Lydford Locators

We had some friends who started caching without a GPS - they managed OK with the straight forward traditional caches which had nice hints. On the cache page click on Geocaching.com Google map and zoom in, that should get you to the right tree, gate, etc. Good luck.

Where are you based? If you're local, we'd happily show you our 3 GPSs in action - they range from a fairly basic Garmin Legend, through our very accurate Garmin 60CSx, to our all singing and dancing Garmin Oregon.

We've tried to run two yesterday and two today - none have worked (yet). Good job it tipped it down with rain.

In Tescos in Swindon they're £3.00 - maybe we need to do another caching trip to Wantage.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions - we are now sorted, although we're not quite sure what upset it so much. Solved by the first rule of IT support - turn the computer off and on again.

Can someone tell us what we've done wrong. Usually we unzip our PQ and copy the two gpx files into /Garmin/GPX, but Garmin isn't there any more. We've tried changing our lead and using a different USB port but nothing helps. It was working earlier today but now when we plug in our Oregon it fires up like normal but nothing more. Any ideas on how to get it working again?

We are uncertain if we'll be there Sunday, but I believe AilecNor will be there Sunday so he may be someone to track down.

If they really wanted familes why did they choose to do it just as the kids went back to school - doh!

We agree that there are just too many 35mm film cannisters out there, especially where some cachers just seem to throw them into hedgerows without any thinking - in these circumstances we'd much rather find larger containers. However, other containers (larger than the 35mm film cannisters) are ofically defined as micros and perhaps Wiltshire cachers are more inclined to correctly label cache sizes. I know when we've been caching away from our home area we've often been disappointed and surprised by how small the caches are compared to the named cache sizes. (As a matter of interest we looked at our hides to see if the finger was being pointed our way - out of our 60 hides we've hidden 3 film cannisters all of which are hidden in places either where nothing larger could be hidden but mainly where they are "sneaky" and essential for that hide, we have hidden 9 others considerably larger but as per the guidelines we've classed them as micros.) ... I'm running for cover now!

We use the ? if we're hiding something sneaky where the size would give away too much and IF we were to hide a nano we'd class it as micro.

Another vote for Holmsley. Have tried other sites and had the experience of ponies in the tent with us - not good. And ditto the terrible traffic at Lyndhurst. Otherwise an excellent place - hope you have a great time.

Second vote for these from us. A lovely area with lakes, canal, good caches and a nice cafe and toilets adjacent to the car park.

It's also worth noting that the "day" doesn't change when you'd expect, so if you're up early in the morning it's still yesterday - quite handy if you want to run more than 5 PQs.

Sorry we failed to join you this year - an excellent article - and gave Mr Locator a chance to brush up on his Welsh too!

It may be worth posting the question on the CacheWalker forum as they are active in that area. http://www.cachewalker.co.uk

We WERE off to Brecon - already made our flags and gathered together cutlasses, eye patches and pirate hats. However Mrs Locator has gone a slipped a disc, so no flashing for us and it sounds like little caching for her in the near future. (I wonder if she can solve all those tricky puzzle caches in our area whilst she's laid up? )

We log under one caching name and in our early caching days that worked fine. We didn't cache much and Mrs Locator did the majority of the caching with the rest of the family joining her for weekend caching. But now some 2800 finds later she has an injury which means that sometimes she's not with the rest of the team. We continue to log as a family but wish we had individual identities. It doesn't happen very often, but it feels like we're "cheating" in some way. Can't face going back through those 2800 finds adding extra name(s), so although it's not perfect, it'll just have to do.

Mrs Locator was zapped by the camera car in Fairford, Gloucestershire last month, whilst parking up to go caching with Mrs Nine Elms Navigators and Mrs TurnerTribe. Still waiting for that area to go live.

Ah, not that handy for me in Wiltshire.

Where is your mum based?

We regularly cache whilst holidaying abroad and usually print off a screen shot of GoogleEarth showing where all the local caches are. Then we logically look at each cache in turn and using Bablefish try to translate the cache pages. Any that are impossible to decipher will be crossed out on the map and eventually we end up with a map showing which ones to attempt. Usually we end up with mainly traditional caches, but some multis are possible if you are selective and likewise some puzzle caches are mathematical so still achievable. Even if you don't get a perfect translation - with the co-ords, difficulty, terrain and cache size it is still possible to find caches. You just need to go with an open mind and try your best, it can be great fun not knowing exactly what's in store. We've just got back from Belgium where we were surprised to find that WP2 on a multi was underwater at all but the lowest of tides! Very amusing as we stood on the beach with the arrow pointing 200m out to sea! We managed to get back at low tide and found the cache, it was very rewarding and a very memorable part of our holiday.

Now we're back from our hols we've managed to get our fantastic new images up and running. Thanks Doug for all your help and sorry for all the emails whilst we waded our way around the system.

We were lucky enough to grab a cheap holiday to Centre Parks in Belgium! We had a couple of drizzly moments, but the weather was mostly warm and dry ideal for caching. The downside was that the caches were thin on the ground, most were long complicated multis and ALL were written in Dutch!! Worked hard and managed to find 20 caches over the 8 day holiday, with some very inventive hides that we've filed away for future reference!

We ran 3 new PQs yesterday - all generated, none arrived. We ran 2 new PQs today - one generated, one not, none arrived. We've only received 6 geocaching emails - should have had 15 found logs and who knows what else is missing. Our domain is ntlworld.com Thankfully we ran some PQs last week, but obviously any new caches will be missing.

Same here no PQs arriving and only two geocaching emails despite several of our caches being logged today. Off on our Easter holidays tomorrow so not a great time to have the PQs fail.