Been A While!
08:14 - Posted by Anne - 1 comments
Well, apart from a couple of Did Not Finds, we haven't really done much geocaching. We've had a lot of snow which put us off, and with the geokids driving us a little mental everytime we ventured out it kind of put us off. I'm sure once the weather picks up we'll get back into it. Maybe we should start with a few easy ones that don't involve any mud.
Now my poor blog has been neglected so I thought I'd do an update on how our Geocoins/travel bugs are doing.

Released on 29th August 2009 our first Geocoin, Trackabulldog is now in Northern Scotland. I'm jealous, I've not been to Scotland. The place looks lovely, it's near an old curling pond. Bennachie's Secret


Released on  September 1st 2009 our Travel Pirate Geocoin, is now in the hands of a geocacher after being retrieved from An Evening Stroll - At Last. A Proper Container! which is in Bedford.


Released on September 4th 2009 our Travel Bug, Pirate Bob is now in the hands of geocacher after being retrieved from Up Bow Creek not far from Totnes. They've had it a long time, I hope they move it on soon.


So here is the mileage:
Trackabulldog..... 372 miles
Travel Pirate.........264 miles
Pirate Bob.............72 miles

I'm itching to get starting again now so watch this space :-)


Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud!
14:50 - Posted by Anne - 1 comments
I guess it has to be expected this time of year, if you venture anywhere off road it's going to be a mud bath. So where did we decide to go? Yes, the middle of a huge field!
It was such a lovely day yesterday, bright, sunny (freezing) and I just couldn't resist getting out in the fresh air. Not only that I had a scarecrow TB that really needs a new home. This cache wasn't far from home, nice easy parking nearby, just a muddy trek across the field. But we still failed :-( I'm not sure if it was the mud or the cold that got to us, but we gave up soon after the GPS gave up. One minute it was working fine and telling us we were pretty close, then it just went awry and we lost our little flag on the screen which tells us where to go. We knew that if we rummaged for a while in the hedgerow we'd find the cache, but as the kids slowly began to resemble mud monsters, and my fingers felt like they were going to drop off we decided to call it off and headed off to the hot dog stand for some nice warm sustenance.
Back home we checked the google map and could see the marker box right next to where we were looking....if only we'd looked a little longer!
Not sure what to do now. The cold weather doesn't put me off, but mud and kids...well, I was going to say don't mix, but in fact they mix a little too well! So maybe we'll stick to the occasional easy find, perhaps drive bys or cache and dashes.
As for the poor scarecrow, I think I might pop him into one of our own caches, at least then someone else may pick him up and move him on.


Motorway Views
14:25 - Posted by Anne - 1 comments
We decided we'd waited long enough and despite the rainy weather we set out to find another cache. I'd picked one close to the roadside, rain I can deal with but not so much wallowing in mud. This one looked out over the motorway which kept the geokids interested for all of 5 minutes.
With the kids moaning (older one was complaining her legs were aching even though we'd not quite covered 100m, younger one kept running off in the wrong direction) the GPS changing it's mind every 10 seconds and the rain getting heavier I decided to take the kids and sit in the car.
I told Graham where I believed the cache to be and he went off alone to search. I don't think it took him 5 minutes to find it!
We put in our lucky sheep travel bug and took out a scarecrow tb.
That gives us a total of 17 finds now.


Travel Bugs and coins
08:29 - Posted by Anne - 0 comments
Oh dear! Three weeks since our last entry and we haven't found a cache since then. We've been a bit tied up with other stuff and illness so we just haven't had the chance.
Today we visited one of our own caches which had accumulated a selection of travel bugs and coins and took one to move on. This gave me the idea to update this blog with a list of our travel bugs activities which is slightly more exciting than our geocaches adventures at the moment.

I'll start with our own, and the first was a traka bulldog geocoin. This was placed in our first cache Ansculf's Other Castle So far it's been moved four times and is currently 19 miles away from it's starting point and has travelled a total of 39 miles.

The second was a travel pirate geocoin which we placed in a nearby cache. This has also been moved four times but is currently 53 miles away from it's starting point and has travelled a total of 127 miles.

Our third is Pirate Bob a travel bug. This one has only been moved once but started off on a day trip to the seaside. It has travelled 72 miles from it's starting point.

We picked up Sue's Ferrari travel bug when we dropped off our Pirate coin and swapped it for a Russian geocoin later. The Russian coin was dropped off on our last outing.

Today we picked up Satu the Lucy Sheep from one of our own caches. I hope this gives us the inspiration to get back out there soon to drop it off somewhere else.

I'm now going to log our own coins and the distance they have travelled and update them as they move on.

  1. Travel Pirate Geocoin 127 miles
  2. Pirate Bob TB 72 miles
  3. Trakabulldog 39 miles



In The Park
13:06 - Posted by Anne - 0 comments
This week we decided to have a go at finding a couple of geocaches in a park near to our friends house. The first one was a pretty easy find, the GPS took us right there and the clue told us where to look. It was a nice big box full of goodies, but I was disappointed because it should have contained a geocoin from South Africa and I wanted to see it. Someone had been there earlier on in the same day but they reported not seeing the geocoin either, very strange.


The second was a bit of a walk away but what we hadn't realise was it that the walk was uphill. The geokids soon got tired and moany but cheered when we got to the top and discovered a playground. The problem was, we were running out of time because we had to be somewhere else and the geokids wanted to play in the playground not hunt for the cache. Also the GPS started acting a little crazy because of the tree cover so we couldn't pinpoint the exact location. Another problem was the amount of muggles around, it had turned out quite a pleasant day and the park was really busy. So sadly we had to admit defeat on this one, but we hope to have another crack at it sometime soon. (Maybe parking the car at the top of the hill so we don't have to walk up next time)


Here is the cap'n and the geokids in a spot near to where we found the first cache.




Geocaching by the sea
14:07 - Posted by Anne - 0 comments


On Friday we had a day trip to Weston-Super-Mare. Of course I researched some geocaches before we went. There were four altogether but in the end we only managed to look for two.

The first was a really easy one. We'd decided to stop for a coffee and to let the geokids play on the beach. I set up the GPS and there was the first geocache just 16ft away, across the road. I sent Graham over to retrieve it and he bough it back for us to rummage through. I was most disappointed that the travel bug was missing, it was a voodoo doll and I'd really wanted to swap that. Still, I decided it was a good place for our travel bug, Pirate Bob, to start his journey so he got left behind.

Later in the day we visited a part of Weston I'd not been to before in search of another cache. It was a lovely garden park that had been built on the land of the former pavilion. The GPS said we were close but we searched and searched and just couldn't find it. We were a little disappointed but we'd had a lovely day and couldn't feeling pleased that we'd actually ended up in this place.

We didn't bother with the other two. Once would not load on the GPS at all, and the other was a nano in an area we didn't go and didn't think it was worth the diversion. I do wish I'd researched the service stations though because there was one at the station we'd stopped at on the way home.



Going back
14:38 - Posted by Anne - 0 comments
Sometimes when you look for a cache and you don't find it you just have to go back and have another go. This one we'd tried previously in our early days of geocaching, and although we'd found 3 that day the fourth one proved just a little too tricky. http://findingboxes.blogspot.com/2009/08/no-rain-more-gain.html

So we went back taking re-enforcements in the form of Graham's dad and brother. We got really close with the GPS (which we are getting to understand better, for instance we know how to set i on walking now, and how to check were we are by co-ordinates if the map is letting us down.) But still it didn't seem right. This was a tricky find but the place we were all looking was just a bit too easy, so Graham moved further down a little and it wasn't long before he was calling "I found it"

It feels good to find a difficult cache, and even better when you had so much trouble trying to find it before.