Oofy

At the opposite end to the fuses, conkers, bus tickets and hose clips, I wondered what the most surprising or interesting things were that people have found in caches.

We're going to meet for the Saga photoshoot at the Burford Bridge Car Park on the A24, just north of Dorking, at 11am on Saturday 2nd April. Anyone is welcome, though for Saga's purposes, having a few who are over 50 would be great. And I guess it would be best if it wasn't exclusively male. I don't imagine the photographer is going to hang around longer than needed, so we'll all then be free to get on with the caching. Feel free to email me if you'd like to come and we can exchange details. I look forward to meeting some of you then. Current forecast is decent, after a few days of rain.

Thanks for the Blorenge advice. Have done as you suggested. If they hadn't needed it done so quickly, I could have arranged it in South Wales when I come to pick up my son from university.

Have been mulling making it an event, as suggested, but given the problems over my recent "commercial venture?" post, I'm a little nervous. After all, Saga Magazine definitely is a commercial venture so surely it would – rightly – fall foul of the rule. So maybe I'll just wait a few days and see how many are keen to come along. Think we have three at the moment. Hope a few more would like to meet up.

The home page of geocaching.com says there are 5m cachers worldwide. Are there any stats for the UK alone for the number of cachers or, indeed, the number of caches? I seem to remember reading there used to be a website that kept track of UK statistics, but that it doesn't exist any more. Any statistician geocachers out there who would be able to make an educated guess, unlike me?

Thanks for all the replies to my enquiry about the Saga Magazine piece. They would like to do a photoshoot and, even though I suspect most of us probably cache in ones and twos, they want to have a photographer take shots of a group of cachers who are 50 or over. As long as the weather isn't too miserable, this would be on Saturday 2nd April, probably late morning or early afternoon. Is anyone up for it? I guess it'll be a good chance to meet others. They want to go somewhere with a great view. I'm based in south west London right by the A3. Although I haven't been cacheing on Box Hill, that struck me as being a decent spot and, reading the logs, the dwarves series there sounds interesting and, even if there's a problem with one cache, we should still be okay. Clearly one of the problems with Box Hill is the word "hill". Even when I was rather younger, I remember it wasn't just a gentle stroll. If anyone knows somewhere else with a great outlook around there, or perhaps down the A3 not far outside the M25, do let me know. In an ideal world, there'd be a cache with glorious views close to a parking spot without not too much of an incline. If we do end up going to Box Hill, I have been asked to point out that the pace will be dictated by the photographer. Little do they realise it might be me who can't keep up! I do hope there might be some people who'd like to join us and that this is a sensible way to ask.

I think it's almost certainly a conspiracy against geocachers.

I'm sure you're right but have put a nano there for the time being. Will try to come up with a better camouflaged larger cache but I'm not great at metalwork and its ilk and I fear something like that might be needed. Life is much easier in the country. But I'll go back with a camera and take some photos in the hope I can come up with something better.

Had to relocate a cache (yes, THAT one) today as it had gone missing. As a busy urban area, thought had better step down from a 35mm canister to a nano. It was Sunday and few people were about so it wasn't too difficult to wander round and try out various spots. There was plenty of "street furniture", parking signs and the like. Yet the nano was hardly attracted to anything. I'm pretty sure the magnet was okay but I was surprised at how little it could be attached to. I'm still relatively new to the hiding side of caching. Is this a new trend, or have things been increasingly plasticised for some time now. I know a friend recently was surprised that a speed limit sign wouldn't attract a magnet. Just curious. Makes me like the country even more.

Thanks for the replies. Enough to convince them I'm not talking through my hat when i say it should appeal to their readers. Mind you, although I've over 50 myself, I don't think I've felt this young for years. Caching often makes me feel like a young lad again (only with slightly creakier joints).

Can you believe the bally thing has gone missing? Checked it was okay a few evenings ago after putting a similarly themed nano nearby (at the REAL location of Lionel Logue's office) but the following evening it had gone. Might have to step it down to a nano. Sorry to those who went looking and couldn't find it.

Saga Magazine have commissioned me to write a piece about caching. I want to do more than the usual "here's how you find your first cache" piece. I know there's been a recent topic about age but if there are cachers over 50 who want to say how they got into the hobby, what they get out of it or what their families think of them, do let me know. If there's anyone, for instance, who caches with their grandchildren or reckons they're healthier as a result, I'd love to hear about it. If you prefer, just mail me through my profile. Don't have an enormous number of words so can't promise to get more than one or two people in. Thanks.

Marty, did exactly that several weeks ago but haven't heard anything and I don't want to bother them again. I imagine they're swamped. But keehotee has emailed so with luck they can help me.

Has anybody else managed my trick of getting lost AFTER finding a cache? At the end of a tiring day today, I wanted to do Cache Cradle (GC2N9DX) on Wimbledon Common. When I met Team Tisri the other day, another cyclist, he told me I'd need to chain my bike to a tree as it's in a very heavily-wooded part of the common and tricky terrain even on foot. Did just that and a pretty tricky find it was too, but well worth the effort. Then came the real problem. Had I been sensible and marked where I'd left my bike? Of course not. I never remember to do it with the car either, though of course I should. Suddenly, in the dimming light, I realised that every direction looked exactly the same. I headed the way I THOUGHT my bike lay but couldn't find it. I now realised that lugging two heavy panniers around (I'd just been shopping) wasn't very bright either. After 15 minutes or so, I remembered I could look at the track on the GPS map. By now, of course, this resembled the meanderings of a demented, drunk spider. However, tanks to that, I eventually found it, though I didn't spot it until I was almost on top of it. Probably took half an hour when it should have been five minutes or so. My own fault. I wish I could remember to press the "mark" button when I leave my car or bike to go looking for a cache, but somehow I never do.

Thank you, hazelS. Easy when you know how. But I didn't. Ta muchly.

John, You're right. Rather stupid of me to give the number. I'd claim to have posted while tired, but I can't work out the time difference. That was pretty stupid, even for me. Any way of editing posts once they're up?

I too have a question about the guidelines about distance between caches with one I'm working on, particularly as it seems I MIGHT be able to solve the problem by making it a puzzle cache. I've read and reread the guidelines and yet I don't really understand (particularly the top left diagram). If anybody understands it well and can face it, can we email each other so I can explain? I don't want to bore people on the forum with it (or give away too much to anyone who might try it).

I had a lot of problems early on with Garmins trying to use OS coordinates. I hadn't understood that if you do that you need to switch the Map Datum to OS Grid and then, if you go back to the usual geocaching format, you must switch back to WGS84 map datum. I don't really understand it, but I was getting errors of around three hundred feet. This page on follow-the-arrow explains it. Go down to Coordinates and Map Datums. Follow the arrow (map datum)

P.S. I've just discovered the kit does NOT work with an iPod Touch 4, only the earlier versions.

As I can't afford one of the whizzier GPS devices or an iphone, I have an eTrex Venture HC. I load the cache descriptions and so on onto my ipod touch. It's not perfect but using the two in tandem works well for me and I'm very happy. A few months ago, somebody pointed out to me that although the ipod touch has no GPS facility, it CAN be turned into an in-car satnav with a kit from TomTom. It wasn't particularly cheap, being about £70 when I bought it and I then had to get the maps software, choosing (after much research) Navigon's MobileNavigator which was on special offer in the itunes store. I have to say I think this was one of the more astute purchases I've made. Not only do I have a perfectly fine in-car satnav but, if you use GeoSphere (am I allowed to mention the rival app here to Geocaching?) you can target a cache and it will send the coordinates to the Navigon software. This works really well, particularly if the cache owner has given parking waypoints. In addition, when you're driving, if you have a pocket or route query loaded for the area, it will tell you how far away caches are. I cache a lot in the Peak District and RouteBuddy have a great OS 1:25000 map app for the area for the iphone and ipod touch. Google Maps is NOT very hot on public footpaths in the area, as I know from reading of problems from those trying to find one of my caches where the footpaths are non-existent on Google Maps. Those who've got all-in-one systems may think having a GPS AND an ipod touch a bit daft but I confess I rather like having a map that doesn't tell me exactly where I am. It adds to the challenge. Incidentally, I've just looked on amazon. You can probably hear my gnashing of teeth. That TomTom kit is now only £35. Staggeringly cheap to turn your ipod touch into a SatNav, I reckon, though I must stress it's for the car only.

Thinking of putting the odd post up but want to check subjects haven't been done to death before. I know there must be posts in the UK and Ireland section before Feb 3rd but only 3 pages are currently showing and that's the earliest I can see. What am I doing wrong? Having had a couple of DNFs today that everybody else logged as being easy peasy, I'm probably just looking in the wrong place.

Begins to sound as though I'd be better off just using the tags that came with it. I take the point that if you saw it at traffic lights, chances are you won't get a chance to write the number down. Perhaps, before I give up, I might put a cache near where the car is parked. Can always mention it in the cache. Thanks for all the advice.

I'm often envious of those who can cache on their wizzy phones but, having done some of the Carsington caches recently with a second-hand Garmin Venture HC and cache details on an ipod touch, perhaps I shouldn't be. If the phone doesn't work very well in remote areas, it wasn't an expensive route to take and I've been very happy, even though it does mean I have two devices with me. Of course the other trouble with Carsington REservoir is the enormous number of people there, even on the freezing, rainy day, I went with a caching chum.

In the great geocaching shop near Ashbourne in Derbyshire a few months ago (an Aladdin's cave where my new hobby turned into an obsession) I bought a magnetic car travel bug. If you haven't seen them, it's a grey, thin bit of metal with the travelbug symbol and the number (in this case TB3N4BW). It looked fairly unobtrusive on my grey car and that, perhaps is the problem. Because in over 4 months, the only person who has logged it is the friend who went to the shop with me and saw me put it on the car! I assumed that it wouldn't be very long before some other cacher was stuck behind me at traffic lights or a roundabout, saw the TB symbol, got excited and jotted down the number. Nope. Not a dickeybird. I wondered if anybody else has experience of these. They're really neatly done and perhaps I should have gone for a larger one. Clearly it's less obtrusive being grey with a grey car and the fact that I never wash the vehicle probably probably doesn't help. But I got TB dogtags with it so I can always give up and simply use the dogtags instead. But I keep hoping for spotters. You don't get a "find" for TBs of course, otherwise I'd suggest people wander around Southfields in South West London looking for it. You can't give clues, either. [N.B. If this proves in the LEAST bit contentious, is there a way of withdrawing posts?]

Well that was all rather livelier than I'd expected. When I wrote the initial post, I was only trying to get a clearer idea of what more experienced cachers than me felt was acceptable and wasn't. I certainly hadn't anticipated stirring up such a hornet's nest. In fact, I'm not sure I even thought of placing the cache until the Latitude 47 email arrived just a few days ago about a MP and Holy Grail cache. I apologise to Desi if I caused him grief. Not my intention at all. Even as a relatively new cacher, I am mightily impressed by the work of the reviewers and I'm grateful to him and riviouveur for setting me straight and helping me get my head around what to do this time and in future. I'd hate them to think we didn't appreciate their hard work. A few of you asked me to say what the cache is when activated. It's GC2PH7E, now called "Lionel and Bertie". Congrats to LoonyLondo for a 45th FTF! As I think I said in an earlier post, it's not the most exciting cache ever; it's there because of the location. Somewhat bizarrely, doing a few London caches today while cycling from work, I met one of the other posters on this topic. Thanks for all your help. I still have lots of questions about other things but maybe I'll keep my head down for a while. Is there anything contentious about asking whether GC numbers are entirely random or not? Merely curious.