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Da Wards

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Everything posted by Da Wards

  1. We finally gave up the fight and came back to Canada after just over 2 years of living abroad. We finished our 14 day mandatory quarantine a couple days ago and today picked up our first ever caches in Ontario (sorry, I know this is supposed to be country collecting). We will crossover into Quebec in the next couple days and gather that province as well. From there we shall see if a housesitting opportunity works out for us. If not, we will likely winter in Prince Edward Island (another new province for us) and then hopefully stay with friends in Norfolk for a couple months. NE Canada and US are both mostly virgin territory for us so looking forward to the next few months. Btw... I am curious how people choose to display their home location if they decide to move elsewhere? Either will affect your distance from home stats . I will never come close to the amount of caches I originally found in BC so I am leaning to leaving that as my home location.
  2. Wow.. I looked it up, seems in Belgium Covid-19 (PCR) tests cost €46 (max.) and it's 100% paid by health insurance if it's a mandatory test. If voluntary (not by doctor's request) it's at the patient's expense. A test for travel is probably voluntary. We're not prepared to sit shoulder to shoulder in a confined metal tube yet (although air is very clean and filtered and it seems no infection has been traced to air travel yet). Ouch. We thought it was quite high but still cheaper than eating the airline and hotel costs. Plus honestly we felt over 6 months in Thailand was more than enough. Now if Laos, Cambodia or Vietnam had of reopened... Fortunately the whole shoulder to shoulder thing was not an issue. In both flights there were many more rows of seats than people. In fact the first flight was a 777 with roughly 40 people. Would of needed a carrier pigeon to talk to someone else. I hear you though. I am severely immune system compromised so flying probably wasn’t the wisest action.
  3. We finally made our break from Thailand after 5 months and flew to Serbia. We had a 5 hour stopover in Abu Dhabi but they are not issuing visas at this time so no opportunity to snag a cache or two. Today we found our first two caches here in Serbia however and if luck holds up we will be able to join a few of the surrounding countries in the near future. Something that took us by surprise that I thought might be worth mentioning... Serbia had no pre-requirements to come here but our airline did. Had to get a covid-19 test to fly with them (Expedia doesn't mention this at all) and as a result had to rebook everything when we got an email the day of the flight. Fortunately everyone worked with us (airline, hotel, etc...) to do so but they certainly didn't have to. Two covid-19 tests in Bangkok cost us over $500 cad (13000 baht) so just a bit of a heads up for people if they are as scatterbrained as we were/are. ?
  4. We are currently sitting at 101. We just picked up three types last week in Cambodia. Now in Laos but haven’t gone caching yet. I love trying for different cache types wherever we end up.
  5. Added Thailand to our list today. Been here 5 days so far and finally braved the heat. We also needed a SIM card which was in the same direction anyways. Managed to pick up 4 States in Australia (plus the country itself) during our 4 1/2 months there prior to Phuket. Next stop will be Cambodia in a month or so to finally see Angkor Wat.
  6. Added Australia now. Cruise finally ends for us in Brisbane tomorrow. Time to start working on the 7x7 challenge again. Can’t wait!
  7. Been without internet for the last while but we managed to add French Polynesia to our collection. Tahiti has been a travel dream for decades. Tomorrow we hit Auckland and I am hoping to scoop up at least a couple of FMZ’s challenge caches while there. There is such a great variety of them.
  8. Lol! Now that sounds like fun! I need to step up my game or at least travel to more exotic locations. I have to admit when they cancelled Easter Island on us today I was tempted to grab the cabin’s life jackets and take my chances on a solo swim. :p Those earthcaches aren’t going to find themselves!
  9. Interesting! I haven’t thought to look on Project-gc yet. I imagine they should show up fine there. Today was a big relief as we found 4 in Lima, Peru. Manta, Ecuador didn’t have a cache within 50 kms so we were shut out there and Salaverry, Peru was even worse! Our only other opportunity for South America will be Easter Island and heaven knows if the seas will be calm enough for a tender to reach the Island. ?
  10. In the last week or so we have added 3 more countries ( Curaçao, Panama, and Costa Rica). Strangely enough, none of them appear on the maps of the statistics page. I was never sure if Central America had a section or not. In a couple days time we will cruise into Ecuador but unfortunately it looks like caches are quite few and far between anywhere near Manta. First South American find might have to wait for Peru.
  11. We recently got Country #15 on our current visit to Morocco. Definitely not a huge amount of caches in Marrakech but like anywhere else I am simply thankful there is any to find. We fly to London next week (GB being another new country for us) and then have roughly a month before our cruise from Dover to Australia. Been trying to drum up interest on the ship for geocaching partners.
  12. Hong Kong shut us out on an over night stay last October. Tried for three different caches in the morning before our flight but it wasn’t meant to be. Tomorrow we will leave Mauritius and fly to Paris. It will feel great to hit another new country with a bit more caching variety (and less heat)!
  13. Hope to try hosting an event for the first time. I will be looking at hitting 2000 finds in the new year. I will try to complete my calendars for dates found (1) and dates placed (3). Almost certain to add at least 5 more new countries cached in as our roving retirement continues into Europe. Find and complete some more challenge caches and generally have fun.
  14. We have a cruise (New) booked in September which will take us from Vancouver BC to Tokyo Japan (New) by way of Alaska (USA isn't new but Alaska is). After 11 days in Tokyo we will fly to Hong Kong (New) for a 17 hour stopover. From there we will fly to Mauritius (New) for at least 3 months and most likely six. The rest of our lives will be taking turns picking locations to live at in three or six month increments. The Mrs. is gunning for Portugal and possibly Montenegro (blasted schengen zone rules!) My first choice will likely be Nepal. Very excited to add new countries that we have cached in. We have never been to Asia or Africa before. Also we are respectively 2 and 4 countries short on a couple challenge caches so with a little luck and a short jaunt planned to hit Reunion Island France (New) from Mauritius will (luck withstanding) be the four we need.
  15. We hope to add three new countries this year (health allowing). Also going to try to raise our overall terrain rating by a hair in 2015. We hope as well to fill out the calendars both for days cached, and finds for dates placed. We resolve to get more geocaching days in next year than this year. Nothing earth-shattering but at this stage of the game it is enough to keep us motivated.
  16. We will benefit from Croatia and Italy souvenirs so far this time around. Just for fun we will predict the last three will be Morocco, Peru, and Indonesia
  17. We've always done EC's for 100's. Almost never have to worry about a dnf and even if the previous 99 caches teach us nothing, we know we will learn something on the next one.
  18. Busy day today but managed time for 1 dnf and one successful puzzle completion. Tonight is an fm event followed by a couple of nightcaches. All in all a great day. I remember the first time I saw a Calendar challenge, I figured I've been caching for awhile already... I must be getting close. Turned out not only was I over 100 days away but I hadn't even cached 365 days total yet. Stats and perception never gel for me
  19. I would definitely advise searching alone if you feel comfortable with it. Letting someone know where you are going is never a bad idea however. Only problems I have ever had while solo caching alone were caused by my own bad judgement/recklessness. I love the fact I can turn on my mp3 player while hiking alone and keep whatever pace I want. One thing I find that does tend to buoy my confidence while doing rural hikes solo however is taking a walking pole. Not only does it help for most kinds of terrain but it can also make a decent spear/staff if a perceived threat approaches.
  20. Our favorites thus far are the regular size. That being said however we have only found two large and one of those two wasn't quite waterproof. I agree with all who say the thought that goes into it trumps the size however.
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