Thick calves (part I)
Last Saturday was C-day; the day our team took up the CAROLO GEOCACHING CHALLENGE #1 GC1M4DA
This event consists of 10 caches (+1 bonus) with a total track of 25 kilometres (ordinarily, but more on that later).
As you might remember, we had a kind of DIY rehearsal event a fortnight ago in order to see if we could handle such a large distance. The initial track was estimated to be about 15 kilometres, but we ended up with a approximate 25 km (dependent on the GPSr used) which resembled the upcoming event very closely. Apart from some insect bites and some blister damage, I personally survived the trip very well. In anticipation to the event, I bought an anti blister stick (with some lubricant that needs to be applied directly to the feet in order to prevent excessive friction), some special anti blister hiker socks (which also should keep the feet cool) and some blister patches in case of.
I was already awake at 5:10. Since I needed to pick up Freggie ‘only’ at 6:15, I decided to stay in bed for another 20 mins. That wasn’t the brightest idea since I doze off and it did hurt when the alarm went off. Not a good sign at all 
Anyway, after picking up Freggie and Wodanza, we drove near Brussels to meet the rest of the team which was now complete: Orsobianco, Wodanza, Freggie, Vuurvos, GeocacherQ, Weedboer and myself. We drove in column in as few cars as possible (yes, we are environmental friendly; even on an early Saturday morning) to the crime scene.
We arrived in ample time and were welcomed very friendly by Exxo with some koffiekoeken (croissants) on top. After finishing the administrative formalities and baptising our team as ‘Team Freggie’, we had plenty of time to pick up a pre-event cache: Mémorial de Jamioulx GC1EYNB.
After this appetizer, we had a short briefing:
- each team received envelopes containing the info on the caches
- there were more envelopes than needed. Opening a bogus envelope results in extra time which prevents you from opening them all at once in order to cheat
- each cache contained a stamp to be used on the ‘dole card’ as proof
- each cache contained info on the bonus cache
- each cache indicated which envelope to open
- the team that could tackle all the caches the fastest (eventual extra time included) was the winner
Each team has his own starting point in order to prevent that all teams show up at the same caches and Exxo was so kind to show us the way to our starting point (due to some roadworks).
It was time to start the challenge, but more on that in a next blog.
June 22nd, 2009 at 8:46 pm
I will for sure read the next post ! Happy to see that you enjoy the challenge !