Summer's End, Hacked Account and A Few Caches Too!

Summer's End

Well, the event is over, Summer’s End has been and gone. Wemnog and I arrived on Thursday afternoon and set up camp. One campervan, one Jeep, one gazebo, three dogs and us 2. After setting up we had to go over to pick Keith’s mum up from Liverpool Airport. By the time we got back to the campsite it was too late to go and check that the new caches were all in place.

Friday morning dawned wet and horrible. Still by 7.30am we were out checking the caches, the three were still all in place... http://coord.info/GC2BKV7  http://coord.info/GC2C80K and  http://coord.info/GC2C7M5 The last one has been fun for people and the logs from it have been entertaining since they started to come in. Our first camper arrived mid morning and more arrived through the rest of the day and evening. I think our final campers arrived during another heavy shower and in the dark. After meeting and greeting everyone, some retired to their tents, others to the pub and us off in the van. The Bridge Over The River Wye cache was found on Friday night by The Imp, a brave cacher indeed as this was a 5- 5 rating and it was getting dark as he went out. We did contemplate going out to check that he was okay, just as we were thinking about it, he arrived back, with chips in hand, he had even got some for us.

Saturday, well, can you guess? Yep, more rain. It didn’t stop people getting sorted and going off caching though. We stayed on site for most of the day, mainly due to the fact that we knew people were coming over just for a day visit. We welcomed quite a few new faces. We nipped out in the afternoon and did a few though. Wemnog and I did our first Earthcache too. It was one of The Imps, called Winnats Pass - The Coral Reef, details are here http://coord.info/GC1JPEQ As people started to gather back at the site and as the weather had cleared a little, it was time to get the kites out.

Quite a few were up in the air, although some struggled to get theirs up! As the evening progressed it was time to start the barbeque, everyone had something to put on and the weather continued to stay dry for us. After the barbeque was finished, it was time to set the Chinese lanterns off, we let 10 off to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of geocaching.  

On Sunday we woke to a very mixed day, it seemed more like April showers than an early September, with frequent heavy rain showers and sunny spells. Everyone began to pack away and say their goodbyes. All in all it was a very successful weekend and we are already thinking about our next one. It is likely to be called Summer’s Coming and will be sometime in the spring. Here are a few pics of the camp.



The Jacaru Enclosure



The Imp Pitch

Hacked Account

Unfortunately there are some people in the caching world who seem to get their kicks from trying to spoil things for others. This happened to me earlier last week when my GC account was hacked and my caching name changed. Not only was my name changed totally but it was also homophobic. Whether the people who did it wanted to just try and upset me, or actually try to out me I don’t know. In fact they failed on both counts. As I am already openly gay what they did was totally pointless, and as far as upsetting me they didn’t. In fact what they did was actually force me in to going to the police to report not only the hacking, but the homophobia. The constable I talked to was absolutely brilliant and I was able to give him the names of two people whom I suspect are behind this. Interestingly, I posted what had happened to me on some of the geocaching forums and I was both overwhelmed by the amount of support that I have had off people and also amazed at how many people throughout the country came back and asked me if I believed it was these two people as they had received abuse of them in the last few months. Some of these people are high profile and well known cachers. Thankfully a police investigation is still ongoing and Groundspeak have been very helpful throughout. I now have the Jacaru name back up and running.
To give you a bit of a chuckle, my temporary caching name that the hackers gave me was the-mincing-gaylord! Well, at least they made me a Lord eh?


A Few Caches Too

With one thing and another I have been pretty quiet on the caching front. I have only done a few, the most memorable of these was whilst we were at the event. This cache http://coord.info/GC1NNN7 threw up some strange things. This is a quote from the web page that is linked to the cache page.

"The carving itself is on the large flat rock in the foreground with the Edge itself further west beyond the trees which also hide the stones of the Neolithic enclosure walls"

The Carvings At Gardoms Edge, I Wonder What They Mean

I don’t know what happened to the original stone, but on touching this stone as seen in the picture, it soon became apparent that it isn’t stone at all, but a replica. It sounds hollow and feels decidedly plastic in texture. This is something that I definitely want to find out more about. Last time I was at Gardom’s Edge was a few years ago when I worked for Derbyshire Social Services. We took a group of service users up there to help out Sheffield University with a small archeological dig. Sadly, we didn’t find anything of interest whilst we were up there.

So that’s it, all the news from the event and a bit more too. I’m finished for this week, so until next time, Happy caching.