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.

Low Numbers, New Faces, New Coins and A Race

Low Numbers

806

After reaching last weeks milestone of 800 and doing a lot of caching, this week has been really low. Three in total. Things started to look promising and we planned to do a lot more, but as usual, work got in the way.

Bricks http://coord.info/GC29BAW was the first of the three this week. One of the most local caches not ticked off our list, Bricks is a nice simple puzzle cache that can be worked out at home by doing some checking on Google. By local cacher svk616g. We have found a few of his caches over the last few months but still have a fair few to do.

A few days ago, we packed the bikes in the Jeep again and headed off to do a series of caches on the Bilsthorpe Southwell Trail . After parking up we left the dogs and the bikes in the car while we searching for Number 1 http://coord.info/GC2Q9J1 This took us a few minutes longer than it should. We blame tree cover and the GPS (it really couldn't have been cacher error) We had looked in the right place a couple of times, then suddenly, realisation came and the cache was ours.

So on to number two. http://coord.info/GC2Q9JD A nifty hide, a slightly different take on an old idea. We were by now looking forward to doing the rest of the series, but then................Number 3 http://coord.info/GC2Q9JJ Having read previous logs we realised that we weren't in for an easy time with this one. We were right. Luckily the dogs are quite happy to entertain themselves. We spent a good 50+ minutes on this one with no luck. We had to admit defeat and give up. Sadly we didn't have time to continue with the rest of the series as we had baking to get back to for the market. Knowing some of the cachers who had found it, I decided to do a PAF to one of them. It turns out we had been looking at the cache all along. Our cachers eyes certainly weren't with us. We will be back soon to complete this entertaining series by Paneke sooner rather than later.

New Faces

Earlier this week we had a Notts Geocachers getogether. These used to happen regularly but for one reason and another, including falling numbers, they hadn't run in a while.  Months down the line and a few of us had been talking about trying to resurrect them. I decided to go through my cache logs and see what new cachers were about and contact them to guage interest.

The good news was that on the evening we had a lot of new faces. I won't call them newbies, it sounds so condescending. So we took over a large length of the pub and had a good natter.

We met, Coopernets, AmadeusVersailles, DingDongMerilly, Noords and many more. It looks like Notts Geocachers are going to go from strength to strength. We have vowed to keep the getogethers going on a more regular basis now.

New Coins

Due to the lack of caches this week, I have dotted some photos around the blog of coins that I have now added to my collection. There are now 20 in total, most of them have been pictured on here before so I have only added the new ones.

A Race

It has been in the back of my mind for some time to try and organise a TB race. This has been somewhat inspired by Slightly Tall Pauls Travel Bug Knock Out Race http://travelbugknockout.blogspot.com/ which proved (and still continues to do so) to be very popular.
Not wanting to tread on his toes I decided to do something a little different from that.

I got in contact with a geocacher from Nottingham, New Hampshire in the US  (Balrgn) to run some ideas by him. After some discussion we came up with the idea of a Nottingham UK to Nottingham US TB race. The premise being that he will set up a cache over there and I will do the same here. We will have a launch of the caches on the same day and bugs that have been entered in to the race will set off from both caches on that day. Details of the competition can be found here http://www.usuktbrace.blogspot.com/  Going on from this we came up with the idea that we should do event caches as well to launch the race. So from little acorns the idea has really moved on.

Just because people don't live in either of the Nottinghams doesn't preclude them from entering the race. As long as bugs are with either of us before launch date of September 10th they will be able to enter. The details of the two launch events can be found here. http://coord.info/GC2Z53W & http://coord.info/GC2Z51J

If you are interested in joining in, get in touch with me and I can give you our addresses so that you can post, or drop off bugs to us.

I am going to finish this blog with a moan and a couple of name and shames.

How many of you spend a lot of time, effort and money in setting up caches for others to enjoy? Quite a lot of you I would guess. How many of you get more than a little peed off when all you get in return when someone has found it is a log like this. Found, or TFTC, or                          or Got it. Yes, the space between TFTC and Got it was meant to be there. I have had a few blank logs come through lately.
I know that Groundspeak have an opinion that logs shouldn' be deleted, however I have now got to the stage where I will email such loggers and ask them for just a little bit more, or in the case of a blank log, I just delete it.
I don't expect essays on a log, but something that just shows that it actually has been found helps. I often read previous logs when I am out in the field as this is often a prelude to having to resort to a hint. I would love you to add a comment in the comments box below about what you think.

Now for the name and shames, one affects me directly, one doesn't.

There is a cacher called ChibiDragon she hails from Braintree in Essex. She is an occasional cacher but still logs on to GC regularly. She has had one of my geocoins in her possession for exactly one year now. I have emailed her during the last few months to ask her to get in contact with me to either move the coin on or get it back to me. She hasn't bothered to get in touch at all. It is this type of cacher who brings the game in to disrepute sadly.

The second name and shame is Pirates of Penzance they take pleasure in taking geocoins from a TB hotel in Portsmouth, contacting the coin owners and telling them that they are keeping them.
They now have over 20 coins that they have kept. I have no personal experience of these people, but it does wrankle that it is happening and even though they have been reported to GC nothing, as yet, has happened. I do know that a few of the coin owners are thinking about contacting the police regarding this. Especially as they have stated in coin logs that they are keeping them. It does go to prove however, that coin owners do need to state on a coins page that their item is NOT COLLECTABLE. I wrote in a previous blog about this. If you aren't sure have a look through old blogs to read it.

Finally

This was brought to my attention last night. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-13993411 The actual cache can be found here http://coord.info/GC2H9A2 

Comments on this have been flying back and forth on different forums. What do you think?

That's it until next week. We have an event next weekend, a barbeque in a local country park. Fingers crossed for decent weather.