Anyone who has ever woken up in the middle of the night with cramps in legs, ankles and feet, will know how agonising the pain is. You end up throwing off all the bedclothes and jigging around doing the St Vitus dance in an attempt to get rid of the tension in the muscles. (The ankles are the worst).
But! Dr RoughSeas has the answer for you all. A wholesome natural remedy (sort of). The internet. An hour or so messing around on here totally distracts you from the tensed-up muscles and you fall into bed happily.
So the other night, cramped from toes to kneecaps, I flicked on my emails and discovered the latest weekly geocaching newsletter.
I gave it a desultory glance and – WAIT! – there was a new cache in Gib. A multi-cache based on some of the lesser known military memorials in Gib. And no-one had found it.
Cramps forgotten in a second. In fact I was almost considering starting doing the thing at 3am in a desperate attempt to be first to find. But sensibility kicked in, and I decided to see if I could find answers to any of the clues via the tinties.
I did. And I had a good idea where some of the waypoints were. What a challenge!! ‘Do it tomorrow,’ said Partner sleepily.
‘Yay’. A day off the cleaning messing around Gib doing nothing at all apart from playing treasure-hunting.
A quick breakfast and I was off and running walking fast. I keyed in the co-ords and discovered there was no satellite reception in the flat. Not a good start.
Went outside, armed with camera, a couple of quid, the GPS, a pen, the paperwork, and a mobile. All the essentials of today’s life.
Found a bench to check the co-ords. The first waypoint was a kilometre in the WRONG direction. I was not walking to the first waypoint only to have to walk back. Oh. No. My sneaky bit of internet work meant I could by-pass that one anyway. Onto the second one. That was in the wrong direction too.
What about the third? Finally – something that didn’t mean I was re-tracing my steps. Yes, dear reader, I did not start at the beginning.
I set off happily for Europa Point. I passed the Anchorage, Camp Bay and the memorial to Sapper Ward, and then approached Europa. I knew where I was going because I’d seen the memorial plaque to the trumpeter who had fallen in the sea before. The cache was within my grasp.
It was a quiet morning, well, it was pretty early, and the weather was alternately cloudy and sunny. I enjoyed the walk. But when I got to Europa, the plaque to the trumpeter wasn’t where I thought. I staggered around the bay a little further – and – there it was. Phew. I looked around, wondering where the final waypoint and eventual cache were.
I keyed in the missing numbers for the co-ordinates of the last waypoint excitedly (still hoping no-one had beaten me to it). Holy fucking shit!! It was more than three kilometres north. At the other end of Gibraltar basically. Re-tracing my steps or what?? Ha! Hollow laugh. So much for being smart and by-passing the first couple of points. I’d walked to one end of Gib and had to walk all the way back. Gloom.
Heart sank. I decided to wander around Europa and look at the changes in the new touristification (is that a word?) of the area. I decided to look for the other cache at Europa and couldn’t find that. I set off on the trudge back. It started raining. Could this day get any more successful, I thought?
I stopped off at home, wet and starving, after walking at least 6kms. Still, with a little bit of tasty tapas, I decided to bite the bullet and go chase that last part of that wretched cache. I had an idea where it could be. I was wrong. It was much further away. It started to rain again. I couldn’t find the next waypoint.
Disaster! I’m on the far side of Gib, soaking wet, and can’t find this cache and so want it …. and then … I saw it.
What a wonderful way to spend a day.
roughseasinthemed 
??? you’ve totally lost me, I thought a cache was something someone hid for someone else to find. That doesn’t look like something that could be hidden easily. (V appearing rather dim because of rain soaked brain)
You were still smart though, cos you’d have walked even further if you hadn’t bypassed the first two.
Cramps? I have two options, jump out of bed quick, land on two dogs, risk having cramped toes bitten or slide out of bed, gently placing tiptoes between two dogs, making cramp even worse.
Nice pics, your rainy weather looks better than my rainy weather ;-)
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Cache is something that someone else hides. This was a tour around some of the lesser well known military memorials so the Black Watch one was the last one and the cache was near there :)
It cleared up soon. I did jump on the bus though to get home. Rather than walk another two or three kms in the rain. It wasn’t just spotting light-heartedly, it was raining seriously.
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Cramps forgotten in a second… you are great. I love the way you write… great post and thanks to Dr RoughSeas… hahahaha :)
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Thank you. It works for me and it’s free so always worth passing on the top ;)
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Some people suggest that cramps are due to a lack of potassium in the diet. I used to suffer from them until I switched to Sainsbury’s own brand lo-salt, where half the sodium is replaced by potassium. I don’t use much, a 350 mg tub lasts me atleast 2 years, but it sure keeps the cramps away. I could of course always just get up at 3am and go geo-caching ….
Blu
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That’s interesting. A Singapore friend told me it was lack of salt which I thought was quite likely as I rarely use it. Can’t use mills here as they just get damp and clogged up, so any (rock) salt I use needs crushing manually. I might have a look and see what Morries has, you’ll recall we don’t have a wide variety of supermarkets here ;) Seriously, tho’, thanks for that. Interesting to know.
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You found some real treasure. Who knew there was one for the Black Watch? – thanks for sharing. (Oh, bananas have potassium and often help with the cramps)
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Always great to learn something new. And I did. Bananas is yet another new learning curve ;) Thanks for that.
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bananas is or are? :D
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Sounds like it could become an addiction, though not one I’m likely to succumb to in the near future. Made me smile, and that’s always a good thing.
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I don’t think I’m exactly addicted given that I’ve not yet got 40 to my name in four or five years of joining! There are people who have thousands, although it would be a bit difficult to achieve that in Gibraltar (there are about 20 here). I would have thought there would be quite a lot near you, and it is a good way to plan a different walk, so that aspect may appeal to you.
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Well, that was an adventure. of sorts!!! And yes, bananas are good for potassium I believe.
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It was good. Although a bit more than I expected. The FTF made up for it though :) Bananas huh, better buy some more.
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