GEO936

Photo Nominations for April 2010: Ferrari Racing TB - Photo taken by GerhardoosMPSA Cacheachu - Photo taken by iHilux Cacheachu - Photo taken by Varkeliefe Blue Bulls TB - Photo taken by Hesamati (We think this one is hysterical on the Stormers shirt!! Check out the caption on the TB's page ) Blue Bulls TB - Photo taken by Hesamati (Lovely scene with the mountains in the background and vines in front) More nominations to follow, as soon as we get through all the racers' pages!

Hey - I knew the answer to that last question as it was all over the news this past week, but wasn't on line! Oh well!

Thanks cincol. I'm busy going through all the Racers and will post our nominations soon.

Sounds great Timmo! We've been missing you and Michele stax lately. Not sure when we will get to Zim - not on the top of our "Places to Go" list, but you never know what could happen!

Ding! Well Done CH..that is correct! The village of Clarens in the Free State was indeed named after the village of the same name in Switzerland which is where Paul Kruger spent his last years in exile and also where he passed away. Here is some info. on the history: The villiage of Clarens was established in 1912. In 1910 the farm “Leliehoek” (near the Kloof) was purchased from Mr Hermanus Steyn, and in 1911 Mr Piet de Villiers sold his farm “Naauwpoort” (situated near the Titanic) to a company wanting to establish a village here in the mountains. These two farms were divided into erven and sold for the sum of fifty pounds each. In 1912 a commission was appointed to finalise negotiations, and a decision was made to name the village “Clarens” in honour of President Paul Kruger’s influence in the area. This came about in the following ways - During the Basotho war of 1865 - 1866, five “burghers” from the Transvaal were murdered in the Eastern Free State; a direct consequence was the official declaration of war by the Transvaal against the Basotho leader Moshoeshoe. Paul Kruger together with a commando of burghers defeated the Basotho at the Battle of Naauwpoortnek. President Paul Kruger spent his last days as a voluntary exile in the attractive village of Clarens in Switzerland and Clarens was thus a very apt name for the mountainous village here in the Eastern Free State. A monument in honour of the five burghers murdered by the Basotho on the 29th September 1865, during the siege of Naauwpoort, was originally erected on the farm Ararat just outside Clarens. This monument was later moved to Clarens and re-sited on the central square. Your turn!

Hee! hee! This is MrsGEO936 "She" on the Forum...you won't find MrGEO936 "He" on it! I'm the one who represents our team and then I let Rolf know what is happening ! It's not that Rolf is anti the Forum or anything, but he isn't the type to read the forum and make posts! Thanks for giving it to us DB - was a pleasant surprise. Okay, now a question from our side..... How did the small town called "Clarens" in the Free State get its name?

Huh? A thin natural bridge which has steel ladders and wires to get up on it? When I read the Drakensberg part, I imagined those steel ladders or ropes, on those hikes way up top the peaks. To get you up the cliff face. But I don't think this is a via ferrata?

Oh CRUMBS!! I completely forgot to nominate some photos!! So sorry, I remembered last week, but got sidetracked with so much work on the go. cincol - is there a chance for me to still nominate some pics for April? Then you could do the voting and announce at the end of this month for both April and May? Pretty Please?

How about those bridges that open up to allow ships to pass through? Can't think of the name.... Is it a structure we are looking for here, or something else?

By way of .... or By means of .... Multiple ferries???

Nice one cincol! Just to get us into the spirit of things! I have set up the Event for the awards and final wrap up for this Race, but it is too early to publish it. I can only re-submit it sometime next week. It will be on Saturday, 31st July 2010 from 11am till about 4pm or so. I got a bit of a panic attack when I saw the number of Events popping up and thought that with all that plus some pre-planning by many geocachers would mean that I needed to set up the Event really soon! A bit too soon though!

Not sure if we experienced something similar here, but I know that we had problems with Mapsource on our side. Rolf had to re-install his operating system on his new pc and it wouldn't let him re-install Mapsource because his version of the Garmin stuff was out of date, or it said he had a previous version. Or something like that - not sure of the exact details. Anyway, we had to purchase an up to date version of Garmin Maps which comes with Mapsource. It wasn't as much as R900 though, more like R365. Rolf reckons it was less because we were upgrading from an old map version. Then once we loaded the new maps and registered, Mapsource worked fine and we are now up and running.

Bhutan is also noted as having the Happiest people in the world and is also known as "The Land of Gross National Happiness".... I agree with cincol about the smoking ban!

Well done Wormgeocache! What a great achievement as all the Microfest caches we have been priviledged to do so far have not disappointed us at all!

Nope, the fact is that there is no deviation from true and magnetic North at Cape Agulhas...CH was on the right track but not entirely correct. Discombob was correct - they are the same at this point.

Wow!! Congrats cincol & Carbon Hunter on the Platinum EC Masters! You two definitely deserve it!

Ding to Discombob! CnC got one half right. CH was on the right track. Agulha means needle in Portuguese and although the "needle sharp reefs" around Cape Agulhas seems to be where the name comes from, it was actually as Discombob said. ...."Early Portuguese explorers to the area found that their compass readings showed no deviation from true north and magnetic north and thus the Cape of the Needle was christened". Here is something interesting about the lighthouse: "It is not surprising then, that this is lighthouse territory. Unsurprising too, that the Cape of Needles should claim the second oldest lighthouse in the country. What is unexpected , perhaps, is that it is modelled on the oldest recorded lighthouse in history; the Pharos of Alexandria; one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Although smaller than the 140metre tower of the original, the Agulhas lighthouse faithfully reproduces the limestone façade and trio of towers that distinguished its more famous predecessor. Here, far removed from their northern deserts, the winged sun and twin serpents of ancient Egypt look towards the Antarctic. Somewhat more modest in size, our African replica is also much younger. At a hundred and fifty years old the Agulhas beacon is a granddaddy among the lighthouses of our coast. In comparison, the wood-burning fires of the Pharos were maintained for fifteen hundred years before an earthquake finally destroyed the long-famous edifice in 1258. By 1849 wood was in short supply at the southern reaches of the continent but fat-tailed sheep there were a-plenty. Their tails provided the oil for the first light at the southernmost point of Africa. In later years, paraffin was trekked in by ox-wagon." Taken from an article by Laurianne Claase

I agree with many of the comments about placing caches. It is a huge challenge with muggles, and the like. Often a multi or a mystery is the only way to place a cache, where the person goes to the spot which you wish to share with them, they gather the clues and then you send them to a secure spot to find the final cache. We had to make a multi of a cache we wanted to place in Belfast. We wanted to share this beautiful church with everyone, but there was just no place for a cache at the church - not even a micro! So it is now a quick multi to get info at the church which will lead to a secluded spot to find the cache with goodies. Initially, we had hid the final opposite a row of houses, and that proved to be disasterous in a sleepy, small town. So we've now moved it in a non-inhabited stretch of road, which also happens to be on the way to another cache. Extra bonus. There are cons to the multi idea. Many cachers ignore multis and mysteries when they want to grab a few caches as time is an issue. But for those that can do it, then it still works!

Groovy stuff! Thank goodness for my dictionary! Okay, here goes: Cape Agulhus is the southern most tip/point of South Africa. How was its name derived and from which language?

Thought it was the slow moving of the website!!

Hey CnC...we're already on the next question! The Pooks won that round already...

Thought to make use of this duplicate post. Looked up in my dictionary, and here is a list of Jane Austen's other novels (completed ones): Mansfield Park Emma Northhanger Abbey Persuasion Not sure which of these novels (and the one previously mentioned) has that comment, but I'm sure you'll tell us soon enough!

Sense & Sensibility?

Pride & Prejudice?

Thank you to Bruce and CJ for an AWESOME event which both Rolf and I enjoyed very, very much! We also learnt a great deal, and enjoyed the chats and discussions. The eats inbetween dessions were delicious and everything was just so professionaly and well arranged. I'm sorry that I missed the cool videos that Damhuisclan showed at the braai - I would've enjoyed seeing those, as well as the braaing of marshmallows (Bruce we now know your weakness!). I had to leave early (5pm) to rush home in time to relieve my sister and her hubby who very kindly agreed to babysit our kiddies. I would've loved to have stayed on, but in a few years time when the kids can come along! Thank you to all the cachers who willingly shared their knowledge and experience. Guess what? We made use of GSAK today!! I helped Rolf a bit - it was fun! Thank you for everything! We look forward to the next event.