CapeDoc

Hi Andy I am wanting guidance on rating puzzle caches. I did read this The problem with puzzle caches is that there are two issues wiyh regard to their difficulty: The difficulty of the puzzle How difficult it is to find the physical cache. Do you factor the difficulty of the puzzle into the rating or is it purely the physical difficuly of finding the container?

Wazat, part of the reason I want to see bookmark lists is to see what cachers like. If I then find a cacher with similar tastes to mine, I will look very seriously at doing some of he caches their list that may be a bit out of my usual caching area.

I wish more cachers would create bookmark lists of their favorite caches. Especially the more experienced cachers. Lets us newer cachers know which ones we should not miss out on! (This is half a topic, half an appeal!)

....so when rating the difficulty of a puzzle cache, it is ok to factor in the difficulty of the puzzle? After all, the puzzle is going to account for time taken "looking" for the cache. (I feel this post would be more appropriate under the new "questions to the reviewer" thread) What are the 5/5 caches in SA? Has anyone done any of them and agree with the rating? As Andy points out, who would really want to go on a massive hike or need special equipment to get to the cache, only to be faced with a massive challenge of finding it. (The only reasonable scenarios I can think of could be: a short, easy-ish climb that requires a rope, followed by a well hidden cache or a short paddle in a boat, followed by a big hunt.)

I found a nice website that helps in determining ratings. I feel some ratings could be relooked at. http://www.techblazer.com/geocache-rating-calculator.php Also - there is a 5/5 puzzle cache in Hout Bay - but this is just 1 (unpublished) leg of an international cache. Another one in Harties area that I know of. Perhaps a few more that I don't? They do not show up as local caches. I tried the tool and it gave a rating of 2 for a very hand puzzle but easy container to find. Sound right to you?

How many 5/5s? Of those do you think the 5 difficulty to find are overrated. To have 5/5 it should be impossible terrain AND make you search like hell at GZ. (Kind of poses a question regarding difficulty rating of puzzle caches. What rating would you give for an impossible puzzle, solved by few, really difficult but an easy physical find once you crack the riddle?)

For Cape Town and surrounds have a look at these: http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.a...0f-b16e1d1bcf2e http://www.geocaching.com/profile/Default....60-6f5be633f144 http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.a...75-a3e063952500 http://www.geocaching.com/bookmarks/view.a...fb-11ae4a951e06 A little depends on your fitness and desire to to do more adventurous walks. If you take D'Bob up on his offer and ask to do a few of his caches with him, you will have a blast! I have a new night cache in Cape Town that is a little different. Why not attend the event cache, meet some people and get more ideas

Quite proud to say my record is 5. It was on a seven hour hike and involved scrambles along cliffs and ledges with huge drop off's. The interesting thing about threads like this is that it brings out the different geocaching ideologies of geocachers. I can think of nothing worse than finding cache after cache on a caching run. How does one stop to appreciate the unique location, the adventure, the beauty or the history that the cache provides? If it doesn't provide any of these, why was it placed and why are you doing it? Further, where does one get the time to write the logs to show ones appreciation for the caches? I think I share Kit Fox's geocaching ideology.

Also use Firefox, same problem, also only on one computer!

AMAZING! Very good work! Challenge met! Love the 3D map! Really gives a good perspective. (Oh....so that's how IPajero averaged 10 caches a day for a month when they visited Cape town.....)

We had a fantastic walk! In the end we were a party of 8, 5 cachers and 3 muggles. Thanks all for coming along, sorry to all who couldn't make it. http://lh4.ggpht.com/_3IsK-qqQCFo/SeA5Awcw...B8/IMG_4136.JPG http://lh6.ggpht.com/_3IsK-qqQCFo/SeA40RAk...A8/IMG_4125.JPG. Thanks Pooks for the pics!

IMHO ALL caches should be placed in beautiful/adventurous/historic locations, puzzle or not.

As it stands, 4 of us will be walking on Friday to do Not for the faint Hearted and Carrel's ledge. The more the merrier.....

Wow IPajero! 300 new caches in a month! (You would have found my nearly 2 years worth of caching in about 15 days!) Fantastic effort!

Here is a challenge...which I don't for one minute expect to be met.... How about a South African version of this?

Any one up for a walk on Friday? Maybe do "Not for the faint hearted" combined with "Carrel's Ledge". Leave early am. Will send out a few SMS's too.

I must admit I thought of Wazat's vehicle. If IT can make do we assume ALL can make it?

lol!

I am also interested in the distribution of the caches. According to my (manual) calculations, the most isolated cache is The Pointer, in Beaufort West, 104.9km from its nearest neighbour, Gate 2 Prince Albert. Even more interesting for me is: "Where is worst place in South Africa to live if you want to do geocaching?" In other words, where is the point farthest from any cache? As far as I could determine it is in North West: S 25° 40.656' E024° 4.866', 204.35km from the nearest cache, or S 25° 39.960' E024° 6.408', 206.4km, if one ignores Mokolodi in Botswana, which should probably be archived. It makes me grateful to be living in Gauteng! What about the opposite? The best place to live, highest cache density?

So, I did my little bit of caching around the conference. Thanks to all who gave advice. In the end only really managed to to caches near the Airport due to time constraints. The rains in JHB must have been hectic as quite a few of the cache containers were damp. Really enjoyed Hunter's treasure (despite the blackjacks), Northern lights (despite some frustration) and Cryptology (what a superb cache container!). Thanks Anton for the cache, advice, and help! Thanks all who offered advice!

Got another request: What is the loneliest cache in SA, i.e. the furthest from any other cache? (And how far is it from the nearest cache).

If you do get a PDA have a look at this FREE app. If you have a windows phone with a gps it is GREAT! Only problem is that it needs internet access and wont store the cache info.

You could say that it kind of an "unfound" cache. The only logged find was clearly by a non geocacher who didn't set off planning to find it. Looks a little scary to me....

I can recommend Birds of a feather, and Billy Goats Gruff. Billy goats grufff was realy cool, since I did not know what the name was about, util Ding bat updated me on the story. Had a look at it and seems like a cool one to do with "kids"! (They will know the story too!)

That was the one we found this week end, and made us wonder about longest unfound caches. Ranked 11. Glad to have found it!