Wazat

Congratulations are in order. After attending my hectic on my part northern natal event cache the following milestones were met: DiePienaars - 250 Fish Eagle - 800 (Well done guys amazing achievements) I myself was going for the 50 when at the bottom of Amajuba mountain I get a critical call out for FNB in Bergville, no choice but to leave the other cachers with a sore heart and head for Bergville. As I reached Bergville I was called by the branch and told that the problem was solved. Tripped switch. I was very upset and had to calm down - what better way other than go and find an elusive cache in the Drakensberg for my 50. As Rhino and Hedgehog could not make it to my event cache I went and found their Cascades cache.

So anyway lets just hope I get a phone call later today to let me know that my GPS has arrived. Avnic trading had a wonderful system crash and my order went on a 4 day long backlog. Now it has to be couriered up from Durban.... Wonderful. Just when I thought I would be doing Amajuba with my new flshy GPS..... Aaaargh. And now it is rainy weather. Oh it will be fun.

PC in 30 Pieces. My goodness. My PC is a loaded machine. With 4 HDD, CD-Rom, DVD-RW, 4 Cooling fans, 4 Ram Modules, Processor and Heatsink, Stiffy drive, Graphics card, PSU and Case. With all of that apart it still doesn't count up as 30 pieces. You must have one mean rig to have to consist of so many parts. You probably counted the screws too. Haa haa haa. Put the bloody thing back together man.... Give us our stats back. LOL. Waits patiently in the corner waiting for the shocking truth. Less caching in the month results in lower rank.....

I may be wrong but doesn't the Ique M5 store long waypoints? Anyway just store the waypoint name as it is done on geocaching (GC123B4) on the GPSr. Or abbreviate the name.

Good point. Why is this place called the KZN Sandpit. Probably a reference to the playground sandpit where kids hide all their toys. Makes sense in a way. There should thus be a lot of hidden toys yourway then cincol. Haa haaa.

OK while I wonder about the fate of my MioGPS I have gone and ordered myself the Garmin Etrex Vista HCx, should be here in the next day or two. Would have liked to go for the GPSMap 60CSX but the price was going to be way over my budget. Hey even the Etrex started getting expensive in the end. But as I worked at the place where I am getting it from I managed to get a little bit off.

Gotta get the money for a start. But if there are some kind people that may sponsor us well then hello here I am. 2 years time? Maybe!!! It is very tempting and I want to do it one day.

Africard..... Are you still out here.... You going to join us this weekend? Anyway I was also wondering if it is of any real use. I have not seen how others do it but I generally browse the caches online as I get to an area. I have GPX sonar installed on my PDA Phone so I can load a GPX file from GSAK and quickly link to the various caches via the internet. If you also have a waypoint name and use WAP based geocaching it is even faster and gives the vbasic detail that you need. Only problem will be if you don't get coverage where I guess Pocket Queries will work.

Where do I sign up? No seriously! I think we need to do them after Summer though. It's a bit late now. Storms up there will make it very risky. But count me in bud. Gotta train for Kili, right? Just Climb it is also daunting.... But that is possibly an easier one to attack cause it is not such a long slog.

If you are to get there for 8:30 am then you could do Hime Bridge (6:00 am), Wimpy Waterside(6:45 am), and check for two that my son will be leaving in Newcastle (7:00 am). You could also fit in Baboon Rock (7:20) and maybe Crash Cache (7:35) as they are are the other way round to Majuba (8:15 am). Not to worry these are all park and grab roadside types. But Wimpy Waterside should wake you up as you will have to get your feet wet. The water level has risen. But to be safe, bargain on at least one in Newcastle that my son will place, because that will be an all hours one. The other one might not be. I just hope we can get them listed in time for you. I have ordered my new GPS, Vista HCx (Thanks to who, I wonder), which hopefully will be here by Thursday. Otherwise it will be a Google earth approximation. But please feel free to do others in the week we don't want you to miss the hundred should one of these on this side not be there anymore. In fact the two that Josh is going to place is his suggestion for me to try get my 50th on Majuba. But I will wait till Friday for them should I get others to find in the next few days. He realizes my plight even at his tender age of 10. I only have two caches left to do in this area and Majuba is one. The other I think has been muggled.... DNF the last time I looked for it. Hey and I just noticed with a bit of planning, DiePienaars can hit 250 Finds. So we can reach 3 milestones together. Guess we have to drag a bottle of bubbly up there.

There are a few up in Newcastle area that you haven't got yet. Lets see you need 5. Hime Bridge, Maria Ratschitz, Wimpy Waterside, The Pines and Baboon Rock are all relatively easy to get to. Then 100th on Majuba. But my little lad is wanting to put down a cache or two under his name so I have two quick and easy places that I suggested to him not far from our home. So maybe you could leave Maria Ratschitz and Baboon Rock for later as they are a little off the route, although I would recommend Maria Ratschitz as one to do on the way up. Look it isn't far out the way but the roads may be a bit muddy from Thursday nights predicted rain. My car is in for a service on Friday so I will be in Newcastle should you need my help.

Welcome Carbon Hunter. I think that if a person often travels to certain area's in the country and maintains caches placed there often, then the reviewer will accept it. I have caches over a 100 Mile radius from home but regularly maintain them if I am in the area. OK some were in an area that I don't get to go to anymore but that is because I changed jobs but still they are within a hour to two drive from home so if anything I can still get to them should they need a bit of maintenance. I've been through some cache listings that have had no maintenance for months, but where is the owner? Far away and most likely inactive. So if it is in my area I try get some maintenance done to it from my side. I think that every cacher should maintain a cache in his area irrespective of if it is his or not. As a common courtesy. I would appreciate it if ever one of my far away caches needed some maintenance that the next finder would at least do that for me. Even if it is to replace the container with a cheap one for the time been. Recognise the cachers in you're caches area and get them on your team.

Congrats on the 50th i'm aiming at mine on Saturday on top of Amajuba Plateau along with Neville Bailey and his 100th. After that we will be having some good celebrating to do at my event cache at Utrecht campsite. Northern KZN Get Together. The geocachingranking website seems to be on the blink. Hopefully QFC will get it sorted out soon. I understand they/he was away for a bit.

And of course there is the one on top of cathedral peak that Rhino placed that will surely blow any of the other provinces away. Not to mention all the others in the berg.

Anyone.....? Anyway it seems that the weather might just play along with us on the weekend. Posibility of a bit of rain on Friday night but Saturday looks good so far. Bit overcast but that is good cause it will keep the daily temps down. But knowing the weather out here it will most probably be a scorcher. Best then that we get up Majuba nice and early.

Just found this cache listing. GCG822 Must be the deepest cache although it seems to be MIA or should that be MIO. What are the remotest and highest caches, anyone know?

But do they get you spot on caches. I have a MioGPS, very similar to the Nuvi310 but find that I have to be moving at least 5kph to get it to show me the direction of the cache. It gets really frustrating as I pass the cache site often. I tried an Etrex yellow and that worked a lot better than mine did, but still is not quite getting me on the right spot at times. Although it is more or less in the right area. Not to mention the problem I have with mine down gorges and under trees even though it has a SiRFstarIII receiver in. I will probably look at getting the Etrex Vista HCx as it gets a good review from those who use it. But I need to run this pass the Missus and she is not all that keen on money been spent on stupid things like that.

Well there is still one more to be found out of those two. But who will it be, I was thinking of going to do the second one, Mikes Pass (GCR6R9), but they said at the gate, "How meester, we cennot aylaaw joo to tayke dis Car up there, it is onlee for de fo by fo". They seriously underestimate my Corsa Lite..... I mean it did go to Memel Escarpment (GCY1NM) with it. And as reported by other cachers in their logs it seemed to be on the tough side. And while on the subject of climbing I see that there are going to be a few in the Cathedral Peak area that may be unvisited for a looong time. Someone gonna prove me wrong? Here are some more high altitude caches: Cathedral Peak - GC15TNW Cathedral Peak second prize - GC15WEB Mitre - GC12TZN Twins Peak - GC12TZ8 The Amphitheater's Crack - GCHV1Y Dragons Cave - GCGCEM Just Climb It GCF9FC Interestingly enough there are so close to each other some of these caches but can still take a few hours to get to from one to the other. So where are them climbers out there or at least the good hikers?

Just a matter of interest. I went on to see what the rankings look like. I mainly want to see the guys reaching milestones. But for some reason or another it has not updated the ranks in over 7 days. I don't know who is active or not and who is reaching milestones anymore. Is there a problem on the updates?

And those that have already joined please post a note to say who you are in the Geocaching world. It's easier to put a face to who you are in real life.

I hear now that they might be going for R4200 at Hi-Fi Corporation. Can anyone confirm this?

Excellent, I think we all owe you a big thanks for your concerted efforts. Hope you reached it yesterday. That would be a sweet Birthday present. Mind you it was still the 17th in the States when you posted. Well done...

not likely I look on with a yearning to one day reach them numbers, they look so far away. But in my neck of the woods it is a long and dry drought that holds me back. I think I might just overtake my finds with hides one day. I think geez it has taken me a few months just to reach anywhere close to 50. I'm on 47 finds at the time of writing. Plus if I had to have found the 8 that I DNF it would still be a long way off... Then this comes along and pops my bubble.... TeamAlamo Take a look at the stats he has compiled at the bottom of the page..... But alas I won't let that deter me on my mission to find some more caches, although I sometimes travel a few 100 kilos just to find them.... Hopefully some kind cachers attending my event at the end of the month will forget a container or two in the area for me to go find.....

What did that include? Software, accessories? 50cm under water for a hour, 5cm under water for ten hours, 1cm under water for 50 hours, in my jacket pocket in a rainfall for as long as it would take me to find that bloody macro at World View..... Where the hell was that one hidden?

Haa haa you guys..... Nope it was in my jacket pocket and I thought it was switched off. But turns out it wasn't so the heat from the battery must have drawn moisture in from my jacket as I was in the rain quite a while. No she is kaput. There was a bit of moisture under the screen. Back off to the thread "Which GPS..." Neville you got the Vista HCX, how much did it cost you down that side...