Primitive Person

I'm a relative newcomer to caching, having only been at it since July last year, and the majority of the caches I've done are in fairly built-up locations. They're all fun, of course, but like you say, caches like these are a completely different business to the more run-of-the-mill ones. When people started out, they seemed to pick spectacularly good places - but it takes some dedication to do that, and as good places have got used up, we've ended up with some areas completely saturated with caches that certainly aren't bad, but aren't special either. I was introduced to the game by Eclectic Penguin who took me to the Pip's Falls cache in the Brecon Beacons - a great start to the madness. One of my favourites recently was 1st Cache North Uist (GC13C9A) - it's been there about 18 months, but as yet caches in the Outer Hebrides are thin on the ground and there's only a few anywhere around there. It was a fairly easy but very beautiful beach walk to get there, and it's what it's all about really. Lee

I really enjoyed Last Delivery when I did it, although I notice it's offline at the moment - I hope it's back up soon. It's in a wonderful location and the regular flow of travel bugs made it a great spot to visit. Lee

I guess Virtuals are now covered by Waymarking. Personally, I've never got into virtuals and webcams, as I like to have something physical to look for. It seems like that's the whole point of caching to me. Agreed, if all a cache has going for it is the view, it's possibly not very special - unless it's a view that's not generally known about. One of the things I love about caching is the way it leads you to discover brand-new places you'd otherwise never see. Lee

Looks like a good one. Perhaps it was quality rather than quantity in those days? Lee

Wow, England's First is right on my own patch - I live only a couple of miles away and have done several of the caches nearby. The story of it is really funny - is this why it's a bad idea to leave food and drink in caches?!? Scotland's First looks extemely challenging, and I'd put it's longevity down to the fact that it's clearly well out of reach of casual muggles. Lee

Following on from the discussions recently about what to do when archiving caches, people mentioned caches they regarded as having special significance, and whether efforts should be made to preserve them. I was curious about what special qualities you feel would make a cache a worthy contender for this. Early hides? Particularly challenging caches? Original puzzles? Spectacular scenery? Oldest surviving caches? Whatever...discuss worthy caches here, and why you feel they're worthy. What makes them really special, and significant in UK caching history? I'd love to try doing some of your suggestions, and it might be worth starting a bookmark list if people have lots of ideas. Let's plug some of the most excellent caches out there, so we can all enjoy them. By the way, what's the UK's longest-lived, continually active cache? And what was the very first one? Lee

Unfortunately any hotel can become a prison to some TBs, the trouble is that people are more likely to retrieve and move geocoins and TBs that they find attractive for some reason, wether it's because of an icon or because the toy the TB is attatched to appeals to them or their children. This means that TB's that aren't the most interesting in the cache get left for the next cacher, who takes the most interesting trackable, drops another in and the process starts all over again. Now don't get me wrong, all trackables have some sort of meaning, especially to their owner, but the sad fact is that the trackable that isn't the cutest or doesn't give cachers a cool icon could stay in a TB hotel for a long time. Herein lies a big problem - attractive bugs may get moved on more often, but also are at greater risk from being stolen! By all means use something nice, but don't use something that can't be replaced or has great sentimental value. Also use something that can take a fair bit of being dropped, soaked etc. If you can't bear the thought of never seeing it again, it's not good TB material, as it could end up in any of over half a million locations worldwide, with no guarantee it will ever come back. Hotels become prisons if they're not visited for a while, for whatever reason. Up until when my bug was placed in it, the Dulwich Wood TB Hotel was visited several times a week...and was then not visited for over two months. In the end, I made a rescue mission myself as there were bugs in there that had been there far longer than mine - I got about four moving, as well as my own. After my visit, it went back to being visited frequently! Such are the bizarre random occurrences in caching that we can't control... Lee

Exactly the case with one of mine - my first hide, in fact. It worked well for over a year, but was then literally used as a toilet by some idiot. I'm glad I discovered the resulting mess before anyone else did, so no cacher got an unpleasant surprise, but as it had been found and vandalised, I decided it was an unsuitable hide from that point onwards and archived it immediately. It was never ideal, really, and I was lucky it lasted as long as it did - as I've gained experience at caching and got pretty good at it, I've realised it was a poor hide and I won't do one quite that obvious again. Lee

"I've got massive issues with Groundspeak so I'm going to flounce off in a huff, but I'm not going to tell you why" "Oh, no! Not another urban micro!" "SideTracked/Off Yer Trolley/Motorway Mayhem/any other sort of cache I don't like should be banned" "Not being able to get a Garmin coin is the biggest injustice in the history of mankind" "My travel bug/coin has been stolen, and I blame..." Just a few thoughts... Lee

It could just as easily be south-west, of course! I've contacted the owner to see if I can get them to move it! It seems to be stuck there forever. Lee

Yes, it's frustrating when people keep hold of coins and bugs for ages, but sometimes life gets in the way of caching, and a bit of patience is needed. With all the best will in the world, I try to move things on fast, but sometimes it doesn't happen. I try to be patient with the people who pick up my bugs. Two weeks is ideal, but closer to six is reasonable, given how busy most people are, before I'd start hassling anyone. My biggest problem at the moment is my Tanya TravelCam bug, which has been stuck in a cache in Australia for three months! It's visited regularly but no-one seems to want to pick it up. I know it's still there, because someone wrote a "discovered" log for it. I even posted in the Australian forum and placed a note on the cache, but to no avail. Lee

I completely disagree. I spend vast amounts of my time in central London, doing things like caching, travelling, sightseeing, and taking photos, and I have NEVER been approached by the police. The police do a difficult job with considerable skill and 99.9% of law-abiding people are left to get on with their business. If you are approached by the police, and you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. I agree that it's not pleasant being hassled when you're not doing anything wrong, but we're a long way off being some sort of terror-gripped police state and I think you present a very negative picture with little justification. Again, I disagree. OK, it might not be a good idea to place one very close to one of the major railway stations, but there are plenty of smaller ones with good hide locations close to the station which can be used with no problems at all. It's just a common-sense approach. My own personal opinion is that the government has massively over-hyped the risk of terrorist activity for its own purposes, and that London remains a safe, secure and fun place to visit. Everything entails some sort of risk, anyway - I consider it far more likely that I'll get run over by a bus than killed by a terrorist, but that doesn't make me want to stay away from buses. Lee

There's a guideline that disallows caches within 150ft of a railway track, although this hasn't been strictly applied in the UK (AFAIK). As we are clearly now moving into a "red alert" situation it may be time to apply this to new and existing caches, at least in the London area where it seems that we are at an emergency level (I'm staying well away from that particular city: I've already revised my plans for this week!). At least, if you realise that the cache you're seeking is just around the corner from a railway line, it might be wise to post a SBA and keep clear of the cache altogether. The US has apparently had a big problem in the last few years with bombs under bridges and in other strategic locations, as caches found in such places are often quickly removed. That might be the next stage here? I think the 150ft-from-railway-lines rule doesn't need to apply in the UK, because all railway lines (at least away from stations) are securely fenced and only the suicidally idiotic will manage to get on to them. In the US, and many European countries, there are no lineside fences at all, making railway safety an entirely different matter. Here, I don't think railways need to be any different to roads - in fact, the fencing makes them safer. I think your view of the security situation in London is needlessly alarmist and knee-jerky, and doesn't reflect the reality of the situation at all. I live here, and just get on with my life. There are plenty of caches in London and they're not a security risk at all, if placed sensibly. The overwhelming majority of SideTracked caches are placed and maintained sensibly and I think it's a good series. As I stated earlier, I work in the rail industry and know it inside out. It's a personal view and not that of my employer, but I feel I can speak with some expertise on this subject. I can't give permission, but if anyone wants advice on placing SideTracked caches, please get in touch. Lee

There's a guideline that disallows caches within 150ft of a railway track, although this hasn't been strictly applied in the UK (AFAIK). As we are clearly now moving into a "red alert" situation it may be time to apply this to new and existing caches, at least in the London area where it seems that we are at an emergency level (I'm staying well away from that particular city: I've already revised my plans for this week!). At least, if you realise that the cache you're seeking is just around the corner from a railway line, it might be wise to post a SBA and keep clear of the cache altogether. The US has apparently had a big problem in the last few years with bombs under bridges and in other strategic locations, as caches found in such places are often quickly removed. That might be the next stage here? I think the 150ft-from-railway-lines rule doesn't need to apply in the UK, because all railway lines (at least away from stations) are securely fenced and only the suicidally idiotic will manage to get on to them. In the US, and many European countries, there are no lineside fences at all, making railway safety an entirely different matter. Here, I don't think railways need to be any different to roads - in fact, the fencing makes them safer. I think your view of the security situation in London is needlessly alarmist and knee-jerky, and doesn't reflect the reality of the situation at all. I live here, and just get on with my life. There are plenty of caches in London and they're not a security risk at all, if placed sensibly. The overwhelming majority of SideTracked caches are placed and maintained sensibly and I think it's a good series. As I stated earlier, I work in the rail industry and know it inside out. It's a personal view and not that of my employer, but I feel I can speak with some expertise on this subject. I can't give permission, but if anyone wants advice on placing SideTracked caches, please get in touch. Lee

All good points from *most* people here! I too liked SideTracked caches, as I love trains, use them a lot, and also work in the industry. So far, I've just done a few and haven't seen any that have caused real concern, but it's just a matter of common sense. I would strongly suggest that you do NOT place any caches - SideTracked or otherwise - actually on a railway station itself, permission or no permission. However well-hidden it might be, or however quiet the station is, it could be found by a customer or employee who has no idea what it is and it could cause massive disruption. I'd stick to locations immediately outside, where the cache would be unlikely to cause any alarm. Personally, I've hidden one SideTracked cache, which is just beyond the entrance to the car park, which I think is close enough to qualify and far enough away to prevent unnecessary alarm. Please remember that anyone seen lurking around for no apparent reason on or about the railway is also likely to arouse suspicion. Lee

For London, I use my home co-ords and then run PQs for several types of caches - traditionals, traditional micros, puzzles, multis. That covers just about everything, although it's biased strongly towards south-west London, as that's where I live, and heads some way out of London in that direction. For something covering London from the middle outwards, do something based on Charing Cross station, which is what all London roadsigns use to calculate distance and is commonly regarded as being the "middle" of London. Postcode for PQ purposes is WC2N 5HF. Lee

But what is so terrible about it? Seriously, is it worth getting so high-minded about? I just hunt the plastic. The politics don't need to come into it. Lee

Interesting views from everyone, and an interesting topic. I really can't understand what people would hope to gain in removing all their caches in protest at whatever it is that Groundspeak have done. It's just a mean-spirited action that achieves nothing, and amounts to that well-known internet phenomenon, "flouncing". I'm a big user of Livejournal, a blogging site which I get a lot from (my blog lives there). I recently stood in an election for a user representative on the Advisory Board, and came a resounding last, but some people took it seriously enough to make *death threats* against some of the candidates! Unbelievable! Every time the owners of the site make a change, it leads to a hysterical reaction from large chunks of the userbase, but at the end of the day, the reason why most of us are there - to blog - remains completely unaffected. There's been all sorts of protests and boycotts over the silliest things, and it doesn't get anyone anywhere. We should all just get on with writing stuff, really, Same with caching. Do the arguments over what you can and can't say in a moderated forum affect the game to any meaningful degree? I think not. So why remove all caches in protest? It's a silly over-reaction to something pretty trivial, and says "if I can't have my way, I'm going to spoil it for everyone else". Lee

Only one of my seven cache placements is member-only, mainly because it has specific logging requirements, and may - if it goes according to plan - end up with fairly valuable contents. I wanted to make it Muggle-proof and also reduce the likelihood of people not carrying out the instructions correctly. Traffic to it has been very light as a result, but I'm happy for it to be member-only to ensure it stays reasonably safe. I'm happy to keep my others available to all. Lee

Only one of my seven cache placements is member-only, mainly because it has specific logging requirements, and may - if it goes according to plan - end up with fairly valuable contents. I wanted to make it Muggle-proof and also reduce the likelihood of people not carrying out the instructions correctly. Traffic to it has been very light as a result, but I'm happy for it to be member-only to ensure it stays reasonably safe. I'm happy to keep my others available to all. Lee

I've not tried it because I generally use CacheMate or Memory Map when I'm out and about, but if you have a GPS-enabled, internet-connected phone or PDA, it's possible (at least in theory) to use the Google Maps application to find caches. You can put in GPS co-ordinates and it will direct you towards them. Not perfect by any means, but it's become a favourite for iPhone 3G users, and it seems to work OK on my own Windows Mobile device. It's free, but very data-hungry, so get an unlimited data tariff if you plan to use regularly. Lee

That's out of order, espescially as they're not allowed to enter the competition: I got one from Milletts in Kingston with no trouble at all, so I'm not sure that's true. It's found it's way to the Czech Republic... Lee

My coin was released into Cache Ahoy! in Greenwich yesterday, which seems to be frequently visited - so I hope it gets moving very soon. Lee

I want my grave to be hidden under a large pile of sticks.

There are indeed a few empty spots around there. I'm happy to help out in setting some up if you like - I could fancy hiding some more caches. I'm in Raynes Park. Lee