Caching, Challenges, Munzees and Caches

877 + 1

Caching

It was good to get back on the bikes this weekend and it gave us a chance to continue with Paneke's Bilsthorpe Southwell Trail caches. Although we still didn't complete the series we are kind of glad that we haven't. The caches found so far have all been different and a lot of thought has been put in to them. It is a shame that one of them has been made too easy because of a spoiler that has been posted on the internet. The series starts with this one http://coord.info/GC2Q9J1 which we did a while ago along with number two. On our last attempt we got to No. 3 and failed miserably! Guess what, we got to No. 3 again http://coord.info/GC2Q9JJ and again failed. We spent an hour on it and got nowhere. We were stung, we were scratched, we were hot, bothered and thirsty, but we didn't find out.

Frustrated we carried on and found a few more of the series plus another series that Paneke had put out in the area. Without giving too much away, (I DON'T LIKE SPOILERS) the other series was animal related and had some interesting containers. Towards the end of the day we were determined to go back and find number 3, and having seen some of the others in the series now, we had more of an idea. Sure enough, after a little while and with a lot more determination we had the rascal in hand and finally managed to sign the log. The arch enemy cache of the moment was finally beaten.

I'm sorry that there are no photos this week, I didn't have the camera with me, that in fact is a total lie, I did have the camera with me, what I didn't do is have the memory card with me, I had left it in the computer back at home.

As you will see my cache count at the top has a + 1 on it, which leads me nicely on to talk more about,

Challenges

Wow, what a furore these have caused over the last week. It seems that most loathe them at the moment, I don't, and I do think that as things develop they will have their place in the caching community. I don't think things were helped with the fact that Groundspeak set the first challenge, a photo challenge to Kiss A Frog. Basically what you had to do, was find a frog, real or not and kiss it. That was it, challenge over. Upload the photo and say that you had completed it.

Obviously Groundspeak needed to set the first challenge to try to explain what it was all about, and yes, as you can see, I completed the challenge.

This put a lot of people off, and they put walls up. However, I think that given time and some thought some interesting and valuable challenges can be set. I set up my first challenge Kiss A Lion http://coord.info/CX102 in a similar vain and now really wish that I hadn't. Not the best way, again of setting a challenge. Then after thinking for a while I set my second, The Hemlock Stone and I set this one in such a way that people couldn't easily fake it using Photoshop, which has been one of the main criticisms as far as I can see. The Hemlock Stone http://coord.info/CX69D guides people to an historical area of Nottingham and I have also mentioned in the challenge that while people are there they could also complete Northking's Earthcache The Hemlock Stone - Fact Or Fiction http://coord.info/GC20EW1

It will be interesting to see how Challenges do develop, but do think that as with anything time needs to be given to them rather than just writing them off completely. The same goes for

Munzees
When the game first started I was really in to it. The game has really taken off and a lot of people are putting time and effort in to developing it which I think is great. However, it has lost its appeal to me. I'm not letting it go completely but we aren't  actively going out to find them. We check the phone when we are out at a cache and if there is one near we might go and find it. I am sure that it will develop further and can see that it has potential, but at the moment the initial pull has gone for me.

Caches

I have had four new caches published in the last couple of weeks including a 5/5 cache which I am really pleased with.

They are all a little different and hopefully people will enjoy them.

Middle Of The Road http://coord.info/GC326E2 was the first of the new ones published, followed by Trent Approach http://coord.info/GC32C01 and then Up By The Trent http://coord.info/GC32HHM and finally last night Cold War Cache http://coord.info/GC32REK

I am really pleased with these four caches and the reactions that they are getting. There are two more to go, one of which is the Nottingham (UK) TB Hotel. Then I think it is time to give it a rest for a while with placing new caches.

I did say that I would give more details about the North West Mega in this blog, but I haven't got all the information together yet as to what to tell you.

The exciting news that I told you about, well we are looking at forming a committee to put a bid in for the 2013 Mega here in the Midlands. Obviously that is in the very early stages so there isn't really much more that I can say about that just yet.

For now, have a good week, and happy caching.

The Lakes, Cache Bag Top Ten and a Social Traveller

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A busy week. Hardly anything was happening apart from a quick cache and dash at new caching friends Tank0115's home cache. Then a phone call to remap a Mini up in Cumbria came. A pocket query later and we were on our way. So since the last blog we have clocked up another 32 finds.

We picked up a few caches once we hit the welcom to the Lake District signs. The first was a bit mental, a roadside cache and dash, it was actually more of a cache and scramble! FNF - Crag Fast (Eastbound) http://coord.info/GC2XKQ9 had Keith doing the climb before bringing the box down for us to look at and sign. If this first cache was anything to go by we might just be having some fun. This is the most difficult cache and dash that we have done (so far)

More of a cache and scramble!

I had quite a few TB's and geocoins to drop in caches over the weekend so the first one went in to this cache. Another quicker drive by was FNF Leven Bridge. This is a bridge on a fast road heading in to the Lakes and you really wouldn't know what was beneath it if you weren't searching for a cache. We were surprised at what we found and, had we had more time, it would have been a brilliant place for a wild swim. http://coord.info/GC2YBC8

FNF Leven Bridge

After arriving at the campsite we were more than a little frustrated to find that although we had the tent, we didn't have the tent poles to go with it. Camping Rule 1 broken, always check that you have your camping equipment.

A quick check for a local Tesco superstore that sold tents had us on our way up to Millom. Once the necessary was purchased it was time to get in to some serious caching. The day was getting hotter as we started caching in earnest.

Feeding The Ducks

We were actually quite near the coast and the GPS showed us a series of coastal caches to do with superb views. However, our first cache in this section was called Feeding The Ducks http://coord.info/GC1RXTZ a nice little haven near a rubbish tip. 

Sea Dragon

Onwards we went, getting hotter as the temperature continued to climb. The series took us to some interesting places.  Haverigg Heaven http://coord.info/GC2NAKN had a great sculpture  by Josefina de Vasconcellos that is dedicted to inshore rescue teams throughout the country. It depicts a human escaping from the jaws of a sea dragon.

Escaping The Sea Dragon

This was a busy little spot on a sunny day and we had to sit a while before we could retrieve the well hidden cache. It was time to stop for an ice cream before continuing on.

As I say, this series did take us to some interesting spots. Another cache that was in a good place was Haverigg Lighthouse. http://coord.info/GC1RXV3 The lighthouse itself has been adopted as the symbol of the local primary school who campaigned a few years ago to have it restored and the pupils have been appointed honorary lighthouse keepers. It is fitted with a solar powered light. The light can be seen 12 miles out to sea. The lighthouse was restored with the help of a Lottery Heritage Grant of £20,000 a few years back.

Hodbarrow Lighthouse

It is slightly confusing as the cache is called Haverigg Lighthouse whereas in fact the structure itself is called Hodbarrow Lighthouse.

This area was originally an iron ore mine and is rich in stories and mine buildings. Another couple of good caches were Kneeling At The Alter http://coord.info/GCMCJ9 another of those long standing caches that have stood the test of time. This one has been in place since 2004. It seemed fitting with the name of the cache to leave a geocoin in there that I had picked up in Sheffield called Ian & Sharon's Lovespoon TB2Q7DF The geocoin was small enough to fit in the tightly packed container.

Kneeling At The Alter (a tightly packed container

By now we were steaming along picking up caches at a good rate of knots (sorry couldn't resist the nautical term) As we continued onwards the sizes of the caches meant that I was able to leave a trackable in most of them. The next trackable that I left was in a cache called Hodbarrow Point,  http://coord.info/GC1Q0GJanother another structure, and this time the cache was hidden inside. I always like caches where I have to enter a building. I left a geocoin in here that had been left in my Ye Olde Trip cache back in Nottingham by its German Owners. Black Spider TB3KBXA  wants to see the world.

Me at Hodbarrow Point

As our days caching came to an end we were feeling pretty lucky that not only had we had really good weather and a few decent sized finds, but also that they were all in good condition and well maintained.

The following day was an early start again, only to be expected as not only was it very warm, but we were also cramped in the new, extremely small two man tent. We were just glad that the dogs had settled in the Jeep overnight okay.

After a couple of basic, simple drive by caches it was time to look for an Earthcache. To be fair, we haven't really done that many before, in fact we have two local ones here in Nottingham to do yet by our caching friend Northking.

This particular Earthcache is called Donkey Rocks http://coord.info/GC1DG2V and is in a strange little location. With the early morning bird sounds you could almost imagine that Pterodactyls were calling and flying above you.!

Donkey Rocks

The formations are around 400 million years old, more details can be found here http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/50803 

As we hadn't eaten breakfast at the campsite we headed for the nearby village of Broughton to find a cafe for a bacon butty and coffee. However, when we got there it was still too early and everywhere was still closed. Time to look at what local caches there were and we found three on the old Foxfield to Coniston railway line. We thought that once we had done those we would turn back and the cafe would be open. However, once completed we noted that there were more caches quite local to where we were so we continued with those. A nice little series,  dedicated to winners of the Dickin Medal, the highest award that an animal can receive. Each of the series has a story about why the medal was awarded. Quite often the medals were awarded during wartime, but this particular cache was dedicated to two dogs who helped their owners when the WTC was attacked back in 2001. http://coord.info/GC2FW56 The Dickin medal is named after Maria Dickin, who founded the PDSA. This seems an appropriate moment to post a photo of our three enjoying their latest caching adventures.

Rum, Fen & Meg

A local dozes in the sunshine

All in all we had a great couple of days, and here are another few photos of things that we found during the weekend, some of them had caches in them, or near them. I am not going to say anything else about which is which, as I don't want to spoil it for you if you are looking for caches in the area. Let's just say that one of them had us looking for over two hours over the weekend, yet the cache was staring us in the face the whole time.

A crafty little fella

This was fun!

Cache Bag Top Ten


So, what's in your cache bag? Our top ten are:~

•    Pens and pencils
•    Spare logsheets (various sizes)
•    Stamps for logs, in case we get lazy writing
•    Pencil case with trackables for moving on
•    Pencil case with trade items
•    Tweezers
•    Walking pole, well not actually in the bag, but attached to it. Handy for poking around
•    Magnifying glass
•    Emergency money, usually just a couple of pound coins
•    Hand sanitizer, just in case

The Social Traveller

Finally, I wanted to tell you about an idea that our caching friend Andy of The Walker-Clan up in Warrington had. He decided to set off travelling a virtual TB. He wanted to see how far this TB would travel, just by word of mouth on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. It started off slowly but has now quickly gathered momentum and in just over a week has travelled almost 61000 miles. If you would like to move this trackable on, Andy has given me permission to post a photograph of the TB here on the blog. Have a look at the mission, and if you want to grab it and move it on, then get in touch with me for the tracking number. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, any amount of miles, from 1 to 10000 would be a welcome addition.

Don't forget, get in touch and I will give you the tracking number so that you can move it on.

I don't know what this week will bring, but in a couple of weeks time we are off to Anglesey, so hopefully we will have another good bunch of finds then that I can tell you about. There will also be an update on the TB race, including news about Groundspeak getting in touch with us about the race.

For now, as usual, happy caching.

Caching and the Name Revealed

Caching

816

A quiet week on the caching front. The bikes are in the car that is in for repairs at the moment, that's excuse one, but the real reason is that we have been really busy with work. A shame really that we haven't had time to do more as we have been from one end of the country to another over the last week.

We did get time to find a very popular TB hotel. The Manchester Airport TB and Coin Hotel http://coord.info/GC220CJ gets very frequent visitors. Cachers are very lucky to have this airport hotel as there is a strict exclusion zone around the airport, yet this is still fairly accessible from not too far away from the terminals, even for out of town visitors. I did virtually a full trackable swap the other day, 6 in and 5 out. This find came as a relief as we had tried to find one of the hotel owners other caches ~ Manchester Airport Orbital Cycle Route (08) http://coord.info/GC23KKG, this one has countless DNF's on it, but the owner reckons it is still there and even went to check again after our visit.

We just managed two others this week, both yesterday. Steve's Aviation Cache #1 Bruntingthorpe Vulcan http://coord.info/GC1KVBB is by local cachers fly2live2fly. We had to deliver a couple of cars to the auction here and it would have been rude not to do a caching friends cache.
This was the perfect place to drop one of the TB's that I picked up in the Manchester cache.  Airbug B-777 was a plane TB and can be found by looking at TB2TJA6. The final cache of the week was an old cache in a churchyard, placed way back in 2004, Lamins Of Shearsby http://coord.info/GCKNZ6 The good thing about a cache like this is that the locals all know about it, and it has lasted because of it.

Name Revealed

So what was the cryptic message about? I had an email from Northking yesterday morning and he had guessed correctly what I was on about.

A new form of geocaching has just begun. Not linked to the main game at all, but fun all the same. I can see this taking off especially in urban areas after all the furore over Wetherby. The game is called Munzee and is played using a smart phone and QR codes.

As it is not linked directly to caching, finding a Munzee won't add to your caching numbers, but you gain points by finding them and also putting them out. By Sunday they were hoping to have 1000 members worldwide. Wemnog and I are the first members in the East Midlands and have now put five out. They can be placed in caches and be played alongside the main game, or placed in totally different areas. We have done both.

I see this as a sideline to our main caching activities, not as a replacement, a bit of fun for no outlay if you already have a smart phone.
As we are doing this one as a joint venture we decided to do it under a different name and have called ourselves FenRum. More details can be found at http://www.munzee.com/ 

Have a look, you may become hooked. The game is at the very outset and I am sure that there will be teething problems. Having said that, the guys who have set it up are very quick to take comments on board and act on them and the Munzee forums are growing well. I have started a Facebook page, Munzee GB Let me know what you think.

Nottingham Race

The Nottingham to Nottingham TB race is hotting up. With 11 entries here in the UK and entries now being posted to Balrgn who is opening up the Nottingham TB Hotel in New Hampshire. The hotel caretaker over here in the UK, Antheia, unlocked the doors for me a couple of days ago so that I could escort the first UK entries to it. They will remain there now, under lock and key until race day.  If the race is fresh news to you, then details can be found at http://www.usuktbrace.blogspot.com/ and if you want to enter a trackable, get it to me as soon as you can. My own trackable for the race can be found by searching for TB4DGQG

A quick question for you. Do you read the forums? If so, which ones? Is it the main GC forum, GAGB, local ones or none at all. Let me know what you think of them in the comments box, are they good, bad or do you have any other comments about them. Don't worry, you can send your comments to me annonymously if you don't want to be indentified.

Next week I will tell you about a gang of German cachers who got their own back on a chap who was going out deliberately to destroy their caches, and share the link to their story. It makes interesting reading.

Have a good week..........................

Skinny Dipping, FTF's & Another Milestone

803

FTF's

A day early with the latest edition this week. There is a lot to get through. We have found 30 caches since the last blog, only a week ago.
Firstly it has been a week of FTF's for me. Four in fact. Our reviewer, Antheia has been a busy bee and published a good few new caches in the last few days. Some of them have been really local to us and we have been able to rush out to them.

Level One http://coord.info/GC2YCTR by newer cacher candyfloss797

Stop The Bus http://coord.info/GC2YECC by the same cacher

From One Point To Another http://coord.info/GC2YEEM by another newer cacher pinkpigredrat and finally

I Am Here Papa http://coord.info/GC2YEXN by dingdongmerrily. The first three were very sneaky urban caches and I Am Here Papa is a cache with a very poignant story, have a click on the link and read it if you have time. The cache was also released with a trackable of the same name, which I have at the moment ready to move on the an appropriate place.

I also JUST missed out by about two minutes on another FTF this week. We arrived at ground zero of Froggy Went A Courtin'  http://coord.info/GC2YGYR by old caching friend y8c to the cry of "Don't bother" by another old caching colleague Blid435 who was already sat back in his car signing the logbook. After a natter we all returned to GZ to replace the cache.

Blid435 & Wemnog

This cache also had a frog trackable in it which was just setting out on its mission. I picked that up as Blid didn't want to take it and that is already settled in to another newish cache in Colwick Country Park, more of that cache later.

As I said at the introduction of this edition of the blog, there is a lot to get through this week. I am not going to go in to details about all the caches, as you can see from the number a the top we have found 30 caches in the last seven days.

Wemnog and I decided that we would try and find some cache series this week, so with this in mind we set off to find a series near Ilkeston called ABC. This is a short series of five caches which take you to three villages, Awsworth, Babbington & Cossall hence the ABC in their names. This was a pleasant afternoon spent out with the dogs. Sadly one of the caches was unavailable at the time, so we will have to go back for that one when it is up and running again.

The caches found were called ABC - Rock On Tommy http://coord.info/GC2NXTG

ABC - Sweet Shop http://coord.info/GC2X08W 

ABC - Sweet Shop (Don't Ask)

Don't ask why it is called this, I have no idea what the connection could be! ABC - Crossroads http://coord.info/GC2NP65

A Nice Old Wooden Sign

What we liked especially about this one was the fact that the road sign near to GZ was made of wood, rather than metal. It also looks like it is well maintained, it was almost like going back in time finding a sign like this. Wish there will more of them about. It was very traditional and somehow very British.

The last ABC cache that we did was called ABC - Walk This Way http://coord.info/GC2NXTR I am glad that we weren't the only ones who only found this cache by using the hint. The GPS was going mad and the hint was very specific in what we had to do in order to reach the cache.
All these caches were by a cacher called Bigspen. As I said earlier, there is one more in his series to do, hopefully soon. Earlier in the day and still in the same area we found Nottingham Canal Cache # 1 - Resited by O2J. To find this cache we walked along a very tranquil canal which was a nice haven from the nearby fast moving traffic. Typical though, the bench near GZ was being used by a muggle who was holding a very long and loud conversation on his mobile. I used the getting the dogs to chase a ball tactic to avert his eyes whilst Wemnog retrieved the cache.

Nottingham Canal Cache ~ GZ is there somewhere

The bridge held the secret and apart from anything else, I thought it was very photogenic.

One more cache on this day, and always nice to find a well hidden ammo box. Babbo Woods http://coord.info/GC19HWQ by uncle mouldy

Babbo Woods

As you can see from the photograph, this ammo tin blends in and is off the beaten track, so is very unlikely to be found by a muggle, which sadly happens all too often with them, only for them to disapppear.
 
I looked at uncle mouldy's profile and was quite surprised by what I found. By the quality of this cache, I would have expected him to have put more out, but in fact he only has this one plus one more hide, again and ammo tin. Even more surprisingly, although he has been a member since January 2008, he only has 24 finds to his name. I hope that he does put more out at some point, he certainly has an eye for a good hiding place.
 
This cache seemed an appropriate place to set off my new trackable Only In B's. Maybe you can guess from the name, it only wants to go in to caches whose name begins with the letter B.

Only In B's Lands In Babbo Woods

I wonder what strangely named caches it will end up in.
 
A couple of days later and we were out again. We had to visit someone to drop our baking off for the market and as we had the GPS with us decided to mop up a cache that had been on the ubiquitous to do list for too long we went to find Fifty Steps? by anothe local cacher whom I haven't yet met. foxtrott3r.
This was another of those "didn't expect that" containers that are always a joy to find. This cache has been well hidden since November 2006 http://coord.info/GCZEFD
 
The 50 steps in question are an old railway bridge ~ over an old railway line. This line runs in to the nearby Ruddington Park and has a recent claim to fame. It was used for filming the train crash scenes in Emmerdale.
 
The filming for this was done at 4.00am on a cold autumnal morning and led to one of the soaps more dramatic ongoing storylines which recently led to the assisted suicide of a character.

50 Steps And An Emmerdale Connection

More caching followed, including just one in Measham. I had to do some cache maintenance for my Colwick Country Park series, by the way, one has been muggled again and disappeared. Very frustrating as it is the second time that it has gone, the first version was only a 35mm canister, I replaced it with a turtle pot, this is what has gone, so I am afraid it will be back to another 35mm in the next few days. A new cache recently appeared in the park. Oh Buoy http://coord.info/GC2Y061 by newish cacher tank0115 has caused some fun as no sooner had he placed it than some fishermen set camp up right beside it!
This wasn't to be expected as camping isn't allowed in the park, however these two had received special permission. It turns out that they had heard of geocahing, although they didn't really know what it was about.........they do now! They have had a constant stream of visitors to their camp looking for the cache, and they have become something of local celebrities around here. They have been playing the hotter/colder game with cachers looking for the cache. This is where I placed the aforementioned frog TB.

Guardian Of The Cache ~ Oh Buoy

Then the weekend arrived and we are up to yesterday. I have mentioned a few times on here that we feel guilty about not going out to find a lot of caching friend Northkings caches. Yesterday we decided to at least partly right that wrong and decided to do his Limes Walk series.
 
A good series of 5 caches + bonus had us finding some cunning hides. We decided to get back to Tebbit caching for this series. We parked up at the nearby cafe, found the first cache and then went on to the second. Limes Walk 2 http://coord.info/GC2PJ8F had us stumped for a short while as the GPS was swinging a little. Then we had it in hand. The second of this type of cache we have found recently and a very cunning one at that.

Gates Near Limes Walk 2

Wemnog Signs The Log At Limes Walk 2

After signing the log at Limes Walk 2 we continued onward to find the next few in the series. All were relatively easy apart from one. Limes Walk 5 http://coord.info/GC2PJ9M had us scratching our heads for a while. Eventually it was located and we were able to carry on to the bonus cache. Both number 5 and the bonus got favourite points, number 5 because it was so crafty and the bonus because the terrain was a little higher than the rest and hidden nicely out of the way.
 
We were now in full flow and had previously loaded another series of caches on the GPS by darrach. Which leads us on to.........................
 
Skinny Dipping

We took a slightly different track to the first cache in the Darrach Series ~ Rainworth Water http://coord.info/GC2CK32 and came across a pond hat was just too inviting. What we hadn't realised at the time was that this was fully visible from the Sustrans's Cycle Trail. Needless to say it was clothes off and jump in. Not only did we enjoy it, but so did the dogs. Modesty doesn't allow for a photograph of me here!!!! BUT....
 



Skinny Dipping



Furry Dipping

After a brief swim it was on to find the caches. 6 caches in the series by Darrach along the Sustrans Trail and some good, well thought out hides that he has put some effort in to making. One of the best was Log It's View http://coord.info/GC23WQ4 After finding all of Darrachs along the trail we went for one more. An appropriately named cache, Railway Children http://coord.info/GC2QYHT by chiperty ended our afternoon and busy week of caching.
 Just rereading this prior to publishing it, I noticed just how green the photographs are after the recent rain. Heading back to the start of our days caching though I was saddened to see what the result of just a few dry weeks can do. The parched landscape had become victim to a discarded cigarette or match and a lot of the area was now just a blackened ruin of its former self. Please, if you do smoke, make sure that you extinguish your fags properly.
 

Burnt

 
 
Another Milestone
 
So I reached another milestone yesterday, I found my 800th cache. Not bad, saying that when we started two years ago our intention was to find just one cache a week! It just goes to show that we are more than a little addicted to this game.
 
Finally
 
I had a lot more to tell you in this blog but I will carry it over until next week for fear of boring you.
 
A new gecoin has arrived which has been added to my collection to be discovered at events.
 
I have four more coins on the way to add to the collection as well. (photos to follow next week)
 
I am having a new Jacaru flag made to fly at events, again once that is finished I will post a photo.
 
If you look on the right hand side of the blog you will see that things have changed slightly. There is now a list of other blogs that I follow that you may also like to have a read of.
 
Lastly, I hope to have some exciting news next week about a new TB/GC race that I am  trying to set up with a fellow cacher over in the United States.
 
What next? Well, it's Sunday morning, 8.00am and I think it is time to wake Wemnog up and have a fry up before decided what to do with the rest of the day. Hmmm, could geocaching be involved? You never know!!!!
Have a good week folks.

Tebbit Caching, Signature Items, Maintenance & The Blog TB

767
Tebbit Caching

As you can see from the numbers above, we have found another 20 caches in the last week. A big improvement over the last few weeks.

This has been down to a couple of factors:~

work is quiet at the moment, and more importantly

I need to lose some weight!!!

So I decided that we should do some Tebbit caching. This isn't an official geocaching term, one that I have made up, literally it just means getting on our bikes!

For any younger readers Norman Tebbit was an 80's MP famously known for telling the jobless to get on their bikes and find work.

Having once again used the services of http://www.geocachetrails.com/ to find some bike friendly circular routes we decided on doing the fairly new CCP series around Cotgrave Country Park by cacher Colonial Sin. This was a nice series of 6 caches + bonus. When the notification of a CCP series first pinged on my emails I was a little confused, and wondered what was going on. Simply put this was because I have my own CCP series out ~ Colwick Country Park.

The Calverton series starts with CCP 1 Last Post http://coord.info/GC2W9JQ Bikes loaded, dogs loaded and off we went. This was a really enjoyable series that took us to a country park that we didn't know. The second cache in the series brought us to a familiar type of hide, I've got a couple of this type out myself............



Wonder Where The Cache is!

To get the bonus cache coordinates we had to collect information from each of the caches. I'm not going to give the game away as to the bonus cache but all I will say is that although I knew this type existed, I hadn't actually found one before. It took us both a few minutes to locate it, even with spot on coords. It was a really enjoyable afternoon out.

Tebbit Caching


Following the closure of the Nottinghamshire Collieries, Nottinghamshire County Council and the Forestry Commission entered into a partnership with British Coal to restore 8 former colliery sites.

Cotgrave is one such park.


 This series was put out by local cacher ken.brown66 who should be congratulated on such an enjoyable and varied series. He has another series out which is also on our list to do before summer ends.

Part of the circular route took us to the nearby canal where we had to find a cache. This cache took us the most time to find, it shouldn't have done as it was really easy (there again isn't it always once you have found it)


Whilst looking for this one I looked up to see a familiar face approaching us. It was one of our caching friends RoPeHe. We spent a pleasant few minutes nattering away, discovering trackables that he had on him, and he looking at the trackables we were hoping to move on. RoPeHe (Rod) has been caching a lot longer than we have and has 3780 finds under his belt!

RoPeHe

We have a long way to go before we have found that many.
Once home from this series we had three very tired dogs and had a quiet evening without them asking to go out for a walk.


2 out of 3 tired dogs


A couple of days later we decided to do another circuit by bike. This time we did a series that had been on our list of to do's for a long time. This lovely circular was a little more challenging on bikes, and we did do part of it by walking. Just under 6 miles in total we did this series on another lovely sunny day. In fact we set off at 8.30am to do it, realising that it was going to be very hot later in the day. The first in the series was called Chapel Lane (Epp #1) http://coord.info/GC19WR7

This series took us around some lovely countryside and past some very nice (expensive) properties, alongside wheat fields, 


View from 2nd cache GC19WR9

  Over some lovely wooden bridges,

Another log signed

and alongside fields laced with poppies




Wemnog beside the poppies



A lovely series which we both enjoyed doing

Signature Items

So do you have a signature item that you leave in caches when you have found them? We do, in fact over the last couple of years we have had a few. We started with military buttons which we bought locally at a place called Anchor Supplies. This is a brilliant place, an Aladdin's Cave in fact. So much so that our friend and fellow cacher Northking has a cache placed nearby, guess what it is called........Aladdins Cave http://coord.info/GC20EBP If you go to find this cache you may just bump in to some other cachers around including the Two Anchors and Charlie Chuckles.

We have also used calling cards in the past which we made ourselves, these also proved popular when we made them for others and we did for a while sell them on Ebay. However, more and more people are complaining about calling cards  being left in their caches as they go soggy if a cache is prone to dampness. Since then we have used marbles (always an old favourite with cachers) trolley coins and lately keyrings with this blog address on.

I must admit, I like finding trolley coins in caches and tend to pick them up when I find one. I am considering having some made, again with this blog address on, that's a future plan for now though.

I have heard of all sorts of signature items that people have found, from pieces made from Fimo to wooden discs with a cachers name on. Let me know what your favourite signature pieces are, either found or ones that you leave in the comments section at the end of this blog.

Maintenance

It was time once more to get on our bikes yesterday and do some maintenance. Nothing frustrates me more than having caches out that I know need some TLC and not having time to sort them out quickly.
The same goes for caches that I find where maintenance logs have been reported from months back yet nothing has been done about them. If people put caches out I wish that they would take the responsibility of looking after them.

I had a couple of my CCP series that needed new logbooks, Silver Birch http://coord.info/GC22FKX and Parachute Tree http://coord.info/GC22FJJ One cache Stuart Reilly's Benches http://coord.info/GC22EE5 had been muggled and needed replacing.

Then it was on to another site to replace Meg & Rum's Circular # 3 http://coord.info/GC1YEEB which had also done a disappearing act and finally Meg & Rum's Circular ~ The Final http://coord.info/GC1YRVW which needed a new logbook.

The Blog TB

The blog TB is ready to go, dipped in and out of The TARDIS http://coord.info/GC1WGEQ I will be moving it on soon. If you want to follow the progress of the geocaching TB you can do so by searching for TB3ZM9G

Finally

I have just done pocket queries for this week. It still amazes me just how many caches that there are locally. I did a query for 1000 traditional caches over a 25 mile radius from my home coords. When the results came in that 1000 caches only took me a few miles away. We could certainly be kept busy doing nothing but caching over the next few years.

This is my caching chronology up to today as copied from the stats page on GC.com


You've found 767 caches (767 distinct) since your first cache find on 01/09/2009.


You find the most caches in January and usually on Saturday.


Find Rate 0.8726 caches/day


Longest Streak 9 consecutive days with finds from 01/11/2011 to 01/19/2011


Longest Slump 44 consecutive days without a find from 09/16/2010 to 10/30/2010


Best Day 24 caches in one day on 05/25/2010


Best Month 66 caches in January of 2011


Best Year 376 caches in 2010
 
Until next time....happy caching.




 
 
 

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.

Happy Christmas

Forgive Me

Just a quick apology to say forgive me readers for I have sinned. I haven't added to the blog for 3 weeks now.
I guess that you all know the reason for this, I have hardly done any caching. The weather hasn't helped, of course.

I have done four caches in  3 weeks, terrible isn't it?

The best one that I found was another FTF, called Secret Santa by caching friends Baira + Darkfonz, this was a memorable cache. The guys had loaded it with wrapped christmas gifts and labelled them, boy, girl, adult boy and adult girl. It was a really nice touch to a christmas cache. I met up just before Christmas and Steve had even been out to the cache to top it up with gifts again. There have been some good logs for this one, have a look. http://coord.info/GC2K580

Wemnog and I met up with Northking in mid December, another cold and snowy morning. We decided to go and check out the Two Anchors new series, Hills View. These were a follow up to their original Hills View series. These proved a very challenging set of caches. The first one took us an absolute age to find, and then we couldn't retrieve the cache itself, it hadn't so much frozen in the ground as something else. I can't say any more as it would give too much away!  After phoning Rob from 2A he did let us have it as a joint FTF and went to sign the log on our behalf. This is Hills View # 3 http://coord.info/GC2K580. We then looked for another in the series Hills View #2 The Sequel http://coord.info/GC2JHQG we had no luck with this one at all and will have to return at some other time to find it. After leaving Northking he did decide to go back and try to find it. After another long period of searching he was lucky and managed to get a FTF on it. The easiest one in the series to do had already been found by some other well known cachers and proved easier to find, mainly because we know the Two Anchor's style. Jeff actually had his hand on the container first. This one is called Hills View The Sequel, just having looked at it again, it is still getting DNF's on it! http://coord.info/GC2JHR1

We decided that we would do one cache on Christmas Day, well you have to don't you? We went for Mainline To London http://coord.info/GC18T1F It really hasn't been the best caching few weeks, we didn't find it. We are off to Wales for New Year, hopefully we will have a lot more finds then.

GAGB Coin Race

The GAGB coin race has really taken off, a lot of people have now registered to see what it is all about. I won't go in to too much information here, nip over to the GAGB site and have a look. http://www.gagb.co.uk/

So that's it, last blog of 2010, I hope that you all have an enjoyable New Year and that you manage to keep caching throughout the year.

Take care and.............................happy caching.

GAGB, Geocache Trails and The Last Few Caches

Hi and welcome to the latest installment of the blog.

GAGB

As I mentioned last week, I am now one of the committee members on the GAGB ~ the Geocaching Association of Great Britain. This is a great association to be a part of and if you are not already a member, please do think about joining us. It doesn't cost anything, unless you would be so kind as to offer a small contribution towards the cost of running the site.

The GAGB is a mine of information regarding landowner agreements, news about what is going on in your area, CITO, and much more, including monthly competitions and an extremely friendly, non judgemental forum, where you can express your views, ask questions and offer advice to others. The association web pages can be found at http://www.gagb.co.uk/ We are even having a geocoin mileage game next year, not a competition, this is just to see how far your personal geocoin and you travel from 1st January to 31st December. The details are again on the forum pages of the website.
GEOCACHE TRAILS
Geocache Trails http://www.geocachetrails.com/ is another website that is well worth a visit. If you want an easy way to find some caches in your area, or an area that you are unfamiliar with, this site can give you valuable information about cache trails, whether they are circular or linear. The caches range in number from 3 upwards. All you need to do is type in the location that you want and the site will give you a guide to different caches in that area. We recently found it useful when we visited Barrow and have used it on quite a few occasions now.

THE LAST FEW CACHES
We have been a bit quieter on the caching front since the last blog. We have only found 6 caches, having said that, two of the finds have been slightly different.

Following on from last weeks tunnel cache Tunnel-Tastic, we felt compelled to do another one, and seeing that it was only a few miles from home it had to be done sooner rather than later. This cache came in two parts, and without giving too much away the first cache that you needed to find, was virtually on top of the final part of the cache! Confused? Well read the logs and it may become a lot clearer, as clear as the mud we encountered getting to the final cache!!! The first part is called Shrodinger's Ghostly Paradox - The Happy Outcome http://coord.info/GC2HK2Q This was soon located on our trip out and we were soon transported to the second part Shrodinger's Ghostly Wormhole Paradox http://coord.info/GC2HJYV As we got transported to the second part we encountered all sorts, a ram that had seen better days, we couldn't work out whether it was the guardian of the cache or had entered the wormhole to die! We even encountered a very friendly toad, who was to lead us to ground zero! Here are some photos.

The entrance to the Ghostly Paradox

Torture Cages in the Ghostly Paradox

A most helpful toad!

It was a great cache to find that was something a little out of the ordinary and a great way to spend a winter's morning. The two caches were created by Pinfold, who has obviously put some thought in to how to set them up. I even managed to leave a ghost geocoin in there that I picked up from the other tunnel.

Over the next few days we found a few more caches, the first of these was 'grave by bl4ck4dd3r http://coord.info/GC2JMDR We really made a meal of this one, I am blaming the cold weather for addling our brains. We worked out the hint, which had been further encrypted and headed off. We knew where it should be, the GPS pointed to where it should be and it still took us almost twenty minutes to find. We had hoped that we would be first to find after it was DNF'd just after publication. We got there though and Northking had beaten us by minutes.

Just driving around this week we also found Ruddington Grange by Fosiposi, http://coord.info/GC2DJGB
an easy drive by but with some history to where it is placed.
Then it was time to find another Northking cache, we are getting through them slowly but surely, this time we found Caching Practice 4 (waterlogged) A nice simple find for us on a cold winter afternoon, http://coord.info/GC27BAW  The same day we found Dead Centre of Ruddington by seasoned cacher Angellica, http://coord.info/GC1YNJR this one has eluded us a couple of times as the area seems to be a magnet for the lads of Ruddington to gather for a kickabout.

Our final cache of the week came to my attention a couple of weeks ago and immediately made my MUST DO list. Bomber Command by well known cachers, father and son team The Bolas Heathens http://coord.info/GC21WYM is placed in one truly atmospheric locations. I am not going to say much more about it, other than Wemnog, his son Tom and I + the three dogs spent well over two hours just exploring. The cache was located in minutes, but if you cache and dash you are really going to miss out.The dogs were wary, I am sure that they could sense ghosts of times gone past. Here are some photos, I am pretty sure that if you are near this cache it will be one that you also say you must do.

Don't think this will switch any lights on now!

The glassless window

The usually hyperactive dogs weren't too sure

Ghostly

The final parking spot

As you can see from the photos, this place is too good to miss if you are around at any time.

FINALLY

I hope that the snow isn't hampering your caching efforts too much this week and that you manage to get out and about. Have a good week.