Matata

It was my pleasure!!! Thanks for joining in and well done to all of you. Battlerat for spotting the FTF's, Cownchicken for showing us that caching starts on the other side of 50! The Pooks for the awesome photos and my brother the GeoMuggle in the team (when will we see a cache in that Pomagranate orchard???) For the stats: 3 caches (2 of em FTF's), 33.5km hiking and a total ascent of 1900m all in two days - well done!!! below our route, Day 1 = Yellow, Day 2 = White. What one next??????????????

Hmmm, let me add my 50cents worth... I guess we here have a rather unique situation which many other countries outside S.A. and North of Grootfontein (Namibia...) haven't got and that are: Fences and Walls on ALL sides of our roads and any publicly accessible areas. Were as in say Switzerland - my country of birth - you can pretty much walk (and for that matter place a cache) anywhere except onto urban / residential properties. Hence it's Geocache opportunity galore! A forest might only have the restriction of: No private motorised vehicle access, cyclists or hikers/walkers have free range on and off the paths, tracks or roads - where ever they nose points them Here in S. A. you feel like an ostrich when looking for a cache place in nature, walking up and down a barbed wire to spot a hole, rest place, gate, gap, etc. So to get a suitable location out there you end up with only hiking trails, parks, roadside tables, etc or an occasional farm (lucky me with 2000ha to choose from...) I think we should be more easy with "trail caches" after all: Boskloof-, Drosters pass-, Gladdebank-, Arangieskop-, Helluvaview-, Boesmanskloof-, Vrolikheit-cache, etc are ALL on hiking trails be it a 2 dayer or not, fact is they are and we are all happy about 'em or not??? If we want to be strict I think we'd loose the best we got... The trick I think is to come up with a better cache container/hide and maintenance there off. It would be interesting to list and analyse the muggled/vanalised cache versus the safe ones and see where they are located as well as the impact they have on their surrounding vegetation or animal life?! Never mind the effect on wild animals when nibbling Tupperware or Tuffy-bags for supper?! but that's another side all together or is it?

click, click Droster's Pass and Boskloof cache here we come click click PS to our swellendam cache hike team: the payment has been made, no escaping now! see'ya Friday / Saturday in a week

I could kick my self now that I did not place a cache during our last weekend hike/climb up Rabiesberg... after all this could have been a introducer to the WC's mountains for Wazat yet there's still "Point of no return" and untill that one hasn't been FTF'd I'm reluctend to place another high cache. I am fortunated enough to have those "hills" - compaired to KZN - in my back yard - or even with in our farm boundary yet even up here in our Mountain retreat ther seems too little time to go climbing around... yet last weekend we really had a ball again, you'd love it Wazat, not quite as steep maybe but tough never the less: Start was Simonskloof at 775m then up to 888m and with in 1.8k's down to 440m but now the real baby started, in true Matata style bushwacking up through old protea fields (Not even CapeStorms fabrics are strong enough they admited to withstand that kind of torture ) for 5km to reach the summit of Rabiesberg at 1666m just in time for sunset. Rabiesberg on the left, the Saw Edge Peak and on the right "Point of No Return" on Keeromberg at 2073m asl Our camp with set up just 100m below the summit and on Sunday the next day we proceeded in the rain and fog into the neck below Saw Edge Peak at 1400m and further down to 1100m before climbing another wet ridge back up to 1460m when finaly the rain "kind-off" stopped and presented us with a 250deg rainbow Now came the real mission of our hike the search of the endangered Sawedge Sugarbush - Protea holosericea... well needless to say we seemed 2 month too early I guess and will have to come back when she finally flowers a k later we joined the world of jeep tracks again for a final 5k's in time for lunch and a change of dry cloths... All in all THAT's what life is all about and similar like in your case Wazat, my dad was only too happy that his genes passed on even if I myself makes use of a stick now to help those joints along where my mind takes 'em nothing seems to last 30 odd years not even us But yeah those mountains have it in them and next time there'll be a cache again with some WC altitude

The 8th it is! Time to book for the permit and the hut, I'll take that on 2morrow. Are The Pooks init too???

> Keeping my eye on 8/8/08 - where does one find money for fuel these days!? glad you are still suffering of the cache-hiking-itch and are going to be on board... in that case why not share drive? There'll be at least 3 cars (without yours) coming from West of the De Toitskloof... we'll have to organise something!

As far as I understand the cache-hike of the 25th is been shifted?! CNC is your business trip still on? Or shall we move to the 8th of August, the 08.08.08 !!! The pooks's back from Nam 2 (and he's done Hot on Top!!! well done man!!!) What's your take on analternative date? and if we are lucky we might get some snow again

well done to The Pooks!!! I back your action fully - and this might expose my neck but I stand to it there is after all a little (big) rebble in Matata... We need to be sensible when caching but need not "ALLWAYS" stick to the rules when they do not harm the inviroment or tresspass on peoples rights and properties... and add a little excitement to a hike. Ps The Swellendam caches hike has been shifted... to the 08.08.08?!

> We want to enjoy caching and going out to discover new places, not be competing with others. I fully agree with CNC's above quote, having been a member since 2003 it took me - now us! - 5 years to hit the 100th cache, nothing wrong with that, all 100 been 100% fun and truly FINDS that same goes with TB's we "spot" at events, our "policy" is NOT to log em if we did not realy talke em with us. It just does not make "sense" in our eyes - but that's us. YOU out there do what you think is fair for you and then view your stats with those eyes too, enjoy.

Cool the 25th is marked! I just had a e-mail from the Pooks, they might join but will let us know after their hike down the Fish River Canyon next week. Hey let's watch GCKW1B - Hot on Top might get a visitor next week!?

Boet just said 25th - payday - works best for him... any other takers???

Seems there's a agreement on the Missus's sides Mrs Matata suggests that we meet in Swellendam on Friday evening, stay over in the hut you refered to and the boys head off in the morning for the peaks and caches Possible dates: 18th or 25th ?

> Boskloof hut's roof had a hole in it and subsequently the bunks were wet! When was that? Cause when I phoned CN they said exactely that: the Marloth huts are leaking and hence no bookings will be taken... when I told Ben Swanpoel about that he said it's only the long drops of Goedgeloof and Proteavalley hut that are "washed-away" and if hikers do not mind to do the cat-toilet thing, they can book...?! Never the less... I'll check on a date... what's your take on the partner side? The complete teams or guys only??? I might ask my boet if he feels like a hike too - We went together on my Bachelors hike to guess where: GC1B3D3, the "Bachelor's end of the road" cache on the Jonkers hoek traves... it ended up the only cache we managed to get due to the gale force winds and truly wet conditions BUT it was awesome!!!

Hmmm, well my greatest bother is the caches under bushes and rocks... in particular the bush thing when cacher after cacher stepps on the finer growth until there's a "bay" in the bush big enough to pitch a tent... caches like that we experienced around Knysna just last week e.g. Brenton Blue GC17CCB or Gold Diggers Treasure Chest GCRR96 were hints like "Look hard under the rocks" made us turn a 100 year old mining entrance upside down... were as the real site was your typical "geocacher rock pile" - so much for a good satelite tight forest canopy and some misleading hints... but an adventure never the less The other is the under rocks... when there's a 5-10 m2 area of rocks dumped by a farmer to choose from... and when you decifer the hints - then usually a 2 or 3 liner - it tells you which off-ramp to take or an alternative route to the cache site, meanwhile your GPS is telling you you are dead on target, right on top with the usual 4-5m inaccurancy... Hints are (in my mind) the last option, the last chance after you've searched for 10-20min with out success so you make your 100-200km ride home at least with a FIND and not a sad DNF. On the positive side my favorite caches are the historical ones (the forts, monuments, old bridges, boer war grave stones, etc of which we have luckly plenty right in our back yard - but undiscovered until we geocache

Ouuuuh HOW I see the connection Boskloof & Misdadigersbos are both of the famous Shc_inc with several high altitude caches tasty, very tasty!!! Tempting to do 'em again in a "blitz-hike/climb" like Gladdebank or Arangieskop caches... in a week or two Alternatively one could do them (all three incl. the Droster's Pass Cache) in a weekend hike: Up the standard route via Die Hoek and the Old Kraal - drop the Backpacks at Boskloof Hut, dash for Droster's Pass before supper and return via Tienuurkop (Boskloof Cache) the next day... sounds just what the doctor ordered!!! Any takers ??? CnC ??? Ps I spoke to C.N. today (Ben at Marloth reserve) no problem to do just a weekend hike to Boskloof and return!

I guess it's not really that old but an epic FTF never the less still to do is "Point of No Return" - GCY3RE we placed it in our back yard 13km as the crow flys... Or 7.5km and 1180m in height from its base camp on 2nd Sept. 2006. The rating is 4&5 stars Then there is "Boskloof" - GCT0ED placed on 6th Nov. 2005 which has "just" (15th July 2007) been serviced by its owner shc_cache. It's on off the Marloth hiking trail at Swellendam, a pretty tasty 250m in height and 870m as the crow flys from the nearest hiking cabin... also 4&4 stars I might put that one on my list next to do

Now this is what I call the spirit of true geocaching this log was written today on one of my latest caches: "Stopped at the locomotive with my train-mad 5yr old without knowing of the new cache. Even remember looking at the brass dials and thinking they wouldn't still be there if it was in Cape Town! We will have to come back!" and they were sooooo, close! but refrained to log a "found"... SA cachers I'm all behind you!!!

Pumpkin eaters I agree!!! But still a valid point to rais me back to work now

Black bags or any bag for that matter are OUT, I agree. Zip-Lock inside to protect the logbook, but not every item, that again is an over kill. Micros I found do best with a magnet glued on and/or located above ground. But what I still struggle with is a protection against nibbling rodents?! They simply love Addis's plastic containers... any Ideas anybody?

Well... here my 50c worth: Only writing in the log = Found! After all it's not the numbers that matters in the game. Just like with life, what matters (to me...) is the journey, getting to the cache if most of the fun, topped by writing in the log, hence when when after an epic 7h hike (up and down) recently to Uitkyk Kop via Gladdebank I searched for 30min only to find the Gladdebank cache 18m off course and the only hint telling me: "BE FIT" I could have killed the guy... but well... yes I was close to giving up and log a DNF. Same goes for TB's: If you did not really grab the thing and MOVED it onto the next cache I don't regard it as a found and will not log it - it was tempting though when holding all those flashy TB's at the last event in CT... But I refrained and stuck to my personal ethics. It just ain't right and what for?! Regarding a muggled cache, we found "Whipstock" cache the other day... Well we had the exact location which was empty but "found" and signed the logbook which the owner of the establishment salvaged from the mud and kept in his office until the cache owner returned and fixed the cache... a fair and acceptable find? I think so. Then there is "Hot on Top" above Ai Ais in Namibia where the official summit book is used to log finds... Idealy I like to see the cache owner to return and place a propper cache and logbook in the original/seperate place, but well that's me... So in the end it come down to: Live and let live! And on that note, I would like to mention Discombob and also Vespax, who I noticed have no trouble in logging DNF after quite some lenghty travel and search, now that is Fair Play!

G3... ?! No man out here there's no cellphone reception still good old copper 50km of it But I've aplied to WIFI eons ago... let's see when Telkom will move its butt

Naa I "lost" interest when it got onto a seperate website, reason being, me working off a very slow line (4-12kb/s) out in the mountains and hence I haven't got much drive to surf for hours in cyberspace just to tell the world that I spotted unique maze, canyon, watermill, crater, or what ever it is that is so special out here in the country side... pity though since I love to plot my way with my GPS. Yet if you check my logs of the few TB's that found their way into my hands, you'll see that I take geocaching seriously and ad my share to the fun with images of the TB's where ever I take em. On that note I might mention also the sencelessness of grabbing a TB at an event and psssing it along the table just so I can highten my score... but that's another story for maybe another forums topic... How ever once I get a fast line... hell know's when... I'll check on Waypointing again... after all I got tonnes of pictures I took just before the split!

Honestly I like caches in remote places , properly placed they are safer then the ordinary cache here in SA, and the Fish River Canyon could certainly do with some more then just "Hot on Top" above Ai Ais which I found just the other day (July 07) hence whould I have known about QFC's cache at the short cut I would have looked for it... I slept not far from that spot The only pity about remote caches around SA is that we have way to few cacher that are into some serious hiking, hence two of my caches (right in my back yard!) are still after 2 years not found... but I'll keep positive! Regarding the "WayPointing", I found it sad that it got split from the main Geocache site, after all those were the most eco friendly caches around and added so much to the historical element in geocaching... but well change is unavoidable isn't it so?! Back to the Fish River Canyon... the far bigger problem I found when hiking there 2 month ago, were the piles of rubbish, toilet paper, clothes and blue gaz containers left by fellow hikers now that was really a downer... I guess it all get's washed down to the Orange with the next flood but still it's bad conduct

Thanks CnC shows you that a little request (above) sometime gets heard... or was it just inevidable luck ... I heard CapeStorms had an event in Montagu the following weekend... Be it as it may, FUN it was for sure and one thing I must leave the guys from CS, I spend 4 times of spiderman vest on more of their brillinat clothings while collecting my price GOOD MARKETING!!! BUT I can report so far I'm very happy it came in the right time, not that we had snow right down to the house last weekend, but the mercury was down near zero and the stuff withstood the cold! Then the next trial was our rather rough Gecko Trail two days ago, again spot on CS has a new client!!! ...but now off to the bankmanager ....and a Big Thanks to CapeStorms!

Mountains?? YEEEHAA! Where?????? Please get something closer to little Montagu me need some good clothes Any mountain will do