Apologies firstly for the late premier of this epic but I had rather a few long scripts to write after a weekend of blockbuster caches and another week of work related travel. Also despite having gone to the same school as J.R.R. Tolkien (we were a few years apart) I only have a read once, watched once understanding of the subject matter but hopefully I should be able to make the minimum number of LOTR references mandated for a cache themed as such.

 

Not too much trouble working through the puzzle bit especially as I am a lot more knowledgable of  things when I have Google next to me. I was quite impressed with my progress especially from hearing through the grapevines of others struggles on this part.

 

The fellowship of Antpeng, Dwalin and myself was convened to journey to wherever it was needed for us to journey. We arrived at the entrance and tested out communication skills but after failing to receive the message from Bag End on the first attempt we decided, in true Hobbit style that we didn’t need to waste any time getting it exact and soon got onto the mission. It was a bit of a medley of movies here today so the cache was not done continuously as one and probably not in the order intended but we made it to all of the stages.

 

Some of the highlights that can make it into the trailer include the amount of time, effort and teamwork we spent trying to incorrectly and futilely retrieve an empty cider bottle from deep below, no doubt discarded during the dwarves merriments. Some extreme underground cryptography and the shining of torches, often pointlessly at different things at different angles added to any comic relied needed during such a long journey.

 

Some new areas discovered, much of which has yet to be mapped by mere mortals hands.  I think this is certainly the deepest and furthest I have been in here and my first time over the top of the areas most famous feature. Thankfully we managed to make it both there and back.

 

We soon located the cache after much scrambling and readjusting and we soon managed to find the treasures which were hidden within. Discovered the two Geocoins, both very nice and my fist ring, unfortunately I wrote the code down wrong for one but will hopefully be able to brute force my mistake away eventually. We safely returned all as found and exited and returned home to Hobbiton. Another tough, both physically and mentally, cache with a great theme. I wonder what the CO is going to think of next. Just wish I had found enough caches to recommend/favourite.

 

TFTC

 

 

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