We told two good friends of our discovery and they too were outraged at this heinous crime. They ventured out into the wilds and like us, discovered the grave and laid fresh flowers on the children’s burial mound.

Together, we made contact with Ina Enssr, spokeswoman for the society of D3Z, and through her we managed to get our hands on a coded manuscript . We searched the book for clues, brainstormed over the meaning of certain paragraphs and slowly, surely progress was made.

Jan and Annelies scouted out the city of Wageningen, following the directions a cryptic message had provided. “Morgen komt nooit (Tomorrow will never come) led them to the water meadows near the city of Wageningen. They returned victorious and we were now ready to start the final chapter of our quest for justice.

De hemel of de hel (Heaven or Hell)

We now had gathered almost all the clues for a successful chase, but some unanswered questions remained. If the chase were this easy, why had the murderer not been brought to justice yet? No, we had our suspicions that all was not right and determined as we were, we returned to Wageningen for another extensive search for clues. We found the various locations named in the manuscript and jotted the missing information down in our notebook; Doctor Jones sr. grail diary was but a pale shadow of our gathered wisdom.

Our search led us through Wageningen’s picturesque town center, past De Wereld, a hotel which had been the backdrop for the negotiations of the German surrender on May 5, 1945. We moved on, leaving the city center behind.

At last, after four hours of determinedly following up on clues and hints, we found a secret hide-out!

The murderer might still be present, so caution was advised. The men of the search party were sent in first and heroically braved the narrow tunnel while Annelies and Astrid stayed somewhat behind, ready to yell for help in case of immediate danger.

Success!!

Fortunately, the lair had been abandoned but a vital clue had been left behind! An envelope with specific instructions had been sent to an accomplice. If we were quick, we might be able to intercept this important message!

We sprinted back to our cars and broke every speedlimit, racing towards the address given. Once there, we plundered the mail box of this Peter Jansen, and shortly after we held the vital envelope in our hands!

We had done our homework and printed the information of 50 geocaches hidden on the Island. We intended to find as many as possible, combined with sightseeing and birdwatching. It turned out to be an excellent combination: most caches were hidden near points of interest or close to bird spotting huts.

Our first choice was a short multi cache, which meant we had to do a bit of hiking and find a couple of clues on the way. We had lovely weather, so this wasn’t a chore at all! We had a beautiful hike through the dunes and ended up near the lighhouse.

We found the cache without trouble and hiked back along the beach to the car park. It would be the first of a grand total of 33 caches we managed to find.

In the evening we had dinner at a Indian Restaurant, enjoying a punjab menu with several Tandoori dishes, some sweeter curries and lovely coconut flavored Nan bread to the side. Alex enjoyed the Kingfisher beers and I tossed my diet out long enough to indulge in several glasses of wine.

The next day, we got up early to enjoy the breakfast buffet and head out for a second day of geocaching. The makers of the caches apparently knew the Island well and had left a couple of puzzles here and there, mainly: how to get to the caches without being blocked by water, dunes or dikes. Once we had to approach from the far side and use a “trek pond” to cross the water.

We mostly enjoyed the caches where we had to walk a bit first and discover pretty sights along the way.
Where oh where, would the cache be hidden? A couple of options: the information board, the little bridge and that iron thingy. Our Garmin GPS tracker was spot on and guided us unerringly within 1 meter of the cache hiding place.

After a quick search, we found the small container cleverly hidden:

Yep, there! Found it! Time to write our names on the log inside and be on our way.

More pretty pictures and stories of victorious finds coming soon! Stay tuned!

So, whenever they come over, i want to make a good impression. The house has to look good (YAY for starting early this year!) and I want to pamper them with nice food and drink. It’s never really certain what time they’ll arrive precisely, but it’s a couple of hours drive and they’ll be hungry so I’m preparing a mix of a lunch buffet and a high tea, so they can serve themselves and pick whatever they fancy.

On the menu so far:

Mushroom soup
(other soup, don’t know what yet)
croutons
french bread
breadsticks
butter
garlic dip

salmon pie

three kinds of sandwiches: salmon/dille, chicken/tomato chutney, cheese/pickles
raisinbuns

chocolate cake
banana bread
rhubarb cake
macaroons
profiteroles

Of course I’l have tea/coffee, several kinds of softdrinks and alcohol free beer.

This should be enough, I think ….

So far, so good. Didn’t get everything done yesterday but close enough. I have to be content with what I got done, although I still had that nagging feeling bugging me before sleep that I should have been able to cram more tasks into the day. Most importantly, my writing. I got one post done that I had been putting off forever, as it was one with different viewpoints, action and some character portrayal; in short, it wasn’t the easiest to write. I just hope my partner will be content with it, and then it will be worth the trouble. Both Hubby and Master seemed content with the first baby steps onto the new path, so I’m likely being too hard on myself again.

Today’s project room is the bedroom, which means cleaning up some clutter there and making it look cosy and inviting. After that, it’s finally time for coffee. OMG, i am craving. I just might grind some whole beans for that real fresh coffee experience to treat myself.

Oh, and for breakfast:

A lovely smoothie with plums, buttermilk and melon. It could have done with a lil sugar, but it was good without too! The picture is from the Internet, btw, I didn’t feel like photographing, but mine looked just as tasty!

All this resulted in a shiny new schedule written over the weekend, ready to be used by this morning.

As per usual I got up, made hubby’s lunch to take to work, but rather than sink behind my computer and lose myself in Everquest for an hour or two to start the day, I got dressed and went out for some fresh air. Thirty minutes of walking and a visit to the supermarket later I had the fridge stocked with healthy food and treated myself to a fresh smoothie for breakfast (buttermilk, prunes, banana and a little of the breakfast juice Alex drinks). Some household chores after that, which told me that the pile of junk laying around was much larger than it originally seemed, followed by a cup of coffee and a slice of gingerbread – finally at the comp three hours later than usual.

So far, I’d say this is a good start, and my schedule has the next hour marked down for writing. I hope to finish the reply to “May the Lord have Mercy” and perhaps start on a post for the Brave New World-thread which I really should devote some attention to. If I get that done, I’ll be rather pleased with myself.

Off to writing I go.. More later!

The KNMI had promised gorgeous weather, so today should be the day for our first four star mystery! We decided to pick all five caches in one go, and do this “Rondje De Maten” by bicycle.

“De Maten” is the largest residential area in Apeldoorn, with approximately 30,000 people. Despite its size and amount of people living here, it is still a very green area, with parks and plenty opportunities for walking and cycling.

It took us little over an hour to find the first four caches:

Blue, Red, Green and Black and we confidently calculated the coordinates of the bonus cache. (register for free at www.geocaching.com to view the links)

Train Station “De Maten”, by Gemeente Apeldoorn

So close to our goal, we set course towards the final destination where this bonus cache should easily yield to our genius! We arrived and found the location within several minutes, after which reality came visiting quite cruelly…  Remember the bonus was a mystery cache? Well, we had thought we had gathered the correct information from the first four caches, but when faced with the color coding to solve the combination for the number lock, it turned out we had overlooked a small but significant detail: color blind indeed.

Slightly disappointed but determined to solve this puzzle, we went home where we found inspiration for attempt no. 2. Wrong again! Only this time, the cache-owner was nearby and came over, rubbing his hands in glee at finding another team falling for the ingenious mystery. With his help,  we broke the code on our second try, and concluded a superb day of cycling with the find of five caches. YAY us!