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

Summer's End

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

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

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

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

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



The Jacaru Enclosure



The Imp Pitch

Hacked Account

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


A Few Caches Too

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

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

The Carvings At Gardoms Edge, I Wonder What They Mean

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

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





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.

Weekend In Derbyshire

Wemnog and I had a weekend away in the campervan in Derbyshire. We had the three dogs with us of course, it was Fen the puppy's first time camping, she soon settled in to it.

We decided to stay at the site which we are going to use for the Summer's End camping event in September. That way we thought that it would be good to suss out some caches that we can point campers towards doing.

The photo above shows Peters Stone, the location of the first cache we did, C.O.D. Petrus,GC7A06, there is a cache there somewhere! We picked up our only TB of the weekend in this cache.Following on from the first cache we did the next one, Beyond Peters Stone, we had a bit of a scramble down to this one GCG6W0.

Then it was back to the campsite for some well earned food, and an early night.

Another very hot day on Saturday, so after a cooked breakfast it had to be a full day of caching. We did a lot of the C.O.D. caches (Curiosities Of Derbyshire) by Cats-Eyes. They have put some brilliant caches out that are well worth visiting. The first of the day though was a little way out, I Want To Be Wanted, a cache by the Wanted Inn, not too far from Chapel en le Frith. The only thing that I picked up there, apart from the cache was a load of dog poo on my shoe (not the best start to the caching day)

Then it was on to Monsal Head, well worth a visit at any time of the year, caching or not. The views here are spectacular. After stopping for an ice cream we ventured off to the cache and soon had it located and the log signed.

So the caching continued, one of the next caches we found was in the village of Great Longstone, a beautiful little village, not too far away from Monsal Head. The old water pump in the village was the location for this cache. Even with caches eyes, and knowing exactly what we were looking for, this cache took a couple of minutes to find, I blame the bright sunshine!

We carried on and bagged a few more caches including GC1G9E9 C.O.D. All Saints RC Church, Hassop. This one certainly was a curiosity. Hassop is another smallish Derbyshire village, but there, in the village itself is a massive Roman Catholic church. The size of it and the building material used certainly didn't fit in with the village itself!

We have heard a lot about the Skeg to Ness series from our good friends NorthKing and also Two Anchors, but we hadn't planned on doing any in the immediate future. However, the next cache on the GPS that flagged up for us was, in fact #129 in that series. As it was so near we couldn't resist doing it and we were glad that we did. It was another clever cache container. I have got similar ones out there, but this one went just that little stage further, we spent more time retrieving the log than actually finding the cache!

A few more caches around Stoney Middleton and chips from the chippy there and then it was time to return to the campsite for a cuppa and bask in the evening sunshine.

On Sunday we did a couple more C.O.D. caches, C.O.D. @ The Races and C.O.D. Well Fancy That, which is pictured below before driving on through the plague village of Eyam and on to the wonderful Grindleford Station for a well earned Sunday lunch.

Finally, below is a photograph of the campsite where the Summer's End event is going to be held. As you can see, it is basically just a field. Having stayed there though, we feel sure that people will enjoy it, pure back to basics camping, one sink, cold water, one loo, but loads of fun. Roll on September, there is already the promise of people bringing musical instruments, so although we aren't allowed to have campfires, it should be a brilliant atmosphere. If the weather is good, there is every chance that we will have a barbeque as well.

I wonder where caching will take us next? I'll let you know.