The 2025 Severn Mega will be my second mega event, but my first was only a few months ago! Me and some geopals took a trip for the weekend but things didn’t go to plan…
I headed for the Bristol Bus station to catch my coach, and started to look at puzzles. Our plan was to head to Wimbledon Common for some wombling, but one puzzle was stumping us. We decided to ask for some help but couldn’t find the right profile and ended up asking a friend who’d found the cache years ago!
Anyway, the coach came in and we caught the tube to Brentford for the GPS maze, it was very hot but we managed okay. After this we popped into a local shop for some provisions but I managed to get lost in the supermarket looking for the meal deal section, leaving my compatriots puzzled as to where I had gone! “Off to Wimbledon!” we thought as we made a last minute adjustment to our travel plans, opting for a national rail service instead of a TFL service. The tube was just a train in vain, requiring a much longer journey.
Soon we’d arrived but the caches were very difficult! Lots of brambles, nettles and delving into bushes to find the little critters of the common. Not wanting to give up, we vowed that we would find them all no matter the cost, we’d either have death or glory! A few hours later we were doing well but were extremely hot and bothered, so we stopped at the Wimbledon Windmill for refreshments, I’d lost my water bottle earlier in the day and was absolutely parched! I got an ice cold koka kola and soon we were back on our way.
The second half of this day was a nightmare! We experienced the four horsemen of geocaching difficulties: poor signal, overgrown undergrowth, muggles and our own general incompetence! Some of the caches took a very long time and we were very tired indeed…
The next day was mega day! We headed out early to find some caches but soon we got interrupted by a passer-by with some hateful remarks, asking what we were doing. We answered vaguely and soon he walked away with an eye roll and a snarky comment. We started to walk towards the event but along Westminster bridge, a brand new Cadillac drove past and splashed us all with water from a puddle!
The adlabs inside the mega were all very fun, some people tried to get answers from other cachers but the organisers had a clampdown on this so people had to do them themselves. One person wrote down all the answers on a cue card and tried to sell it to cachers, he was a mysterious fellow who would only answer to “The Card Cheat”, I have no idea who he is to this day!
A final day in London, and as I parted ways with my partners in crime, I headed towards the river for a stroll and some more caching when I saw something very curious, a rare vermillion clupea harengus swimming upstream! I couldn’t believe my eyes. Later in the day I wandered towards Waterloo, and underneath the station I tried to find an exceedingly difficult cache. An hour later I had no luck, but I wasn’t giving up. “I’m not down yet!” I thought to myself and eventually my persistence paid off. Soon it was time for my coach, so I headed over to Victoria and headed home.
What a weekend! I hope that this mega week is as eventful as my first event at London Calling.
A+B+C+D+E+F+G+H+i+J+K+L=Z
The cache can be found at:
N51 (C+J).((ZxA)+(KxG)+H) W2 ((FxH)+L).((Zx(C-E))+(Gxi)-L)
You can validate your puzzle solution with
certitude.