Rum Coffee and A Flash

821

It's been a busy old week, with not a lot of geocaches found! Having said that there is a lot to get through.

Arrrarggghhhhhh

Rum

A pirates favourite drink! Wemnog and I attended our first Piratemania event over the weekend. Not having attended any previous ones we were unsure what to expect, apart from a lot of fun. http://coord.info/GC2NYZG Sadly we couldn't camp for the weekend so attended as day visitors on the Saturday. We arrived at the event to be greeted by some extremely friendly pirates, parrots and some cabin dogs. Although we didn't do much caching it was great to meet up with a load of fellow cachers, some familiar faces and to make lots of new friends. We missed out on a few as well though who were busy finding all the new caches that had been put out for the weekend.
There are loads of photos available and even some videos.

Warrington Cacher and Walkerclan flags

The campsite itself was an amazing sight, with flags flying everywhere, we saw Jolly Roger's, team flags, forum flags and personal tracking flags. Next year we will definately attend for the whole weekend. Congratulations must be given to the organisers who were very pleased to be able to announce that the event had had enough visitors to make it a MEGA event. All in all a brilliant weekend and the first MEGA that I have attended. I can't wait to see what the souvenir looks like.

On car and flag TB's alone we logged over 50 discovered's!

There was even a real pirates parrot attending!

Captain's Parrot

Flash

Although we couldn't stay overnight we did pop back over to the event again on the Sunday to drop some more TB's off for people to move on. We were also passing as we were on our way to Ashbourne to attend the final bit of Piratemania, a flash mob in the main square in Ashbourne.  Pointy Pirates FM http://coord.info/GC2ZQB6 consisted of a huge number of cachers meeting up and on the sound of the horn pointing skywards with a lot of suitable arrrrhaaarring! There were plenty of bemused muggles around wondering what the hell a load of people dressed as pirates and some dressed as landlubbers were pointing at. The flash mob video is above. 



Gathering For The Flash Mob





Coffee

After the flash mob ended it was time to head over to Sheffield to another event, Coffee & Caching http://coord.info/GC2Z8MN we arrived and couldn't find anyone in the designated spot. I did have the phone number of a fairly new geocacher Tank 0115 who had also decided to attend from Nottingham. I phoned him and we met up and had our coffee and a long chat about geocaching. Still no one turned up, very strange. Then just as Tank 0115 was about to leave another couple asked if we were geocachers so we had a chat with them. As we were about to leave the organiser of the event turned up, now 2 hours later than the planned start. Unfortunately we had to leave quite soon so after signing the logbook and swapping trackables we headed home.

On arriving home and logging the event we noticed that the organiser had posted a note at the last minute saying that he had altered the time from 1.30pm to 3.30pm, not very helpful when people had travelled some distance and didn't have any way of reading late notifications.

Caches

As I said, not many actual cache finds this week. We intend going back to do the Piratemania caches in the next couple of weeks, and there are plenty to do which we are really looking forward to.

Earlier in the week we did find Henry (The Iron Man) http://coord.info/GC1PPEC which was a great little cache not far from Sheffield City Centre. The statue isn't actually at GZ but was quite a sculpture to look at.

Henry (The Iron Man)

Another find was Lamins of Shearsby. A cache in a churchyard. You don't find many of those around these days. This was placed well before the rules regarding consecrated ground came in and was put out back in 2004 http://coord.info/GCKNZ6 The only other notable find of the week was on of old caching friends Fly2live2fly. Over in Bruntingthorpe Steve's Aviation Cache #1 Bruntingthope Vulcan http://coord.info/GC1KVBB was a quick find after dropping some cars off at the nearby airfield. I would have loved to take some photos of all the planes but sadly photography wasn't allowed.


Other News

I had planned to tell you a lot of other news this week but think you will be getting bored if I go on too much, so as promised last week,

Have you ever had one of your caches muggled? You know the feeling, frustration, anger etc. etc. A bunch of German cachers were having their placements muggled frequently. So much so that they decided to band together. What they discovered was that it was the same person doing the muggling. Rather than me going in to too much detail on the blog, have a look at this. http://sonntagsrudel.amshove.net/ There is a link on there to an English version for you to read.

Photographs

If you enjoy taking photographs when you are out caching and they end up just getting stored on your computer once you are home, why not think about sharing them online?

I have been using a site called Daily Booth for a while. This used to be just for my own photos. I have now shut that down and started again, using it just for geocaching photos. It would be great if we could get a bunch of cachers from around the world joining up to post their caching adventures online. If you don't have the time or inclination to write a blog it is a great way of showing others what you have been up to. You can find my booth at http://dailybooth.com/JacaruGeocaching/17584569 It may be called Daily Booth, but there isn't a stipulation that you have to put a photograph on there daily. You can follow people, just as with Facebook or Twitter. Let me know if you decide to join and I will start following you.

N2N

More entries have been arriving for the race, we now have 14 UK entries so far and 11 US entries with more promised. With just over a month to go I am really pleased with the way this has taken off. If you haven't entered but still wish to do so, don't forget to let me have your TB as soon as you can.

Next Week ~ Our Top 10 Caching Bag Essentials.

Happy caching.

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.