Goofster

Wow, those are some expensive sounding stories. I was mugged by shrubbery on my way back from 'Blood, Sweat and Sandy Bay' - the bastard bush grabbed the lanyard of my Fuji Finepix with one of his branches, yanked it out of my pocket and catapulted it 10m back down the trail. It still took pics but the LCD never worked again. Several weeks later a light-fingered former acquaintance made off with my eTrex Venture. Luckily both items were covered by insurance, so I wasn't too deeply out of pocket.

Are there any caches TV&M haven't been to? Adamant: you are granted leave of absence on condition you log some Spanish caches.

In the early days Steve (remember him, from D.I.Y.?) and I would sneak out of the office during the day to hunt caches. And leave the office early to get to Silvermine while there was still an hour or two of sunlight left. Silvermine Tales . . those were the days! (I will deny having said this if the boss ever finds out...) And the conspiracy is wider than first thought. In on it now are Bic and Croxley, who provide all of the pens and those cute little log books we're all fond of. Vespa, the Sandy Bay caches are recommended, nudists notwithstanding. Just keep your eyes open for muggers. Anyone interested in joining a geocachers vigilante group? Oh, and I'm going to buy a handlebar mount when I purchase my new GPSr so I can strap it on the motorbike and zoom off into the sunset. But will it be a 60C or a 76C? Decisions, decisions . . .

Bats, if you have worked out your coordinates, you need to entice a geocacher in the relevant area to log the find for you. If you choose to make your co-ord a latitude, then he, or she, gets to choose the co-ords for the longitude. Use the links given on the web page for GC3153 to determine where your 'cache' is likely to lie, and then contact a cacher in the general area. In my case I set my co-ords as a latitude which ran through northern USA. I set my home coordinates on geocaching.com to the exact latitude and an appropriate longitude and then looked for nearby caches / cachers. I selected one at random, emailed him and got a very positive response. Remember that the rules of the cache say that you only get to choose one part of the set of coordinates. In this way you are more likely to entice someone to help you. It's a virtual find which you can then both log. Your partner provides visual proof of the joint find - a pic of his GPSr with the correct coordinates, and a pic of the surrounding scenery. I hope that makes sense . . . (I hope I haven't mixed my lats and longs. I set my coords to a Northing, if that helps...)

Anything that starts off with 'tea and sticky buns' sounds good to me. Thanks to TV&M there are lots of caches in the Greyton area, also some up the West coast, and I'm planning to raid the area around Agulhas soon . . . but an organised team jaunt needn't involve that much driving. Afterthought: Hermanus / Walker Bay sounds interesting . .

I hope some of the South African geocachers come to your aid soon - I read about GC3153 here, converted my user name, tagged a geocacher in Olympia, Washington, and had a find logged within 24 hours! Of course it helps that there are so many more geocachers in the US than in South Africa. Sorry I'm too far away to help!

Thanks for the interest and suggestions, guys 'n gals, but Oly Sidewinder (in Olympia, I think) came to bat for me on this one and has sent me some great pics. My apologies for the delay in responding - time zone differences and shuttling between home and the office have complicated things. Globalgirl: I'm glad you liked Cape Town (we all do!) and we'd love to see you back here some day! And after seeing Oly's pics, I think I want to visit Washington. Tom Robbins is my favourite author so there's some additional motivation there!

Hi guys! I’m a geocacher based in Cape Town, South Africa, and I’m in search of someone to help me log a find for GC3153 – “Where’s in a name?” My username converts to 46637837 and in accordance with the rules of the cache I’ve chosen to make this latitude N 47° 03.783’, which runs through the state of Washington, USA. Your part of the task would be to find an intersecting degree of longitude, for example N 47° 03.783’ W122° 00.000. This could be an existing geocache, a point in a city or simply out in the countryside: the choice is yours to make! You will need to send me a photograph of your GPSr showing the coordinates (so that the cache owner can verify the find), and a photograph of the surrounding countryside. Should you be able to help, you also get to log the find! Hope to hear from a willing partner soon!

Yeah, I think Garmin is more popular in SA than Magellan. The GPSMap 60 is available here, as well as its successors, the C and CS. My eTrex Venture has given me great service, but I really would like a bigger screen, colour and mapping capability, so I'm looking to upgrade to the 60C. Don't need a barometric altimeter to tell me when I'm high (hehe) and it chews batteries when it's on... perhaps vespa can comment on this? Shop around though, there are cheaper places than C.U.M. to buy your Garmin.

Mazeltov to B&F on their ton - well done! To GS&Dogs - only if you remove the doggie landmines first! I might not be a prolific user, but at least I was an 'early adopter' . . .

Yeah, sure thing, Discombob. The paint and brushes are in the cupboard under the basin - I'll expect my bedrooms painted by the time I get back with my ton. Oh, and don't forget to schedule the installation of the blinds and carpets while you're busy. Seriously, I will do my best to 'up my game'. No promises, though.

If we exceed 500 caches in SA by year end I'll have another excellent excuse to upgrade my GPSr - other than "cos I wanna". Oh, I&J, if you could mail that .loc to me I'd be grateful.

Not to mention all the ice-cream one has to eat just so that you can place another cache. Although TV&M's Ferero-Rocher hot chocolate sauce could spur me on to place many a cache! Perhaps this is their secret weapon . . . ? Yeah, there are plenty of hidden costs in geocaching: medical bills for various contusions, abrasions and sprains, Pratley's putty for emergency GPSr repairs, inkjet cartridges for reams of cache print-outs. But I digress. I'm glad you like the cachemobile, Vespa, but I'm not ready to trade just yet.

No worries, I've already allocated part of my year-end bonus to the acquisition of 60C - if the bonus comes through, that is!

I don't think we should take the rankings too seriously. Or the number of finds, or the number of FTFs. Geocaching is not a competition: there are some cachers who are by nature more competitive than others, but this is true of life in general. It's a game, a fun pastime, and should be treated as such. It's not about who's got the most points. I have teamed up with other cachers on several occasions to find caches, but these have always been logged as separate finds (at the same time) by each individual cacher. Where several cachers are registered as one team, a cache find should only be logged once.

And I thought my eTrex Venture was getting long in the tooth! Vespa, I covet thy GPSMap 60C (or is it a CS?)

Thanks for the tributes, folks! Yes, I'm shaking off the winter sloth, but alas my eyes seem to be failing me in my old age. Think I will have to arrange more joint ventures: two pairs of eyes are better than one! And with the number of muggings on the mountain recently, I'm not sure I want to venture out alone any more.

No luck viewing the screenshot either. Don't worry vespa, we won't let them send you back to Bushland!

Can't believe I got up as early as I did to go and find this cache. I thought the TopB insert was great, and was glad to see that others made the same mistakes as I did while 'walking the gardens'. It motivated me to get up before the sun actually rose this morning to go and do some hunting. Thanks to all involved in raising the awareness levels, esp Discombob! You deserve the bonus points!

I've been planning some road trips and trying to incorporate a bit of caching at the same time. During my planning I've encountered quite a number of caches with mulitple 'not found' logs. If two or more consecutive people cannot find the cache, we have an obligation to investigate. If the cache is still there, we need to note this on the cache page; if the cache has gone missing, we need to replace it or archive it. I have crossed a number of potential caches off my 'to visit' list because the owners have not bothered to respond to these logs in any meaningful way.