Firth of Forth

Great photo! Great place!

2005 started with a bang and a milestone: bagging my 400th cache on the top of a hill in the snow in the Borders and skidding the car on ice and ending up in a hedge. It's been all uphill since then...... The highlights have to be events that I have attended: Team Ullium's brilliant Bute Weekend in April caching with Haggis Hunter and roolku over 3 days and 32 caches in some of the best scenery in Scotland; The 3rd annual Scottish Cache Bash on the north coast of Scotland at Talmine: a waterlogged funfilled day as part of 'Team Tongue' (along with Pooter, Highland Nick and Billy Twigger and over 2000 caches between us); A blazing hot sunburnt weekend on the north coast of Ireland enjoying stunning scenery to attend the 2nd annual Irish Cache Bash; Bagging my 700th cache at Another SGDO on the top of a Munro and celebrating with a surprise bottle of champagne; A romantic weekend in Dublin - spent geocaching and attending theIrish/British Meetup; and hopefully I will be rounding up the year with my 800th cache. Needless to say these events have given me the chance to cement friendships and form new ones.

Absolutely amazing!! That's a fantastic achievement. Well done indeed!

Still not had any. Oh well, must just be me that g.com doesn't like. Thanks HH.

Has anyone else been having problems receiving their PQs? I have tried running several yesterday and today, and have not received any of them, though they show as having been run on the PQ list.

They'll have to make sure that they visited the cache that the chip was placed in See the rules. T OK, I see. Hadn't read the rules of course. It's going to be an exciting time watching the pair of you travelling around the country. Those who know what kind of cachemobile you have may be at an advantage.

I can see that cachers are going to have to enter into bartering - no point in two people ending up with 50 each, for example, and neither getting a coin. Could get very interesting.

I did say over the next few months We're hoping to spread them as wide as we can, hopefully dropping higher value ones further from home on average. Get more caches out up there and you never know! T Plenty of caches up here still left for you two to do, despite the blitz you had earlier in the year! Fife is teeming with them, for example.

So, not much chance of getting one of these north of the border, then! Fancy a trip up here for Hogmanay?

The smart money is on boring a hole in it to make it less attractive for people to take it from a chache and keep it. But it is a shame to do that to the finest geocoin in existance. - I've done that to the 3 geocoins that I own. If you're not going to keep it yourself for a collection, then it's a simple way to make it unattractive to collectors. I use the hole to attach a laminated card showing the coin's mission. This geocoin has been on the move since April with no problems.

I usually leave a certificate for the FtF cacher. I think that roolku has most of them! On a caching spree yesterday in Fife/Perthsire, I found caches stuffed with some quality swaps. I took a light stick, a dinky calculator and a packet of bookmarks and left appropriate replacement items. It's been a while since I was tempted to take anything from a cache. So, thanks McKryton and Allieballie.

And you did a fantastic job of it. (Actually the plan, all along was to get someone else to do it!) It was such great timing that you were with us in the car on our way to the SGDO in the Cairngorms in August, and we were able to listen to the programme live during the journey!

The people I need to thank are almost too numerous to mention: Organisers of all of the great events that I've attended this year in Scotland, England, N Ireland and Eire; All of the wonderful cachers who I've gone caching with and had fantastic days; My teenagers for putting up with my geocaching obsession; And Jack Aubrey for searching me out and making my life complete.

I think that most people do log their attendance; especially now that there is the option of a log for 'attended' rather than 'found' which used to be the only way of logging an event. I don't see it as being the same as finding your own cache, which is pretty pointless since you already know where it is. The point of events is to bring cachers together: so everyone who was there should log it, IMHO.

Jack Aubrey uses one and likes it a lot. We tend to end up in the same place when he's using his foretrex, and Im using my vista. Send him an email and I'm sure he wont mind telling you what he thinks of it. In fact, I think there was a thread exactly about this in the technical section of Geofrees.

Snow has arrived in Edinburgh. As I live next to the Firth of Forth (no surprises there) it's usually wet and rainy while it's snowing a couple of miles away in Princes Street. However, its lying thickly on the ground and no sign of it stopping. Glad I didn't have to go to Fife to work today.

None in Edinburgh...still. Apparently it's those mountains up North - stops it from getting to us. Have a good weekend Nick.

Best I could do with such a small image... SP Ta! Very nice! It may well look like that this weekend.

Not sure that it would work for a bridge.

So Nick, having just booked a skiing holiday on the continent, have we made a mistake? Should we be heading to Aviemore for the skiing this year I wonder?

It may not be normal but it's an alternative caching experience! I've only once gone night caching with Haggis Hunter and Roolku (who make a habit of it), but if you choose the right kind of caches to do, it's great fun. We walked up a hill on a freezing clear cold night and the vista of stars at the top was amazing. We then went into Perth and had an encounter with a police van - some local residents must have reported seeing suspicious goings on around a statue. When we told them that we were geocaching, they just laughed and went away. probably though we were nuts.

Isn't that just an extension of a couple team, in which they sometimes cache together, or alone? I don't see a problem with it.

Yes it does. Thanks. Now I know why I opted for experimental psychology instead at university.

Congratulations dodgydaved!! How appropriate!

They were sent to your hotmail account 245 - 255 Alex. Ok, thanks. Don't generally use that account except for paypal. Well, it obviously isn't me then either!