backpack I was carrying today. Apparently when changing contents from one bag to the other, I missed the lighter.

Anyway, time passed, people began to gather, CO also arrived, the event was on! It was cold so we did make a campfire when Kenneth, Lisa and Mads arrived. Kenneth started it and I made it burn. Oh, I was so proud of myself for that fire :)


Again socializing time, like any event, talking about geocaching and trips and everything else. During the event I went with Lars to find the caches nearby. There are 2 caches close to the camp site. I got them on my way here, because that's how I had the trip planned, but some of the geocachers at the event didn't.

Almost an hour later, at 9 PM, the event was done, people went home, and again I was almost last to leave, with CO and Lars, each on our different ways.

I only had one  more cache to find on the way back, because the second one was not reachable by bike so I had to drop it. I left the place and hit a „no bikes allowed” sign, so I had to turn back and go around... It's so annoying. That road would have been shorter :P

Anyway, the last cache of the day turned out to be a DNF, since I could not find a thing. Maybe it was too dark, maybe the coordinates were a bit off, maybe the cache was no longer there... I have no idea yet.

I got home at 23:30, that is 19 hours since I started this morning, punching almost 140 km, according to my GPS track:

So yes, my trip for Pi Day and for my 700 finds Milestone was the longest bike trip of 2015, so far! I returned home during the night and my light batteries were dying, which is not a very pleasant thought :P

I made it home safe and a bit tired, but really happy for my trip! This was also the biggest number of caches visited in a day by bike: 42 caches! Now I can begin to log them all :)

So:
I left home at 04:20 , cycled 140 km, visited 41 caches, found 35, got back home at 23:30! Big day, big trip, awesome adventure thanks to the nice places and nice caches found! Thank you all!

The next trip, of course, will be bigger than this one. I'm not giving any hints. Let's just wait and see!

Until next time, don't stop being awesome!

Vi ses!

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