pixeltash

Not sure if it's quite what you were thinking of but I created this travel bug for my cat Pru joined with a simple TB, it has her dates (1992-2012) on the reverse. for my Sisters dog I had one made, using the code from a TB and the words trackable at www.geocaching.com printed on it both from http://www.artscow.com/photo-gifts/Dog-Tags the standard price plus postage is off putting, but sign up to the newsletter and you get email offers with special prices and free postage etc... the ones I have purchased have come out at around £2 each on special offer (and the offers get repeated frequently) so for around £7 (inc TB purchase) you can have a personalised trackable eta - I see they are on special offer at the moment here http://www.artscow.com/promote/fcfs.aspx $2.99 inc free shipping, so less than £2 each :-)

I've completed a cache like this near where I live... first you find a micro with 4 sets of co-ordinates in it, then you have to go to each of these co-ords and in each there is hidden a box, but only one of the boxes contains a log book and no sig no find. The CO moves the log around from cache to cache. Naturally when I completed it the log was in box no.4!

We drop a sig item off occasionally, our sig item is one of these with a little face drawn on by smallcacher and our caching name and maybe if it's a celebratory cache a find number on the back. we enjoying seeing other peoples and have come across a few in caches, including some nice ones from Merlink (which smallcacher has a thing about trading for) and someone else (sorry I can't recall the name) who painted the GC logo on a stone with their cachers name. eta - we are in the UK

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE RABBIT!? It was adopted by the people who took it home :-) and I had confirmation from the CO that it wasn't the first rabbit dumped there :-( so keep your eyes open if you ever head for the cache!

Personally I always log my DNFs, they are much part of my caching adventure as my finds and sometimes are a whole lot more interesting! :-) Thanks for the links to the challenge caches, I have looked and I qualify for all of them, but am unlikely to be in the areas needed (tho I was near 3 of them in 2011, darn it!)

AlsoHitchin Blues and Rushden Blue Plaques are two that spring to mind... but if the OP wants a series like the church micros, then go ahead and start one :-)

They were called Muggles. It (the term) precedes Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling. and just because I was bored Main Entry: muggle 2 Part of Speech: n Definition: a common person, esp. one who is ignorant or has no skills Example: There are muggles in every computer class. Etymology: 1920s Usage: slang

hmmm, don't go caching round here then as I have never seen one secured to anything, except the ground with gravity! and yes I am in the UK

My 2nd day of not continuing my caching streak and I feel fine, much more relaxed about life now I don't have to fit an hours drive and a cache hunt into my day somewhere. I did dream about looking for a geocache in a snow filled ditch while a golfer hit balls at me last night.... but that's probably a whole other problem :-)

firstly a huge great big thank you to everyone for taking the time to reply :-) I am going to stop my streak for all the reasons you have all listed above. I am in a fairly rural part of the UK, and have done most of the local caches (with a couple left for my grid, Christmas day etc), public transport is not an option here, at least not for caches! I usually cache with my 7 year old son and we have an agreement that we stop for the day when it stops being fun, so I really should apply that to this streak! The idea of not having to go caching until Wednesday (for the 12/12/12) or Thursday (next day not cached on my grid) is such a lovely one, whilst the idea of continuing my streak for another 214 days (for the full 365) is one that fills me with dread. I knew I would have problems stopping a streak as I have a tendency to get addicted to things. Back in the '90's I had an addiction to puzzle magazines and would have to do 4 a week and when it became a chore the only thing to do was to go cold turkey and not even go into shops where they were. I don't want to have to quit geocaching, because I love it, or at least I did before it became this huge thing I HAD to do everyday. so once more thank you all for the advice and for sharing your experiences of a streak, but this is me bowing out with a streak of 151 days :-) and going back to enjoying the hobby, when I have the time or the inclination.

ok so I am currently on day 151 of a streak, but with the weather change and Christmas coming up fast, I have a lot of other calls on my time and going out every day (driving for 20-30 mins) to get a cache is getting harder and harder. so I need feedback/advice, do I stop my streak and go back to trying to fill in my grid, which will mean I can sigh a huge sigh of relief, my petrol costs will fall dramatically and I might even have time to get some presents wrapped up for my family or do I keep going with the streak, because I will never get to this many days streak ever again! ????? part of me thinks, I have achieved what I set out to do, a 100 day streak to qualify for a challenge cache, and then some! and it is becoming a chore and not something fun, but another part of me thinks I will never get to this point again and looking back over the months of the streak it has been hard work and seems a shame to stop now. How did other cachers end their streak? Help! confused cacher (day 151 of streak)

That is such a cool thing, I have just spent about half an hour fiddling with it :-)

I recently had a TB that wanted to dothe three peaks challenge, I think I dropped it off in my puzzle cache - I am sure many other TBs would love to do it with you :-)

I never spoke to Sven, but felt like I knew him thanks to his fun and interesting geocaching videos which prompted me to think outside the plastic box cache hides. He will be missed here, we loved watching his videos and looking forward to the next clever hide, I feel like I have been punched and my thoughts and fond wishes are with his family. Sadly missed, RIP Sven

OK I am obviously more of a techno muppet than Pharisee, as I can't work out how to get it onto the kindle reader on my android phone - anyone? eta - ok not such a muppet as I thought, sorted it :-)

Just to add the other side I was out caching yesterday with my 6 year old and my mums ancient(13) rescue chihuahua jack russel cross we were nearing GZ and had started looking for the cache when I noticed a dog walking muggle putting his 2 black labs into a down stay and approaching us on his own. I got our dog on it's lead and called out if he was ok.. he was and was checking his dogs and approaching us first so that we weren't worried about his dogs. We had a chat and I let my mums dog off the lead as he is less likely to be snappy and defend us that way, then the man called to his dogs, who came and sniffed us and my mums dog and were lovely. We finished our chat about dogs and training and he moved on, again checking his dogs into a down stay when another dog walker approached from the other direction. All the time his dogs were off the lead, but under his perfect control and were a real pleasure to meet.

... and presumably any muggle that dials a wrong number onto that mobile line similarly gets a text message shortly followed by the uncomfortable feeling that they are getting involved in a John le Carre novel. ROFL

Thanks for the ideas - no luck on eBay or £ shops :-( also looked in staples, whsmiths etc just for clarity, the ones I am looking for have a loop of chain attatched to the lid, like the chains on a TB, it's for hanging from the GPS laynard. I have tried the ring attached type and they sit awkwardly on the laynard. off to look at amazon :-)

I have done a cache like this GC2RKMD You have to find the waypoints and get numbers to make a phone number, ring the number and then hang up before the answerphone part kicks in, so not costing anything. I didn't know what to expect and was going to give up when I got a text with the final co-ords in. So there must be a way of automating it.

I have seen these in some caches, so they must be avalible somewhere, but I have drawn a blank at all the usual stationary places - can anyone help? I have found them here http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/326372378/Promotional_plastic_ball_pen.html but oddly enough I dont want to order 500 of them

You need a she-wee and can then pee standing up! much more discreet ;-) Smallcacher (son, aged 6) gave me an excited round of applause the first time I used mine out caching and said, 'oh Mummy well done, your first standing up wee!' - I think he recalls our reactions to his toileting training

Just to add balance... I agree no such thing as bad dogs only bad owners - dogs are dogs, they get spooked by odd things, they can react (badly) to defend thier 'pack' Whilst out caching I have only met with lovely dogs and responsible owners, I am sure one of these days I will have a bad run in with a dog, I have had dogs greet me with muddy paws and thier owners have been overly apoligetic and embarassed, but hey it's only mud, I get worse on me crawling under bushes looking for caches :-) now a couple of dog stories Years ago we had a large bouncy and soft GSDxlab, we also on this walk had my Mums recently rescued, nervous and snappish Chihuahua cross jack russell with us. Both dogs were on leads and under control, my large GSDxlab was in front and desperate to 'meet' a family comming towards us, they were shrinking back away from him and picking up thier kids, no problem for me I was more concerned about getting on with our walk. My mums ChihuahuaX comming along behind, also on a lead and under control, when the parents told thier kids to pat the sweet little dog!!! We soon put them right on that one or else they would have been bitten. Honestly just becasue its a small dog and you percieve it as no threat, do not tell you kids to pat a strange dog. Just to add to this story, tho my own dog is long gone the little Chihuahua X yesterday out caching won over a family who didn't like dogs by being as sweet as could be, thats 10 years of good dog ownership which has let him trust people again after he was abused by them. But he also saw off a one year old staffie that he percieved as getting too close to my son 'his pack', that amazed the idiot with the staffie, which altho it only wanted to play wasn't on a lead, but the Chihuahua X was. So sorry for the long burble, to sum up good dog owners pick up after thier dogs, get thier dog on a lead where appropriate - fields that may contain livestock, near any known triggers (ChihuahuaX hates runners and bikes and will chase and bark, if not on a lead), near any new situations for the dog (with ChihuahuaX we have recently met horses being ridden for the first time, so on goes the lead) and obviously near traffic. now if only we can get the cows to poopa scoop ;-)

Taken while out caching today - my 6 year old 'small cacher' and borrowed Geohound. Sums it all up really, on a day that contained 2 FTFs and 13 other caches all found by my 6 year old (with small nudges) :-D photo taken near GC3140C

Our first experiance of geocaching, was a puzzle cache with the co-ords given for the starting point and then written clues to find the box, so no need for a GPS. That was years ago and we didn't log it here or anything, then I got a satnav that could handle co-ords, all beit in a much altered form than the standard, so lots of watching the numbers change as we moved in different directions to try and find a cache - we didnt have a good hit rate with that, as it was designed to pinpoint roads and buildings and not trees etc. Then last April we got an old yellow etrex, suddenly we had an arrow to follow, small cacher could be in charge of the gps, we could do multi caches and the game got a lot more fun. As to caching without a GPS, we had gone out for a days caching, only to discover I had left the GPS behind (turned out I had actually left it at a previous days cache and it had been picked up by a muggle, who responded to my lost notices and it was returned to me - phew!) Luckily I wasn't doing paperless caching and had with me a note book with cache descriptions and likely parking etc written in it, with that we were able to find a nano in a gateway, a micro in the COs driveway and a previous DNF under some trees. The next day I went back to the park and searched for the GPS, no luck finding it, but the need to cache was strong, so we went on to find a micro under a bridge, a micro on a crash barrier, a small behind a wall and a nano we had previously DNFed, all with my notes and looking at google maps. OK so most of these caches were of the urban, or semi rural variety, so not too hard to place from google maps and the clues. But more recently we were out caching and we had decided to walk to the end of a section of a series and cache on the way back, but small cacher (aged 6) spotted and found 2 caches as we walked down before I had even turned the GPS on - thus fullfilling the 'challenge' laid down by the ukgeocaching podcast to cache without using a GPS in October :-)

thanks for that - I know that I have to be moving for the pointer to work, but what I meant was my gps was saying GZ was in the field around 5/6m from the true GZ that thier GPS was leading them to... I obviously compensate for the GPS being out by getting to where it says and looking for for likely hiding places, and I know that GPS units vary greatly so you are unlikely to get lead exactly to GZ and theres the cache, but it did get me thinking as they advised I callibrate after every battery change. I know they had an etrex, but it wasn't yellow... anyway, so the deal is mine is ok and doesn't need calibrating? I was worried I was meant to be doing something and wasn't, so guess I will happily carry on caching and stop worrying thanks again guys :-)