hobgoblinkiteflier

There are lots of cool ideas in this thread I have three night caches. My first was a trail of reflectors (pieces of tape from an old hi-viz jacket) which leads you along paths in the woods to the cache. It got muggled a couple of times, and I think it may have been someone with a torch/flashlight who found the trail by accident and followed it to see what was at the end of it. So my next cache leads you to a fence made of wire mesh. I wrapped reflective tape around certain horizontal and vertical segments to write the coordinates of the final. That way, the cache is much harder to find by accident. In daylight the grey tape is almost invisible on the galvanised metal. For my third night cache I used a variation of this idea. There were no fences nearby, so I made up a grid using thin steel wire. This time I used reflectors that are designed to clip onto the spokes of a bicycle wheel. When I had spelled out the necessary digits, I got my daughter to help me attach the wire grid to a branch of a tree, as high as we could climb. We recently followed some friends on this cache and it was funny when they eventually looked up and saw the numbers!

You could try to encourage your local cachers to hide bigger caches by running a competition like this one: a peach jar challenge. In fact, you could just publicise the competition, which is open to International cachers. Here's the main information page.

You can download the data from OpenStreetMap and compile your own maps, but some clever people have done this already. Try http://www.navmaps.eu/ The file type is .img and you drag and drop that to your GPS when connected to your PC in mass storage mode.

Is there a leader board yet? I managed to hide my peach jar on Jan 2nd, and it was published on Jan 5th. So far the logs have been positive, and I was just wondering how many points my finders have awarded me.

I like what Mrs Incredible has done with her avatar. So I changed mine too. (Although I would prefer a full colour web site!)

I thought my choice of theme was going to limit the numbers of entries, but in the end there were plenty of fun images to see. There were plenty of trig surfers with varying degrees of style; I liked the pose of young Follieus at John O'Groats. Beenngone didn't read the rules it's not a trig, it's not a hill top - and he needs to raise that elbow! Haggis Hunter provided lots of pictures, even helping to post those of other cachers . Oh, and that is him on the trig pillar, so who took the photo? Good style marks there, though . I was tempted to choose the group photo of drookit cachers at the top of Arthur's Seat as the winner, but as Original A1 has "let the cat out of the bag" I think I may be accused of not being impartial. The one of young Bobo Frett was a close second, but the winner this month (thanks to Mrs HGKF's help in judging) is Guanajuato. The colours and the composition are lovely. He (or she?) makes some good comments - a good photographer doesn't show you their bad pictures. A special commendation to G7HRP and his model !

and I see it's now disabled Thanks for the comments and suggestions. I like MTH's idea of pre-reserving the location. It is a little outside my normal territory, but still only 30minutes from home. At least if I hide a cache there it will be a decent sized box. Watch this that space!

I recently found out about an awesome location where I might like to hide a cache. There's a giant map of Scotland in the grounds of a hotel in the Scottish Borders. It was built in the 1970's by some Polish workers to celebrate their Scottish connections. And it is huge. You can easily see it in the Google satellite view. Anyway, I checked the geocaching.com map and found that there was already a cache there: GC2GNMC. But it appears to have been hidden by someone no longer active. In fact they have not logged in for almost two years. The cache seems to have gone missing in May last year but been replaced recently by a kind hearted cacher. However, the replacement cache looks like its gone missing too. Would you post a NA, even without looking for the replacement cache? Or would you contact the reviewer and have it terminated? Or maybe even replace the cache?

In Europe that date is still in the future and I have a flash mob event planned: 10-11-12 @ 13:14 Do You Measure Up ? 08:09 was too early, so it will start at 13:14 and will last 15 minutes. I know it's not about the numbers, but it will be good for a laugh.

Yes, I thought with having a fairly specific theme I could relax the time frame. And don't call me Shirley.

It sounds to me like you are planning a bonus cache for someone who has found your trail. I think the trail should be traditional caches and the bonus should be a mystery. You could make the bonus cache a multi, but then on the cache page you would have to add the coordinates of all the locations you need to visit. That would give you a complicated looking screen on your GPS which tries to show the stage of a multi and a cache in the same place.

I think "you people" should go easy on the forum newbie.

I like finding large logbooks in caches as it is interesting to look at all the entries with the stories that people have written. One of my own caches was found by a local playgroup. They visited the cache quite regularly and left various handmade items as well as their words of wisdom in the book. Another cache of mine was found by a muggle the day before it was published. He wrote something in the logbook and rehid it carefully. The first geocacher to search was beaten to the FTF!

Many thanks to Langy for selecting me as the winner for the September Competition. There was some stiff competition, and some excellent entries in there. The September 2012 competition can be found here. THEME: This months theme is Hilltops and Trig Pillars (or Triangulation Stations to give them their full title) I am a member of a facebook group "Trigpoint Swimming/Surfing/Standing or just posing next to." and there have been some great pictures posted there. Post a photo (which should be taken during September / October whilst caching) of yourself or your caching buddies at a Trig Pillar or to open it up a bit, a summit of any kind. Good luck to everyone. The rules are: 1) The photo must be cache related and to do with a specific UK cache (any type including events), caching series or caching trip - please include a link to the cache or the GC.... code so we can see where the picture relates to. 2) Maximum of two photos per caching team or cacher. 3) A new thread is started each month, with the OP stating these rules. 4) The winner each month is decided by the winner from the previous month - the new winner starting the thread for the subsequent month. They may set a theme if they wish. 5) Follow the theme

Yay! There was some stiff competition this month, but I am very pleased with your choice of winner I agree that my first picture is slightly over exposed, but I think I only cropped it slightly before posting it. Here's what it looks like with a quick tweak of the levels: I will get my thinking cap on and post October's theme very soon.

This is the marshland approaching Cark, during the Chapel Island picnic event. On our way back from a successful find at The Cave, a small furry creature ran across the path and swam through the puddles. I think it's a vole. You can see the beads of water on his (or her) very waterproof coat.

It is possible, but quite difficult. I have a friend who has found hundreds of caches with his TOM TOM. You need to get to the screen where the TOM TOM shows the satellite signals. It also displays your location as coordinates. Then all you have to do is move yourself to get the numbers to match.

I found a cache that was slightly bigger than a 35mm film pot. I signed the log with my Swedish pencil, then carefully wrapped the log around the pencil and pushed the bundle back into the container. It was a tight squeeze to get the lid on, but just as it clicked into place, the point of the pencil punched a hole in the lid. A small fragment of plastic shot off into the air. Then I realised that there was no pencil in the cache to begin with... d'oh! An apologetic email soon followed to the cache owner.

This is one of my caches which gets some good responses from those that find it. The log is inside the smallest container and each container fits inside the next biggest - like a russian doll.

No, it is a cylindrical plastic container. The face is on the lid.

Worry a little - at my first event (which was a flashmob), I counted the "Will Attend" logs and was prepared for maybe a few more. But on the day roughly twice as many cachers turned up! I ran out of my pre-printed log sheets which were also to be used for the raffle. A little stressful, but the nice comments and logs on the event page made up for it.

A magnet works well, too.

I have also found a spider on my recent travels. He's called Boris and he likes to hang around in trees: Nearby was his friend Lola created by the same crafty cache owner. It just goes to show that proper camouflage is not always necessary: I'm sure this next one has been in this thread already, but I couldn't find it. It did seem a bit delicate to be leaving out in the wild, but we found it soon after it was hidden. I believe you can buy them on some internet auction site:

Thanks for the feedback. I think I will log them into the event (PIRATEMANIA - a Mega!) and as Mrs B. suggests keep hold of the one geocoin that I have. It's mission is to visit Mega events, so I will try and pass it on in person to someone going to the Geolympix. Keep calm and cache on.

What is the best way to swap Travel Bugs and Geocoins at events? I have attended a number of events, but it always seems more awkward than it should. And lots of travellers seem to go missing if they visit an event. In the past I have posted a note on the event page just before travelling there and dropped the items into the event page. Or I have also waited until logging the event, usually in the evening afterwards, and dropped off the bug with my attended log. Then there is the physical dropping off and picking up. There is often a table or bucket where people can leave a bug or help themselves to one or more. It took me a while to stop feeling uncomfortable about just taking a handful. Should there be a signing in or out sheet, or someone to supervise? I just wondered about what should happen.