niknrich

Pindale Farm is just on the Southern edge of OL1 so if you're planning on going further afield you'll also need OL24. HTH!

We went to the New Forest last year and had a lovely time: it's a beautiful area. I'd definitely recommend GCZ832 "Pip's Patch and a Naughty Monkey" - it's about a 5 mile walk (we walked to the start from Milford on Sea so it added a bit to our walk), but you could drive between the first two and third/fourth clues then walk or drive a bit closer to the final if legs were tired. The "Brews & Views" caches by nobby.nobs are nice too - we did the first two. Have fun!

We'd be up for it too, we live in Loughborough. There are several other Leics cachers who don't often frequent these forums (fora?) too, so maybe you could do a search for other locals and email them as well?

I'd almost forgotten I'd started this thread! Robert is alive and well, and we've been emailing him over the past couple of weeks. As previous posters said, he's decided to quit geocaching for various reasons, but the Coombe Raiders (CR) are helping him to re-distribute his caches. He was very touched to receive all the messages of concern/support, but maybe it's a reminder to us all that at the end of the day this is just a game and there's a real person/people behind the caching name. One man's boring micro is another's challenging hunt; one team's frustrating FTF-foiling puzzle is anothers' brain-teasing, Alzheimers-delaying evening of fun. We all like different aspects of the game, so there will always be caches some people don't like. That's not necessarily the fault of the owner and if a cache simply isn't one's cup of tea then remember: nobody made you do it! That's what the Ignore button is for. Most cachers spend considerable time and effort setting caches, and as we all know, even the simplest Tupperware-under-a-log hide takes a while to organise. Those who have done any of Robert's caches will know that he spends hours working on the challenges, and even the tiniest nanos are works of art. The reward for all of our efforts is to read the logs from people who've found the cache and share their experiences: surely one of the fundamentals of caching is to bring a little happiness to others by doing this? And conversely, an unnecessarily negative log for a cache you just didn't like is a bit of a slap in the face. I was reading a thread the other day on the "Back To Basics" caches - a great idea IMHO - but maybe it's time for a return to basic good manners in logs as well. As my mum would have said, "play nicely, or don't play at all"! Let's hope Robert has a change of heart and returns to entertain us with more of his genius caches.

I know what you mean there - we thought the logs/notes sounded like him too, but didn't want to email his address in case something awful had happened and it distressed his family/friends while they were trying to tidy up his affairs. Working in a hospital I (Nik) do tend to think the worst when such situations occur! Perhaps we'll drop him a line. Anyone else know anything?

Some of you who have been caching in the South Leicestershire area and the village of Croft may know of a cacher called EspritS3, or Robert, to give him his real name. His caches are legendary for their utter creativity and deviousness: up trees, in water, requiring an entire toolkit or home-made safe key to crack. We have done several of his caches and enjoyed all of them hugely, so we had a few on our watchlist to see what others thought of them. We were rather puzzled therefore to see that most of Robert's caches have been archived and the following note had been attached to the pages this week: "Bye Bye EspritS3. He Is Not With Us Anymore. I Hope You Found His Caches Both Novel & Entertaining. His caches maybe inplace for the next few days untill we have had time to collect them all in, if you want one last visit. We may place them in a big container and name it "Grab A Cache" so as you can reuse them. C.R." Does anyone know what has happened to him? We had the pleasure of meeting Robert in Croft one day and he seemed a really nice bloke, we sincerely hope he's ok and perhaps he's "reinventing himself" under a new identity. niknrich

We usually put stickers in logs and now have a design for every season, but for letterbox caches we use some stamps we bought in Australia: of Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House. I'll add a picture soon...

We found two in the Lake District, and like several others we didn't know what they were and thought they were mini-geocoins so we took them home. When we looked at the website we realised what to do, so we decided to put one in another cache and keep one. They make nice supermarket trolley tokens!

Would love to be able to adopt a few but as we are only able to visit the Lakes a couple of times a year I guess it wouldn't be allowed... But as we're coming up for a week from tomorrow (yay!) we'll do a bit of maintenance on any Golem caches we visit. Hope that helps.

Rich is an Essex Boy so we've done quite a few caches round there while visiting his parents. The Thorndon Park series is great and would make a good whole day out - it took us about 6 hours to find all 11 IIRC. We also liked the Langdon Hills ones, there are some nice views up there. Burberry (fake) attire is essential, obviously!

The same thing happened to our Legend C not long ago, so we contacted Garmin and after a bit of persistence they agreed to look at it. About 5 days later we received a brand new replacement GPSr in the post! Top service, Garmin! We emailed Andy.Phillips@garmin.com and he was very helpful.

Cows - eeeeeeeeeevvilllll.... I now have a cow phobia and will avoid fields containing cattle even if it involves a long detour. It started when we went to do a maintenance visit on one of our caches. On the way through one field the dairy herd were right at the other end from where the footpath crosses... on the way back they were standing ON the footpath, waiting for us and looking menacing. As there was no other way back to the car we decided to walk "confidently" through them, but as soon as we did they came trotting after us, and as we speeded up they did too, so it was a race to the stile - luckily we got there first! Then about a month ago the farmer father of a work colleague was trampled by his cows, resulting in broken ribs and sternum and severe bruising which put him in hospital for several days. Since then we seem to come across cattle in fields on every walk! As other posters have said, cows with calves are the worst, and dairy cows especially. I have read that beef cattle are more docile and a beef bull with cows is allowed in a field with a public FP running through it - as to whether I'd use it, that's another matter! Give me sheep any day...

Hi everyone Many thanks for all your responses and ideas, I think we have enough to last us for a few years now! We had considered Scotland but we're hoping to make a Summer trip North of the Border maybe next year to take advantage of (hopefully) better weather. So we'll be back for recommendations for that trip later! We're quite taken by the idea of the New Forest as we went to a wedding there last year and thought it looked nice. So if anyone can recommend particularly "must-do" caches, places to stay/eat/visit in the area we'd love to hear them. Happy caching niknrich

We're planning ahead and trying to decide on a location for a week's caching/walking holiday in September/October of this year, and we hoped you guys might be able to give us some ideas for places we've never been. To give you an idea of the sort of places we like, we go to the Lakes usually every New Year and early summer, Derbyshire/Peak District at Easter and North Norfolk in late summer. Nik's family live in Gloucs and Rich's in Essex so we're already familiar with those areas. We live in Leicestershire so we've done quite a few caches in the county as well as Notts/Derbyshire. We've been considering Wales or Devon/Dorset but are happy to receive any other ideas. We prefer self-catering accommodation, and would like a base that allows us to travel to several different areas over a week (rather than a tour along a route like the C2C walk for example). We can manage about 8 miles a day of walking and like to find as many caches as possible along the way. So are there any areas of the country people would recommend as having good walking and lots of nice caches as well as somewhere to stay and preferably some nice places to eat out in the evenings? Its a tall order I know but we're sure someone can come up with the goods! Looking forward to hearing your ideas! niknrich

Update: some excellent service from Garmin. We returned our GPS on Monday and today received back a brand new unit complete with software upgrade! Top marks for service and speed.

We've now had a couple of emails back from Andy Phillips, he is indeed very helpful and has told us where to return our unit. He said that repairs are currently taking 4 working days and that this small repair will be free of charge. Result! I'll post again with any significant news of the repair - but I won't be sending it back till after Easter as we will need it then (just in case).

There was a cache there as well! http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=gcn29c I couldn't find it in Oct 05 though (

Have emailed Andy Phillips, will await a response.... Thanks for all the feedback!

We're having the same problem: the rubber strip round our Legend C has come unstuck so we emailed Garmin about 3 weeks ago - no response yet. Will try writing next. If anyone manages to contact a specific person at Garmin who turns out to be helpful, please email us via our profile, thanks.

Hi Sorry to hear these caches are in danger of disappearing... we did Magic of Monsal last March and it's a really nice location. We're a bit far away to adopt them, but we'd be happy to do a one-off maintenance visit on Lathkill Love at Easter, as we'll be caching in the Peak District then. It was on our "to do" list anyway! Let us know if you'd like us to do this. Cheers niknrich

VistaPrint are supposed to be good - www.vistaprint.co.uk/. They have lots of special offers and free samples - you just pay the postage. We've ordered some stickers for putting in log books, we've not yet received them but they were dispatched only a few days after we ordered them. They have lots of different designs for business cards or you can upload your own for a small fee. HTH

We are wondering if any of the Cumbrian cachers out there can help us with this: are there any mobile phone networks which offer good, reliable signal coverage in the Lake District? We currently use T-mobile which is pretty non-existent in Ambleside, and we're trying to set up mobile internet access to log our cache finds while we're on holiday. Advice on which networks are good/bad appreciated!

Hi guys Thanks for all your replies. We're staying in a cottage in Ambleside so we're in the comfort brigade for definite! Alibags you're brave camping and swimming in January! We love the Apple Pie cafe too, there's lots of nice places to eat in Ambleside (which is why we like it!). The weather in the Lakes in Dec can be as variable as the rest of the year. New Year 03/04 was frosty and snowy but bright - a bit like at the moment. Last year was cold and wet. But hey, that's what Gore-Tex was invented for! Keep your fingers crossed for dry weather at least, and we'll decide on a venue and date some time before Xmas. Cheers, niknrich

Hiya We're going to be in the Lake District over New Year (29 Dec-4 Jan) and we wondered if any other geocachers will also be there, and if anyone fancied meeting up for a pint of fine Cumbrian ale or a group caching trip? We're staying in Ambleside, so our preference for a venue would be there, but please post a reply if you will be in the area and we'll make it somewhere that is mutually agreeable. Any day/evening during the week above is fine for us. Cheers, niknrich

Thanks Capcom and everyone, we're dead chuffed! Here's to the next 100!