Clyde.

Quiraing Creag an Fheilidh And of course my 1000th cache find....and going flip over flop down a 5ft ditch.... Carr Green No.1

This is an interesting 'debate', having only been cachers for 3 or so yrs Bonnie and I are not really 'old hands' but I think that geocaching in general has changed over the time since we started out. Is it because of the development of GPRS units, mobile phones, more publicity on tele/radio etc or just that things do move on...I don't really know. I have noticed that more Geocachers are popping up because of the development of mobile phones, they want to do more with the their new toy and they disappear into the wilderness coz they don't like it, maybe just wanted to try it out, maybe its more time consuming than they realised...who knows the real answer ?? If think that all caches placed serve a purpose, maybe for the numbers, maybe because of the muggle possibility...again who really knows. What I have found is that new cachers who place a cache and continue, their caches become more...'better/nicer' as they gain experience and enjoy geocaching for what it is meant to be about...Fun and enjoyable. But drive-by micros do serve a purpose IMHO They do give some the number factor and also it can provide a slight distraction whilst out doing the usual things like traveling to work or shopping. I will dive out to nab a FTF on a micro which is just down the road from me but over the yrs I'm finding that I am saying to myself....it'll wait till tomorrow now and add it on to some planned caches that we are doing in that area. Geocaching is moving on/progressing/evolving or whatever big word that can be used but it happens in everything that we do. Unfortunately as one bar of soap said to the other 'Thats lifebouy' We love it and will carry on until that 'buzz' of a FTF or placing a cache/finding a cache dies off in us, things do move on and we have to move on with them. That my 5p worth (credit crunch ya know )

Just saw it myself.....fancy digging up a public park...Just who is the cacher responsible

Clyde and Bill D (wwh) seperated at birth? see the pictures above! Ah, but which one is the real 'us'

Looks like its world wide folks: See Here

Looks like its world wide folks: See Here

Yep same here. bit of sunshine on a Sunday and it all goes to pot again Not experienced the Sunday night lag for ages

Off topic but I am sure Kev won't mind this bit of advice. Why not ask Tooey if Bonnie can log the cache under her account, I think you have got a good enough reason why both of you don't have premium membership. If permission is granted, then whilst on the premium account go to the log in page, copy the URL and then change the login details to Bonnie's, paste the URL and you should be able to log the cache with Bonnie's account. Bonnie will not be able to see her log, but it will be accredited to her account. I have done this with permission for my daughters account, when she has been with me finding a premium members cache. Excellent, just tried it and it works so it will open up a lot of caches that we would love to do but avoid because of the subscriber issue...now to get permission Big thumbs up

Having been up to the Inverness area a good few times over the past yr, I can only repeat that all of the caches in the area are great BUT..... The one that we all enjoyed the most was 'The Eyes Have It' But it is a subscriber only cache and Bonnie couldn't log it but she used my account to post a note as it was that good.

WOW, thats expensive IMHO The Magellan topo maps are not worth a carrot, I spent about £100 on them a few yrs back, loaded them then took them straight off and then got my pennies back by selling it on thru Ebay The direct route is great but avoid the topo, probably its a good job you can't get hold of them easily now

Hi There Pink, If you want a correct answer I suggest that you post on the U.S.A. forums as the GPSr you mentioned is a big fav over there. I bought a 500 many moons ago and its still one of the best for accuracy in my opinion, Mine came with a U.K. basemap but I think that the basemap doesn't come into view unless you zoom out to 1mile or so. Also you need to get hold of the Magellan Direct Route Europe software. What this is Magellans version of satnav software, its basically a road/route satnav which also gives you the point to point option which you will need to geocaching. As I said, if you post on the USA forums, I'm sure one of our friends overseas will help you our and point you in the right direction as they did for me . Good luck

Confused...you will be Bonnie and I have just come back from a break as well and have just seen/missed all the postings open and closed.

I too have an Explorist 500, its an excellent bit of kit and you got a bargain for that price. You will find that the Mapsend Topo UK software requires the original installation disc in order for it to run, once installed on your pc it will ask you to insert the disc into your cd rom drive each time you open the application from your desktop. Copying the original installation disc will not work either... This is Mallagen's way around the problem of serial codes etc being published on the internet, there are no serial codes to find and you need the original disc in order for it to run.

Yeh, same here...thanks

I think I've found this same issue ... but just in case I'll post the info here ... I am trying to look at the list of caches owned by a particular user (in this case, username: Lux). I navigate to his profile page and then click on the "Geocaches" tab. I get an error page stating: I've tried from a couple different machines (all XPsp2), and with both IE7 and Firefox 2.0.0.7 and both fail exactly the same way. Yeh, still the same as of 7pm BST

Still the same problem when viewing profiles including my own, not actually viewing the profile itself but looking at their caches,trackables/ gallery and bookmarks tabs. Using XP and firefox

Shh....I will let you into a little secret Our motorway mayhem cache was originally intended to be part of a multi around the nearby estate, the one which recently held a music festival. Even though there are limited public footpaths thru the actual estate, there are many unofficial 'footpaths' if you get my meaning. We asked permission from the owners to place a geocache/multi and even thou they seemed very nice in their reply, permission was refused as its still actually used as a place of residence....fair enough So we thought that why not do a multi around the outskirts but taking things into consideration such as distance/not very nice views/very limited/rubbish hidey spots we gave into the demand for motorway mayhems and placed the one in question. Saying that, as one cacher suggested it should be turned into a hotel judging by the amount of T.Bs and Geocoins that appear in there. (there are 3 great coins in residence as we speak and I'm not expecting them to remain there for much longer) But again, back to the O.P., power trails do have a place and its up to each of us to choose whether we do them or not, Bonnie and I have done a number of nearby ones but I will say that we look at the surrounding area to see if it will be an enjoyable walk as well. Its a very good point thou to say that good quality caches are being swallowed up by the trails when your PQ of nearest 500 caches comes thru....ok we can filter them out but then we run the chance of missing on a quality micro and there are certainly some of them around

I've just done a 'quickie' nearest to my home co-ords and there are 200 caches within a 10 mile radius, ok admittedly it is as the crow flies but considering one quarter is the Irish Sea so you don't have to travel too far and if you look further afield, say 20 miles there are 960.

We hope that you both enjoy it, we do like the location alot....and get well soon Hazel, just wrap up warm with a cup of hot chocolate watching the X factor and you will be fighting fit in no time....worked for me anyway But seriously, power trails do have their place and we have found/walked a good one only very recently but as the O.P. asked are we becoming overrun with them to the detriment of decent caches?....I think I know what I feel....

Thanks for your comments concerning our multi, we wont achieve/relocate it as we do believe that it a great area for a cache and please don't think thats it was a case of taking our ball home. I think that we all expect that a cache that we place should be found straight away by 100's of people then expect a lull while everyone else catches up, also being the time of the year what with hols, bad summer etc some of us just don't have the time to spend out wandering around.... But as you all correctly said, having a decent log rather than a one liner speaks volumes in itself..... Back onto the O.P., we have a cache actually called Quality not Quantity and one of the local cachers placed another cache 0.2 mile away called Quantity not Quality which he described as: 'Sorry for the parody on the name of a nearby cache but when I found that one I had this idea of having a bit of fun with the name and poking my metaphorical tongue out at my friends (or are they ex-friends now?) who go for numbers without caring for where or what the caches are' (Before anyone says,we were the FTF on it as its on our doorstep and its a great mickey take cache John, we loved the concept of it) This was released after ours and guess what?....Yep its been found more times Kinda says its all doesn't it We all cache in different ways so power trails have their place so that everyones happy in what they are doing... (Just wish someone would find our multi so we don't have to check up on it.. )

Bonnie and I placed a 3 part multi on the 31st August '07, nothing difficult, just a walk of about 1.5 miles. It has been found 5 times until the 13th September '07 and thats it Well over a month since the last find, all the logs say that its a great cache in a beautiful area but because there isn't a power trail or a large number of caches nearby, no-one has been bothered to come here. Its very disappointing to be honest as its one of our better containers (a large ammo box) and even the 1st two parts are small not micros so everything is there but it doesn't seen to attract anyone anymore. To be honest, we are seriously thinking about achieving the cache and replacing somewhere else. This is not a case of taking our ball home by the way, just seems to be a case of quantity not quality at the moment. (BTW I'm all for micro's, I've just come back from another caching trip up in Inverness and some of the micro's I did are classics, it just seems that some of the one around the N.W. seem to have been thrown out of the car window whilst passing)....

Well its 3am BST and I've finally logged on at last.... Come on folks, lets get this sorted please

The site has been terrible for the past few wks in the U.K., tonight I couldn't even log on so gave up and decided to have a look around here incase we had an explanation for the problems...which we haven't

Back to slow again, averaging 20 secs a page May as well, everyone else does.....

Back up to normal speed again, lets see how long it lasts.....