Crafty Turtle

Wanting to place my first cache, I did a test of the spot, and hit "Mark" on my Garmin. But the signal drifts around, and while I was there, I put the "Mark" in half a dozen spots. I tried walking away and coming back, but I still get different readings. They are all within 5-7 metres, so how do I determine what the actual coordinates are? Do I pick a spot in the middle/median of all the "Marks"?

I cache alone mostly. ...with my dog mostly. Like hukilaulau I did a lot of bushwalking / bushbashing / coasteering on my own anyway, long before I discovered geocaching. Geocaching has just shown me more places to go. In some cases, geocaching has kept me safer - instead of bushbashing straight up a gully by dead reckoning "to see where it goes," I am now bushbashing straight up a gully following a blip on my GPS to find a cache. If you are worried, keep the safe-and-easy drive-ups and walk-ups for the solo trips, and find a friend to accompany you for the more risky ones.

How about dressing as a pine tree, and telling people there is a well hidden micro. ...with an appropriate FTF prize, of course.

I'm new to caching, and I'm enjoying the game of playing spies. That's part of the excitement. The only one where I felt guilty, was a micro-magnetic on the ornate iron fence of a Catholic Church. Midday Mass has just got out, leaving me wondering if I should just leave. All those sweet old ladies, and the priest in his robes - and here's me doing something sneaky and covert in front of God and all. But you can't hide from God, just Muggles, so I searched more and found what I was looking for.

At a recent cache, I couldn't help but notice the used drug paraphernalia strewn about. It was right behind a high school. <shakes head>

The cache less than 1/2 a mile from your home is still a DNF.

F for Family Fun. ...microcaches are not fun for families. (no swaps, no rewards, too hard for the littlest kids to find) Also F is for frustration and fiendishness.

YIPPEE!!!!! I have maps on my Garmin! HOORAY!!!!!!! I bought a microSD card this morning from a local office supplies store, for $6.45c. Now it all works! It all seems so simple now, but I couldn't have done it without your help. Thanks again. Now I have some geocaching to do.... Happy Trails. Crafty Turtle

Oh wow, JDiablo, that website is most helpful. I have now progressed to the point where I can select the 3 areas I want (why do I have to live on a mapsheet border?) But now I see I need to have a memory card. I will go ahead now and buy one / order one online, then I will continue with the instructions. sigh. Thank you enormously for your help. I'd still be a blubbering floundering mess otherwise.

Thanks DeadHead82, I'm a bit calmer now - I've been out for a walk. Okay, I have MapSource (version 6.15.6) open, and underneath the toolbar, I have a row of icons (tools) then there is a left panel with tabs and such, and the right panel is the map. I don't know where the map is coming from. ...maybe the internet. It is the same map that was there when I installed MapSource. So I'm thinking I don't have it installed. ...even though I followed the instructions from the CD. I really appreciate you helping me.

Another good tool-of-the-trade: a dog. She is very useful for blending into the background as just another dog walker. Also, the appearance of, ahem, scooping poop is just hiding the fact I've found the cache and I need to kneel down to retrieve it and sign the log.

Forgive me I'f I'm hijacking a thread. I too am trying to get City Navigator onto my GPS unit I have a DVD. I have it put it in my computer. I have unlocked it and retrived the unlock code. This is where I get stuck. The page at Garmin website just tells me it is unlocked. That's it. No further help or hints. I have Mapsource. I can see what I *think* is City Navigator. It might not be. It just appears what I start Mapsource. I tried following the instructions above, but got stuck on "Click on the dropdown menu at the top left. Select the City Navigator maps you want to install to your memory card." Do you mean the file menu? I don't think I have the maps actually on my computer. It did a lot of installing when I put in the DVD, but it didn't tell me what it was doing. I'm a professional cartographer and web developer (two university qualifications), and I'm stumped. I do this sort of stuff all day every day. But I've just got a new gps, and suddenly I feel like a newbie again. It is such a humbling experience. Somebody please help me, I am ready to cry. I have: a City Navigator DVD, a Garmin 60csx, a computer with DVD drive, card slot, and internet access. Thanks in advance.

Might I also suggest that the swag is a decent number of things. Families who geocache can have 4 or more kids - they'll all want to swap.

Hmmm, yes. Very good points. Technically, the spot is legal, in that is part of the pedestrian crossing, and on road reserve, not railway reserve. Then again, one would assume a pedestrian would walk directly from one side to the other, and not stop and be distracted by another activity. That point alone is enough for me to ax this spot. I'll keep searching for a spot for my "cheeky" hide. Thanks for your input.

Sounds like a lot of fun. Very exciting for families too. Make sure you inform ppl on the cache page the cost of boat hire, as well as their hours of operation. ...without sounding like commercial advertising.

There's an abandoned siding alongside a local active railway. The siding is rusty, sleepers are worn, etc. Right near the "loose" end of the siding, there a road crossing, and off to the side, a pedestrian crossing. I cross here every day, and I have spotted a darling spot for a magnetic micro - underneath one of the rails, where the ballast has gone away. It is right at the pedestrian crossing, so it is in a spot where people are allowed to go. And if you want to get fussy, that particular spot is technically road, not railway. (Yes I did check the Land Office's plans) What do you think? Bad spot? Clever spot?

Well that's just too easy. Why didn't I think of it? Thanks! And it also means I get to publish the coordinates to my house. ...I am such a nerd.

Yup - I agree with a lot of the advice here - as long as you put *something* in the cache page to say "reach" or "stretch" or whatever, that is enough. Imagine getting to a cache, only to discover you must cross a 20 foot wide, 18 inch deep creek. Don't you wish you were more prepared? It's not the challenge that's annoying, it's the fact that you weren't told. Geocaching is supposed to be fun. ...for the cacher, that is, not the trap-setter...er um I mean cache-hider. This is geocaching, not "Survivor". Aside: I'm 5'2", and I still do caches that say "reach". It's my choice. I go in informed.

Here in Australia, in the "bush", we have no poison oak, no poison ivy, no ticks, no bears, no coyotes, and nothing that wants to eat you. However, we do (I believe) have 4 of the 10 most poisonous snakes in the world, some deadly spiders, and huge areas of land where there's no civilised settlement for 100s and 100s of miles. Meh. You win some, you lose some. But the real issue is, you don't often encounter this stuff. Oh, it's out there, but I think in 40 years, I've seen 1 redback spider, and one copperhead snake. ...and the redback was cos my Dad saw it and wanted to show us kids what it was. His advice was "Don't touch it." Sensible man. Personally, I LOVE the bush. I am, however, taunted by the urban caches - the ones in car parks, bridges, posts, pylons, derelict buildings, abandoned railway stations, etc. I think "what's the point of those?" I mean, you can see the exact spot on google earth, with the streets, the buildings, etc, so you go there, hunt for a bit, and voila! At least with the bush caches, you have to rely on your GPS to get you in and out. On google earth, one tree looks like the next, in a 4 square mile forest. I tell ya what - let's be a dual - you do the urban stuff, and I'll stay in the woods.

Wow! Cool program! Sigh - where was this technology when I was a camper? We didn't even have it when I was a camp counsellor. (do they still call them that?) I taught kids how to interpret contour lines on a topographic map. And with a compass and string I had them step and mark out the word "CAMP" on the parade lawn. I salute you for teaching kids this stuff. I just wanted to say that.

Half an hour. ....if it's a wilderness cache with nobody around to catch me, and I can merrily scratch away at tree roots and such. If I can't find it after half an hour, I start to get all "grrrrrr". 5 minutes. ....for an urban cache where stealth is necessary. I can sit and look around at possible hidey holes, but if traffic doesn't allow me to stick my hand in there, then I'll go away and come back later - maybe at night or very early morning when there's nobody around. So - two time limits for two reasons. (the first is a logged DNF, and the second is a "come back later")

That'd be my kind of micro. Hehehe - in a rural area near a construction site, you could lay an orange one down on the ground, real casual like, and cachers would walk right over it. The look so much like the tri-posts they use to hold up that orange mesh fencing.....that get knocked down, blown away, strewn about, etc. HA! I love it - a bright orange cache in full view! Nobody would suspect it!

Try "Google Chrome" - it is a simplified web browser, and very very stable. It also has more user-friendly methods of enhancing for accessibility. * Have you tried another Browser? * Have you tried rebooting your computer? * Did you know I used to work in I.T.? Um... apart from that, ...I hope you get it working.

I am planning a multi.... The cache itself is at the creek - a box: locked with a 3-digit combination lock. The 3 digits are my house number up the road (1/4 mile, tops). It's clearly visible on the letterbox. Which way round should I do this? Option 1 - the traditional way round___ If I do the letterbox first, I have to have the co-ordinates for the real cache on (at the back of) the letterbox, plus a note to remember the house number. This means A. ppl would have to step onto my property (which I don't have a problem with, but they might), and B. I have landscapers there till Christmas, so there's a high chance of being muggled. Not to mention the landscaper asking me what's these coords on the letterbox for. Yeah, right, like he won't notice? Option 2___ If I do the actual cache first, I need to put the coords of where the lock-code is to be found, and they have to head up the hill (with our without the cache), find the number (from a strategic non-chalant distance), and come back down the hill to replace the cache Option 1 is more risk of being spotted, whereas Option 2 involves retracing steps. Both fairly minor, but I'd still like opinions. And how do I get around the obstacles? Opinions? Advice?

I too have fashioned retrieval tools on the spot - one stick I dubbed "Mr Pokey" was used to poke a particularly stubborn magnetic cache from between a corrugated iron roof and a roof beam. In true geocaching style, I recycled/reused Mr Pokey as a fetch toy for geodog. But yeah - my backpack is still changing its contents as I do more different kinds of caches (urban, forest, mountain, etc)