Letterbox extreme cache gone live

Less than 24 hours after submitting a new cache it's been published with no problems.

After looking at the original spot I soon found a better spot which would stop the cache being muggled (taken by a non Geocaching person) eaten by animals or any other mishap.

So the race is on for the ftf and if you read my blog then these two pictures will help.

Cache maintenance plus new cache

Today I set off to a cache that's had reportedly dnf s on it also known as did not finds. This can be a case that the container has moved over time from its position, found by non caching people or an animal has taken it, I'm my case it was the container needed drying out but it was still there minus the camo bag. I had a spare with me and replaced with a new container.

I also came across a kiln in lockinge where I placed a letterbox cache as we need more of them about, however this one is a bit more difficult than your average letterbox cache so shouldn't get to many finds.

Nook touch as pi screen

I went back to this project tonight, firstly having to charge the nook as it was dead.

Next up after an Internet search was to download searchmarket app as the one on the device doesn't work. Once this was sorted I installed android vnc and connectbot.  After this I changed the default ports and added rules on the network router and now have a nice touchscreen control for pi.

On the andriod vnc I changed the setti gs to greyscale to help with faster refresh as pulling the screen in in colour is pointless on an eink device

Shopping and caching

Couple today including one which I dnf'd but walked straight to today. The co ords took me 10m further and bingo.

Next was tesco s where we decided to use the handheld scanner, certainly quicker at the till and you can see the shopping bill as you get the shopping.

Whilst in tescos I decided to get some sudafed, nasal spray and ear drops as I'm suffering ear problems again.

This time I bought the ear drops that come with the ball so I could wash my ears out and even through ear buds and tissues showed my ears clean, one ear kicked out a fair bit of crap, no doubt from caching.  So now I need to use the drops for a few days and hopefully the sudafed and nasal spray will clear the tubes from my nose to behind the ear drums so that my hearing comes back and not feel like I'm underwater.

Whilst at the chemist I noticed they were selling e cigarettes, prices seem much cheaper these days with a disposable one that should last longer than a pack of twenty fags for less than the price of a pack, maybe now more people will switch.

More church micros and some nice places

Out with Footloose&frodo today clearing up some church micros. Footloose likes looking at some of the churches and also we enjoyed the walk from garston to eastbury where the bridge over the river screams out for an extreme cache under it.

The cache at lambourn gave us two co ords depending if you use the date on the plaque or date as it should be, however we went for the correct one and spotted the cache straight away being second to find.

Lastly we decided to pick off a trad in the woods on the ridgeway, this had made me realise it needs a good 5/5 here so maybe something to do tomorrow.

Wildwest 2013 timelapse video

After having problems on the Friday and Thursday setting up my raspberry pi, I decided to have another go and realised it didn't like the 64gb card so went for the 16gb which is about 10 hours of timelapse. I've since ordered a 32gb so hopefully that be better.

Although the weather was rubbish at times you should hopefully see the red arrows that I caught too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NnVPf3CaTY

Enjoy

Mosaic trail

Off around newbridge near stand lake today doing the mosaic trail, a lovely four mile circuit.

Some good hides and lots of different mossaics thus the name of the trail.  

We got to see blue dragon flies, wasps living in trees, dirty Manky water that frodo jumped in and also that the pill box has now eventually hit the water.

Church micros

Today we went for a pleasant walk around childrey, sparsholt and uffington getting church micros. Although I hate this along with sidetracks we thought we use them to entertain us for an hour.

Now as I see you can have series on anything these days fire stations, little bridges, etc but unlike these which are traditionals, church micros tend to be micro pots hidden within or around 500ft from the church and never in the church grounds.

When we got to uffington we bumped into the vicar explaining what we were doing he took us for a tour of his church and got talking about various things including treasure hunting, only to find he had been to dartmoor for letter boxing and earlier version post boxing.

Although a nice afternoon, I noticed my boots of a couple years have nearly had it.

Oxford canoe 5/5 conquered (without a boat)

I noticed this one recently a 5/5 cache in Oxford the owner claiming he thinks he has found a cache truely a canoe only. Well that's a challenge I like.

So we turned up to gz inflatable kayak in car and ropes so I had a quick look and set the ropes up, once under the bridge I came back up to slightly reposition the ropes and swung back under, very close to the water trying to avoid rope from getting wet. Using the underneath pipes I was able to position myself to within the cache and soon popped back out with it. Frodo enjoyed a swim and footloose had to try and replace it, after nearly losing it in the water I returned below to place it back where we found it. Thank you cache owner for the challenge.

Next we did some drivebys in sunning well and as we were not to fussed just picked and chose what we would and wouldn't do, dropping a tb off and picking one up too.

Another great afternoon many thanks

wild west part three the timelapse

With my raspberry pi computer that i eventually got running on Saturday afternoon i did a time lapse of the evening into the morning with a brief glimpse of the red arrows, here is the youtube linky http://youtu.be/6NnVPf3CaTY

Wild West part 2

The caches today (saturday)was signed as team 4sum as the ladies, footloose, jmj65 and Phoenix flame out voted me and frodo being frodo was happy with anything. My favourite cache the beast is still in my mind, will be trying to make a similar one for around here. 

The wildwest evening was made up of a huge raffle, the red arrows flying over and lots of drinking. Even the turn up of someone who has made my life hell didn't ruin things when other cachers said they would stand up for me should they start.

Over night the wind took up and the rain started and by morning we started operation evac chucking our kit in the car and downing our tent in record time. We moved on to our friends tent next, this nearly took us for a fly as the wind took hold of it damaging the poles. Next was the group next to us the Somerset smurfs. After we helped here we found my car battery flat as the heater had been on whilst we been loading the car. My car for some reason sets the alarm after a door closes and has return home lights that means every time I unset the alarm the front lights come on. Whilst this is good for night time to find the car, not very good for camping as it drains the battery. However I was lucky as roo had some jump leads.

Next up on operation evac was moo and Keith from the teddies who we helped too.

After a bacon sarnie at the brunch we made our way home via go outdoors to replace my sleeping bag which the zip broke on, get Angela a new one and ended up getting new camp beds for next trip along with replacement guy rope tighteners after two broke from the wind last night.

Now at home we are drained, what a great weekend.  Thank you to sue and John for organising an excellent weekend, lots of hardwork and despise the weather we all enjoyed it, many thanks.

Wild West part one the 5/5s and the Wild West caches

Off to Wild West, whilst not much caching on the Thursday we teamed up with jjm65 and footloose and frodo to go 5/5ing as we were only an hour from Exeter.

First cache was hidden well and spotted by Jacqui, I was prepared to get up there and search for it but after it was spotted I used my gear whilst they went back to the car to get their own gear. Cache signed by us all final hurdle being the first of the day. Even through on a tight time run we planned 5 5/5 s for the afternoon. The next one the tide was in so I got down, well most of the way on rope then climbed the rest unaided but couldn't get to the cache even through we could see it. The rope was just that bit short to get it from above and climbing from below encouraged the erosion so a safety call was called so left as no cache is worth killing yourself on.

We then skipped the next planned one and headed to north Exeter to get king of the swingers. The sign with info had been vandalised but once with some drinks in hand we found the information elsewhere and informed the pub what we were doing. Problem here was the amount of attention, whilst the cache can't get muggled we were able to introduce people to Geocaching explaining it was an extreme cache thus the equipment.  

Lastly we moved onto carpe cache, we had to solve the stereo gram to get first co ords and once here we took it in turns to go up with Jacqui bring quite quick for a beginner. Although she can't claim it till she has another 28 5/5s a reviewer said that such a requirement no longer stands and as she had signed the logbook she could claim it hmmmm.

Anyhow we were under attack from the pesky ants. These were huge red ones biting us and covering everything with themselves. We moved hastily to the next stage where we found the huge cache and was one of the biggest I've found. However these David Attenborough against red ants were infesting gz too, so  we didn't spend to long here, but our third successful 5/5 of the day. For the cache owner I have over 100 5/5 finds and was the first Geocacher to find 100 5/5 s and have featured in podcasts and the Geocaching mag. Footloose is on around 40 now so hope that info helps.

Saturday we did the new wildwest ring which was a pleasant walk with some good hides and the ones at the beach with one being very good, must remember to email the owners as I must have that as a cache ;)

This afternoon as I write this I'm watching the Vulcan bomber flying around in the distance for the nearby airshow.

Rosie's cache

After updating all caches I've found I decided to see where the four tb s were for the above cache.

Way land smithy, ridgeway at chain hill, hendred and chilton. 

So I decided to get the west ones first as if I ran out of time I could get the other two on the way to work.

At way land like with all of them it came back to me where the cache was. Ask me to describe it before going and I can never remember but as I pass a cache I can say there's a cache there.  

So with first one down I moved on to chain hill and after a walk found the cache, slightly further away to where I originally found it, call it the cachers dance as the cache slightly moves and moves over time.

Now getting dark and with two, yes two tb s I had already worked out the location but thought sod it lets attempt them all. Over to hendred and another quick find, all going well till the last one which had already gone.

Looking at what I had and where I had already plotted the cache to be I was only 100 ft out and still missing vital co ords so off to lambourn and armed with the clue I could see two likely spots, first no didn't look right next I was basically on top of it in the dark and there was the stump. A rummage around and it was in hand. :) so pleased as I didn't really want to go home empty handed.

However as I drove home I thought, what if one or even all of the tbs ended up in 5/5 caches? Surely then as you have been to four 5/5 caches that this one should be class the same? As many others around the country are for this reason? Let me know your thoughts

Thank you Lorraine for another great cache.

Geocaching woes

Today we went back to two dnf s the first was correct and after twenty minutes searching soon had it in hand. The second took us past a chapel that I never knew existed in Hagbourne and then the cache straight to hand, turns out the second one I had worked out wrong. 

We then popped over to steventon to do the series there. The first one sent us to the middle of a field, with no finds. Taking a permissive footpath out through Milton to the golf club we got stopped by a man shooting pigeons telling me it was actually private and the land had been sold recently. So back into Milton for a long walk around 1066 and rejoined it by sewage works where again we couldn't find the correct path and had to make our own path.  After this we were soon back to golf course dead end and found it. Pigeon shooter gone we followed the os map and could see it took us out to the nature or millenium park bit but soon ended up on a private road around the back of the golf course not happy we trundled on and eventually at the last but one found us close to someone's property to get one under a pipe.

Now I understand that often cache owners spend lots of time and money on series, but this one felt like no thought had gone into it as such just a case of there isn't a cache for a tenth of a mile better put one here, so rather than being chilled and relaxed I found myself annoyed compared to the two in Hagbourne which had been thought out.

However my other dpm camo jacket got a try out today along with another pair ofbootswhich both kept me dry so happy on that front.

Tarot card series

Out today at Sherborne doing kryfto s new series of 30 caches 9 miles. One dnf, one ftf near a bridge and 30 finds including a multi.

Near to Sherborne there was torrential rain but once parked at the church it stopped only to start up a mile into the walk. With much of the countryside at waist height it didn't take long for the waterproof trousers to soak through, even through my at surplus waterproof top did much better, my boots with holes lasting out till the last mile. It was only the second part that weather got better but only temporarily before the deluge returned.

So with not seeing anyone else out me and frodo carried on finding some great containers including a mouse and hand grenade. There was even a w c with a creature sat in it. Certainly a lot of time and money spent by the cache owner.

Although Wiltshire county councils footpath signs seemed to at times be non existent we still managed to get round, even after falling down a rabbits hole along the verge of the main road near the end.

Thanks to the cache owner on a great series.

Ps frodo did find a ball near the end

A cache should go up there ;)

A nice hide

Two many dnfs

WeWe went out to Hagbourne today after missing a tb we needed for a local cache. Thought I had solved the two puzzles which one was an excellent puzzle in its self. Nope first pointed us into a cricket pitch and second the clue was hanging around but we couldn't find anything after a finger tip search. The only one we found had spiders in the lid which was good but just before we got there we found an ideal spot for an extreme cache.

Caching in highclere

Out with frodo caching in highclere near Newbury today, after getting some drive by caches on some actually busy roads we found the problem to be some sort of local fete on. Once we parked up we did a lovely walk with some good caches including a tap and one well hidden in the roots of a tree. Many thanks to the cache owners for their hardwork.

Nook as a raspberry pi screen

Got my £29 nook through this week and followed some good online resources to jailbreak it using nookmanager.

Just a quick question to anyone who might know, but how do I put a vnc client onto it?

Afternoon of caching

Out marlow way today picking up the bikerz series, a small Star Wars series and the challenge caches placed by metal bijou which were well hidden and on such a lovely walk. There were just a couple we couldn't claim but made it to my 9000th cache with frodo. 

A lovely afternoon and also got the car booked in for air con to be looked at as I have a g65 high pressure valve failure open or short. From what I've read it shouldn't be more than a hundred squid. Lets hope.

Tomorrow there is a carnival in town and I've been dragged off to it