Louise_Gerhard

I spy only myself and Geopintus. For a long weekend, it is very quiet. Anlufu, we are planning to visit your caches soon. We are busy with the planning at present. Maybe I should plant a cache on the Cradock and George peak - this will keep the cachers fit. I know the mountain very well and my brother can keep an eye on it. If you have any caches up your sleeve, please remember that we will be there on Wednesday at the latest. Gerhard

I forgot battlerat and pussycat with the 600 finds. This is a nice number. Gerhard

Well done 4x4Maniac with the 100 finds. Gerhard

Congratulations to IPajero with the 800 mark, this is one cacher that is on a roll. However, there is one thing that bothers me. I am reading one of your logs, at one of my caches, that your guys took a break near the dam. Eish not nice, it is not safe at the dam. Not safe on or near the golf course as well. If a cacher wants to over night in this area it is safe to use Hein’s farm or you could stay over with us. I am just glad that IPajero did not have any problems in this area. Gerhard

Welcome to jakalsie from Nelspruit. Good to see another cacher in this area. Gerhard

Ja, Daardie een in die Kaap hou ons dop met 'n houtoog en 'n plank bril. Ons is op pad en die kapenaars moet wikkel om daardie een te kry. Dit gaan nie goed lyk as ons daar eerste aankom van die anderkant van die land nie. Miskien sal hulle nou skrik as hulle sien dat MP bo op hulle is. Gelukkig is ons nie kakies nie want dan was hulle in die gemors. Oor twee weke is ons daar. Ek hoop julle skatkiste is in orde daar in die Kaap - ek gaan julle almal bel as ek sukkel en as hulle nie daar is nie. Gaan die manne op hulle tone hou vir twee weke lank. Na die 2 weke sal al die instandhouding op hulle skatkiste op datum wees. Ons beplan om optimisties te wees - ons gaan so 'n 100 van hulle jaag in die 14 dae. Ek stem vir Cathedral Peak - daar is 'n paar skatkiste was nou begin roes daar teen die berge. Miskien kan dit sommer 'n fiksheidstoets en taaiheid toets teen koue ook wees. Niks lekker om hard te soek en dan 'n vleisie skrik te maak met 'n bier in die hand nie. Ons moet hierdie finale leidraad bespreek en wat die finale skat gaan doen en wees. Ek en die vrou het lank gedink oor hierdie skatkiste. Ek voel dat daar mense gaan wees wat van ver gaan kom. Die vraag was "Wat gebeur as die skatkis geplunder is en hy is nie daar nie". Moet hulle nou weer die plek kom besoek en wat as hulle van die Kaap afgekom het - moet hulle nou weer 1500 km kom om dit te kry? Ons het maar besluit om 'n ontsnap roete in ons een in te bou. As ons skatkis weg is en 'n persoon kom daar aan dan kan hy ons 'n e pos stuur met die geskrewe op die monument of 'n foto van homself by die monument as bewys en ons sal hom die leidraad gee. Is daar enige besware teen hierdie optrede? Baie dankie. Gerhard

Dankie Wazat, Nee wat die manne sal mos verstaan. Daar is nog darem amper 'n jaar oor vir die soek. Ek is bly jy het hom al in die oog. Saam met jou sal dit darem 15 uitmaak. Ons gaan so 2 weke van nou af so 'n draai maak daar in die Kaap. Ons wil nog kyk of ons nie daar so 'n wilde draai kan maak by jou caches nie. Daar is juis een wat al moeg gewag is. Ons hou hom dop vir 'n tyd al en hy is min of meer in ons rigting. Sterkte en ek hoop al die dinge kom reg. Daar is net goeie hoop as dinge dol gaan, dan is dit naby aan die goeie dinge weer. Ons moet een of ander tyd 'n paar gaan uithaal daar in die berge. Daar is nou meer as te vore. gerhard

Ek het verwag om ons "reviewer" te vang slaap. Maar hy is te skerp om gevang te word. My tonteldoos is op die web. Jammer vir die lang storie, dit lyk nie so nie maar hy is baie korter gemaak. Die enigste nadeel is dat jy dit moet lees om die doos te kry. Wazat, jy gaan nou slae kry met olifant tande, jy is nou alleen en hullle wag vir jou. Daar naby jou in Newcastle is 'n goeie plek, maar moenie vrae waar dit is nie. Toe ek jou caches gesoek het het ek dit gesien. Daar is grafte langs die pad van die Britte. Iewers langs 'n grond pad. Hulle het daar op die kop slae gekry. Ek kan onthou dat ek Amajuba gesien het vanaf die kop. Iewers het ek fotos - miskien as jy die fotos sien sal jy weet waaroor ek roggel. Moet ek vir jou aanstuur? Ek sal help soek na afrikaanse veldslae of iets van die Afrikaner daar naby jou. As ek iets kry sal ek aanstuur. gerhard

Ek het my tonteldoos geplaas maar dit was groot moeilikheid gewees. Ons het 'n groot doos voorberei met ons dinge. Dit sou op privaat grond gewees het en ons het toestemming gehad van die eienaar. Vroeg van more toe maak ons 'n draai by hom. Hy het aansoek gedoen om 'n stuk van die grond te ontwikkel. Hulle het hom Vrydag laat weet dat daar geen aktiwiteit mag wees nie en sy planne is tot niet. Nou is hy bang dat dit geocaching ook insluit en hy het geweier om die skatkis te plaas. Die woord aktiwiteit maak hom bang en hy wil nie moeilikheid maak nie. Ons moes toe 'n plek soek. Dit was 'n gemors. Ons het selfs die oorde genader. ons het selfs die stasie probeer. Maar daar wil jy nie wees nie. Gaan kyk maar self hoekom. Ons het elke uitgang probeer maar niks was veilig nie. Ek moes toe die skatkis begrawe op 'n ander plek met niks van my goedjies nie. Ons moes van helse groot tot klein gaan. Jammer vir die een maar ek het lang ure gesoek na 'n plek. Die eienaar het aangebied om dit op sy grond te plaas waar sy besigheid is maar dit wil ek nie doen nie. Ek het toe 'n plek gekry wat saam gaan met die Boere Oorlog tydperk maar ek is nie mal oor my eie cache nie. Miskien moet ek kyk of daar nie 'n ander plek is nie. Ek sit nou met boere dinge wat ek nie kan plaas nie - iewers moet daar 'n plek wees wat 'n groot een kan vat. Gerhard

IPajero well done and congratulation with your high number of finds. Please give us your travel plan – at the rate you are finding them you are going you run out of caches. Maybe we should travel in front of you and start hiding caches just to make sure that there is enough to find. I read your logs – it looks like you had quite a trip – some very nice caches and locations are on you list. You must enjoy this a lot. I also note that there are a lot of other milestones reached. You have achieved 23 finds on one day which is your best up to date. Well done on this as well. Gerhard

Congratulation to the following cachers, enjoy it. Wormgeocash with 100, only 2800 to go in South Africa and about 500 000 more in the world. Henzz, radebuddyz, delboy1203 with the 50 achieved, you are now on your way to the 100. It comes quicker than you think. Carlstein – well done on the 200 caches. The next major one is close by. Well done, Gerhard

If you do a search on the keyword Tonteldoos, the query will return 14 caches. If you look at these listings you will note that only 13 are forming part of the series. You still need to wait for 5 more and not 4. Gerhard

My cache is ready for Sunday. Hope someone will enjoy the story. For interest sake – stats about the tonteldoos series. Redglobe is at present #1 with 4 names already in the bag. At present 26 cachers are searching for the caches. Two cachers experienced a DNF. Gerhard Format is excluding cache owner and is as (Find/Not Find) RedGlobe (3/0) Arwen_SA (3/0) cincol (2/0) Nish4 (2/0) Strider_SA (2/0) keithlan (2/1) cslyoda (2/0) DiePienaars (2/0) Antron (2/0) Brahman (2/0) Donderbos (1/0) GreenJaM (1/0) kettie (1/0) Team Ginger (1/0) Een Bez (1/0) gerhardoosMPsa (1/0) mdsmith (1/0) RobSA (1/0) hughrc (1/0) Blackjack Bailey (1/0) dionleroux (1/0) Noddy (1/0) Kwenda Tafuta (1/0) Zantus (1/0) ravenmeistre (1/0) Trackinfind (0/1) Global average difficulty for those 13 caches is 2.04 and average terrain is 1.58 26 geocachers listed. Report generated Tue Jun 03 23:43:23 2008 using OpusWare GPXCREF V1.20 by OpusTerra.

Thanks for the advice, caching alone is a problem and a risk in an unknown area. I appreciate the comments and the warnings. If I read the listing it is only a location. For the person living near the cache or who is familiar with the area it is much easier to warn me of a no go area. I live in a small town where the children is still saying “Oom en Tannie” to you. If you enter Gauteng you sometimes forget that this is not the same as your environment where you came from. I marked the comments from CrystalFairy about the safer areas and I will do these areas the next time around. I appreciate this feedback it does give me some guidance for the next time. This feedback adds value to my planning. The only thing that really annoys me is the fact that I feel safer inside Lesotho next to the dirt road than in my own home with 3 trained dogs, armed response, and burglar alarm and behind fencing and burglar bars. Even is Swaziland I had the feeling that I was accepted and not once did I feel unsafe. I sometimes think that there is one vital point missing on the listings. We have the terrain rating and we have the difficulty rating which is nice. However, there should be a hazard/danger rating as well. Caching should be a family sport and on the other hand I believe that a cache owner should accept responsibility for the planting of the cache. If it is in a highly dangerous area he should state that in his listing. No sport is safe, there is always a risk but one must reduce the risk. But a cache in a high risk area is also a risk to the owner of such a cache. My other problem that I am experiencing is that some cache owners refuse to communicate with you. I do not want to know the cache location I want to know about risks. About 40% of the cachers are not responding to questions. This is making me angry because I try to protect myself and then I end up in a location where I do not want to be. I am now trying to bypass their caches as they are not open and frank. But this action is not resolving the problem; other cachers are still at risk. Therefore, I was thinking about creating a bookmark on caches which is relatively safe. The cache owner can not bitch that I marked him as unsafe. But other cachers with a little bit of knowledge will be able to trace my caches and will be able to determine if the cache is safe or not. There is nothing safe, not even an empty gun is safe, but there is caches out there that must be marked as a high risk cache. If the cache owner does not take ownership then someone else must do it. At the end it is for the person to judge if he wants to enter an unsafe area or not – the only thing I am asking is that I must be given the opportunity to make that choice depending on the circumstances. Maybe we should start with a stats topic where cachers can present incidents. Only a thought. Gerhard

Congratulations to HeKaBr with his 100 and Rodnjoan with their 300. It is a little late but only noticed it today. Gerhard

My cache is also in progress. A lot of dates must still be searched for. My cache should not halt the progress in finding them. I have chosen Machadorp and this is close to Tonteldoos so you can find this on your way to this little town even during eastern. We are not going to make it too difficult. Gerhard

Thanks Carbon Hunter, I do appreciate it. Hell, I hate to blush. Gerhard

Thanks for the effort with the maps. I added the map to my stats and it does look cool. It worked first time. I have only one problem - if I print the stats on a black and white printer then the numbers on the map is not readable. But it is readable at the bottom as numbers. Gerhard

I had a good time in Gauteng. Surprisingly there were very little movement and muggles. The traffic was quite bad on Monday night but this is a given for Gauteng. I had hail for about 10 seconds, some rain but nothing serious, some lighting and some cold. Thanks for the caches. I enjoyed the ones west from Gauteng the most. I did find a whole range of caches from cachers unknown to me. This trip resulted in my worst DNF’s rate up to date. But that is the way the cookie crumbles. I did enjoy the locations and I was surprised a couple of times with new ideas and good intelligent hides. I learned a couple of good lessons. Cache concentration was also good. I would recommend the caches on the west side to all cachers – they are good. However there are some problems with the caches on the west side. I do not want to point fingers to specific caches or owners but I realised very quickly that one specific cache owner has upgraded from micros to small and to large without changing the listing. I only record this to enhance a good caching experience for cachers that will follow. I also did not record the details but I recognize some of them while completing the logs. If a listing is saying micro then I am expecting to find a micro or a pico. A couple of times however I pulled out a small. There were also a couple of exceptions with the grading used. At one stage I had to go for a 500 meter walk but it is rated as a 1/1. I believe attention to detail is important. Or else we must mark all caches as 5/5 and all containers as large from today. To me this is important and I planned certain trips based on these ratings. The rule of garbage in garbage out then starts to apply. If you need to check your listings for correctness you could select my profile and do a check on the caches. I also noted that the new maps from garmap could cause trouble. With the previous map set the townships were not mapped properly. The new map sets have a lot of details. At one stage my auto routing wanted me to go right through Alexandra. I do not think this is wise. If you are visiting Gauteng one should make sure which areas are no go areas. For overseas visitors this is important. You should be aware of this if you are not from Gauteng. Thanks. Gerhard

Thanks a lot !!!! I will not bother you with hints on a no find. I will return and I will search for it again. If I am really stuck I will drop an e-mail to the cache owner and ask him for assistance when I am back home. FishEagle is always willing to help and I know that he will only give me a hint – nothing more or less. He will never tell you where to find it, he will guide you and that are that. But I very rarely phone him for help. But if the pawpaw hits the fan I know that he will assist. The same applies to him if he phones me for help – then I am prepared to go to Nelspruit and to assist him if he is stuck somewhere or something bad happened or vehicle broke down. It is just for backup and emergency – someone must know about my whereabouts if something goes wrong. I believe that all cachers must have some sort of travelling plan. We live in a violent society and it must be possible to pinpoint the possible location of a cacher if something bad happened. This afternoon we saw a woman beaten with a sjambok in Middelburg – it was obvious that she is not a South African. They kept on pointing to a specific direction – probable showing her the way out. I wanted to get involved but I had my wife, my mother in law and my daughter with me and it is not worth taking the risk. But I feel sad for her. She was well dressed, much better than the hooligans that got hold of her. Just recently I caught myself against a rock face with a cache in Barberton. It was easy to climb the rock face until I had to turn around. To climb down is always very difficult. I was alone and I suddenly find myself stuck in a position where I could not determine the possible path down. It took me a while to control myself and to find the way. My cell phone was in the car and the sun was setting fast. If I was stuck on this rock face I would sit there for a very long time until someone decides to walk around in this area. Again, thanks a lot, there is some cachers alive in Gauteng. I hope I can return this favour one day. Gerhard

You are doing well. I see you are heading for 500 finds before 2008/12/07. I admire your 32.4% caching time. One of these days you will no longer be considered as inexperienced. But I do love your FTF’s. This is the most finds on one day I have seen. To get 9 in one day is something good. Is this a record or is there someone with more than 9 FTF's on one day? Enjoy your caching days. Gerhard

Thanks, I thought you were too quiet that side of MP. I enjoyed your cache on the bridge. I do check for new caches in MP but there is only one left to be found as a FTF, excluding my one. I also find your “If life deal you oranges….” which ended up as a DNF the previous time. Thanks for the caches. It was great to find it the second time around. Before I do Nelspruit en Sabie again I would like to do the caches on the 4x4 trial in the south of Nelspruit such as porcelain. Maybe you should join me; it is a long time since those caches were found. It should be a challenge to get pass the boulders. I am planning a trip during end of June for this trial. The MP cachers are very quiet at this stage. Our available cache counts are busy decreasing. If you are interested please drop me an e-mail, it does get boring sometime to cache alone. Maybe we can get the other guys to join, Pcmechanic that includes you as well. I need to report on the trial to the Nissan4x4 forum, the more souls the better. Yes, I am practising for the Gauteng caches. I run ever night around the block just in case. If I can not beat them to a pulp I will ran them to death. The Gautengers is not much interested in helping or to act as a standby, no friendly cachers that side. No response from them – maybe I am talking to the hand. Or maybe they will react now. Maybe they are scared I ask them to join me. Maybe the going is too tough on them. I can only see two ways. In the positive light the Shangans left the bushes and they are on the run and it should be safe in Gauteng’s bushes. On the negative side they are scared and some moved into abandoned areas and bushes until things quiet down again. During Eastern weekend it was very nice to do caching in this area – no muggles in any bushes around Pretoria was found. Next eastern weekend we will be in Gauteng again. The only real problem is the plenty micros that I need to find. After this trip I do not want to find a micro again for a while. I enjoy caches on the outside of town but this time around I will have to find some inside the town as well. Maybe I will learn something new. Gerhard

Nope I do not agree, it is about personal safety. Previous experience has taught me that during unrest some people tend to abandon their houses and they sleep in the veldt. This increases the risk to me in isolated areas. David and I was on a Business trip in Guateng yesterday and we had the opportunity to speak to about 5 black people that work for the electrical contractor to determine the risk and what is happening in the townships. I rather would stay away from isolated spots and bushy areas at present. We are going in and out as fast as possible. We are not going to hang around. We are busy with the removal of some of the caches, but I am not happy - we are now left with micros which are in town and which are too easy. Muggles is the only problem. Nearly an all the possible finds on our list are rated below 2. We are now discussing if we should not abandon Gauteng and move to a different area. Gerhard

I need some help urgently. We are moving into Gauteng area this weekend, specifically to the east and west to hunt some caches on Sunday and Monday. However, we are concerned about the violence and have no idea what to expect. Is there any danger? The possible hunts are caches planted by daxie, ddpisani, Colinbo, daanvs, Adventure King, Vatikaki, Vicki1V,Zouga, Fier, Globalrat, Iddes, King Rat, Not Blonde. We analysed the caches this afternoon to determine the cachers that found the most caches in this target area. Our macro is showing that RedGlobe has found 78% of the caches targeted, GreenJam has found 71% of the caches targeted and Keith Wood has found 49% of the targeted caches. If RedGlobe, GreenJam or Keith Wood is interested in helping please forward me your telephone number using my e-mail address. I will appreciate this lot. We do not foresee a problem with the caches as we choose the quick ones but we need some sort of backup in case of a problem. We are going to hunt fast and we only allow 10 minutes of searching time before we abandon the hunt. If you need details about the caches and you are willing to assist then I will e-mail the list to you. Gerhard

My centroid is close to Arnot Power Station, more precise waypoint is S 25° 54.932 E 29° 44.106. For a description please try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centroid . I use the centroid in a different way of control. My hometown is Ermelo. I hunt caches to the north, south, east and west of me – all of them in the range of about 200 km. At present the centroid is more or less North West from Ermelo. I try to do balance my cache hunts. I try to do more or less caches in equal directions and distances. Or else it does get boring to go to the same place, same road and the same cache owners. I try to hunt for 10 or more caches at a time. Because my centroid is more or less to the North West it does indicate that it is time to go hunting caches more east and more south or south east or even Swaziland. The centroid will then move more closely to Ermelo. With other words the number of caches and the distances will balance eventually more or less at Ermelo if I balance my cache hunts. If the centroid is shifted a lot from home base it could indicate that this specific person is doing caches overseas. The centroid will move a lot to that direction due to the distance. If a person stays in Midrand and his centroid is in Pretoria, then you safely say that this person prefers Pretoria above Johannesburg. If a person is not doing caches overseas and his centroid is shifted way to the one side you can safely assume that this person is travelling long distances in that direction. There are many other observations you can do with the centroid. For example if a person publishes a new cache you could refer to the centroid of this specific person. If he is staying in Johannesburg and his centroid is in Messina you should be worried if this person want to publish a cache in Colesberg. He is travelling more and more to the North and very little to the south. Cache maintenance should be a problem. He is more north than south. This was in the beginning of my cacher days. Balancing is not going to work from now on. I am planning to do a trip to George very soon. Originally we plan a trip to the Richetersveldt but I need to give a certain cacher competition and George have more caches and on route. Because of the distance and the number of caches in that area the centroid will move completely to the south and it will not be possible to use the centroid to balance my caches when I am back in Ermelo. At the end of the day I believe that most cachers are not concerned about balancing they only use this as a fun tool to see where they end up, nothing wrong with this. Balancing however worked for me as a tool to hunt for caches more or less in all directions and it is more fun to go in all directions. I hope someone will understand centroid now. Gerhard