Day eighteen

  Andy and I had a lovely day today.  We headed into London to visit the newly re-opened London Dungeon.  As it turned out thousands of others had the same idea too.  When we arrived there was a two hour queue to enter the dungeons.  So we quickly decided it really wasnt worth the wait and will come back another time when it is quieter.  The South Bank was heaving with tourists - I've never seen it so busy, but then I do usually avoid these busy times, I guess.

We got the train at 9.21am and headed over to Royal Victoria where we tested out the Emirates cable car across the River Thames.  It was great fun and we took loads of photos.  Even Andy didn't seem too worried about being so high, not being a lover of heights.

 

 

 A penguin trackable enjoying the view.

Apparently though the cable car is going to be closed down as it is not used very much.  It really is right out of the way though, so that is a great shame.  After we made our way to Greenwich we just about made it to the river to pick up the cruise boat which would take us all the way to the London Eye.  The trip took about 75 minutes but it passed quickly as Andy and I really enjoyed this part of the day, taking in the sights of the city from the river.  Andy enjoyed showing me all the pubs that he has frequented in the past when he used to work in the city.  It was a lovely day, a bit cloudy so not too hot, and the sun shone through the clouds throughout the day.

We had just sat down when this lovely old sailing ship went past.  I didn't have time to get to the other side of the boat we were on to get a better photo.  I thought it looked a nice shot with the Greenwich Maritime Museum as a background. Shame we weren't on the top of the boat for a better photo.

A nice photo of Andy on the river cruise boat

We took all the usual touristy photos of course. It has been several years since either of us have been on the River Thames and today was the first time we had been on the river cruise boat together.  Still getting firsts even after nearly ten years of marriage.

 

Once we accepted we weren't going to go the London Dungeons today we ambled along the South Bank amongst the crowds and picked up a few caches along the way.  We were heading towards a caching event which had been planned for between 2pm and 4pm at low tide on the beach.  I've never been to the beach in London, so that was another quite exciting 'first' to do.  I picked up a cache which spends half its time under water at high tide. It was securely tide to a pipe and was nice and dry inside.  Evidence that it can be done.  It was lovely to spend a bit of time on the beach, chatting to people and picking up three different cache types in one go.  There was also an earthcache on this beach too.   A great many thanks to the chap who arranged the event.

The underwater cache container

My sandy 'log' at the event

The earthcache brought our attention to the flint on the beach

Some of the cachers who attended, the organiser is the chap all in white.

After attending the event Andy and I ambled back along the South Bank towards the London Eye. We stopped along the way to sit in a bar and have a refreshing cider. It was quite idyllic to just sit there snuggled up and watching the world go by.  We arrived just in time to board the next river cruise boat.  Here is our ride about to moor up.

We got the boat all the way back to the Tower of London as we planned to head home via Fenchurch Street for a more straight forward journey home.  Of course there was time for just one more (or three) caches on the way.  A nice little traditional right on the river front outside the tower - awesome!  The log was full so I put a nice new piece of paper in there. Hundreds of people have visited this one, so it was really cool one to get too.  The next was a virtual that has been here since 2002.  Now all 20 of my oldest caches on my profile page are 2002 or 2001, with one of them being from 2000. Just a small personal challenge I had set myself.

Then we tried to do a multi with is right outside Tower Hill underground station. I got all the clues easily enough but just could not find where the cache might be, with the hint not making any sense at what I thought was GZ.  Too many muggles about to search.  I think I must have been in the wrong place.  So after a wander around the area a couple of times we gave up and headed home.  Tired but happy.  A great day out with some quality time with my husband and a few caches as a bonus.