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.

Caching, Canoeing, Events & Getting Groped

CACHING and CANOEING
A busy week again, sometimes we can go for a long time without doing many caches, then suddenly we have the opportunity to get out and do lots. Since the last blog we have done another 20. The week started with us doing three caches in the Oxford area when we were down there remapping. I can’t say these were thrilling caches, in fact one of them, Magic Roundabout, has to be about the least thrilling cache that I have ever done. It was plonked in the middle of a litter strewn roundabout with a none stop stream of cars, motorcycles and trucks.

The week got better though and as we were attending caching event on Saturday we did some of the caches along a great stretch of the Grantham Canal placed by local geocacher, Pinfold. He had put a brilliant new cache out ~ Gimme Shelter GC2D9P2, which we got to just as old caching friend RoPeHe was signing the log. Needless to say he got FTF, but we were a very close second. The cache is very well concealed and worth a visit. The canal is no longer navigable in parts but remains a lovely place for a walk and a cache or two. We did some caching around the area as well including one by fly2live2fly just near to a well known local cheese manufacturers, see the pic.

After caching it was time to attend the event, but more of that later.

The day after we decided that as the weather was good that we would get the Canadian canoe out and do some caches that we had had our eye on since they were first published. This was the Sneaking Around Stamford series by Dakar4x4. A great series of caches along the River Welland. 8 caches in all, some on busy parts of the river, some on much quieter parts. Wemnog and I even had to do a bit of limbo style canoeing to get to one of the caches as a tree had fallen and the only way through was by getting down low in the canoe. This is one of the GC numbers GC1YVNJ, if you are interested you will can find the rest on Google Maps. It was a great day out though and has certainly given me some ideas for a future series! See the pics below to see some of the fun we had.

Alberts Bridge ~ one of the cache locations

EVENTS

Back to the event that we attended. This was organised by our old friend Northking and Pinfold. It was very well attended by faces old and new and the pub certainly was a lot busier than I can imagine it usually is on a Saturday afternoon. The two guys held a raffle as well with some prizes, they managed to raise a decent sum in aid of the RNLI. To make the event even more special this turned out to be Northking’s 1000 cache, not bad in around 12 months of caching, so congratulations to him.

Staying on the subject of events, the Summer’s End event is approaching fast. The number of people saying they will attend, if not for the whole weekend at least on the Saturday keeps going up which is great news. Now that the farmer has given us permission to allow small caravans on the field it means more people can go for the whole weekend as well. The three new caches already reviewed will be published late on September 9th, they are called Around The Bend From Yonder Man!, Hole In The Wall, and Bridge Over The River Wye, I am looking forward to people finding them, especially the Bridge cache.

Plans for the event are in the final stages, the quiz is done, the coins for the goody bags have arrived and most importantly the barbeque is ready to fire up. I have asked people to bring flags to fly if they possibly can, the site can get quite windy, so having some flags flying should make it quite a spectacle.

Now all we need to make everything perfect is the weather.

GETTING GROPED

Some blog readers may already know about a group who go about stealing and destroying caches, both containers and contents apparently all in the name of environmental conservation. I myself have had a TB taken from a cache and supposedly destroyed ~ they threw it in a lake according to the email I got off them. How environmentally friendly is that, throwing a plastic object in to a lake, hmmm, not sure whether it’s going to rot down guys, maybe it will kill a fish or two though!

These prats don’t reckon that they are doing anything wrong (poor misguided individuals) and reckon that they are above the law. However the destruction of what is basically private property is, in the eyes of the law, theft. People from this group have been tried with success in other countries and now the reviewers have got together and sent out a statement on some of the forums. Here is their statement which reviewer Graculus, has kindly said that I can copy and paste on to this blog.

“This post is in response to cachers who have had their caches or trackables removed by a person or persons calling themselves GROEP and is to give you advice about how to deal with it.

The caches that we create are deliberately placed in locations and not abandoned as litter therefore what the GROEP people (under whatever username they currently use) are doing is simply theft of the cache containers and any trackables in them. I have spoken to my local police and they have confirmed that this is the case. If you find this person (or persons) has stolen either your cache or your trackable from a cache you should contact your local police and report it as a theft. Explain what geocaching is and that the cache container/trackable is your personal property and make sure you get a crime report reference number. If you have any difficulty explaining to the police what geocaching is or what has been stolen and need help then please contact me via my profile and give me the police station phone number and I will be happy to talk to them.”

Signed by

Chris

Graculus - Volunteer Reviewer for geocaching.com

and all the members of the UK reviewing team.

If you have the misfortune of having one of your caches or trackables messed with by these idiots please don’t just let it go, inform the police and let’s get this stamped out once and for all.

FINALLY

Well, quite a long blog this week so I guess I will quickly mention another link and then be on my way.

This time it’s the turn of the Geocaching Association Of Great Britain, or GAGB for short. The Geocaching Association of Great Britain (GAGB) was established to provide a voice for its members in the United Kingdom.

The aims are to establish good practices, provide a focal point for public liaison and support the growth and enjoyment of Geocaching within the UK. They do much more than that though. They have an extremely friendly forum where you can get advice, share ideas and find out about other things going on in your area.

Well worth becoming a member of, and it’s free.

That’s me done, until next week. As usual, I can’t say whether I will have done a little or a lot of caching by then, but if I do, you’ll certainly find out.

Have a good week.