Langy

Yes I think at times a little diplomacy is called for. I can upset people with my comments (a family thing I think) where I don't mean to. So it can often require a cautious response. A message to the CO may be required to clear up the whole thing. Langy

We have now reached 1 October and the September competition is now closed and a decision has been made to this months winner. I would like to say that I do love my photography where I spent over 5 years in a club and countless hours in a darkroom. I know that every person (especially judges) have a different view on an image so what I call as the winning entry may not agree to everyone else. I'm sure you will all agree that we had some excellent entries this month, but there can only be one winner. I've chosen my winner based on the picture quality as well as the content. So the winner for September 2012 is Hobgoblinkiteflier. Conratulations Hobgoblinkiteflier. A message has already been sent to advise on the win so hopefully the October competition will appear soon. I liked Hobgoblinkitefliers first image as it was almost a pattern image allowing you to wander around the whole image, yes a little over exposed but nothing that could not be fixed for us picky judges. The second image was a nice grab shot where the eyes looked nice and sharp on the little feller. Overall two very good images that made for a worthy winner. Thanks again to everyone who entered and good luck to you all in the future competitions.

It was meant in the way that you do not need to trample all the vegetation down in order to find the cache. Some caches I've searched for (I'm sure most other also apply) were sat either in long grass or behind what looked like a field of stinging nettles. No other option other than wade in and crush everything down. The caches I've placed on the series are all easily accessible if you are in the right location with just placing one foot off the road or pathway. I'm sure others will be aware at times it is hard to get a good fix for the coordinates when placing a cache and I spent a lot of time on the series checking most things. Looks like cache 1 was the one that slipped the net. Hopefully this will be better now.

I think the old saying of "Horses for Courses" is pretty apt here. Every CO and every type of cache will have their own alarms as to when a cache needs to be checked. I've only just published my first ever caches which are a series of six plus a bonus. These have taken people to areas they were aware of in some sense but not aware how nice a place it was and never been there before. Number one in the series was found quickly by the FTF and initially had problems with the coordinates but ended up spot on. Now every other cacher has been out. The cache itself is quite hard to find where I have only today increased its difficulty. Today I checked the cache again and modified the coordinates a little. I still expect quite a few DNF's as it is not visible all the time but will check whenever I walk past that way as it is a favourite of my lunchtime walks. Now for all the other caches in the series a couple of DNF's on different days may ring bells as they are all actually quite easy to find. Paul

I think you just described caching, Langy Lol, yup caching of the IT kind, just can't get away from it!

That has to be life in general, someone is always unhappy about something else someone has done however good or bad it is. I'm gathering from some of the posts this is something that was brought up long before my time on here and there is no way anything is ever going to change. I hadn't realised that these boundries changed so much. What ever happened to common sense of keeping places in the same county etc. I beleieve even postcode areas also change. Not any easy topic to set to please everyone. Langy

I would guess that it is a server side issue. Now it may just be timing out on its own processes due to work load or delays in getting the right permissions before it take you to the correct page. Langy

Well this is a money making task for them. After all they are trying to get their costs back for the GPS units, setting up and managing the activity. It's also an activity to get people all around their village. If you had never done anything with a GPS before but liked the idea of it would you not actually consider paying that? I'm sure people pay more than £15.50 to cover 4 people on a 2 hour activity on other things so to me it sounds like a good deal. How much does it cost to go watch a premier football match now? That's 90 minutes of sitting on your behind watching overpaid sprtsmen not be so sporing by diving when they get touched. I'm not anti-football in fact I love watching just the way the top end of the game has gone now, not a sport but a business to win at all costs. Langy

Have you tried to use a different browser? Of if you are using IE delete the temporary files and try again. Also try holding down the Shift Key and pressing F5 which should hopefully force the browser to reload the page freshly. Most web pages you load have a date on them that the Browser reads, it uses this date then next time it loads the page to see if it needs to check for new content. If you are within that date then it will usually look on your computer to see if in the temporary files the page exists, if so it displays what you already had. The purpose of this is that it speeds up browsing for sites where content doesn't change too often. Langy

Wow that post is really interesting to read. I knew of the differences between the geographical and magnetic poles but didn't realise how they were shifting. It seems to be a case of not so much a new compass but more a case of having new maps. I wonder how the world will cope when the poles reverse and when it will actually happen. Will this actually be something that causes more issues that the so called millenium bug (ha how we all suffered on that over hyped one). Thanks for the link a real nice article. Langy

The original post was for counties and someone has been good enough to supply a chart on what data they have. As this was a question on setting a challenge. Regardless of the size of counties etc the data speaks for itself. Yes someone in Edinburgh may place 100 caches and have a big increase in the percentage Then a large county like Cumbria has a much bigger area to place caches on the 0.1 mile rule. Therefore the chance to top the table in the number of caches rather than percentage of area. Somewhere like London will always pull in lots of caches as it only takes a small percentage of the population to place caches and far more will appear than in most other areas. You could spend all day analysing the data and come up with all sorts options as to how to read it. Stick in the number of cachers per county to and divide that in to the quantity of caches to see on average how many are placed in each region which may give a better result as to how busy each region is. Langy

Since relocating to Cumbria I've started walking the Lake District, after all who could resist such a great place. The added bonus of caches being located in many parts of the lakes, high and low gives an extra purpose to go somewhere. With a love of photography and gadgets plus having an IT job I like to create lots of pictures and videos of my walks. Below you will find a few links to some of the work that I have done so far, ideal if you are planning on finding some of the summit caches where I have been. For the You Tube videos you can also hit the Subscribe button to see any future videos that I post. The latest videos are all being recorded and rendered in HD format so you may need to change the quality setting when viewing. I have also created a Google Map for the main peaks in the Lake District that I have so far reached. Lots more to go, Map Of Peaks The Map Data will update as I do more walks. You Tube Videos. 8 September 2012 30 August 2012 18 August 2012 11 August 2012 4 August 2012 28 July 2012 22 July 2012 Hope you all enjoy!

Yes I do wonder how they get to some of these figures. I was looking through some of the tops last night and found some unbelievable figures. Take a look at the Top Caches in One Day for UK people. The top figures are in order 1104, 876, 863, 857,857,857. Even the top 30th is 356. I can understand some of these may be groups of people but looking at some of the profile names they suggest a single user. Be nice to hear some explinations on how that all works. Just checked the site again and my FTF is now showing after only updating it around 9 hours ago. My Fame of having a FTF. lol

Thanks for your help.

I believe you have to put something in your log so that project-gc.com knows you were ftf, I'm not %100 but if you put something like {*FTF*} in your log it will see that and count it as FTF, I assume there will be something on the site telling you precisely what you need to include to have it counted. Yes I did put FTF in the log.

Just reading some of the forum posts and came across the link to the Stat Site. Whilst viewing my stats I noticed that my FTF is set as 0. Now this may just be the site not showing properly but earlier this year I visited Line With Treet where I was the FTF and it was also my 100th find. If you look at the log files there is the usual published post then a DNF before my FTF. Am I missing something? I was clearly the FTF as I was also the first to sign the log. Langy

Sorry can't help as it is a premium member cache only. Perhaps you can post the clues. If you are ahving difficulty why not try and send the CO a message, worked for me on one before. Langy

I think you may find (as someone has just raised smart phone apps) is that if people are out on a big cache run looking for several caches that they want to do a very quick log whilst on the move between caches. I've tried to always put in some text when using the mobile but there are times you are limited on what you can say and what time you have to type / log it whilst on the move. I'm sure where people have a story to tell about how they got to the cache etc then they will write a lot more. I would suspect that the blank log entries are more from people who are number hunting rather than wanting to go to new areas for more than just the number. Langy

I think we we should leave them on as they are such nice images to look at. When I looked at it I did wonder if it was the car bonnet or water. The aerial and the curved reflection put doubts in my mind. Langy

Apologies a quick read of the original post and I missed the bit about owning the cache. Must have been because the thread started talking about favourite caches. I'm hoping to place some before long.

For me it probably isn't the caches themselves that are favourites but the places they have taken me. After moving to Cumbria walking around the Lake District is a must. The two best walks I have done are as below. Grasmoor was a real climb from the ground going up in the clouds and I nearly turned back with a few hundred feet to go. The cache took a little hunting but was soon found. On leaving Grasmoor I went to Wandhope and Whiteless Edge / Pike where the views were amazing. That cache helped me get to those places even though there was no need to visit them it was all part of a planned walk that I wanted to do. I had also planned a walk to Seat Sadal with either an easy walk down the other side or up to Fairfield. However when I met another hiker whilst admiring the views up at Seat Sadal he told me that a hard climb up Dollywaggon Pike meant that there was an easy walk to progress along to Nethermost Pike Helvellyn and Helluva long walk!. On both of these walks the caches were there. They were an added bonus for a planned walk through some of the best countryside and views that you will ever see. Now if you want a cache / series that someone has placed a lot of thought and work in to creating then check out the R&B series of caches. I didn't manage to find them all on the walk but the actual caches are made up from all sorts including Balls, Cocounuts and speicallly shaped pieces of wood to hide them well. They certainly take some looking for (some are very easy) but if you find them all you will see that its not just a 35mm cannister that has been thrown in a bush. Took me to local places I had never been to. I'm sure every cacher has a memory of something special, it may be location or it may be the cache itself. Thank you to all the CO's out there who take time and their money to provide for us all.

Here is another example of a water example I took at Sour Mil Gill. This image would be nothing without the water in it and with a slow exposure of around 3 - 4 seconds makes the water go all fluffy and look icy. Lets hope we see some good quality images as usual.

Thanks to Dogfort for selecting me as the winner for the August Competition. Very honoured especially as there were some excellent entries in there. The August 2012 competition can be found here. I used to be a member of a Photography club back down in Suffolk where we set competition themes etc so I will try and be a little open on the theme but still have some specifics. THEME: This months theme is Water. Post a photo (should be taken during August / September whilst caching) of something related to geocaching where the water content of the image must enhance the image rather than just being there. It might be something simple like a refelction, rain drop or something like my entry last month. 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) Max 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

I thought after my recent outing caching that I would start off a new topic so I will explain about my outing. We recently moved to Cumbria not far away from Carlisle, so the chances and choices of visiting the lake district for the wonderful views is right on our doorstep. I mostly do the walks on my own as I do like to head to the high hills and have the harder walks. Last Saturday 11 August 2012 I had decided to make a trip to Seat Sadal. Seat Sadal is one of those summits which is surrounded by some higher peaks which usually appeal to others more so is less visited. Being unsure as to how well I would get on I found a walk which went up to Seat Sadal and down the other side to make a reasonable sized walk. At the same time I wanted to be prepared that if I felt up to it whilst at the summit I could take on a different return route up to Fairfield and down via Great Rigg. After reaching the summit at Seat Sadal and finding he cache another hiker appeared (from Newcastle not that is relevant but just some more info) and we started talking about some of the other hills. I knew that Helvellyn was close by and he pointed out that a steep climb up Dollywagon Pike would mean a nice gentle climb up to Nethermost Pike and then on to Helvellyn and Helluva Long Walk. He was right, after a scramble up Dollywagon Pike the terrain became much easier. The sun was out (for a change the first weekend without rain on a walk) and I could feel my neck getting rather warm. It didn't take too long to clock up the caches and reach the summits. What was hard was the return journey. This was taken by a more direct route down near to Nethermost Pike. The first few hundred feet of descent was quite easy. It was for around 2000 feet of the descent where it was a constant downhill, mainly of cobble stones (where getting the right footing was essential) that it was most hardest on the knees. When I finally made it back down to level ground I still had 2 - 3 miles walk back to the car. So in summary I had made several plans for the trip but was easily able to modify these whilst out on route. I had enough supplies to last the 8 and a half hours I was away from the car. I knew by the end of the walk that I had just about hit my limit as to how far I could have gone. I could have made some additional changes that would have made the trip easier. It just goes to show though that had I made any more changes and not researched properly before I started out that I could so easily have gone way beyond my limits. It will be nice to hear from others where they have either got close to those limits like myself or actually gone beyond them just to make this a topic for everyone to add and read to.

Welcome to our hobby, some may call an addiction. I'm sure you will find like most of us that searching for those caches takes you to some wonderful places that you may have passed many of time and not realised it was there. I certainly did, it got me exploring more of my local area before I moved to the other end of the country and visited lots of places I would have never done. Good Hunting!