Munzee Sites and Caching Bites

931

Munzee Sites

Since I first mentioned Munzee a few months back when it first started the game has really taken off.  We were something like 830th to join the game, and now there are over 11,000 players and it is growing daily.

There are some really innovative players out there now, who are pushing the boundaries of what can be done with the game. Some of these include a local cacher who has been mentioned before in this blog, Northking. He really thinks outside the box when it comes to creating new ideas for Munzee, including a couple of journey's that you can do and Munzee at the same time. One of these includes a train journey from Nottingham to London where you capture Munzees at certain places on the journey. You can find more information about this on Jeff's new Munzee site http://www.munzee.org.uk/index.html  You will also find information on this, his Postcode Capture Munzee.

If you want to capture this one, contact Jeff through his Munzee site or via his geocaching profile.


There are another couple Munzee sites to mention, obviously the main Munzee site where it all began, http://www.munzee.com/ and there is also a UK Facebook page,  Munzee GB for people who are want to join in. The Facebook site is a closed group, but you can request to join, just search for it by name on Facebook.

The UK's first Munzee meet will be happening shortly as well. More details of that can be found on Jeff's pages.

Caching Bites

As you will see from the number at the top of the page, since I last updated we have got around to doing more caching, in fact another 26 since then. We have been out and about on the bikes for a lot of it.

We have cached in Derbyshire, obviously not too far away from us, Birmingham, Newcastle and a couple of locals here in Nottingham. There are quite a few new local caches to go and find, but we tend to leave some of the newer ones for when the weather is bad during the winter period.

As usual, you see some unusal things when you are out caching, so I will share a couple of photos with you of things that we have seen lately, including this wise old owl carving. 

Wise Old Owl



We also found this place, and this is somewhere which we definately would have just ridden past had it not been for caching.                                                                                                                   

Getting out and about on the bikes again has been good and the weather for it has been perfect over the last couple of weeks. Yesterday we were on the Monsal Trail with some none caching friends, we think we may have some converts! There weren't many caches on the trail itself. If you are ever in Derbyshire this is a really good trail to either walk or cycle. The route has quite a lot of tunnels which have only recently been reopened. Prior to that you had to make some detours. At the Hassop end of the trail there is a decent cafe and a must visit bookshop as well.

As I mentioned we did a little bit of caching up in Newcastle over the weekend as well. We had to meet a customer at the airport who had just had a flying lesson and having some TB's and coins to move on we thought we would look for suitable caches.

There are two really decent TB hotels around the airport, they really are the closest to terminal TB hotels that I have seen, another cache that we did gave some really good views of the runways and the really modern control tower.



Control Tower at NIA



One final place that caching took us to this weekend was the Newcastle Falcons rugby ground. I'm not a rugby fan but Wemnog is and according to him they are quite a decent team. Wem used to play rugby and actually set up a team here back in the 80's.



Newcastle Falcons Ground



Finally this week one more new caching site on Facebook to tell you about. It is called Geocaching East Midlands. It is a none political friendly group with no hidden agenda, just a place where people can chat in a decent civilised manner. Although the name is Geocaching East Midlands, the page is there for people to join from anywhere in the country. In that way if people are thinking of visiting this area, members can point them in the right direction for finding caching equipment such as Anchor Supplies, or for meeting up with like minded people for a natter.

At the Nottingham to Nottingham launch event we had a number of visitors from around the country who gave us the idea. They preferred not to join in with forums but still wanted a place to be able to chat. So that's how the idea came about. Again, this is a closed group as with the Munzee page and people can ask to join. Just search for Geocaching East Midlands and put in a request. We are planning on holding an event soon as well to meet up with people, this won't be an official geocaching event just an informal gathering of like minded people.

I mentioned Anchor Supplies above, if you don't know about them they are a government surplus stockist here in Nottingham. It is an Aladdins cave of a place to visit and you are sure to spend a lot of time and a little money there if you get a chance to visit. You will also find some decent caching equipment for sale there, or stuff that you can turn in to caching equipment. They also stock very reasonably priced ammo boxes. If you are too far away to visit they do do mail order. If you do visit, you are sure to get a warm welcome as a lot of the staff are also cachers themselves.

This link will take you to their site. http://www.anchorsupplies.com/

That's all for now, happy caching.

Finally, Race TB's and Questions and Answers

905

Well after last week I finally hit the 900th cache. A good one down in Gloucester that a friend had told me about. Troll, by oz uk http://coord.info/GC23GGH is the first container that I have come across that was actually sold for purpose. A neat little container that was large enough for me to drop some TB's off in.

A view from near the Troll cache

So that was 900, no time to do any more that day. However, we did have to go to East Midlands airport a couple of days later to pick up some bits and pieces for the new TB race that starts in January. We decided that we had enough time to go and find a couple of caches whilst around so went to Adrian's Birthday Cache http://coord.info/GC2MQKH and Grumpy's Departure Lounge http://coord.info/GC345RR Both easy finds which again were large enough to drop some trackables in.

A few days later we were off up to Liverpool to do some remapping and had chance to do a couple of Motorway Mayhem caches on the M6 before doing just one cache in Liverpool itself. The cache Captain "Johnnie" Walker was a cheeky little container placed at Pier Head. We were lucky that it was a quiet and blustery day so there weren't that many people around. This is the kind of cache description that I like to read, one with a bit of history. http://coord.info/GC32XP6

Captain "Johnnie" Walker statue, Liverpool

 We have only done one other cache of John Stead's a while back in another part of the country, but from the two that we have done and from others that we have read about he places some very interesting caches.





Race TB's

All the Nottingham to Nottingham race TB's are now back in the UK and will be moving in to caches shortly ready to resume the race as they were meant to. They had a brief stay in the US but thanks to Captainwilly who kindly UPS'd them back so that the race could continue correctly.

Questions and Answers

I recently approached some cachers who I know and asked whether they would consider answering some questions about their caching experiences for the blog. The first person up is Yorkypudding who kindly agreed to be the guinea pig.

 How long have you been caching for?   Since Wednesday 16th February 2005, officially and did one in France a bit before but never logged it.
How did you get in to geocaching?   A friend of mine saw it on Countryfile.
Favourite type of cache?   A nice full Ammo can.
Series or single caches?  Prefer a Series.
Your favourite find?    Paper Caper by The Soupdragons. http://coord.info/GCKEEC

Fair weather or any weather?   Any weather, been in the snow,rain, fog and I actually prefer it quite bleak less people around.
Your very first find?    Woolley Rail by Rimosky found 21st of February 2005. http://coord.info/GCJZM4
On your own or with someone else?  Both really, not keen on big groups.
Furthest cache from home?  Done a few virtuals, in Maine- usa, The Antartic and even the Mia space station. But my real furthest is Perth in Scotland.
Favourite bit of advice for other cachers?  Read the log page that someones gone to the trouble of writing and use the hint to avoid destruction to terrains.
What’s in your caching bag?  What isnt , GPS, pens hundreds of them. A long mirror with a magnetic end. Head torch, baby wipes, A pouch that turns into a bag, A smal maintence kit with supplies in.Batteries, gloves. Lots of crumbs at the bottom. and old name tags from events.
Any cache that you have heard about that you really want to find?    A cache at Brimham Rocks that you have to Absail to get it, but i'm too big for that. But one day soon I won't be.

A big thanks to Yorkypudding for being the first in this series. If you would like to answer the same questions and have them posted on the blog feel free to get in touch with me.

Finally there is some exciting news coming. I can't tell you any more at the moment, but it will be great news for cachers everywhere and will be well worth waiting for.


Cheers.

How Difficult?

899


So how difficult can it be to find a cache that I want to do for my 900th? Nothing so far has grabbed me as being anything special.  I have done all the decent caches around Nottinghamshire that I want to do especially. I have a few caches that I have got my eye on for 1000, including caches by Northking, Team Blid, Baira and SVK but nowt around here for number 900.

We were down in Virginia Water at the weekend and had planned for us both to reach the milestone then, Wemnog is a few behind me. We had a series that were going to do but the weather was too hot for the dogs to chase us around on bikes. I ended up doing my 899th cache just outside Marilyn Monroe's old house in the nearby village of Englefield Green ~ GC2HDHW was a nicely stocked, decent sized container. I used to live in the area, well 30+ years ago and never dreamt that next time I was going to be back round there would be with my partner searching for plastic boxes!

So 900 still eludes me, something will turn up I am sure.

Nottingham To Nottingham Race

The Nottingham to Nottingham race is moving on apace. Lots of movement in the last couple of weeks and some surprising movements in the coming weeks as well.

As I write,  another race is being planned and there will be more details of that at a later date. We had some good publicity for the last one and I am sure that the next race will prove to be popular too.

So not much to tell you at all this time, just thought it was about time I touched base. I am sure that next time I write there will be more to tell you, including some great Mega news as well.

3 Events In 7 Days and In The News

891

3 Events In 7 Days


We feel really priviliged that so many people attended the 3 events that we have run in the last couple of weeks. It totalled 3 events in just 7 days.

We started with the Summer's End camping event at the beginning of the month. We were a little disappointed as we arrived to see only two tents already erected but the lack of campers didn't dampen what turned out to be a very well attended affair.

As there were only a few of us on the Friday night we decided to form a team and enter the local village quiz night. Between us we had enough brain power to come a very respectable 2nd out of 11 teams and we won ourselves a tenner in the process. 

A couple of photos of our team members, above we have fonecacher and killercache and to the right we have Mick & Lynn Jenkinson.


The following day everyone dispersed and went and did some caching.

We didn't do many, as we are always in the area anyway we decided to do just the Thornsett Band series by Ellie Bob. The First in the series Thornsett Band #1 Town Hall brought back some memories as I briefly worked in the Town Hall when I left school and up until recently my sister worked in the library which is situated next door.
The town hall itself is a beautiful piece of Victorian architecture.

New Mills Town Hall

As the evening event approached car upon car turned up at the campsite and as the chilli warmed up the groups of people it was good to meet lots of new cachers as well as greet some old friends from previous events. The weather stayed fine for us and the evening drew to a close around midnight.

Not too many decent pics of this one but just a couple here for you.

As people packed up on Sunday it was time to do just one last cache before we all left. Wemnog and myself accompanied killercache and fonecacher to Hockerley Tracks http://coord.info/GC2XAT2 I am not going to post a photo of this one as it would give too much away and it isn't fair on cache owners or other cachers to post spoilers.      

The events continued in to the following weekend when we had the first of the two launch events for the Nottingham to Nottingham TB race. The weather was a little unpredictable for this one so we decided not to risk the orignally planned barbeque and went for another chilli, this time with meatballs. Again, we were well chuffed with the number of people who turned up, including helennbrian and their family all the way from Essex and thepanteras from Peterborough.  After the event it was time for the hotel to go live so we had to rush out and place all the racing bugs in to the hotel. The total number of UK entries came to 45 which went far beyond what I originally expected when I came up with the idea for the race.

The following day we held the Breakfast Club event, again this was to publicise the hotel and to help get some of the racers moving. This final event was again well attended and I think that we gave the breakfast chef a bit of a shock as more and more people continued to turn up. In the end our group was so large that we had not only taken over one large alcove of the pub, but had to spread out in to other areas. It was a shame that some people arrived just as the chef was shutting down. The reason being that they got stuck in traffic due to the amount of people around heading out to watch the Nottingham Marathon. Sorry Border Caz, I was looking forward to a long chat with you.                                                                                                                                                

In The News

The Nottingham to Nottingham race made the news on Groundspeaks own blog yesterday. We got a nice write up which you can read here http://blog.geocaching.com/2011/09/nottingham-to-nottingham-travel-bug-race/

Finally, back to some serious caching this weekend. We have a trail of 48 caches to do over 20 miles or so at some point. I am sure there will be more about it next week.

Thanks for reading, have a good week and see you soon.

Summer's End

More about our Summer's End event in a few days time, but for now, I have been sent this link by phonecacher who took this photograph for us. Thought you might like to see it to be going on with.

http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=76df8a26-849b-4913-aa34-4f8d805229d4

Busy Week

It's been a busy week here in Nottingham. The blog has had an influx of people looking at it, there has been an increased flow from America and Mansfield here in Nottinghamshire. I can't think who that is (LOL) It's okay don't worry, it's a personal joke between myself and my partner. 

Thank you all for visiting, it's great to know that you find what I have to say so interesting!

After a few quiet weeks,  we have now been inundated with orders for geocoins, both through the Ebay shop but also by phone, but the remapping enquiries and bookings have also increased, again a lot of the bookings have come from people following our links above.  So much so that it looks like over the next few weeks we are going to be all over the country again. It will be good to get out and get more caching done in some new areas.

We have also been busy preparing for upcoming events. We have some geocoins to give out to competition winners that have been specially made.

 We have found a good series to point people in the direction of as well whilst they are in the area. The weather forecast is improving as well, always good news as the beginning of this week wasn't the best.

My sister and her family are staying at our house while we are away and we are leaving them with our old Garmin, loaded with some decent caches and she has said that they may venture out and see what caching is all about (always good to get some potential new recruits) and someone needs to look after the hens.

Next week should see the finalisation of another event that we are planning on holding in the next few months, more of that when it comes to fruition.

Next time I will have some news about a new type of cache that is being set, one that is causing a bit of controversy in different places due to a commercial aspect that has come in to it,  and it will be interesting to see if and how it develops in this country.

As always, thanks for reading, it is great to look at the stats at the end of each month and see how many visitors the blog gets from different countries. There has been a constant stream of supportive messages posted as well from readers which are always great to receive, as well as the emails that I get from people more local who tell me lots of very interesting information that I keep in reserve should I ever need to use it! (thanks guys, you know who you are)

Finally, all content of this blog is protected by copyright and always has been. No part should be copied on to any other site without my express permission.

Ebay Shop

There has been an increased amount of traffic on the blog for the last couple of days, and I happy to report that due to this more people have been linking to our Ebay shop and sales have increased remarkably. As goes to show, any publicity, in whatever situation is good.

Just to let you know, that new stock will be in within the next few days.

Current stock on show in the shop includes

Victorian and King George V Post Box geocoins

Gemini North Telescope geocoins

Border Collie Geocoins

UK Map geocoins

Metal First Stage multi cache tags

Metal Munzee tags

Due in soon,  Icache coins, Apple coins, World Traveller coins and many more.

Keep an eye open, many more due soon.

Happy caching.

Forums

Boo.................................

Hope you had fun being directed here, now for a shameless plug:~




http://jacaru.co.uk/

www.antondigital.co.uk

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.

Challenges

864

Challenges


I have now found out more information about the new virtual, these are, as I mentioned before, going to be called Challenges.

Still in the early stages but being released very soon,  I have copied what Jeremy Irish had to say on the official GC blog.


"To me, the core geocaching experience is the “eureka moment” when finding a cache.







The word, Eureka, comes from the ancient Greek εὕρηκα heúrēka, meaning “I have found it.” I love this word. It represents that elated feeling of discovery when you move a few leaves to discover that container in the woods, or reaching under a park bench to extract a magnetic key holder. It is a sense of accomplishment and marks the end of a successful journey.






Finding a geocache is fun and rewarding, but I’ve always been frustrated of the limitations of a geocache. As a physical object, some places are inappropriate for placing a cache. They can’t be hidden close to each other to reduce confusion, many locations have to be regulated by land managers, and some locations just can’t support a hidden container. But there are lots of cool and interesting eureka moments in the world. So how can we get people there without a cache?






We tried this before. Our early attempt was to support virtual caches, which weren’t geocaches at all but unique locations on the world for people to discover. The best of those virtuals still exist today as grandfathered listings, but there was a time when virtuals were hard to qualify. The biggest reason was that we were applying the guidelines of geocaches to virtuals, which required a reviewer to publish them. No one could determine what the subjective threshold for what was a virtual was and wasn’t, so the constant angst resulted in the retiring of virtuals. For years we have focused on the core game of geocaching, but have always wanted to find a way to bring virtuals back.



Spring forward to 2010 when we added the feedback section of our web site. It became quickly apparent that the community wanted virtuals back as much as we did. However, knowing the history of virtuals, we couldn’t just flip a switch and have the same process again. So we sat in a room and tried to distill the idea of virtuals into one sentence. The result was “go somewhere and do something.” This evolved into Geocaching Challenges.






Find a location of interest and challenge someone to take a photo or complete some kind of task unique to that location. Make it fun! Take a picture of yourself holding up the Tower of Pisa. Pull statue Lenin’s finger in Fremont (Seattle). We’re looking for the community to define the best challenges in the world.






We also know in the early days that there won’t be many Challenges, so we’ll be issuing Worldwide challenges daily. For those old timers, these challenges will be like the old Locationless caches. For example, we’ll challenge you to take a picture of yourself on a boat, kissing a frog, or dressed like a pirate. We’ll be using our feedback site as a way for the community to suggest Worldwide Challenges.






What are the guidelines for issuing a challenge? Unlike caches, there aren’t any official guidelines. Instead, you can rate challenges with thumbs up or thumbs down, and there are reporting tools available in the case that a challenge is inappropriate or unavailable. We’ll be tweaking these tools and introducing new ones as the activity grows, to ensure that the community can collectively decide what is appropriate, and what isn’t. For example, there is no 520’ guideline and Challenges won’t be blocked from being issued at Disney World, or even a pub.






There will be some restrictions at the start. To reduce the growth during the early days, only Premium Members can submit challenges. Premium Members will be limited to creating a Challenge once every 24 hours. Our hope is that we’ll be able to open this up further once we tweak our system to address the feedback we get from the community.






We’re also releasing a whole new set of mobile applications for Challenges, on the iPhone, Android and Windows Phone 7. We expect that this new activity will be primarily accessed through these free applications, though we’ll continue to support GPS devices.






I’m very excited about Challenges, and look forward to seeing what the community can do with the new concept. I also look forward to constructive feedback on how to improve the activity and make it a part of the core geocaching experience."

This all looks exciting stuff and I for one can't wait to set my first challenge. Hopefully the smilies will eventually be allowed to join your main cache finds rather than being separate.

It will be interesting to see how this all develops.

Anglesey

As you may have gathered from the fact that I am posting on the blog, Anglesey fell through for one reason and another. So, caching has been at a low ebb again this week with just a few finds.

This weekend we are, come hell or high water getting out there and finding some more. I have a load of TB's and geocoins that I picked up at the North West Mega launch to drop off in some caches.

Next week I am going to do more of a feature on the North West Mega. There will also be some exciting news about the 2013 Mega.

Have a good week and happy caching.

More Soon and Virtuals

More Soon


I am sorry everyone for the lack of an update this week. We have done a little bit of caching including 3 FTF's.

None of the caches have really been anything special to tell you about though, so rather than bore you with a none blog will leave you with the knowledge that the next edition will be in a couple of weeks time. We are off camping on Anglesey for a couple of weeks and there are some great caches to find up there. I am sure that there will be plenty to tell you about then.

Virtuals

Some good news though, it looks like a form of virtual caches are going to be back with us in the very near future. They are going to be called Challenges, there isn't a lot of information about them yet, but this is a quote from Jeremy Irish's own forum posts.

They (challenges) are location-based and for everyone to do.

When you complete a Challenge (the new virtual) it will now be included in your overall "find" count. That's the only change to my original comment. I was resisting but was worn down by my fellow lackeys.

To clarify, it isn't going to be a cache listing at all, so posting a new cache listing as a placeholder for a virtual would have no point to it.

Just who will be allowed to list virtual listings on this site? Lacky's? PM's? Any member?

Premium Members during the initial release will have the ability to post them, and even then they only post one every 24 hours (max). This will open up later, based on how the system is holding up.

Still no real news on this, but it looks like caching is going to have something new and exciting happening.

All for now, have a good couple of weeks.

My holiday starts tonight, with a visit to the launch event of the North West Mega, from this evening the actual event will be published and you can log your intent to visit next year.

I also pick up my first two event coins, photos will follow when I next blog.

Blog TB

A quick update on the Blog TB that I set off on 17th June at a cache in the West Midlands. So far it has travelled 264.7 miles and was last picked up in the Lake District. It is currently in the hands of HO4 who live in the North East.

Finally for those of you who are interested in the Nottingham to Nottingham TB race that starts on September 10th, I now have in my posession 29 racers for the UK with some more promised and Balrgn has so far received  20 trackables, again with more promised.

For those of you who haven't entered but still want to, details can be found here http://www.usuktbrace.blogspot.com/

The hotel container is now in place so that it can weather in over the next month. There are a couple of launch events planned over here, this one http://coord.info/GC2Z53W and then this one the morning after which isn't too far from where the hotel is placed http://coord.info/GC30VN4 There is also a launch event in America http://coord.info/GC2Z51J

I am really pleased with the way the race is shaping up. There will be a mention of it also on the next broadcast of the ukgc podcast. If you have never listened to a podcast, have a look at http://www.ukgcpodcast.com/

Happy caching.

A Brief Video From Cumbria

I thought I would just add a very brief video of some of the sights in Cumbria that we saw when we were there last weekend.

The Lakes, Cache Bag Top Ten and a Social Traveller

853


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.

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.

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..........................