One Year Already?

One year ago today, I found my very first geocache called Woodland Walk and so started the slippery slope towards - a healthy(?) - addiction! I am still far from being an expert cacher, however I no longer consider myself a newby. So, here are my top five highlights from the past year...

Geoblogging Fun

I started this blog and I was featured in GAGB's online Seeker magazine. This is a big deal for me as I am in no way a literary genius; that's Nigel's talent, just take a look at the log he wrote for this cache! People do read this blog though and I receive some wonderful comments about it for which I am hugely grateful for.

A Respectable Record

I have found 355 caches so far; not a huge number but not too shabby either. It's not all about the numbers for Nigel and I though, we have as much fun going out for a day to find one or two caches than we do on a day where we find twenty or so. Ultimately, we have found a way to get outside, find new interesting places and spend more time together. I do like to look at my stats though so here are a few of my favourites:

• Cache found with most favourite points: The Tin Pan Alley Band 1231 FP
• Oldest cache found: View From Coombe Hill hidden 14/01/2001
• Owned cache with the most favourite points: Buffy vs. Faith 4 FP
• My first FTF: Dora the Explorer #3 - Tree found 06/06/2014

Eventful Events

As well as numerous local events - mainly BBH (Beds, Bucks & Herts Geocachers) events - Nige and I attended our first Mega event, The Halloween Mega 2014. You can read about the fun we had at this event in one of my previous posts, Mega Mud, Mega Monsters and a Mega Event. We also attended a CITO (Cache In Trash Out) event with a bit of a difference called Cache In, Tree In - Escapade 2014/15. We joined many cachers, as well as locals, in planting some trees in the Forest of Marston Vale. I'm not talking a few trees here and there; a few hundred trees were planted altogether. When we were done that day, it struck me that I would probably not live long enough to see all these trees develop into a thriving forest. It truly was a humbling moment.

Becoming a Cache Owner

"TFTC"

When I first started caching, I never realised how frustrating/disappointing/unhelpful those four simple letters can be until I became a CO. I always make the time and effort to write interesting logs for my finds now. This past year, I have hidden four caches now; two traditionals, one mystery and one multi cache. Oh yes, I also hosted my first event on Pi Day this year which seemed to be a success (although, I think the lure of a souvenir helped with that). It was well attended and it was much easier to organise than I thought it would be.

My aim going forward is to own different types of hides; I am currently working on a Letterbox Hybrid and am hoping to submit it for publishing soon.

New Friends

This time last year, I never imagined that I would meet so many new people, let alone actually make some new friends! This would never have happened if it were not for the Facebook group called Beds, Bucks & Herts Geocachers. They are such a friendly bunch; a little cake obsessed... but I love cake!

My first year of geocaching was memorable in many ways and I hope to make many new memories over the years to come. Until next time...

THIS IS SPARTA! My 300th Find!

Two caches is what I needed to find today to reach my milestone 300 finds. Two. That's easy. At least, that's what I thought when I woke up that morning lunchtime.

Today we were headed to Aston Clinton to find a simple traditional cache that would take me to 299 finds and a Wherigo called Rothschild Footprint that would be my 300th find.

Having been to a house party the night before meant Nige and I didn't set out until gone lunchtime. Parking at the suggested spot for the Wherigo, we headed off for a nearby traditional cache before starting my milestone cache. We decided to take the long way round as it was such a nice day - if a lot cold - and walked along the river rather than the roads. As we walked along the footpath, admiring the houses and their gardens that backed onto the picturesque little river, it started to dawn on me that having a cup of tea before heading out was not a clever idea. Tea goes straight through me.

The first cache of the day was Alley-way treasure; a seemingly straightforward traditional located in - you guessed it - an alleyway. We got to the alleyway and followed the GPSr to where GZ should be. It took us about halfway through the alley. Looking around this spot, there was no possible place to hide a cache. We figured that the coords must be out so looked at previous logs for a clue. They were all saying what we thought, that the cache was anything up to 70ft away for some people.

I took a look at the hint. It was quite cryptic. I have a talent for cryptic crosswords though so figured out the meaning of that easily. We started our search but felt a little awkward as it was right next to someone's home; in fact, I was framed by their window at one point as I looked around.

We looked all over and still couldn't find the cache. I needed this find though so tried one last thing; I put a message out on the BBH group saying 'I was at GZ, couldn't find the cache, had anyone in the group found it before?' Thankfully, Smokeypugs came to our rescue. Unfortunately, they only confirmed what we already suspected. We had the right location and were looking in the right spot; the cache just wasn't there. With no other caches for this area loaded on my GPSr - yes, I've learnt my lesson, be prepared - I had to resort to my phone. A quick search on c:geo and some suggestions from Smokeypugs, we were soon on our way to one of the Aylesbury Ring caches.

AR11 Mandarin - Stablebridge Road is one of many caches that make up the Aylesbury Ring series. A circuit that is split into seven sections; each one named after a species of duck. I was a bit reluctant to go for this one as I really want to do this series and would have preferred to do each section all together. However, time was getting away from us, we still had the Wherigo to do and this was the nearest cache to us.

We found our way to GZ easily and before we could get to searching, we had to wait for a few muggles to pass. After a glance up and down the way to make sure the coast was clear, we got stuck in. Searching all the obvious spots revealed nothing but then I spotted something a bit odd. I took a closer look but it still appeared to be a dead end. I thought I would have a fiddle anyway and to my delight, the log book was revealed.

Whilst I was disappointed that we DNFd the last cache resulting in us doing this one, I was pleased that we got to find this one. It has given us a taster of the rest of the series and I am itching to tackle it now (hopefully when the days get longer).

We had lost a lot of time on the previous two caches so it was late afternoon by the time we reached the starting point of Rothschild Footprint. Having successfully completed a Wherigo before at the Halloween Mega, I thought that this would be easy. Quite clearly, one done does not make one an expert!

I sometimes like to sing when I am out caching, on the walk between hides. This time however, as we made our way to the start of my 300th cache, I had the sudden urge to shout "This is Sparta!" much to Nige's chagrin.

I opened the Wherigo app on my phone and started the cartridge for this cache. I started moving about, trying to find the spot where the next stage would pop up but couldn't get it to work. Nige thought it may be my (not so) smart phone so suggested using his Mensa grade Galaxy Note complete with bells and whistles and super duper 4G. That didn't work either. It was getting colder and darker as we walked around in circles. As my mind started wandering to a place where there were luxury toilets with heated seats, I started idly pressing things on my phone only to find the next stage pop up! Hooray!

Finally, we headed off to find each stage of this Wherigo. As the time was getting on, Nige wanted to pick up the pace a bit. I have short legs though that look like Droopy Dog's when I try to walk fast, plus I wanted to read the bits of history that were coming up on my phone as we passed through each stage. By some miracle - read Nige keeping an eye on me and getting frustrated with me - I managed to walk and read at the same time without meandering into the road.

A couple of the stages required us to collect a couple of dates as we went along. We had to use a little ingenuity for one of these as it was so dark we couldn't make it out. We used a bit of paper and a pencil to take a rubbing, which worked really well. It wasn't until we neared the end of the Wherigo that I remembered reading on the cache page that we didn't need those numbers any more to find the cache.

After visiting various cool places around Aston Clinton, we found ourselves walking (in the dark) through a park and a field. I couldn't quite keep up with Nige and managed to lose sight of him for a few moments when, looking up from the phone, my glasses steamed up. I called out that I couldn't see and ran blindly towards his voice as he replied "Keep up you donut!"

We eventually arrived at GZ and found the final location. I am not going to say anything more, so as not to spoil it for future finders. All I will say is that even though I don't like spiders, I went there and I did it!

This was an awesome cache to find for number 300. I loved the Wherigo - once we figured out how to work it - and I loved the final location. I urge everyone to give this one a go... or any Wherigo for that matter. Thank you to happy hunter hp20 for adopting this awesome cache and keeping it from being archived.

Mega Mud, Mega Monsters and a Mega Event

A couple of weekends ago, Nigel and I attended our first Mega-Event Cache and with it came a few more firsts for us that weekend. The 25th October saw us heading off to Wakerley Great Wood near Corby for the annual Halloween Mega 2014. A Mega-Event Cache is an Event Cache that is attended by 500+ people. This year, 1,339 adults and children descended on Wakerley Great Woods for a day of "Creepy Caches & Halloween Hides" and with over four and a half thousand favourite points given to the various caches by attendees, I think it is safe to say that everyone had a mega time that weekend.

With a potential 64 caches to find during the event, Nige and I were set to break our record for "most finds in a day". Okay, so this wasn't going to be a difficult record to break - our previous total was only seventeen - and the caches themselves were not going to be difficult hides, but we still found it a challenge. Not including the event itself, we found and logged 61 caches that day including 10 lab caches, a letterbox cache, an earthcache, a mystery cache and a multi cache!

It took us twelve hours and about fifteen miles of walking. I got covered in mud, I busted my knee, and I managed to smack my head pretty hard on a branch in the dark, mainly because of my stupid decision to wear this during the evening:

Never again!

At first it seemed like the Best Costume in the World Ever until we ventured out into the dark forest; I found that I couldn't see a damned thing and kept standing on my beard when ducking under branches. Despite all that we had an amazing weekend.

I nicknamed this little chap Bones

Attending an event of this magnitude shows just how diverse the geocaching population is. Young or old, two-legged humans or four-legged canines, alive or undead... we met them all. As we walked around from cache to cache, we kept bumping into people we had only just met that day and by the evening our brief "Howdies" to these strangers evolved into friendly banter and conversations of shared experiences. There was a sense of camaraderie that you rarely get at large events outside the geocaching world.

Everyone was so friendly; we had help from and gave help to many people throughout the day. We joined up with a group of zombies to help them solve the mystery cache, they were the slow moving George A. Romero kind though and we were on a mission so left them behind after a while. We had help from another group of cachers to find the multi cache and we worked together with others on the lab caches.

Heroic moment of the whole day though goes to Nigel and another man (whose name I didn't get). We were blessed with fantastic weather that day, being October I was expecting it to be either raining and/or cold, but within the woods the temperature was moderate enough that we didn't really need our jackets. However, the preceding week had been a bit of a wet one which transformed the area into swamp-like conditions that even Shrek would refuse to inhabit.

"You've got to be kidding!"

We had met a few people at the event that day that were in wheelchairs and mobility scooters and, all credit to them, they were getting about the woods remarkably well considering. However, conditions were anything but improving as darkness descended. We were walking along a particularly sloppy footpath when we heard a bit of a commotion behind us. We looked back to see a group of cachers that we had met earlier in the day. One of them was a lady in a mobility scooter, except it wasn't so mobile at the moment, it was wheel spinning in the mud and leaning precariously to one side. Just as the woman was about to receive a complementary Wakerley Wood face pack, Nigel and the unnamed man leapt into action through shin high mud and guided scooter and rider to sturdier ground!

Now onto the caches. Every single one of the unique cache containers were an amazing find and the organisers of the event, The Halloween Crew, deserve every single favourite point and then some for the effort they put into them all. There are too many to write about here so I shall just tell you about my favourite day and night caches from the event.

Spitting Sid - day cache.

It was approaching dinner time for me when we came across this cache so I didn't pay much attention to the name of it. Ground Zero was slightly of the beaten track, as were most of the caches throughout the day.

In my excitement at finding the container to be an ammo can - it's always a bit special to find one of these in the field - I rushed to open it up only for Spitting Sid to live up to his name! There was a mechanism inside the box that when opened caused Sid to squirt water right at his unsuspecting victim. Much to Nigel's amusement, I not only got wet retrieving the log but stupidly got another soaking putting it back!

Deady Bears Picnic - day cache.

This was the last of the day caches that we found. Whoever created this beautifully gruesome piece of brilliance has a twisted mind! I loved it! It's probably a good thing that all the caches were replaced with Tupperware containers at midnight; can you imagine coming across this whilst in the woods out on your own? You wouldn't want to stick around for long that's for sure. The log book accompanying this creepy little dude was concealed in his cup. Fortunately, this one had no nasty surprises when you opened it up.

MEGA HERTZ - night cache.

This was my second favourite cache of the whole day. A cache with a shocking twist! - I'm sorry, that was a terrible joke. This genius piece of engineering was far from terrible though. There was a box on the side of the chair that contained the log book. When opened, the chair started to 'charge up' and everyone nearby took a nervous step backwards. As the sound reached it's crescendo the poor soul in the chair began shaking violently and lit up like a lantern!

Even though this cache has made an appearance at previous Halloween Megas, it still remains a firm favourite amongst event goers.

MEGAPHOBIA - night cache.

As with most of the caches we seeked out during the day, there was a small crowd of cachers surrounding this one as we approached. Being small, I could not see what was up ahead, I didn't need to see it though to know that this find was going to be special.

As I wound my way through the gathering of people to get a look at the cache, a chilling sound arose from the darkness ahead. There were gasps and nervous laughter from all around me. I emerged from the crowd, looked up and stood in awe at what I could see above me. About 20 feet up in the trees was a giant spider hanging from it's web. The log book was inside the skull that you can see at the bottom of the photo.

We couldn't see how the sound and movement was activated, we guessed that it was when someone attempted to retrieve the log book. I kind of wish that there had been no other cachers there when we found this one as I bet this would have been super creepy to find on your own.

This was by far the most impressive cache for me at the event, not just for the fact that it was the most monstrously nightmarish hide there, but also because of the time, effort and skill to put something like this together. I have heard that it took about 3 hours just to put it in place!

That is definitely not something you would like to come across in the woods at the dead of night on your own! Except if you're a horror fan like me and think that, although scary, it would be awesome!

The above videos were filmed by Adam of caching trio the3maslankas. Please take a little time to visit his youtube channel by clicking here.

Overall, Nige and I had an amazing weekend, even though we couldn't move the next morning because we ached so much! If you have never been to the Halloween Mega Event before then I urge you to go next year... we definitely will be.

Becoming a Social Butterfly

6 Degrees - Mystery Cache
Don't put the Cart before the Horses - Traditional Cache
BBH #81 - Event

When I discovered Geocaching a few months ago, I would never have considered going to an event. I wouldn't know anybody and that was quite scary for me. Being a member of the BBH Facebook group has been a huge help in taking that first step to getting out there and meeting new people. So thank you guys and girls; you're an awesome bunch!

The morning of the BBH event, I had a look online for some nearby caches to grab whilst I was there. I didn't want to spend too much time caching so I picked out two of the nearest; a traditional and a mystery. I went into work early and sat on the laptop puzzling over 6 Degrees before I had to start work.

I managed to figure out all but one of the films so I tried a different tactic; working out the actors from the 'outside in' and using the names to find the common title and actors for the one in the middle. I soon had some coordinates and put them into Geochecker.com only to find that they were incorrect. I rechecked the numbers and remembered that I don't do mornings and that I really should use my fingers to count! I now had the correct coordinates and I'd heard through the Facebook grapevine that this was a particularly fine cache so I was looking forward to this.

Fast forward to the evening. It was getting dark as we got near to the pub, and that's when the satnav failed us and took us to somebody's driveway. We spotted a few people walking along the road and wondered if they were cachers heading to the event. Nigel pulled up alongside them and wound the window down.

"Are you by any chance geocachers?" asked Nige. I face-palmed knowing what the likely answer to that question would be and I was right:

"We might be..." one guy said with an uncontainable smile and furtive glances towards his colleagues.

(For the benefit of any non-geocaching readers, or muggles as we like to call you, stealth is of the utmost importance when caching which results in some rather cryptic conversations when you meet a stranger in the field. Odd behaviour is also a common occurrence!)

After some help we found the pub. The car park was rammed but we managed to find a spot near the entrance. I turned my GPSr on only to find we had parked pretty much on top of this cache! There were already a couple of guys there signing the log so we thought we'd leave this one for now and head off for the mystery cache. The only problem was, I had forgotten to note down the final coordinates.

"Don't worry," I insisted, "I made a personal note on the cache page."

Now, Nigel likes everything to be methodically planned out with no room for error, whereas my days are by and large ad-libbed. So there are times when he can get a little frustrated with me and my lackadaisical approach to forward planning. This was one of those times. After five minutes of doing the Funky Gibbon to try and get a phone signal, I suddenly realised that I had actually saved the coordinates as a waypoint on my GPSr earlier in the day. That's when Nigel gave me that stare that says 'You're walking home tonight my love.'

Finally, we set off to locate the cache. We found the footpath without any fuss and made our way through the darkness towards GZ. I have never been out caching after the sun has set before so I was becoming increasingly excited as we got nearer.

The terrain was a doddle even in the dark and it wasn't long before I heard the Garmin beep on our arrival at the cache site. Armed with our torches we began our search and using the hint on the cache page found a possible hiding spot. Something wasn't right though. How could a small container be hidden there? I got in close and had a good look with my torch and that's when I spotted that which shouldn't be there.

"Nige... Come quick and look... This is amazing!" I said as I paused to appreciate what I was seeing. After signing the log and carefully replacing the cache we headed back to the car park to find the first cache.

On our return, GZ was clear of cachers so we got to work. As we knew that most of the people coming to the pub were here from the same reason, we were not concerned about being stealthy. We could see where the cache should be but it didn't appear to be there. Thinking it may have fallen somewhere else we scoured the ground with our torches. We weren't confident in that assumption though as we knew it had recently been found. We were soon joined by another couple; surely with four torches we could find a D1/T1.5 cache! (Note to muggle readers: D/T means the difficulty and terrain rating. So this cache should be easier than a two piece jigsaw puzzle!) We eventually found the cache, right where it should have been. After signing the cache we headed into the pub for a well deserved drink.

To any geocachers that have never been to an event before because nerves get the better of them, please take that first step because you are missing out on such a fun part of the world of geocaching. This is only my second event and both times I was nervous about going. I am not very good in social situations and mostly try to avoid them. I am glad I did go though as everyone there was so friendly and welcoming. I had such a great evening meeting new people and conversation flowed easily for me for a change (that may have been down to the beer though!) My only regret is that I didn't get to talk to more people.

In case you're wondering, Nigel decided that I didn't have to walk home, which was a good thing because I forgot to go to the toilet before we left the pub.