The QCs

In March of this year, my 5 year old brought home a magazine from school (Primary Times) that had an article about Geocaching. She browsed it and said it looked good...the rest is history. We both used to be heavily into Triathlons and running, but kids stopped us competing/training as much as we once would have. This seemed a great way to get out and about plus involve the whole family. The 5 year old loves it, the baby now knows how to search under benches and us adults are addicted! We've visited so many places close by that we never knew existed.

Thank you, Graculus, you have made one 5 year old very very happy. This is her first puzzle cache so she is very excited by this. Many thanks.

I do know how to search, but I wasn't sure if the cache was called 'The Mission' or went by another name or just contained the word 'Mission'..of which there are 1065 search results. Thanks though for the link. I'm intrigued and will hand it over to Daddy QC to ponder! The ones around Bath look very very good too! Decisions, decisions! Thanks for all the suggestions.

GC code please! Sounds interesting! Would the kids be ok with it? <- added by the 5 year old

We started caching 7 months ago and next month we will hit our 1000th cache. We would like to find a very memorable cache to celebrate our milestone. Can you recommend a memorable cache (or even a series) for us? We would prefer it to be somewhere in the South e.g Berks, Oxon, Wilts, Hants, Surrey, Bucks, Avon etc We have two kids with us so a cache that is family friendly would be excellent. It doesn't need to be buggy friendly though as Little QC has a backpack to sit in. Many thanks for any ideas!

That would explain it! My daughter has been checking my email every 10 minutes for the past week to see if her puzzle cache had been published. I have failed to tell her that it is partly my fault for filling in some of the form wrongly...and then failing to re-submit it once I'd realised my mistake!

That really is a spectacular cache. We all enjoyed that one, it is well worth a visit.

The baby and I hit our 700th cache today. We've been caching now for just over 6 months, so we're really pleased with getting to 700. 99% of those have been with the buggy....we're now pros at negotiating stiles, gates and obstacles!

I'll add you to my blogging list...which also contains 'cassandy' and 'Chaos Crew'!

Thanks all for the cache infos and lists/bookmarks. It was a fun challenge to do and one day, we'll try it again in the hope of improving on 7 cache types. I'll add though, that it did take all day, unlike Delta's 8 caches in 3 hours! It took a bit of planning as I didn't want to find any caches which involved too many gates and stiles- makes getting the pushchair over a bit tricky when on my own. I also wanted some caches where we could find a baby friendly place for lunch and also a chance for him to run around a bit and burn off some energy. I also couldn't go too far from home as the 5 year old needed picking up from school. I also had a back up Puzzle cache just incase I hadn't solved one correctly. It was a very fun day.

Last week I set myself a challenge of seeing how many cache types I could find in one day. I managed 7 (puzzle, Earth, webcam, virtual, trad, multi, letterbox). I should have waited a week and added an event to the list, but I was rather pleased with my 7. A nice comment on my blog about the 7 cache types has led me to discover there are icon challenge caches about e.g GC1K9PZ Are there many other caches like this? Many thanks.

We (Little QC and myself) found 7 different cache types in one day today. We had a lot of fun with this personal challenge. Mummy QC (formally known as BabyDippy)

I make new aims all the time. We only started in April this year so still relatively new. My main aim is to reduce the percentage of traditional caches, so I am on a drive to find more multis, puzzles, virtuals etc...I'm not doing very well with though! Our next milestone will be 600 caches. I also want to try and clear the caches within 5 miles- 7 to go! Next aim will be 7.5miles! BabyDippy (age 5) wants to find as many TBs and coins as possible. TinyDippy (age 11mths) just likes having a ride in the buggy DaddyDippy wants to cache in as many counties as possible in the UK. He also wants to fill the D/T grid! As a family we aim to get out once a week, twice if we can.

I found 2 Geocoins tonight- neither had been logged into the cache. The last person to find the multi-cache was back in June so it isn't a cache with a lot of traffic...shame really, I loved this multi. One of the coins I'd found was registered as 'missing'. I can now move it on this weekend. The other coin I found tonight hasn't been moved since the beginning of May. Again, I'll move that on this weekend. Don't give up hope, perhaps some coins and TBs have been dropped into a cache and just never logged. I try and put TBs into caches with more traffic so that the TB can keep moving. We have 5 TBs out, one has logged a total of 0 miles, the others are just hitting the 100 mile mark so slower going than I thought.

We found a cache recently with a condom in it. All fine and well...safe caching etc etc, but not overly appropropriate for my 5 year old who thought she could swap a toy dinosaur for a strawberry sweet/candy!

As a spin off from the 'Wlaes Youngest Cacher' thread...what do you use as a buggy/stroller/pushchair when out geocaching? We started off with an Out nAbout Nipper with 12in wheels. It was good. Then a friend of mine in the US offered me her BOB Ironman stroller. I paid for shipping and over it came. It has 16in wheels, fab suspension, huge seat, storage space, folds small, excellent sunshade, lightweight and um, yellow! It does attract the flies a bit! Caching in Portsmouth We covered just over 400 caches now in 4 months with this buggy. The only probs I have are when I'm out on my own with the kids and I have a stile or gate to contend with. 16in wheels seem to be able to tackle most terrains quite easily. We also have a backpack carrier for the TinyOne but it is just hassle having to take it off everytime we need 3 sets of eyes to look for a cache. I also use an Ergo sling for cache and dashes, but again, not easy when the cache is on the floor and you need to bend down with a child strapped to you!

Thanks, that's excellent!

Is there a place to register these Trig points? We have one on our cache series. Is there anywhere where you can register finding them? Looks like another thing to collect!

Excellent, thank you all!

Has anyone been caching recently in the New Forest? We are heading there shortly and would quite like to take in a few caches. Are there any series that we can do? We are limited in how far we can walk (up to about 5 miles) as we have a 5 year old with us...she could ride her bike though, plus we have the boy in the buggy so stiles and gates are not overly favourable, but do-able. The 5 year old does enjoy finding a lot of caches, she's not the 'walk miles and find one cache' type! So, can you recommend something that is buggy friendly, has a lot of caches for the 5 year old and will give us parents a nice walk? Many thanks Mummy Diplodocus.

Our car finally got spotted and logged! We met another Geocacher whilst out doing a circuit, he'd parked near us so we asked him to have a good look at our car when he'd finished the circuit!

I never leave home with out The Garmin Phone/money Pen Swag Diapers Baby Wipes Baby milk and bottle Fruit snacks BOB stroller Baby! 300+ caches in 3 months for the baby! He's hooked!

We did 2 series in Devizes a few weekends ago- we stayed at a basic campsite just outside of the town. This was the weekend we got 57. Both series were about 5 miles. Caches were of decent size and with quite a few goodies in each one. My 5 year old was happy!

We recently spent a weekend in Devizes doing two of the larger trails there. My 5 year old loved both series as the caches were close together, this meant she had no complaints about the distance between the caches- we could hand her the GPS and off she'd go. The longer series allow us to have a picnic half way round which the 5 year old also loves. Doing odd caches here and there is a pain for us. We have to unload two kids, set up the pushchair for the tiny one, head off, find the cache, dismantle buggy, load two kids into the car. I can do these in the week with only the Tiny one in tow. So for us, the more caches per mile, the happier the 5 year old is! We just enjoy being out.

Ok, this caching bug is not going to be disappearing any time soon, so a new GPS purchase maybe the order of the day. Can you help me please? Right now I have a very very basic Garmin etrex but I want to upgrade. I also have a Nokia X6 with Geocachinglive installed on it. I quite like the Geocachinglive (when it works and when it doesn't suck the life out the phone's batteries). Is there a similar thing I can get for GPS unit. I want a nice colour screen with maps and caches located on it. Right now, I write down the co-ords and head out the door. This gets me lost quite often especially on longer cache series! So, I need something where I can follow or just see a route. I guess I could take a map, but that means plotting everything onto it. Is there something that can do this for me? what would you recommend so that I don't have to write down co-ords all the time, has a colour screen and works similarly to Geocachinglive. Many thanks, MummyDiplodocus! BabyDiplodocus (5 years old) is hankering after the Garmin etrex for herself so would love for me to buy something new!