allieballie

I bet that you wish you'd never asked the question, AB!! You have to be careful in this place! As someone who still prints off cache details and is still living in the Dark Ages as far as my IT skills are concerned, this thread now baffles me because I have no idea what GSAK is! Does it have a nice map with different coloured dots on it like geocacheuk.com does?

Multis if I want people to notice and look out for things along a particular route, or if I want them to go to a particular place before finding the cache. Micros for urbanised areas and caches and dashes. Have done letterboxes for a large series based on the same theme. Trads for anything else.

Aw. thankyou!

Anyone else unable to access the interactive map on geocacheuk.com tonight or is it just me?

I am well known up here for my dislike of cows and bulls. In general I won't do a cache if it mentions that you have to enter a cow field to get to the cache. I tend to leave them until the winter when the cows are in byres! Or I'll skirt round the outside of the field if that's possible - I would rather go a long distance out of my way than cross a field of cows directly. There have been a couple of occasions where I have gone into cow fields, but only if they are all down at the other end of the field and even then I skirt the inside of the field so that if they do move up towards me than I can hop over the fence or wall. For some reason, cattle are often found along coastal areas up here. I was doing a cache on Bute once when a herd of them trotted along the shore - I had no idea they were there and I then had no choice but to pass them to get back to the car. I stuck to the waters edge so that if they charged then I was quite prepared to run into the sea! I did read once that if you are charged by a bull then the best thing to do is to start throwing things as it will follow the movement of these and hopefully be distracted. These don't need to be red - seems that is a myth! - it is the movement that catches their attention. So the article suggested that you start by taking off your jacket and flinging that in the hope that the bull follows it instead of you. If it realises that your jacket is not as interesting as you, then throw your jumper next, then rucksack - anything until you get safely out the field - the bull will apparently investigate each before turning it's attention back to you! Of course, I haven't tried this so I don't know if it's true but if the worst came to the worst it might be worth giving it a go!

What about if you wanted to caching on the Isle of Bute, or Isle of Wight etc. for the day though? You would have to pay for your boat fare, but I bet people would feel OK about doing that. Is it just the fact that you would be paying to go somewhere to find a single cache that would be objectionable?

Yeah, and Fife has some great places where caches could placed - Inchcolm, the Isle of May, Lochleven Castle!

This has raised an interesting question though. How about if you placed a cache on an island that required you to pay for a boat/ferry out to it? Would that be acceptable?

I have recently come back from a weeks holiday in Spain - slightly further north than Benidorm but I did print off a few caches near there because we were going to be driving past the area to and from Alicante. In the end we didn't have time to do any there, but I seem to recall that there were quite a number set by English geocachers who seem to holiday there on a regular enough basis to be able to maintain the caches, or who have friends out there who will help maintain the caches if needed. As a result a lot of the descriptions are given in English - which will save you having to translate on Babelfish etc.! Have fun and enjoy the caching - we did 4 (although we had 2 DNF from those!) and they all took us to great places!

I will take Kinross-shire and am happy to take Clackmannanshire too if you want.

Ok, have read that (thanks!), and now I'm wondering who I ought to contact though - do they have local rangers for individual sites or should I just contact the head office place? Could anyone give me the names of some geocaches which are already on WT land (with permission!), because when speaking to people about gaining permission, it's always useful to be able to say that some of their sites already have caches on them.

Does anyone know what the current position is with regard to the Woodland Trust allowing geocaches on their land?

I think it sounds like a great idea. I've had something like this floating in and out of my mind for a while now - this might just spur me on to get cracking with it - if you don't mind me copying the idea? After all our caches would be over 300 miles apart!

Since no locals have replied to this yet, I will! Although I haven't done a lot of caches out that way, I have done most of them in and around the centre. I'm afraid that the centre of Glasgow is pretty sparse cache-wise and I think you'll be lucky to find one to suit your needs. "The City of the Dead" is a multi-tour round a fabulous and famous old graveyard but it is a micro. "Shopping and Caching" is right in the centre but is also a multi and a micro. "The dry Subcrawl" is fun for kids - I did it with my six year old - but you have to go round the underground and stop at each of the stations so it takes at least 2-3 hours to complete. I haven't done "The Dear Green Place" but it's down as a small cache so may have swaps - it's also a multi though. "The World's Tallest Wind Vane" is another good multi but is a micro too, so has no swaps. However, if you are going to the SECC to see the Wiggles, this cache starts relatively closeby at the Science Centre and there are usually several hands on exhibits in the foyer so the kids might like to play with them plus you also go past a playpark in that one too. Apart from the above, the other caches are further out from the centre and would require you to drive to them. Hope you can find something to suit you - I know what's it feels like to go somewhere different and want to do a cache there! BTW - is Henry the octopus one of the Wiggles?

Surely that's not your age Pharisee? You certainly don't look anything like that! No point me contributing my age (38) to this thread as I will be in the middle somewhere. Can't even put forward wee man (aged 6) as I know there is a much younger geocacher in Fife - a fully fledged member of "third generation" who is a toddler!

Well done Pooter - and there are plenty more caches out this way still waiting for you!

There was a beautiful sterling silver whisky flask with a Celtic design in one of the caches along the Water of Leith for a while. I would have loved to have taken it but I had nothing anywhere near it's value to swap for it.......

Yes, that was one of mine, a micro hidden about a metre from the roadside. It had been found about four or times in the space of the month or so that it had been active before a cacher discovered it covered in police tape with a note inside from the boys in blue. It said something like "Locals have been complaining about people wandering about in the woods..." and politely asking for the cache to be removed. I did remove it, but it raised some intruiging issues such as: Why were people wandering in the woods when it was a roadside cache? Did the locals watch this area 24/7 because 4/5 visitors in over 4 weeks is not a noticeable amount of human traffic? And how did they manage to observe this in the first place, given that the nearest houses were quite a distance from the cache, and partially hidden from view. Anyway, well done on the police for finding it - I wonder how long they searched for? The locals must have been using binoculars to pinpoint the exact rock it was hidden in!

HH, I'm AOL too and I know from browsing gc.com tonight that quite a few of my caches were found today but I haven't received any emails at all about them as yet.

Eh?? What does that mean? Think of our last conversation in the pub, if the penny hasn't dropped then you will just have to wait until the showroom opens!! Only thing I can think of is that GForce and Longfram Kev are going to progress from removing supermarket trolleys out of the water, to removing old cars?! Wait a minute... something is beginning to come back to me... ah yes......! Think I know what you are talking about now!

Eh?? What does that mean?

The first time I met Bill and Angela was at the first Scottish Geocachers Day Out in August 2004. Whilst everyone else was climbing Ben Nevis, we had planned an assault on the lower level caches. We had arranged to meet at a car park on Rannoch Moor, but the midgies were out in such swarms that we couldn’t leave the safety of our cars. Instead we sat there, parked side by side and spoke to each other on our mobile phones! That first day I spent in Bill’s company showed me exactly what kind of man he was - generous, thoughtful and with a wicked sense of humour! We even saw the infamous leki pole in action that day - he stood in the middle of a fast-flowing burn and made us grab hold of it whilst he helped pull us over the water. Since that day, there have been many more occasions where I have spent time in Bills company - both out caching and socially, and I have so many memories of him. These include: Bill moving one of my caches (on my request) and someone trying to find it at the old hiding place the following day - Bill laughed so much about that (sorry Jodel!) Bill being my guide during a caching trip to Glasgow - I would never have found my way to the caches so quickly without Bill to tell me what roads to take - this was particularly amazing because I usually used to tease him about his navigation skills after having previous experience of following him on convoluted routes to cache sites! Bill’s relationship with my wee man - who he always called his “wee pal” Bill insisting to me that he would be able to solve marmals “Su Doku Lagoons” cache in about half an hour! This latter memory is connected to something that I will always treasure - Bill was my puzzle cache partner. We would usually work on them together, sharing ideas and thoughts, but still doing the hard bits individually - if one of us had solved a section we would encourage the other to get there too, so we both had the satisfaction of having cracked them. If we thought we’d solved it, and if the cache happened to be nearer to my area of Scotland, I would go to look for it and once I’d found it I would phone him straight away - he would always be so chuffed that we’d solved it successfully! Since his illness, puzzle caches haven’t held the same appeal for me. He was one of a kind, and I will miss him so much.

This might have been discussed already, but if so, then I missed it. How do the co-ordinates given at the bottom of the Google Earth map translate into hddd mm.mmm? e.g. if I go to a random point in Edinburgh, Google Earth gives the co-ordinates as 55 55 24.74 for North and 3 22 06.85 for West, which is more digits than we use for our co-ordinates on gc.com. So how do you compare them?

Yes, I feel very lucky to live so close to Perth! Daytribe, you could always set lots of new caches north of Inverness!

Can sympathise with scaw because my partner sounds like her husband - gets fed up if we haven't found it after 5mins searching, whereas I would normally search for at least an hour if I couldn't find it! As a result of that, plus the fact that he works shifts, including at weekends, I usually go out caching myself with my 5 year old. If my partner is around but not keen to go out, then I will go out on my own. I don't worry about it - just keep alert and ever watchful. I think I have only ever felt really uncomfortable once, when I was wandering around a city centre garden and there were a group of teenage lads hanging about being loud and obnoxious. Although it didn't seem to be directed at me, I felt sure that if I were to walk past them, something would happen - whether verbal or physical. So I just slinked off in another direction and got out of their line of sight. Hid round the corner for a wee while until they'd gone. Use your instinct - if it doesn't feel right, or if the area looks dodgy just leave. We have recently acquired a wee dog and she accompanies me on caches now, but I doubt she'd be much good at defending me! I always carry a small aerosol of hairspray though - the idea being that I would theoretically squirt it in the eyes of anyone who tried to attack me. Mind you, I'd have to try and get it out of the rucksack pocket first! I would be much more scared of meeting a stag whilst out caching - I did a cache last week where there was some sort of large mammal in the woods close to me - I could hear it bellowing! Now that was frightening - knowing that there was something in there which may have been watching me, and not knowing what it might do! My heart was thudding and adrenalin racing as I tried to get out of there quickly without letting wee man know why we had to scarper fast - didn't want to panic or alarm him!