wildlifewriter

And I bet the the Forestry Commission - and all the other bodies who are party to caching agreements - are under the impression that cachers are being shown the guidelines about DSWs (and other things) in a proactive manner. Perhaps it's time they were, as my suggestion above suggests. -Wlw.

I wonder if it would be as difficult as all that... When the new cache info page is being completed, it already has some automated country-specific configuration - this triggers after the "Location" field has been selected. I'm sure that it wouldn't be beyond gc.com's ingenuity to pop-up some additional info (or even just a link) at this point. Worth asking about, perhaps. -Wlw.

To put some numbers on this, I just went over the 200-or-so physical caches that I've found - mostly in Ireland. Of those two hundred, seven were hidden in, on, or right at the base of a DSW. Of those seven... * One was subsequently re-located by its owner. * At least four were hidden before the guideline was introduced. That leaves only two: One where the wall collapsed, and one where damage to the wall is evident. Given that there are an awful lot of dry stone walls over here, it seems that there is a problem - but not a BIG problem. -Wlw.

Try it again - you need to zoom right in (0.2 miles) to see street-level detail in (say) the centre of Cambridge. I own Metroguide and City Select 7, and I can assure you that there's a hulluva lot more detail than on Ye Olde Basemappe R&R Europe has been discontinued, which is a pity because it WAS very good. Hth, -Wlw.

Quite normal. Wait 'til you try to find the ones that are 600ft from where they're supposed to be. -Wlw.

I doubt it... ...but carrying around a 198C and the 12-volt automobile battery to power it, might take some of the fun out... -Wlw.

You could be killed if all the bricks in your house failed, pretty much simultaneously - but this is statistically improbable. It would be even less probable, if you were able to remotely monitor the condition of every single brick twenty-four hours a day. This hardly practical for bricks - but the GPS Master Control Station DOES do it for satellites. In fact, they've just improved their facilities for doing so... USCG Info page -Wlw.

That would be eight, less one already launched a couple of days ago. The other seven aren't just lying around, though - they're being upgraded... Source: Lockheed Martin press release -Wlw.

Have you considered connecting the VistaC to your XDA via USB? Should work - given the correct cable, of course. -Wlw.

Nice to see that Garmin are still listening to their customers - or (at least) to their beta testers... * Support to import .LOC files has been restored, so we don't have to get on Jeremy's case about them vs GPX, anymore. * The number of selectable map datums has increased, again - I can't find any common ones missing, now. * The trick with Google Earth is nice, but the advanced features for route avoidance are even better. All good stuff... -Wlw.

QUEST 1: *Here (among other places) QUEST 2: Yes. *Notes: Metroguide7 covers Scotland. As a bonus, it also covers the rest of Europe. -Wlw.

This picture appeared on the home page cycle for about a week in May. It was taken on the way to a FtF at GCMYH8 - Crom Cache, which is in the middle of a lake in County Fermanagh. The pic shows a young feller whom I employed to drive the boat... ...can't remember his name, unfortunately. -Wlw.

I didn't realise that this is what "Dusting Off" meant...!

Well done, Andy! Keep up the good work, and you'll overtake her for sure... ...eventually. -Wlw.

The Lurking Expert says Yes, you can load whatever Garmin maps become available. Because the Quest2 is a pretty new model, it's likely that you have the latest version of whatever mapping it came with. -Wlw.

"from now on we shall target caches from all places and take them to form one, one almighty cache, a cache to end all caches." -Wlw

On my recent, fairly well-publicised trip to dust off some of the more remote and inaccessible caches off the west coast of Ireland, I was foolish enough to stay at the luxurious Station House Hotel in Clifden. The room accommodation was fine, but the restaurant that evening was like a 30-year trip backwards in time... The whole dinner menu was composed in a sort of corrupted Irfranglais, with even recognisable words mis-spelled. Some of the dishes on offer were so baffling that I was forced to consult the head waiter about them... “... and is this really what it says?” Grilled lambs' liver pate, with confitt of Sevile marmalade “Yes Sir, grilled liver pate it is all right, very nice too Sir.” Well, I'd never heard of anyone grilling pate before, so I had to order it, out of curiosity. Once served, it appeared that the Chef's idea had been: to cover slices of liver with pate, and toast the whole lot under a grill. Those of you who can cook will realise at once what the outcome of this insane recipe would be. Having sent back the plateful of raw sliced liver, surrounded by melted fat with bits of floating mince in it, I ordered the “Soup du Joure” instead. (Vegetable.) This was quite good – and would have been even better if it hadn't been stone cold. At this point I ordered a second bottle of red wine, as it was becoming obvious that this was one of those meals which is best consumed while blind drunk. The main course (selected as being eatable with one hand as my left arm was still in a sling) had been described on the menu as “Lentil curry”. In my innocence, I assumed that this would (i) have lentils in it, and (ii) be a curry. No such luck. I don't know what it was, and I hope never to find out. The only things I do know are: it looked revolting, and smelled even worse than it looked. There was (of course) no question of eating it. By this stage, remember, more than an hour had passed and my entire meal had been half a plate of cold soup and some bread. I finished the bottle of wine and staggered out into the streets of Clifden to search for some kind of sustenance. There didn't seem to be anywhere serving food at that time of night, but there were plenty of pubs serving drink. With peanuts. It was a going to be a long night... -Wlw.

Nearly missed it... Well done Sally and Mike! Can the next SGDO be nearer to sea level, for us old people please??? -Wlw.

400 Well dodgy, Donedave! (oops)

One month. (It says, here.) -Wlw.

It's not a requirement? So if a person is chosen to be a reviewer and they don't want to be one, they have to be one anyway? Strewth! They're a ruthless crew at Geocaching.com, and no mistake. How does that work - children kidnapped and held hostage? Severed horse's head in the bed one morning? It's an offer you can't refuse... -Wlw.

Of course there is... ... and people still wonder why these need to be moved off the "proper" geocaching listing site. -Wlw.

You have overlooked two salient points, here... (1) There is no need for an Irish reviewer. (2) Even if one was to be sought, there are only a tiny handful of people with the necessary knowledge, experience and free time, to do it. Of those who could do it, almost all of them don't want to do it. The one person who wants to do it, is the last person any sensible person would want to see doing it... -Wlw.

I'm afraid I don't know anything about the English version. There is an Irish version, which is called PAAT. The PAAT system (which is still under development) is modelled on the European Egnos project, but is even more disorganised. Ionospherical data is collected by a network of mobile ground stations disguised as abandoned roadworks on the N4. The corrections are transmitted by transient transponders aboard the BEJAYSUS spacecraft, which is in a geoimaginary orbit over Ballyjamesduff. Initial testing has shown mixed results: The PAAT system was able to track the movements of Paddy McGinty's goat with sub-metre accuracy, and the Bishop of Killaloe with sub-mitre accuracy. A seperate trial showed that certain members of the Geocaching Ireland Group had positions which were too far to the right, or left - and sometimes both at the same time. Attempts to correct these anomalies have failed. From its inception, the project has been dogged by allegations of financial irregularity, and a grant of 175,000,000 euro was withdrawn at the last minute by Paddy Power Bookmakers. Irish Minister for Space, Seamus O'Bribe, denied that any of the funding had been misspent. Speaking from his 150' luxury motor yacht in Monte Carlo, Mr. O'Bribe said: "I deny that any of the funding has been misspent." The PAAT system is now expected to become operational in Q4 of 2032. (Source: Irish Potato Growers Weekly)

Any reviewer can approve any cache. The one mentioned may be more distant than England, but not as distant as Polynesia. "These are small - but the ones out there are far away.." -Wlw