Louise_Gerhard

I think GR done the correct thing and Wazat is correct in his assumption. They used the cache as a decoy to attract people to it. If a cache do get muggled it will not be placed on top of a rock, it get strewn around and most of the times it is gone. They will try again and the cache is out of the equation. I guess this is one of the cases where geo litter must be tolerated. Stay clear of this area. This cache was there for a long time. It is sad. This one also has a hidden message. If you get to an area where the cache is muggled and it is all over the area get away as fast as possible as a precaution. Do not hang around. Gerhard

It is quite a shocker to read about Tumble Bug’s log. They only have 5 finds and they are cachers for less than a month. They must now replace cell phones, GPS equipment and all the rest. Not a good introduction to geocaching. Last Sunday I entered a park in Sandton and I immediately notice three of them sitting under a tree watching me. My gut feeling just said “walk away” - I turned around and I left immediately as their was something else in the air. This just highlights my point that I raised previously. In 2011 you will get cachers from overseas exploring Gauteng and they could get themselves in huge trouble. In the present economic climate this is getting worse and more of these incidents will be on the table. How are we going to manage this is the question. Our factory was hit 4 times by armed gun men with Ak 47’s in the last year. The assault of one of the guards was video taped and on this video you can clearly see that life is worth nothing to them. Twice they took aim at the one guard. I know of 4 cachers that was muggled in the past. This is now number 5. We are about 500 cachers so the ratio is about 100:1. Out of a 100 cachers one will be robbed. Gerhard

Veels geluk louwtjievdw. Ek het dit gisteraand raak gesien op my cache daar by Constantia Cherry Farm wat hulle so ‘n ruk terug gedoen het. Vir die wat nie weet nie – dit is die man wat die cache gedoen het daar by Mosselbaai punt. Goed gedoen. Gerhard

I am busy with the non smoking process. There is only one problem. If I can’t find a cache then I normally take a smoke break and then I find it. Guess, I will have to find another method. Ok, if you see a middle age man jumping up and down at your cache and talking in strange languages to the trees, rocks and anything close to him please ignore him – just the withdrawal symptoms of 40 to zero kicking in. I will only get to 2000 finds in two years from now and as RedGlobe was saying that is a long way from here. First I have to pass FE, RG, UH and that is not easy to get pass the experienced. Congratulations to Besem for his visit to my caches and more important – getting some more tonteldoos caches on his hit list. Besem I am waiting for your story on “Stone huts” – I want to discover if varsity has managed to loosen the creativity juices inside of you. All the cachers in RSA will now watch you and this cache. Remember there is a coin up for grabs for the best story so it should motivate you. Best of luck. Gerhard

Thanks to all for the well wishes – there was a moment that I thought no one noticed it. (Lol) The next 1000 should come quicker. After all I have a Besem behind me that wants to sweep me around. We are now going into short time due to the economic climate. Basically I will no longer work on Fridays – this will become an additional caching day. I only have to learn to stop smoking and then another R900 is available to smooth things a bit. See even when things are bad there is always a plus point. Timmo I think I will skip the coin. Imagine I write the following – “Please donate some money so that I can award myself with a coin”. The cachers will stone me and probably set fire to my caches. (LOL) Well done to the following guys. dillylama (150) besem (900) MnCo (150) Jin & Tonic (350) Shaka & Shakespeare (150) Leon St (200) E82 (50) gwily (150) Stefanoodle (250) Gerhard

Baie dankie Wazat, ek sien jy kom nader aan die volgende nommer. Gerhard

Dankie Besem. Ek het juis gesien jy kleur jou prov kaart in amper soos in die skooldae. Eers bo and dan onder en nou is dit die middel. Goed gaan en geniet dit. gerhard

Baie dankie Cincol, Henzz and Bouts, ek waardeer dit. Net een probleem - hulle het gese ek mag nie meer praat met die mense aan die ander kant van die 1000 cache find draad nie. (LOL) Jammer. Bouts, het jy gesien dat ek 'n draai daar by jou cache gemaak het. My GPS het my laat sweet. Ek is deur al die townships op pad Noorde toe - ek het plekke gesien wat nie bestaan nie. Ek is op stadium deur 'n boer se grond dwarsdeur en aan die ander kant uit. Eers aan die ander kant het gestaan "Hier skiet ons, en skiet ons weer". Gelukkig was dit vroeg in die oggend en so teen 02h00 is dit normaal om met 'n balaclava en 'n pet met donker vensters deur die township te ry. (LOL) Gerhard

+tomtwogates, +Die Swart Kat are all here. gerhard

Something really funny is wrong with GSAK. I click on the name “Besem” then the profile of Damhuisclan appear. Could someone please verify this on my profile? If it is then there is another bug in GSAK. Gerhard

Besem, you are too late. If I move I move. Only problem is that the DNF's are finding me just as quick. Ek was sleg raak gery deur 'n jakkals en 'n eend daar in die bosse en klowe. Nie een keer nie maar aan mekaar is daar oor my gery. Daar was ek gestamp todat ek sommer mak geword het en weer op die grond is. Sal die DNF's more begin log. Dit behoort 'n tyd te vat Besem, jy behoort eerste te wees by die 2000 merk. Ek sal jou probeer vang by die 5000 merk. I was looking at my stats and I noticed that your name appeared as #7 on my list of cache finds. You have found 8 of my caches. I have to check the log books something is cooking. (LOL) You are moving quick. Gerhard

Cincol we stay good friends - even in serious deep water or with some yellow stuff on the face. I believe Hennie is a good person and cacher and I think he made an honest mistake and I think he missed the point. I do not believe that he tried to mislead us deliberately. We now have to help him. Hier het oom Hennie my sleg raak gery, reg in die middel van die teerpad. Rather he missed the bus and the station dropped on top of him. Unfortunately this time I was with him and inside the rubble. Somehow someone must contact Hennie and they must explain to him the rules and he must remove the symbol from his web page. I never met him personally and therefore I would rather leave this for someone that met him at an event or somewhere at a cache. Where is FE? I know he is watching – he is always watching. Maybe he met Hennie before. RedGlobe you are the old man among the earth cacher with your platinum status – talk to him. Gerhard

I am planning a serious trip to Pietersburg/Tzaneen to get to my 1000 cache find – I hope and DV. This will need a huge push. I have no idea what surprise is awaiting me that side. Questions: 1. Any specific caches that is a must do. Ok, skip Blouberg for the funny cachers out there. 2. Is the waypoints accurate or must I be prepared to search at a 10 metre radius. 3. The caches inside the reserve at Pietersburg are it worth doing? 4. Are the clues meaningful? 5. Is it safe – I am doing it alone with no backup? 6. Are there any caches that I must skip for safety reasons? 7. Are the locations good and is it worth it? 8. Is the water drinkable in small streams? 9. Anything lese that I need to know? Wazat, now it is your turn. If you are available than you have to get to Johannesburg on Friday. I will pay for the accommodation on Saturday night at Pietersburg. We will stay over and we will probably be back in Gauteng at about 23h00 on Sunday. But in turn you will be doing some serious caching until you drop. No food, no drink, no rest and we will move fast and quickly though the forest and along gravel roads. No walking from the car - we will be running and we will find it at a pace. We will push numbers as fast as possible. I am busy researching the cachers that visited this area before and I am busy compiling routes based on their cache finds. I have identified two caches that will require 4x4. We will move in the dark while the sun is still asleep and we will be still be at it when the sun set. Drop me an e-mail if you want to come along for this one. We have a 80% chance for thunderstorms and heavy rain - sounds like a lot of fun. Any advice both online and offline will be appreciated. Gerhard

I withdraw my statement. I had a look at hennieventers summary page and I noticed the platinum status symbol. This morning I done a querry on his stashed caches and found no earth caches. Somebody that knows him personally will have to inform him that at platinum level he must have a minimum of 3 earth caches hides. He does visit remote and strange areas so he should be able to do this quickly. Sorry I looked at his personal page and again assumptions are the mother of all …….. I should have verified the data. What is yellow and is running from my face? Gerhard

I missed this one but rather late than never. Well done hennieventer from Limpopo with the platinum status on the earth caches. Well done Anton. You have three to go. There is gold, platinum and a white belt one that you need to pay for. The white one actually looks quite cool. Gerhard

I learned something. Thanks for the feedback FE. This also explains the abnormality with TVM and with some of the other more experienced cachers. I was not aware of this but I understand now what is cooking. Gerhard

Centroid My centroid just moved right into the Vaal Dam. Now it is time to move north or else I could end up as a "dam duiker". Gerhard

Ok, this resolved the one issue. Locationless is thus not part of CF’s stats. I will remember this. I was not aware that the logs are backdated. Why is there then a difference between search for the finds on a geocacher and the actual displayed stats? Does the search exclude caches which are archived? I tested this one by running a query on the caches that is archived and it did not add up. The search is then supposed to be far less. Sorry for the questions but I want to understand what I am loooking at. Gerhard

Recently I noticed "abnormalities" on geocaching.com. Here is one of them. Stats taken are from FE. Is there something I need to understand from all of this? Why does the same stats give me 1337 and 1313 if the correct answer is 1337? Gerhard Stats from CF's page. This is incorrect. Other is too low and traditional caches are out. Doing a search on FE's caches. This is 1313. Doing a check on the stats itself. This is 1337. Checking the logs itself. This is 1337.

Coin Anton, This is how the coin will look. I dropped this one extremely fast. Gerhard

iPajero found the final and last tonteldoos cache. I was present when he logged his finds as 2500 and counting. It was a great honour to watch this team in action. Today I actually enjoyed this cache much more than the last time when it was done with competition. Well done iPajero and I hope there are many more. Gerhard

Wazat, we actually kept it away from the police. How do I explain this? “Yes, I was there to find a cache and then I found something but this was not I wanted to find”. “I think you are the one we need to watch… your guys stash things for others to find… you find it and now you complain… please explain geocaching to us…. I think we have a long time to discuss this issue…why did you find it Pretoria but you hand it in at Ermelo… tell us again what you were doing there on your knees scratching around in a tree trunk in a deserted park late at night….do you think this is normal behaviour…what were you planning to do with the ammo…is the word cache not something to do with weapons and ammo…can we have your finger prints…let us start from the top”. We got it away from the criminals; the reviewer disabled the cache immediately and the cache owner responded quickly. The risk is now removed and we done the right thing. I am glad this is resolved. But it is stay annoying and I feel sorry that I had to act on this. Gerhard

This is annoying. I had to request a cacher to immediately archive his cache. I found at the same location 9 mm bullets in a holder that looked like a cache. It was only when I opened this “cache” that I found the ammunition. I removed the ammunition from the location. What is very upsetting is that it is not the fault of the owner of this cache. However this cache now presents a safety risk to an innocent cacher visiting this one. This ammunition was not stored by a law biding citizen. This was stored by a criminal and it is objective is unknown. All I can say is that this person did not stash this ammo for a Sunday picnic. The criminals could soon discover that their “cache” is muggled and they could be watching this area. Any cacher scratching around in this area could be in serious trouble and they could target him. I am sorry cache owner but there is no choice when it comes to safety. Another good cache is now gone. Gerhard Cache in Question

Wow, the scene is set and the curtains are ready to be drawn. We will all wait for the last and final log for the one at Tonteldoos. iPajero team completed their 18 required tonteldoos caches and it is all go for the final one. Well done and it is great to see this achievement. I hope you enjoyed the series. Who will be next? GliderSlider, team Ginger, Pienaars or carbon Hunter? Gerhard

Maybe we should add the clue swapping as an option to the cachers – maybe cachers are not aware of this as most of our discussions took place away from the forum. I will change mine this weekend. Thanks for the reply. Gerhard