Variety is the spice of caching

Sounds like a plan…

At the start of this week we decided that it would probably be possible to reach our 3000th find by 6th March to make that milestone for our 1 year of caching. So I started hunting out some trails and knew if we put together enough trails and worked hard at it then it wouldn’t be too hard to hit that target… and then I thought “Hang on! This doesn’t sound very fun…” I didn’t really fancy endless miles of micros just for numbers. I do enjoy the long walks on trails, however it’s not *really* where the fun is at. So we’ve decided that fun and variety wins over numbers every time.

I started planning Saturday’s trip out in Kent with some nice variety, and it all started to look quite fun and exciting. Then I realised that there was so much variety that we would be able to pick up one of nearly every non-event cache type (in the UK) for the day. I then had a quick Google as I’d heard about icon challenge caches in the past and realised there was one not too far from home, Surrey Icon Challenge. There are also two more in the country, WEST MIDLANDS ICON CHALLENGE and BUSY DAY!–WEST YORKSHIRE- ICON CHALLENGE. All three require you to log 6 different cache types in any 24-hour period. So that was the plan, and a good plan it was as we infact managed 7 different cache types: Traditional, Multi, Unknown, Earthcache, Letterbox Hybrid, Webcam, and a Virtual.

A few drive-by’s to get us there

To start the day we grabbed a few drive bys whilst on the way to to an area with a letterbox hybrid and an earthcache. The first find of the day was Crimson Crossing. There was a big red bridge over a big pond area in an industrial area. It was quite striking, and a good cache spot.

A very red bridge

A few more caches to end the holiday

We’ve cached a lot this christmas holiday, mainly to make up for the days we haven’t been out due to the snow. Today was our last chance to get some caching in before back to work tomorrow (Boooo!) We stayed quite close to home today and headed up to Royston and Biggleswade for caches dotted here and there. Our target today was 25 cache finds to take us to 2300 finds. It always feels better to end the day on a round number!

Climate Choas: The Vision

The climate chaos series of caches include 5 puzzle caches. The idea behind these caches includes a little story. Basically, due to climate change and running out of fossil fuels, a new renewable carbon-free energy source has been invented by a small team. However, Mobexx, an organisation that sells energy aren’t happy about it and are trying to destroy the research. Information on the new research is hidden in boxes around the countryside and our mission is to find them all, assemble the information and find the penultimate cache. You have to find Climate Chaos: The beginning to get coordinates for the next 3 caches Climate Chaos: The vision, Climate Chaos: The design, and Climate Chaos: The Theory. Then after finding ALL of them you will have enough information to find Climate Chaos: The Solution.

Climate Chaos: The Vision was the closest unfound cache to home. We’d been working on it for a while though. To find the easting coordinates of the final we had to walk two loops about 3.5 miles from home. We’d walked the first loop in the summer, however decided to call it a day after a child fell off of her bike on the road right where we were searching. Luckily we were there to help though as the father didn’t have a mobile with him and she was cut very badly. Then on Sunday we took a stroll to do the second loop. We must have done about 4 miles walking for all of the boxes for this one cache, a lot more effort than we’d usually put in to a cache, however it was close to home and fun! After getting the Eastings from the long walk, I had to get the Northings by solving a puzzle. I’d put off this cache for this long because the puzzle blew my mind. It turned out it was really simple and I managed to solve it within about 15 minutes of focusing on it.

Today we headed out towards the final cache. It was a very muddy trek to GZ, and once we got there, there were no obvious cache hiding places (there was no hint either) however after 10 minutes of checking tree, upon tree, we returned to the first place we’d looked and there it was, a big ammo box.

Finally, the box is ours!

Our first hide – success!

Success Our first hide was well received and looks like I did everything right! I submitted the Walden Wander (GC2DF6A) series at 9pm Sunday night and they were published early on Monday morning! That’s some very fast work from the reviewer. We had 2 cachers out Monday evening after their FTF’s. One got 8 FTFs and the other changed tactics after they realised another cacher had logged #1 so they diverted and grabbed FTF’s on #10 an #9! Clever

I got some nice comments about my coords (the thing I was most paranoid about!) as well as a few about some hides being clever and my boxes well camouflaged. I was a bit evil and hid one under wood and then under dead leaves which was mean, but I don’t imagine it will stay under the leaves, that was just my sneakiness for the FTF!

In the evening we went for dinner near Harlow with friends to the Plume of Feathers (There is a multi there where you need to get clues from outside the pub so we did that before going in! Hehe!) Just when we were tucking into our dinner an email popped up in Sawbridgeworth, on the way home! So at 10:30pm we stopped off for it. It was dark, but we had a few torches. We spent half hour searching for the b*oody thing! There was nowhere to hide a cache and nothing obvious and we knew we had the right spot as it matched the clue. We expanded the search just incase the coords were off but that didn’t get us anywhere either. In the end we called it a night. When I went to log a DNF I found that one of the people after our series tonight had been there before us. They logged a DNF too and we both came to the conclusion that the cache couldn’t have been there! From his profile picture the CO obviously worked at the garage where the cache was hidden just off of (behind a sign for their garage) and they only had 6 finds. It was the same reviewer that had been quick in reviewing ours so my theory is he didn’t think the cache would get published so soon and planned to drop the container off this morning on the way to work. I emailed him (nicely!) to ask what’s going on.

I know you have to be nice to newbies and I’m not p*seed off about it as some may get. As someone who waited until 900 finds before submitting I couldn’t imagine hiding one after my 6th find! I wouldn’t have a clue! I will keep my eye on it and see how it unfolds. Maybe give him a few pointers. I know of a nice young lady with a fab blog on caching who has a great article on hiding your first cache!!!