24 Jan 2011

Drought, The GAGB News, New In The Shop and New Caches

Drought

Somewhat of a caching drought again this week for Wemnog and myself. What started off as a good idea of trying to get one cache a day didn't quite work out and over the last few days we have only found two. The two found were local caches and both drive by's. You Cannot Be Serious, http://coord.info/GC2GCHK as you may imagine from the title this one was near a tennis court.

The second and final cache of the week was another Northking cache, this time, http://coord.info/GC2FPAK one of the nationwide A Road Anarchy series, as you can probably imagine though, this, being a Northking cache, was situated a little differently.

The reason for the drought this last few days has been purely ill health. Neither of us has felt on top of the world and it is only today that we are feeling 95% well. We are going to have to be well by Friday though as we are off down to London to see Priscilla Queen Of The Desert. Naturally, there are already some London caches loaded on to the GPS for the Saturday. Last year when down there with work we did a few caches on Hampstead Heath, as we are staying for the weekend we plan on doing some more on the heath on the Sunday so some of those are loaded on as well. We have one particular target for a heath cache and that is this one Stinky Hollow http://coord.info/GCF011 The reason that we want to get to this one is that it is one of the checkpoint caches for the NW/SE Travelbug Race this year, you can see more here http://www.jeremy-r.com/geocaching/tbrace11/ Our caching friend Angellica has a TB in the race and she started its travels in our home cache The TARDIS http://www.jeremy-r.com/geocaching/tbrace11/ and seeing that we are going to be near a checkpoint, it only seemed right to drop it off.

Hopefully, by the time we get back after next weekend there will be lots of fresh caches to tell you about.

GAGB News
A new chatroom for members of the GAGB was set up recently and is becoming a popular place to frequent, you can find it here http://www.chatzy.com/369171531960 It is free to join in and if you have a few minutes to spare a great place to go and have a natter with fellow cachers from around the UK.
We have just taken delivery of a new GAGB banner which you will be seeing out and about at events over the next few months, it will definately be at the Welsh Mega http://www.megawales.co.uk/ Keep an eye out for it and see what is occuring on the GAGB stand. The banner is trackable as well, so will be another one to add to your collection.

The all new GAGB newsletter will be online for members as well in the next few weeks. It is just in the process of being proof read. I have been lucky enough to see the close to final draft and all I can say is that I think our members will be really pleased with it. If you aren't already a member of the GAGB have a look at us and see what you think http://www.gagb.org.uk/

New In The Shop

A while ago I did say that I would let blog readers know what was going to be in the Ebay shop before anyone else.  As I haven't had anything new for a while this really didn't work.
However, I can now tell you about some newish and new things that are going to be in, if they aren't already.
Firstly we have been producing self inking rubber stamps for a few years now. Up until recently we haven't had stamps that we considered small enough for geocachers to carry around with them. Now we do. Good for 10,000 impressions and small enough to keep in you caching bag, us two are already using them.
We also have personalised keyrings in, basically, you tell us what you want on the keyring and we will make them up for you. Ideal for dropping in caches that you are going to add a favourite point to or just to have you caching name on. I drop them in to caches with the blog address on.

Sadly, I only have one First To Find card game to put in the shop. I am hoping that some more will be in stock shortly. This is a fun game, I played it myself over Christmas and was quite impressed with it. The object of the game, which is for two to four people to play is to geocache through the seasons, whilst coming up against obstacles.

I am awaiting delivery of a small batch of Gladiator coins as well. These have been on order for a while and this week I had confirmation that they should be here within a few days. These are lovely coins and I am impressed with them, what do you think?


New Caches

There have been some new caches published over the last few days, one on the hit list that we are still working on. I know this name crops up a lot in the blog, but I'd just like to say thanks Northking for the additional headache given to us whilst feeling ill. We have spent a few hours staring at the screen to try and get this one http://coord.info/GC2MEQA Capital Search 2. Now we did CS 1 pretty quickly, but this one is frustrating us. As I said, as much as anything I blame being ill!

Puzzles do seem to be taking the lead around this area of the country at the moment, a few people are putting them out. Not being able to resist, I have put one out myself Top Of The Pops http://coord.info/GC2MKKA not as detailed as some of the puzzles out there, this just takes a bit of pop knowledge and a bit of googling.
I do have another puzzle raring to go, it has been approved by the reviewers, I'm not putting it out just now though as it will be in the same area as another fun cache that is in the final stages of preparation. Hopefully people will enjoy them both, more news on those once they are published. I am also considering sorting out a Flash Mob with a difference, after seeing one that is happening in London. I contacted the people organising that one and asked whether they would be happy for me to copy their idea. There were more than happy to agree, so that one is on the cards.

Finally

That's it for this week, I'm sorry that there aren't more photos for you to look at, next week, after London should be a lot more entertaining. Most of the caches that I have put on to the GPS for us to do contain a warning about the police, so I wonder whether we will get stopped at any point. Knowing us two, yes we will!

The blog will be slightly later next week as we aren't home until Monday evening. Have a good week, try not to catch the lurghi and happy caching.

17 Jan 2011

18 ~ New Caches and A Brand New Favourite and Finally

18


We have been lucky during the last week and managed to find another 18 caches, with DNF's on a further three.

There has been a real mixture of caches some run of the mill and some different ones as well.
The first cache since the last blog was this one http://coord.info/GC26281 A cache that had been borrowed from one that I had put out some months before. It was good of the cache owner to acknowledge this. Just near to ground zero was a very interesting (and rare) shoe tree with some strange coloured fruit growing on it!

Strange fruit tree


The next memorable cache of the week turned out to be a real treasure chest, full of money from different countries of the world. Called Funny Money http://coord.info/GC1VWQR we located the cache right away and it didn't take me many seconds to nominate Wemnog to retrieve the cache!


Caching continued throughout the week, between Nottingham and Warrington, there was one very memorable cache that we did, but more of that later. When we were in Warrington we did some more of the Woolston Cut series that we had started the week previously. http://coord.info/GC1M9DW was one of the caches.
Heading back home today we did a couple of Motorway Mayhems ~ South and Northbound at Sandbach Services, both simple micros that didn't take too much to locate. I worry more about all the security cameras around when doing these caches than anything else. The last one of the week was just as we were heading home. Christian's Box was another quick find and we took the opportunity to pick up a TB and drop another trackable off. I hadn't seen the name of the owner before, they have another couple of caches out, so no doubt we will be doing those shortly. http://coord.info/GC2FAXN

New Caches

Plans are afoot to get some new caches out in the next couple of weeks. I am not a great fan of puzzle caches but an idea popped in to my head the other night when I was trying to get to sleep. It is very simple compared to some of the puzzles that are doing the rounds at the moment, but I hope that people will enjoy it. Hopefully I will be putting the cache in place tomorrow and then sending it for review. We have also been working on another cache and that is now half completed, not a puzzle this time but a multi, that should be ready within the next month or so, dependent on finding a suitable location for it.

A Brand New Favourite

I mentioned earlier that there was a really memorable cache that we did this week. It is a puzzle cache and as I mentioned we aren't great fans of them but this was a challenge and very very enjoyable, though starting it at 11.00pm probably wasn't the best thing to do, although we did have the coordinates in an hour! All I am going to say about it is look at this http://www.360cities.net/london-photo-en.html and look at this http://coord.info/GC2MA73 and makes up. It has become my personal brand new favourite and I can't wait to read your comments on it on this blog. As I say we had the coords done in an hour and then went to retrieve the cache the next day and as usual the coords were spot on.

Finally

My home cache The TARDIS has had a couple of visits this week, so the trackables have been retrieved ready to transport to another time/space.

My GAGB coin has up until tonight now covered 552 miles, I wonder how many more by this time next week, that largely depends on work of course.

I spent another good hour this week emailing people to try and prompt them in to moving trackables on that they have had hold of for more than a short time. A couple of people have replied, but the majority have just not bothered. I am seriously considering not sending more coins out travelling but just laminating copies of them and attaching the name tags that you can get for dogs to them that we have engraved the tracking number on. It really frustrates me that people can't play the game in the good spirit in which it is meant to be played.

We met up with Warrington Forum cacher Andy, part of The Walker Clan last night, he has actually set up the Warrington Forum http://www.warringtoncachers.co.uk/ and he made us feel very welcome. It is good to forge links with cachers from different areas and get to trade ideas and information. One of the most bizarre things that he told us about was a cache that Deceagni had told him about. Have a look at this one! http://coord.info/GCTA5E Not sure it is one that I would fancy doing if I ever get to America.

That's it, have a good week, and happy caching.

10 Jan 2011

Normal Service Resumed Events and Mileage

Back To Normal


Well we are finally back to normal now, christmas and new year are over. So I can get sorted with doing the blog on a regular basis on a Monday.

Firstly today, I am going to start with a joke....

Q How many people with ADHD does it take to change a lightbulb?

A. Can we go for a bike ride?

Not the best joke in the world,  but thanks to the person who sent it to me (you know who you are)

The reason I was sent this joke is because Wemnog and I have had the maps out and planning where we are going to go caching this year. Once we have located possible areas one of the first questions has been....Can we take the bikes? One of our caching buddies heard this joke and thought of us.

I am really in to cycling at the moment so whilst planning our trips this year I have been using the services of http://www.geocachetrails.com/ there is a link at the top of the blog. We have found this site really useful in the past and now trails and circulars that may be bike friendly have been added.

There has been so much going on again over the last few days that caching hasn't been at the forefront. We have only done five caches since the last post. None of them have been that outstanding and haven't exactly been photogenic, so sorry folks, but no pics this week. The best of the bunch though was up in Warrington  ~ Woolston New Cut Series 1 , Round The Bend http://coord.info/GC1M99A We were only able to do this one as we were heading back home to Nottingham as we needed to be back before dark to get the hens away. We will be back up there shortly though to complete the series.

EVENTS

We have said that we will attend some events this year, with 4 in the diary for a start. The first one is in a couple of weeks time Let's Go Public http://coord.info/GC2M0FC followed by Spring Madness which is being organised by one of our friends Staffs Geo http://coord.info/GC2G817
We then head down south at the beginning of May to The Annual South Wales Geocaching Event http://coord.info/GC2KBWH organised by Mushroom Mike who I mentioned in the previous blog. The final event planned so far is A Chough-ing Good Weekend down in Cornwall towards the end of May http://coord.info/GC2HB9P May is going to be a busy month!

GAGB MILEAGE

So far my GAGB coin has covered 302 miles since the beginning of January. You can see the graphs for where coins are up to at http://gagb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=3796 It isn't too late to join in. Mileage can be backdated to the 1st January. The last date for entering is Jan 31st so there are still a couple of weeks.

That's it, more news next week and hopefully more caches to report on.

Have a good week.

5 Jan 2011

Happy New Year

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I hope that everyone reading this had a very happy christmas and some enjoyable new years celebrations.

It was certainly busy for us, in the caching sense! Following on from the distinct lack of caching in the last blog just before christmas, since then we have done 42 caches.

Just after I published the last episode Wemnog and I decided to go out and do a relatively new series that was pretty local to us. By svk616g the caches were placed around the old Gedling Colliery site. I have to admit that I have never visited the site before and didn't really know what to expect. It is quite a place. Brilliant for dog walking and cycling. We didn't complete the series on the day and there are still more to do. The weather got the better of us, it was windy, very cold and then the snow started again. The dogs loved it though, as usual.


Dogs enjoying caching in the snow again






The first cache that we did in the series was http://coord.info/GC2KEVA a simple first one of the day. As I said, it was a good series and we will finish them off soon.
It was good to get back in to action again after the lull over the last few weeks.

Then we were off to Wales to spend new year at the Travelodge at St. Clears. We did a couple of nowt too special caches on the way down, including my 600th. I would have liked it to be something a bit more special, but you can't always have what you want.

Then the serious work of caching began. We were both amazed that there actually very few caches in the St. Clears, Saundersfoot and Tenby areas. In fact there are none in Tenby itself! We thought that there would be at least a couple of nano's around. The first one we did in the area was Birthday Boy by Mushroom Mike. http://coord.info/GC1TA3X In fact, over the next few days we got to know his caches pretty well as he seems to be the more prolific of the cachers in the area, thank goodness for him we say!

We did a few more in Saundersfoot, including Muggle Mayhem http://coord.info/GC270JG a very simple cache and dash within a sensory garden. I have a similar one in place here in Nottingham, again in a sensory garden.



Muggle Mayhem ~ Saundersfoot


 Then we went on to Manorbier, this had been the one that I had been planning to do for my 600th. This was one of my favourites of the weekend. Now there is something strange about this one.
I tried to contact the owner to compliment them on the cache, however if you try and email them through their GC profile you come up with some strange things, there is no way of contacting them, they haven't been active since 2005! yet their caches that are active keep going. In fact in this cache there was a new logbook. Most peculiar. As I said this was one of my favourites of the weekend, just choosing which hole should say it all, it almost made it in to a puzzle cache. If you are ever in the area, it is worth doing this one. http://coord.info/GC1BEJP Here are a couple of photos, of the outside and inside.

As the hint says
It's In There Somewhere!


13th Century Manorbier






















So yes, the cache was in one of those holes. glad we had a torch with us as it was quite dark in there, feeling around we came across a fair few spiders webs as well.

At least the few caches that we did were successfully found.

Then it was New Years Day and really time to get caching seriously. Having looked at some maps, we decided to do a few series that were around. Again these caches were mostly by Mushroom Mike, hat's off to him, he has put some serious effort in to his caches and locations.
Firstly though we did some more one off's including Green Castle Woods by Munch Bunch http://coord.info/GC251C1 We arrived at this cache at 9 minutes past 11.00am. We decided to wait for a couple of minutes as it was too irresistable, and stamped the log at 11.11 on the 1 1 11
So that was our first cache of 2011.

11 11 on 1 1 11!
Here is a pic of GZ.

Continuing on we did far too many caches to name individually, but there were certainly a few that received favourite points from me, including Litter Bug http://coord.info/GC1YTP1 a very simple drive by, but with a container that I hadn't seen before.

Litter Bug










The first in the series that we did was called Magic Roundabout http://coord.info/GC259YP most of the caches in these series took me back to my childhood with all the TV themed names. Another cache worth mentioning is this one, only for the fact that I loved the view from GZ http://coord.info/GC252RN


View from Leat 1

We did a whole load of these and then went on to find H2o http://coord.info/GC2624Z This one took a bit of searching for as the tree cover had the GPS all over the place, but once found we managed to retrieve the logbook, without the use of water, but it would have made it more fun.
We had one DNF http://coord.info/GC252RC but I think that was a combination of the cold beginning to get to us again, plus the fact that we were getting cache blind as we had done so many.
The next day we did more caching well only two in fact ~ including two more ingenious caches of Mushroom Mikes, one called Hook Line and Sinker, a variation on a theme, and the other that I am not going to mention here due to the fact that a replica will be making an appearence here in Nottinghamshire in the next few weeks and I know that I do get some local readers so don't want to give too much away.
The reason that we didn't do too much was because the weather was glorious, 3rd January, 2011 we actually spent the afternoon on the beach, we even had sandwiches and a coffee there is was so warm, some folk were even in shorts. Here is the pic to prove it.



So that was it, our New Year's caching adventure was over and it was time to head home. Wonder what the year ahead will bring. My aim is to reach 850 finds by the end of the year, maybe it will be more, maybe it will be less, I will have to wait and see.

EVENTS

There are already a couple of  camping events that I am planning on attending this year, the first one being Spring Madness 2011 http://coord.info/GC2G817 by old caching buddy StaffsGeo. This one is at the end of March, the weather should be warming up then, but we will be ok as we are taking the good old camper van.
The next is The Annual South Wales Geocaching Event, this one is being organised by Mushroom Mike and I am really looking forward to it. http://coord.info/GC2KBWH

May is going to be a busy month as towards the end of it we are attending A Chough-ing Good Weekend, this one is down in Cornwall http://coord.info/GC2HB9P So we will be doing a fair few miles this year.
Sorry to those folks reading who are in the GAGB mileage challenge http://gagb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=3715 good job it is only for fun!

I am planning on organising another camping event as well, somewhere in Derbyshire, I have got to visit a campsite over the weekend to have a look and see whether it is suitable or not.

That's it, sorry if I have bored you with such a long one. I will be able to get back in to the habit of blogging again on Mondays now. Until next time, have a good one.