Copepod

A few observations I've found with wet boots: (1) Wear woollen socks, as these don't feel cold and clammy, even when wet. (2) Wring out socks after stepping in water, even if you have to replace wet boots. (3) When stopped in a building, placing a lightly screwed ball of newspaper and replacing when wet, helps to dry out boots slightly quicker. (4) Dry socks in plastic bags in wet boots = dry feet. Not really suitable for walking long distances, just for round camp. A very popular technique at overnight campsites of mountain marathons in the UK, particularly the OMM held in late October each year. (5) Personally I've found that waterproof socks are very good at retaining water, if you step in water above their tops. (6) Using walking poles sometimes makes the difference between crossing a stream / creek / burn etc on stones with relatively dry feet and crossing on the bed with resulting wet feet. (7) Gaiters also help to keep water out of boots during stream crossings. Yeti gaiters have almost complete seals, which mean dry feet even when crossing calf deep streams. I've found them essential in Greenland, Svalbard and South Georgia (South Atlantic, not USA), as well as very useful in Europe.

I'm slightly puzzled - don't people with serious allergies in the US carry adrenaline (European name) / epinephrine (US name) pens to administer?

One more tip to visitors to the UK - use postcodes to search for newarby caches. To find a postcode (a single postcode serves approx 10 houses or one business), start with any postcode in the town / village you are going to eg Tobermory (make sure it is Tobermory, not Ballamory - you'll find out while when you get there, both names are linked to popular children's TV programmes) hotel or bed & breakfast is a good place to get a postcode. Obviously, need to make sure you get the right side of the water if visiting an island. Near Oban, GCGBFR Marylanders on Kerrera (a small island) is fun. Re adders - In 41 years of life, mostly in the UK, I've only ever seen three, one basking on a tree stump in Keilder Forest in Northumberland, while doing biology fieldwork, and two lying close together on the breakwater near Kirby Le Soken on the Essex coast (area used in Arthur Ransom's Secret Water). Nothing like the number of poisonous snakes I've seen in probably a total of 3 years spent in other countries, particularly Costa Rica, USA, Canada & Australia.

Cachers looking for GCABED Polar Bear's Folly and / or GCTATE Roam to Rome, at Wandlebury Country Park, just outside Cambridge, England UK, might see these beasties. www.bbc.co.uk/cambridgeshire/content/image_galleries/snow_eb_07_gallery.shtml Can't guarantee the snow, though!

Before geocaching started, in Dec 1987 / Jan 1988, I was a member of the Australian & New Zealand Scientific Exploration Society expedition to the Windsor / Carbine Tablelands of northern Queensland. While looking for brush tailed bettongs (hoping marsupials with brush tails, usually carried rolled up) and yellow bellied gliders (gliding tree possums), we found a cache of gas cannisters, fertiliser, food, a rifle butt etc, hidden under some cam netting. Presumably, this was a supply dump for a marijuana grower, as there were some large patches in the rainforest. At the time (not sure if it's changed now), the penalty for having >100 plants was life imprisonment, same as for murder - which did make us not want to meet the owner! We reported it to other expedition groups, so that they could avoid the area, and also informed the police, but asked them not to take action until the expedition left in a couple of weeks. A few days later, Queensland Police raided one of the group camps, torches to eyes, guns to heads, but refused to say why - although due to the expedition rumour machine, our members did know why.

To Pirate Matt Having just done a cache, we realised we could have done it by kayak (we're members of Cambridge Canoe Club), but actually used bikes. So, if you're in the Cambridge / Granchester area with your boat, try Enigma - Mission 3 -Turing's Old School www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=bc3bea65-e562-42a0-b4fd-e639ae4a8e93 It's a nice easy paddle up the River Cam past Grantchester Meadows to Grantchester Mill and / or Byron's Pool. Perhaps we need a new symbol for kayak / canoe caches?!?

What about bikes? Here are links to 2 finds, with photos of 2 bikes I have used: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?II...mp;LID=17060142 and http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?II...mp;LID=12962534 Never felt the need to photograph my car, not take it near a geocacache!

What about bikes? I've done a lot of my caches by bike - not just those near home (Cambridge, England UK), but also a couple in Scotland, although I had to get an overnight train then a day train to Oban, then a ferry to the Isle of Kerrara, with bike. Lower CO2 emissions than if I'd driven all the way!

When risk risk reaches 5 (highest), Open Access areas can be closed by the authorities, although rights of way (footpaths, bridleways, byways etc) remain open. We're watching the situation in Yorkshire Dales National Park carefully, ahead of this weekend's Open 24 adventure race - see www.openadventure.com/open24.htm By the way, are there any instances of plastic boxes / bottles acting as lenses to start fires, like the bases of plastic bottles can? I appreciate that plastic containers tend to be much more regular thickness than glass bottles, which is the source of lenses in glass bottles.

Just an idea - should it be Portuguese speaking, rather than just Portuguese (the country)? There are French, German and Spanish speaking forums, and Portuguese speaking could also cover Brazil and Mozambique. Sorry, I'm not a Portuguese speaker, although I found French very useful for communicating orally, and Spanish for understanding written Portuguese, when I've travelled in Portugal over the years.

"PS Which caches was SP doing in Couhtryfile. I seem to remember some concrete cows and another cache in a random area of grassland." The only concrete cows I know of are in Milton Keynes - or at least they were there when I travelled by train between London Euston & Birmingham International / New St 1985 - 1988.

Cars run on petrol (not gas) or diesel in the UK. But fuel prices don't matter if you find your caches by bike, which is how I've done most of mine.

I'm surprised that the Falkland Islands and South Georgia are not listed as countries - even if both are dependent territories of the United Kingdom. In fact, very surprised that no-one has hidden a geocache in the Falklands - somewhere near Stanley, but away from minefields and away from Mount Pleasant military base / airfield. Perhaps AntarcticMan didn't go South this season?!? Running Penguin was thinking about it but didn't have time (nor his GPSr with him). In South Georgia, somewhere near the museum in Grytviken or Shackleton's Cross at King Edward Point would be the obvious places, as Grytviken is the port most visited by cruise ships.

Could any of you help if someone who spoke a major European language eg French, German, Spanish or Italian, let alone a less widely spoken one like Polish or Czech (languages spoken in European countries I visited most recently)?!?! I can manage French & Spanish, with a tiny bit of German (which was useful when speaking with older Poles), a a couple of words in most languages I've encountered, but that's it, I'm afraid. Fortunately, a Polish work colleague briefed me on some useful vocabulary and pronounciation of place names before I travelled - see www.sleepmonsters.co.uk then click on Race Reports and look at Bergson Winter Challenge (Feb / March 06)

Well, that's zip codes for you. Much easier with Canada Post codes or UK post codes! Each UK post code covers about 10 households or one business. Makes small scale epidemiological studies possible, which is particularly appropriate as the science was founded by John Snow, working on a cholera outbreak in Soho, central London in 19th century.

It's difficult to raise fallen gravestones. I helped with a few at Leith (former Norwegian whaling station) on the island of South Georgia in Dec 03, as a leader of a British youth expedition - see photos on: http://www.wildisland.demon.co.uk/sgcems/index.htm By the way, no geocaches on South Georgia, or even in the Falkland Islands, although there are several in Antarctica.

Paperback book caches - see www.bookcrossing.com - it already happens. By the way, in the 1980s, while travelling a lot in Europe & the Middle East, I used to leave paperbacks in hostels & cheap hotels, swapping where possible with other travellers, always leaving my address in the book and asking the next reader to send a postcard. Several did so. Probably even more would have emailedl if that had been available then.

I found "The Last Post" cache on 26th Dec 05. This is at the American Cemetery at madingley, just outside Cambridge, England, UK. It's a military cemetery, on land donated by the University of Cambridge, to commemorate the American servicemen & women who died in World War II. The cache involves finding data from a gravestone (by the way, to someone used to Commonwealth War Graves all over the world, where individual gravestones are identical, it seems unusual to concentrate on the religion of the person, indicated by stars and crosses) and then finding the cache itself on a border fence. Also, signs at the entrance forbid several activities - from memory, jogging, picnicing, dog walking etc.

Postcodes are why the UK postal system should be one of the most efficient in the world - for about 30 years, every small residential area (about 20 houses) or single business has its own postcode eg NE6 4SJ = Cartington Terrace, Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne. It makes it possible to carry out epidemiological research based on small areas eg SAHSU Small Areas Health Statistics Unit at Imperial College, London. Similar accuracy is also possible in Canada, but zip codes in the USA or 4 digits codes in Australia and New Zealand only get you to a town or city suburb. I know that's not what Octavia was asking, but at least this is less USA - centric than most posts on geocaching forums.

There's a cache at the American WWII cemetery at Madingley near Cambridge, England at: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...fd-9859591f9f54 Easily reached from Cambridge by bike or open topped tourist bus all year round.

My neices (age 4 and 6 years) & Mum weren't available, so I took my Dad (age 68 years) instead to a geocache within 500m of his home. He loved it! I only started geocaching this year, aged 38 years. Never too old to start, either!