Blackjack Bailey

My niece, Julie, is a waitron at the Barnyard so please be nice to her if she serves your table!

Interesting that the question is asked today, as I found the oldest active cache in the country today - Sentinel View (GC185) in Cape Town. It was placed on 18 January 2001 by Professor Charles Merry. Fantastic views from there!

Thanks, Wazat! I chose a really good cache to celebrate my 200th today - Constantia Peak (GCR2M8)! It was a hard slog up the mountain, but it was really worth it! The views from the top are amazing - especially of Hout Bay, the Sentinel and Chapmans Peak Drive (from above!). Although the visibility was great, the wind was blowing gales up there and I battled to stand up sometimes - even taking pictures was a major effort! I did two other caches up there as well, including the oldest active cache in the country - Sentinel View (GC185), and Skyline Path (GCWHZJ). On Saturday I head back to KZN via Colesburg - I'll see if I can bag a few more in the Karoo on the way...

What a pity - I'm visiting Cape Town this week, but am heading back to KZN on Saturday 5th, so I will not make it.

No problem on my side either - just successfully updated my stats. Wazat - you do realise that, in order for your points to increase, you have to actually find some more caches?

Ok, you Eastern Capers, I have a Christmas present for you in the form of a mystery cache (GC183EV). Enjoy!

And I am planning to place a cache tomorrow near Bathurst in the Eastern Cape - close to my 1820 Settler ancestor's grave! The cache will include a family tree showing the connection between me and my ancestor.

Thanks Geoff - _nASha_ from Port Alfred has kindly offered to assist me!

Well, I've risen to the challenge - placed 5 since. I see that nobody has the courage/stamina to tackle my Inhlosane Mountain Cache (GC17ZDJ)! At least you can tell others that you've scrambled all over a nipple!

One of my ancestors (1820 Settlers) is buried in the grounds of a church in the Clumber district, near Bathurst, Eastern Cape. I will be holidaying in Port Alfred next week (23 December to 30 December) and I plan to visit the graveyard and hide a cache there in honour of my ancestor. Is there an Eastern Cape cacher who would be so kind as to keep an eye on the cache for me and maintain it when necessary?

Hey, Rhino & Hedgehog, we miss you guys here in the Sandpit! Hope you are enjoying the freezing conditions in the UK! I see you've been very busy already - 8 UK caches on your first day there!

You mean Oscar? No, I passed him on at last weekend's Event Cache... I miss him, though.

I've just come across this nice looking GPSr on the web - looks pretty impressive with the realistic aerial imagery! Check it out here.

Hi Cincol - what's better than waking up and lying in bed with a nice mug of coffee and the laptop, getting your daily dose of geocaching news?

Which century? Gotta be more specific these days, else you'll give away your age!

Get hold of Tricky, Vicky and Micky - I know Vic will be in Durban this weekend and then he's flying to CTN after that.

Mine arrived in the mail today!

For those of you that are interested, read on... I recently needed to find the best way to climb up to the top of a mountain, in order to place a new cache. When I looked at Mapsource (with Topo v1.5 loaded), no hiking trails were shown. So I viewed the mountain in Google Earth and worked out a good route by looking at a combination of jeep tracks and livestock trails. I then used GE's "create a path" tool to trace the route that I wanted to follow. Then I saved the path as a *.kml file, and used GPSBabel to convert the *.kml file into a *.gdb file - the path is then shown as a Mapsource track, which I then transferred to my GPSr! This is a great way of preparing for a recce hike!

And I've placed 2 in my neck of the woods in the past few days - more to come soon...

...and this Natalian will be staying in Port Alfred from 23 December to 30 December... Anyone wanna pop in for a visit and do a few caches in the area?

Thanks, Rhino - I've ordered myself 5 TB's at the Geoshop at www.geocacher.co.za!

How do I go about getting/buying some TB tags, and how do I register them?

Well, not quite! If I get that right, then I'm a confirmed cache-aholic! My GSAK stats predict that I'll get to 200 on 1 January 2008...

Thanks, Wazat! Somehow the last 50 seemed to go much quicker than the previous two 50's!

QFC, I'm not sure if you got my email I sent about a month ago, in which I offered to assist you in maintaining the site in some way? I'd like to confirm that I am still willing to help if needed...just shout!