Desert Trekker
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Posts posted by Desert Trekker
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Hi goose
GPS is legal in teh UAE - you can buy them everywhere. There are lots of city based caches esp in Abu Dhabi. Hire a car/take a taxi and you should find a number fairly quickly. For me, the ones out of towns are better. For most of these you'll need a 4x4. Lots in the deserts and mountains on the east side. If your into scuba there's "The Wreck" - still unfound after two years.
Have fun
DT.
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My caches have been published by either "Crow T Robot" or "erik88l-r". I've always had a good rapport with both of them. What benefits would a more local publisher bring?
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Not sure what the caches and driving is like in Qatar, but I do know that you will not be allowed to go to SA. Getting a visa for there is not trivial. Visiting Bahrain & the UAE is easy but you'll need to fly there.
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What's the Sea of Aden like this time of year, for a sailing cacher?
Full of Pirates!!! 
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Try the following. All containers are big enough for a reasonable TB, can be reached in a 2x4. All distances are “as the crow flies” from the Kempinski.
Camel Track by Desert Trekker (GC10ZT6) – 8.9km - you can get a 2x4 reasonably close but will need to walk across some sand tracks to it – don’t get the car stuck!
Jebel Ali Jumble by gregdubai (GCW402) – 12.4km can park a 2x4 next to the cache
Za'abeel Park by yvesetrex (GC169QA) -15.7km – inside a public park,
Hadeeq al Khor by Navigull with when (GC12N9Q) – 18.4km – inside a public park, a little distance from the car park
Gold Cache by Springstone (GC14GA1) – 25.7km - a little way out of town but you can park a 2x4 close to it
Ghantot by Kanz Dubai Team (GCVBVF) – 41.3 km just off the Abhu Dhabi highway
Have fun in Dubai. If you are here over the weekend check out
WWFM - Madinat, Dubai, UAE by Springstone & The UAE Cachers (GC16ZTV)
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On 3rd August we had found all bar one UAE cache if you exclude the caches which are actually in Oman. We thought that soon we would clean out all of the UAE caches
. Eight days later we found that one missing UAE cache, but by then four new caches had appeared. There now seems to be a cache explosion – 8 caches placed in September including three today. It’s great to see that there are lots of new cachers here but our aim of finding every UAE cache now seems to be getting very hard to do . -
There are 62 caches currently active in Turkey. Not a huge total for a country of that size. Turkey is a great place - there so much to do and see there so you won't be bored despite the lack of 1,000s of caches to hunt. By the by, Turkey is not in the Arabian Peninsula!
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Look's like Nana's racing car failed to stop in the UAE - it's now in Queensland Australia! Maybe there's still hope for the rest of us.
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I've just had a look at all of the bugs in the race. Here are the current status of them all:
.................. Place....... km.from.UAE.....Europe?....No.of.Caches.....Last.Log........ Status
Nana.............. UK............. 5581.......... Yes............2.......... 18-Aug-07...... Travelling
Uncle.Andrew...... Ohio.......... 11365........... No............2.......... 02-Sep-07...... Travelling
Michael........... Wisconsin..... 11565........... No............2.......... 01-Aug-07...... Travelling
Lucky.Stars....... Florida....... 12493........... No............1.......... 04-Aug-07...... Travelling
Uncle.Del......... Florida....... 12508........... No............2.......... 01-Aug-07...... Cache
Mum............... Florida....... 12573........... No............3.......... 27-Aug-07...... Travelling
Dad............... Colarado...... 12599........... No............5.......... 11-Sep-07...... Cache
Gran.............. Florida....... 12602........... No............2.......... 02-Aug-07...... Cache
Desert.Trekker.... Florida....... 12610........... No............3.......... 16-Aug-07...... Travelling
Liveonce.......... Arizona....... 13356........... No............2.......... 02-Sep-07...... Cache
GeoCRAT........... Arizona....... 13361........... No............2.......... 11-Sep-07...... Travelling
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We'll take 10 as well.
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It's very sad when TBs disappear. I’ve seen this happen twice in the UAE, but I think it is widespread in more mature geocache countries such as the US. I’d read somewhere that to minimise the chance of your TB ending up in someone’s’ personal collection then make it as undesirable as possible – make it ugly (a single, pink croc shoe should do the trick), if it’s a toy drill a huge hole in it and so on.
Check out the Travel Bug Graveyard (GC72A8), for some very moving stories
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The cache page has a conversion option right next to the DD MM.mmm coordinate. You can then read off the coordinates in a variety of formats including DMS.
Whether or not you can read off DM.m from a map will depend on the grid that it uses. Most maps I use only use DM.m and not DMS so I do not have that issue.
Happy caching
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To be honest, I hope that the UAE does not become as cache saturated as LA. Given that there are only 70 or so caches in our hunting area we know the names, general location, terrain, difficulty of all of them but it will still take us several years to get around them all. It was easy to pick off the first 20 or so, but now we have to plan special trips to get the rest. It’s also fun to watch who finds the caches that we have already done. I think that if there were 15,000 in a 100 mile radius around Dubai it might loose some of its appeal to me at least.
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Yes, thank you for the many fine improvements! But I must emphatically agree with Backup regarding the new way that images are being handled:
I very disappointed in the new way photographs are displayed. The previous way, a “mouse over” on the picture icon gave you a quick, but small version of the image. Then if you wanted to see the detail it simply took one more click. With the new way, everything is slowed down and not very refined.AMEN to that! Casually glancing at images is now much slower and drastically less convenient. The mouse over trick was simple and nearly instantaneous. Now it's gotta go through that whole fancy screen fade thing. Sure, it looks nifty the first couple times you see it, but then it's just tedious. Simpler and more streamlined is better.
Doing a “mouse over” now displays the tag box with a bunch of html code (yuck). Then clicking on the icon gives you a new page, but it does not show the full 600x450 size image. You have to click again on “View Log”, then, finally, again on the image to load the full size.My suggestion is to use the previous method of a “mouse over” to automatically show a reduced size of the image. Then, should you want to see the detailed full image, use the new style page, in the slide show, but with FULL 600x450 sizing.
Yep, very clunky. But I like Backup's suggestion -- it would be the best of both worlds, I suppose. (Although I still think I'd almost never use the slide show thing. Ick.)
I am fully in agreement with these two posts. I now find that I look at the pictures on cache logs less than before the change.
I use dial up a lot and had no problems with speed before. The thumbnails loaded in background and I thought they way they popped up when you hovered over them was great.
Now I have to wait for the picture to load before I can see it and then I cannot read the rest of the logs at the same time as the screen goes dark!
The logs for Travels Bugs have thumbnails in all of the logs - why not use this for the cache pages and logs?
I see absolutely no benefit to me as a dial up user in the new method. It has had the opposite effect and I now look a the pictures less. Shame.
THe rest of the changes are good and over all, I do appreciate the hard effort that the guys have put in.
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Add my vote to this ... I'm sure that this would be appreciatged by caches in the vast majority of countries.
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If displaying the attached images for a cache log one at a time on an ugly almost fade to black screen is a new feature, then I say 'turn it off'.Ditto. The old method was also a lot faster.
I agree with these comments.
I appreciate all of the effort
that the guys have put in to update the WEB site. Most of it is fantastic. However I have to agree with the two comments on the new picture feature. I much preferred the old method from an aesthetic view and also for speed. I use dial up a lot and I could read the cache page while pictures were loaded in the background. I could then hover over the icons and the picture would pop up. I do not like the new method at all
, which has this black screen as a backdrop and the fading effects. I also have to wait while the images are being uploaded.I like the new way that thumb nail pictures are shown in the Travel Bug logs. I think it would be great if the new web page was consistent with this.
Once again, thanks for all of the effort, and I guess everyone has their own views on what is good and not so good.
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We'll join your race - sounds fun. Though we'll have to enter either as a Discovery or a Ferrari. We have a spare TB - what's the best way to get it to you as your in Abu Dhabi and we're in Dubai? I can mail you the TB - I'll just need your address.
Desert Trekker
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If you want to do your own calculations then use the UTM coordinates for the locations rather than lattitude & longitude. One of the benefits of the UTM system is that it readily lends itself to trig calculations. Lat & long does not.
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I also have to log in each time using my i-mate. It's annoying but, I guess, I will have to live with it.
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Ok, this is really my last question. Converting to UTM requires trig and algebra right?
Wrong. UTM is a completely different concept from lat and long. There is no easy conversion algorithm. For a full explanation of how it works again have a look at Wikepedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Tra...ordinate_system .
Most people do not use or understand UTM, but despite its artificial construct it is very practical. For instance, the least significant digit on both the Eastings and Northings represent one metre. Compare that to the lat and long system where one minute of latitude is one nautical mile and the longitude coordinate represent different distances depending on the corresponding latitude.
If you want to convert between the two you’ll need a s/w package. Your GPSr will also be able to convert for you.
Good luck with your trig
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I came across a similar case recently. The TB owner changed the name of the TB to be "STOLEN BY xxx" and also added a note explaining what had happened to all of the caches owned by the person holding his TB. The TB was placed in a nearby cache the next day.
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As of today there are 54 caches listed as being in the UAE. In fact 9 of these are actually in Oman! Interspersed with these are 3 caches that are correctly listed as being in Oman. Now, while I admit that the 9 “UAE” caches are actually easier to reach from the major conurbations of the UAE than those of Oman, it does strike me as odd that the caches are given the wrong country.
There is a new boarder crossing being constructed just south of Jebel Rawdah which means that in the future, geocache searchers may need to bring along passports when going for these “UAE” caches starting from Dubai or Abu Dhabi.
I have also noticed that the Oman listed caches seem to get fewer visits that the UAE listed caches in the same area – have a look at “Surrounded”, “Pirelli”, “Mahdah” and the newly placed “TOUCH”. Does this mean that UAE based cachers do not look at the Oman pages? I personally use a search based on nearest to specified point which shows all of the caches in the region independent of country when I am planning out our next caching trip.
What do others think?
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Hi,
I have always wondered whether "Needs Archived" should be changed to "Needs Archiving" or "Needs to be Archived"?
Perhaps there are some English teachers out there that could shed some light?
Thanks,
GeoCRAt.
Good point. That typo has always bugged me too.
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A couple of workarounds for your suggestions.
I use http://www.geocachingadmin.com/search.pl a my home page and it is very easy to add a few favorite links.
After using the default 50 mi/ 80 km filtered search from your home coordinates, add &dist=200 to the url which will give you 200 miles. Then save the url as a Link on home page that I mentioned or just a a favorite in your web browser.
For your newest in country search, just add &f=1 to the url and save that as well.
Thanks for this - your suggestions certainly help. I like the list of addtiions to the URL, I'm now hunting to see what else I can find.
Full of Pirates!!! 
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If displaying the attached images for a cache log one at a time on an ugly almost fade to black screen is a new feature, then I say 'turn it off'.
that the guys have put in to update the WEB site. Most of it is fantastic. However I have to agree with the two comments on the new picture feature. I much preferred the old method from an aesthetic view and also for speed. I use dial up a lot and I could read the cache page while pictures were loaded in the background. I could then hover over the icons and the picture would pop up. 
Reviewer for Oman
in Arabian Peninsula
Posted
Shame this has gone. We've visted this on two occasions. It was a wonderful place to visit.