Copepod
-
Posts
99 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by Copepod
-
-
Or ask a Czech friend / colleague to translate for you? Perhaps wise to include both Czech and English versions in the cache text.
-
There's a cache based at the American Cemetery, Madingley, just west of Cambridge: GCGGGR The Last Post.
-
I like the idea of Wandlebury Present, GC2BQ6C, which is a multi, using numbers on orienteering permanent course posts to calculate final co-ords. Seems ideal for Cubs, who could also do the orienteering course in the same park.
-
I found a trig point very close to GC1C1JS Lookout Post, on Solway Firth, near Hadrians Wall Trail, 27 Sept 2010, and added photo of it with my post.
That'll be S6938 Glasson
Definitely the same trig point that I photographed for my GC1C1JS post - thanks Agentmancuso.
-
I found a trig point very close to GC1C1JS Lookout Post, on Solway Firth, near Hadrians Wall Trail, 27 Sept 2010, and added photo of it with my post.
-
I'd recommend a trip to Wandlebury Country Park, just outside Cambridge, where you'll find 4 caches, called Cambridge Past (multi), Cambridge Present (multi) and Cambridge Future (traditional), Polar Bear's Folly (virtual), while wandering round beech woods, an Iron Age ring ditch, 18th century stables, Highland cattle, Texel sheep, orienteering posts etc.
-
Two issues here -
(1) potential damage to tree, which is minimised by screwing into bark, rather than wood
(2) potential damage to anyone handling tree at a later date, but failing to notice metal eg using chainsaw to cut up logs when felled; minimised by either screwing into bark, which may be removed before cutting; and / or making it obvious that something is attached - difficult to be be sure, as hook part may drop off, leaving just screw part in tree.
Not a good idea using dead trees - bits tend to drop off. Stumps are different, though.
By the way, I work as an assistant ranger at a country park, where we try to balance the needs of visitors, including geocachers, orienteers, dog walkers etc; with nature conservation.
-
Does being bitten by an adder count?
Lesson learned = ALWAYS wear gloves before groping in a hole/under a log for the cache!
Off topic - I'm very impressed that your Marine Biology course included snake handling! Actually, I had handled snakes when local reptile club members came to tropical fish club in Birmingham. My MB highlight was a sea survival course before going on research cruises on North Sea, plus cycling round Isle of Cumbrae to visit many rocky beaches. Course didn't really help with our major incident when a student went towards bow to be sick (very rough North Sea), then became unconscious leaning over rail, where fortunately she was spotted by another student who pulled her back onto deck, then had to call for help as she landed on top of him. Student was dragged onto a rubber mat on cabin. As there were 2 of us who were qualified nurses, we were left to get on with maintaining airway in a semi-conscious vomiting person, which is a fairly serious situation. Kneeling on metal deck was pretty cold, too. Deckhand was a real star, handing cloths, plastic bags, mugs of hot drink at regular intervals. Biggest challenge was not falling onto casualty, as boat rocked from side to side. All went well until my fellow nurse started being sick, leaving me in sole care. After about 30 mins we reached port, and casualty's sea sickness ceased as soon as she got off the boat. After more hot drinks, everyone was fit and well. However, she never came on another research cruise - and gave a box of liqueur chocolates for all involved to enjoy on river cruise just before Christmas.
-
Perhaps a mention of how orienteering works through the seasons might be useful?
(By the way, geocaching is discussed on www.nopesport.com orienteering forums)
late autum / winter / early spring - vegetation (particulalry nettles and brambles) dies back, so woods are used for daylight and nighttime (with head tocrches) races
spring - bird nesting season, so some woods & moors are off limits to orienteers, although restrictions on general public, often with dogs, are rarer
summer - light evenings mean midweek low key events in city parks and country parks are organised
September - most popular month for CATI (Come And Try It) events, so now's a good time to use a search engine for the name of your lcoal city / county and orienteering, then get along one weekend this month (some may already have happened
-
Cache density varies all over, a PQ of my local area for say 500 caches will give a radius of 15 miles or so. In a part of East Anglia I visit this will be nearer 30 miles.
I'd love to know where you go caching in East Anglia
I reckon there are barely 500 in the whole area! Once you get to Newmarket / Bury and go East, you hit upon a cache every 10 miles it seems.
I was staying in Bury last week and I did a quick zoom around.
For a fairly sized Market town (that supports a large area) it's pretty rubbish.
35,000 people can produce just this many caches?
As opposed to where I now live. admittedly, I own half the caches but even so....
You can do similar comparisons with Ipswich / Milton Keynes etc.
Norwich is OK, but all the areas around are barely touched.
It's a shame - East Anglia has few hills and suits the casual walker. It's mainly agricultural so isn't full of urban sprawl.
If you count Cambridge as being in East Anglia, there are lots around here, both in the city and in surrounding villages, Roman Roads etc. I used to work in Coventry (similar sized city to Cambridge) once or twice a week, and downloaded a few there, but only had time to search for a couple, when midday breaks were long enough.
-
Thanks for these lists - I'll be using them for my walk in late Sept 2010.
-
Just for information, Royal Parks have permitted Rat Races to use their grounds (see http://www.ratraceadventure.com/page27.asp ), and I'm pretty sure there have been orienteering races in various Royal Parks. However, Rat Races (urban adventure races) and orienteering involve many people (up to 100s) visiting certain points over a relatively short period of time (few hours), with control boxes present for only slightly longer than the event itself.
-
My guess, based on reports of "dangerous" headstones in UK graveyards and cemeteries, is that it's a warning about not climbing on potentially unstable headstones, which might fall over and cause the victim to sue the church responsible for the graveyard or the council responsible for the the cemetery.
What area are you talking about?
-
I've found, and continue to keep an eye on, three caches in / around Wandlebury Country Park near Cambridge, where I work as a weekend Assistant Ranger - it's useful to let people know when the sheep arrive and in which field the cattle and sheep are at times. I've also found a few caches while out visiting people / schools / centres for medical research, although the logistics of getting an appropraite print out, having the GPS available and time / weather (can't get too muddy!) have somewhat limited my opportunities. I've also found a couple of caches while off duty as support driver or marshal (unpaid) for adventure races.
-
A couple of years ago I introduced a friend to caching. We did GCP5RD Via Duck Volts. My friend is a seasoned orienteer and a tough nut. To my amazement she walked, or strolled might be a better word, or even swanned, in shorts, through a terrifying thicket of nettles and did the quite difficult cache retrieval as casually as if she were getting a box of teabags out of a cupboard. I was amazed. Sadly - although a natural - she didn't take up caching, but when we meet up we she sometimes accompanies us.
I must be a softie, then, as I generally wear trousers for both orienteering & geocaching. However, for summer orienteering events, I have found that being a later starter helps, as other people have already trampled the nettles approaching a control before me, plus I often wear shorts with trainers and gaiters, as a compromise between temperature comfort and sting / prickle protection. Usually, hands and arms don't get stung so much in orienteering as controls are on short poles, unlike low placed caches.
-
I'm not particularly keen on micros, but I really enjoyed finding GC102DV Guide Stoops - Edale at my second attempt on 5th April 08, after a failed attmpt with partner on 13 Jan 08. As support driver for a team competing in Four Inns race, I only had time for 1 cache, so this was particularly satisfying. There's a series of caches at guide stoops in the Peak District - carved direction stones dating from 1700s - some are micros, others larger, depending on location, a classic example of appropraite sized caches for appropriate locations. GCGG9E StAG Hunt in Cambridge is also an interesting location (St Andrew the Great church), and retrieving without being spotted, adds to the challenge.
-
Dog mess is AWFUL AWFUL stuff. Cig ends are bad but I know which I'd rather step in and they're extinguished after a minute or so anyway. Dog muck is the worst substance ever created, it's fow, I'm gipping just imagining the smell
I'd rather step on an extinguished cigarette end, but I've had a couple of experiences where car passengers have thrown still alight cig ends out of their windows - right into my face, as I cycle past. This was as worker on the Addenbrookes Hosptial site (Cambridge) in 2006, which banned smoking ahead of the national English ban, but I'm sure they didn't intend smokers to assault cyclists!
As a ranger at Wandlebury Country Park just outside Cambridge, emptying dog mess bins is a considerable part of my job - more dog waste that other waste is left by visitors. We'd prefer if dogs left their mess just off paths, and that their owners didn't leave bags of waste anywhere other than the special dog waste bins - 3 were carefully located for this purpose, in response to requests from dog owners.
-
I took my sister and one of her daughters geocaching in a park near their home last year - my other niece and brother in law were off doing something else. My niece has been pestering her parents to take her geocahing ever since! Not that any of them were exactly inactive or overweight before! They did buy a GPSr on a vist from UK to USA over Christmas (purchase location due to exchange rate).
By the way, it's best to be normal weight and active, but better to be slightly overweight and active than normal weight and inactive.
-
Bomb squads in Europe are still finding bombs, shells, mines etc from WWI and WWII, usually rusty metal buried in the ground, found during excavations for new buildings / roads etc, but also washed up on beaches, especially when dislodged from a stash dumped at sea between Northern Ireland and Scotland, and sometimes nice shiny brass tubes that have been kept as door stops or in lofts since a previous or present owner was discharged from the armed forces. Also, it's not so long since the IRA was leaving bombs in Northern Ireland or Great Britain - I saw a lot of examples in the royal Engineers museum, where items such a dishwashing cloths and 8oz biscuit packets were used as packing and counter weights. I'm perhaps more aware of this than others, having done my MSc research into chemical incidents in Northern Ireland in 1998, the summer of the Omagh bomb, which killed 30 people from Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland and Spain. So, I reckon that any bomb squad has to play safe, assume a suspicious package is a bomb and act accordingly.
-
Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I'll follow up on East Anglia forum. Beds is next door to Cambs, and on the way home to Birmingham, so I'll look at that too - please do suggest some of your own caches, Beds Clanger!
-
Seeking suggestions for child friendly / appealing caches in Cambridgeshire, Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk.
I discovered geocaching as an adult, and last year introduced my sister and one of her daughters - 2 caches in a park local to their home, 1 involving jumping over a stream onto an island, so they loved it. In fact, niece kept nagging until they bought a GPSr. They live in Birmingham and have just got a campervan, so are beginning to travel away at weekends. I live in Cambridge, so I'm asking for suggestions of geocaches in East Anglia, for active girls aged 7 and 9 years, to be reached on foot or bike, after driving. If it can be combined with a permanent orienteering course, all the better, as they also enjoy that, after I introduced them - even my mother wished we discovered that sport as children! Also, as I'm a biologist, they expect me to find them interesting lifeforms or geological features along the way. Thanks for any suggestions!
-
A murder victim was discovered near to a cache site, GCGGQR, near Cambridge, in Jan 2005. Ironically, the cache is centred on an American cemetery!
-
Can anyone explain to me why so many cyclists ride on busy roads when the adjacent pavement has a cycle path on it? I know which I'd rather use.
From my cycling days I'd normally did not use the cyclepath beside a main road because typically the surface was poorly maintained and had bits of debris, glass etc on it. On a long stretch of road a good or bad road surface can be as important as a head or tail wind to a cyclist. You can really crack on with a nice smooth surface (or wide white lines).
And while I'm at it, yes, I did jump red lights too. Sometimes it's necessary for self preservation to get the jump on the rest of the traffic. The Elephant and Castle roundabout being an example. And I rode on pavements too, on occasion, so neh! Of course I pomposly fulminate now when I see cyclists doing it - big hypocrite that I am.
Another reason for cycling on the road rather than the parallel bike path / pavement is that cycling along the road, you do not have to stop and give way at each junction - it is a waste of momentum to stop at every junction. Also, some cycle paths have overhanging branches - brambles are particularly nasty - occasionally I make a special trip, carrying secateurs to correct the situation. Not sure that I agree about the surface being better, though, as the edge of a road often has more debris, broken glass, standing water etc.
-
A good international source of information and support is http://diabetic.friendsinhighplaces.org/ (MAD = Mountains for Active Diabetics) Not specifically for geocaching, but all outdoor activities.
looking for a club
in United Kingdom and Ireland
Posted
My Dad, who has come with me for a couple of finds very local to his house, recently went to the first meeting of Castle Bromwich U3A (University of the Thrid Age) and told me that their first planned activity meeting was walking with geocaching. I appreciate this is only relevent to over 55s or whatever age range they use.