dakardrix

Well done to the 7 new record holders, hope you've recovered! I have not kept track of cache growth, didn't realise that there were so many to find now without needing to go outside Bloem area. Can't believe you had so few DNFs, quite impressive. BTW, how did you communicate between the 2 vehicles? Did you swop drivers or did Red Bull do the thing?

Dankie J (ek is bietjie stadig met my logging... ) - sien uit na jou groot 1,000!

Great going to DiePienaars!! Well done.

Jip, we spoke about this. Obviously we could only tackle the challenge as per SA conditions. Fortunately we have not reached the stage where there are too many drive-by's and power trails available in SA, so we still felt like we were doing real caching and we can't really compare numbers to the Americans. To get certain of the number aimed for and cater for DNF's (also taking into consideration that your searching skills might be hampered after so many hours without sleep) we knew we had to start outside of Bloem, so that added a lot of travel. Also remember, all of us woke up on Friday morning normal time, had a day's work, then immediately traveled to Kroonstad where we had a meal and some last-minute planning (adding the newly published caches to the route) and thus started at midnight without any sleep since the morning. So apologies if we looked dozy and weren't always as friendly as we wanted to be at the evening's event - we were awake for about 40 hours by then!

I just counted: Kroonstad 7 Hennenman 1 Welkom 26 Theunissen 1 Bloemfontein 76 Louwtjie caches 69 Didn't count, but I think we had about 15-20 DNF's Really nice to meet the distant cachers paddawan, iNokia, trev and of course the Free State crowd - like veer-ini-hoed who drove us dizzy with her Welkom caches!

START OF TeamPhantom Free State report: Who knows what creates inspiration for any human? Was it... the many discussions about records and what is possible? The topic seemed to surface a couple of times over the last year or so. Or was it the fact that another event was planned for the same day as an event of one of our own friends, and it did not bother anyone that a lot of people therefore can't go down to Bloem? I don't think it was really a North/South thing, or was it...? Whatever it is, it made dakardrix mentioned to Elsies a week and a half before the event... "What if...?" Now Elsies, having only started caching a couple of months ago and admitting to an ever so slightly addiction concern, is not the person that you talk to about a crazy idea. No obstacles from that side, quite the opposite. It was at this stage that I knew we needed the rainmaker's intervention. I could see the grin expanding on the other side of the phone. "I'll get back to you..." I knew we had GreenJaM. Suddenly, the idea became real! To be continued...

Still a bit speechless, tired and overwhelmed by the weekend... I will try and tell more later, but just to summarise - no funnies, just good old hard work and route planning (before and during) by 3 guys - 2 who met each other for the first time on Friday evening - who got on extremely well, had LOADS of fun and worked like a super-charged engine. We cached like normal, only difference we wrote some stickers while on the road (in hindsight little gain, but it does help and you 'feel faster') and no trade took place. We just worked on speed, efficiency and good old vasbyt! We took video footage and some pics (way less than I wanted to, but you're just so busy that you forget to take out the camera for a few hours at a time) and the track logs got so full it started overwriting some, so trying to get all the stats sorted. Fortunately Elsies and GreenJaM kept track on paper separately and we could check and double-check the final figure. And also attempt to do a full day's work today - gonna be a challenge! But basically we started in Kroonstad at 00:00 while dodging the cop cars and party goers - Kroonstad is a different place at night! Found 7, left at about 01:20. Hit Welkom and traveled a LOT! Circle to circle to circle, I honestly didn't know where we were half of the time. Having my Oregon stuck on the windscreen with a Nuvi 500 next to it and backseat comments from the Nuvi 200 owner - half of the time the routing was different on these devices and we learnt that shouting LEFT and RIGHT entering a circle have different interpretations.... hehe We found 30-odd in Welkom and left for Bloem via Theunissen just before sunrise. Oops, got stuck in queues with the roadworks, eventually turned around and found a way to the N1. Think it cost us about an hour or so, but we approached Bloem sometime after 8, narrowly missing an MP car doing a U-turn on the highway... mmm Same car reported to us yesterday by a property owner whose gate was broken - we had to make big apologies on behalf of the geocaching community... Anyway, oom Louwtjie's caches blew us away! Was so impressed. We tackled koppies, campuses, gravel roads (with low profile rims) - was scolded by an angry farmer (poor Elsies stood there with an Energade looking up at a tree - the oke shouted 'wat maak jy met drank op privaat eiendom?!' - the guy proceeded to phone the owner to come and round us up, fortunately the owner was aware and all ended well), hitting fast numbers sometimes and having long delays at other points. But we reached 64 just after 12, 100 by around 5 and decided that's it when we hit 110 at 7pm. Even had time to go and shower and the event was obviously 111, a number we thought had a nice ring to it... On Saturday we had to skip 13 of the easier caches due to Elsies having done them. Most of these were picked up on Sunday plus a few more on the way home. TeamPhantom, what an honour to ride with you gentlemen, I'll do it again any day!

After a crazy weekend... Big congrats to GreenJaM who hit 1,000 and 1,100! Elsies also cracked 500 with us on our epic journey through Lesotho... ... now to go and log them all...

Geluk Danie!

Wormgeocash - 85! Winning the geocoin, will hand over at appropriate get together (one benefit of having all these events these days!) ...just give me a little time to place the final cache that can only be logged by those having done all 85...

Congrats to Wormgeocash on being the first to have found all 85 Microfest 2010 caches!

Well done Antron! I see 1 or 2 others are also close to the 1,000 mark...

Don't overthink it - if you can't place a regular, plant a micro?

..I had a quick look last night - if I counted right Happy Hunters SA is on 72, Danie Viljoen has found 74 and Wormgeocash 82!! So only 3 to go for the Worm man!!

So there BruceTP hit 400 at the Techno event, well done!

Do we need to download SQLite as well? I guess from here http://www.sqlite.org/download.html but which one?

Hehe, now THAT is a ladder! Funny how people suddenly carry ladders with them... even the new ROTSIP... I wonder who will get all 85 Microfest 2010 caches first? Wormgeocash and Happy Hunters SA are getting close... I'll throw in a geocoin for the first team who manages it! (don't need to have attended the event) Let me know when you've done it so I can check, I might miss it... Mmm, just got a sort of Tonteldoos idea... I'll plant a special mystery cache that can only be done by those who found all 85! So you have to submit all the keywords or go back now and find them again... (haha, no, not needed!)

Come on guys, let's show some support here! Change your plans, set your GPS co-ords, pack the cables and notebooks and set the alarm!

Wormgeocash - 750! Great stuff, didn't realise you hit it at your own event tonight, well done!

Happy Hunters SA registed on 13 April 2009 - today, 11 April 2010, they reached 700 finds! Congrats!!

I still get the idea that some people (who weren't there) think we planted a bunch of senseless micros and that that was what the event was all about - chasing numbers. From those who were there - please help me so that I will not do that (again?) for Microfest 2011: is that the way you experienced it?

We need to sympathise with our reviewer. That is a lot of work for a volunteer - and that is just one day! ...why do you think he has resigned...! All the caches were pre-reviewed - a couple of small issues and 2 major ones (Crater Top) which were expected and debated and lots of advice given. Andy is just an amazing reviewer and I think Rodney will have it 'easier' to get going as he has direct access to Andy's vast experience. Fortunately the reviewer tools are also improving to assist with bulk reviewing (as I've heard via the grapevine) But yes, a major job by Fish Eagle - and overall we only see the ones that get approved! I don't know why anyone would do that job except as a selfless act of duty - so they have all my support and empathy. Maybe they should line up a couple of reviewers (volunteers, anyone?) and alternate every term or so...

Eish, and I haven't caught up on the sleep yet! Our memories are short, remembering the effort... guess the reward was bigger than expected. ...I've thought some more... I think we'll start with an extreme cache, say the afternoon before the night caching. So we'll prepare the extreme cache, or two, publish it in the morning, have an event at it the afternoon and then have equipment and assistance there for everyone who wants to do it. From there it's into the dark....

Hope tomorrow to go and replace the 3 caches that have been muggled before the event. Not bad out of 85 (and I have to go and change the one that has not been published - Crater Top) Already started thinking about Microfest 2011. The idea so far - same time of year, just before Easter weekend. 2 days - starting the Friday (or Saturday) afternoon with the first event - night caching! Will take this year to figure out where to plant safe night-friendly caches... Then the next day we have the BIG HUNT again! Can't wait!

...wait until you've done some of the others...