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Lydford Locators

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Posts posted by Lydford Locators

    Geocaching Awards 2007

    in United Kingdom and Ireland

    Posted

    We'd like to nominate ourselves for the biggest whoops this year:

     

    Grandma Locator was feeling a bit miserable having been stuck indoors for several months caring for Grandpa who'd been suffering with a long illness. We thought it would be nice to take her out for a little bit of simple geocaching to blow away the cobwebs.

     

    However at GC10T8K The Big Brookwood Tree with a terrain of 2 there was a sudden thump - Grandma Locator had taken a tumble! Upon inspection it became apparent that she'd broken her leg!! (The bone sticking out was a bit of a giveaway)

     

    With GPS co-ords and mobile phone we thought it should be quite easy to get help, but no - apparently the ambulance crew couldn't use our co-ords. Mrs Locator had to abandon Grandma and the kids in the woods, and go off to find the nearest road to try to find where she was, wait for the ambulance and paramedic to find her and then they all processed back into the woods to find Grandma again. It took a while to try to explain what Grandma was doing inside a huge rhododendron bush, but they spotted the cache in it's hiding place and guessed we were geocachers.

     

    Extracting Grandma was a major affair and it took over 2 hours to get her out and safely off to the nearest hospital. 72 year old Grandma had a 4 hour operation to mend the 6 breaks in her right leg with pins and pegs. After spending 6 weeks in hospital she was allowed home, but she's now confined to a wheelchair and will probably not be walking well for at least another year!

     

    Whoops!! ;)

    Power trails

    in United Kingdom and Ireland

    Posted

    I like power trails lots of caches in a row when I am with the children because it saves getting them in and out of the car several times over, however they lose interest if they are trails of micros. The fun for them in caching is finding treasure in a box and swapping it for something they have brought along with them. A string of micros is great if you are out grabbing numbers, but I need something more exciting to keep the children amused. Do trails of caches have to be micros or in dull, uninventive places? We did a load of The Teddies caches recently and that was a circular walk in a pretty woodland area ... eight caches from one parking spot (I think) and they were all well stocked boxes. We managed to pick up a few standalone caches too that day so I guess for us a bit of variety is the key. :D

     

    Exactly what we look for when planning our caching day, particularly now they're going to be in muddy wellies, wet coats, etc. Our 7 & 8 year old don't mind a walk of up to 7 miles but they need decent sized boxes along the way to keep the motivation going.

    The worst caches ever

    in General geocaching topics

    Posted · Edited by Lydford Locators

    We can definately top that worse cache experience ...

     

    On 3 September we went to GC10T8K and whilst in the middle of the woods in a very inaccessible place, the 72 year old member of our team broke their leg in 6 places. It took paramedics quite some time to find us and then over 2 hours to extracate her. She needed a 4 hour operation to repair the multiple breaks and insert a load of metal into her leg. 5 weeks on and she's still in hospital! :sad:

     

    It was a lovely little cache that could have been so easy, however we do wish we'd just stayed at home that day.

    Shfting a TB

    in United Kingdom and Ireland

    Posted

    Although we can't help you, we had an idea ..

     

    There may be an attendee for "Shropshire 2007 - The Philosopher's Stone" Event GC13AJ2 able to retrieve the TB and take with them to the event. The Cotswold venue would then be a good place to find another cacher to take it nearer it's goal. We don't have anyone in mind, but there is quite a large number of cachers due to attend. Only downside to this brainwave is that the event is tomorrow!

    FTF Sharks

    in United Kingdom and Ireland

    Posted

    I have had lots of my caches FTF by a local FTF cache grabber, I set up some locally when I knew he would be away in the U.S.A.

    I was trying to give a chance to some new cachers in the area to get a FTF and another FTF shark from the Reading area rushed in to grab them.

    I am setting up 4 new caches and am thinking of asking for them to be published with a day's gap in between to stop a FTF shark rushing in to grab them.

    I have heard of some idiots driving more than 100 miles to garb a FTF, I have got 15 FTF's but will not deliberatley go out of my way to grab them :D

     

    A good way to fool FTFers is to publish caches, not only one at a time so they go out for one but miss the others, but mid to late morning at the weekend when the keen cachers have already set out on their caching day and the less addicted cachers may still at home. B)

    Somerset-Dorset

    in United Kingdom and Ireland

    Posted

    I was searching the forums for some information regarding camping in the New Forest. Anyone got any recommendations? Must-do caches would also be appreciated. We were going to the Lake District next week, but have had to cancel again as the weather forecast is terrible for that area.

     

    BTW, we were in Cornwall last week and we did see this chap, who was very close to the coastal path too.

    a93fba45-7964-486c-9697-4a79c9146aba.jpg

     

    We've just got back from a week in the New Forest with our 7 & 8 year olds and had a fantastic time. We weren't camping this time, but we've previously stayed at the Holmsley camp site which is well positioned for the forest.

     

    We did our favourite ever cache when we did Pirates Surprise GC12N18, so would definately recommend that if you get a chance - but make sure you read the instruction before you attempt it though as it's not always available. An area we went to upon another cacher's recommendation was to the west of Bournemouth, which instead of being urban caches as expected, were infact amongst lovely wooded chines and were very handy for the beach too!

     

    All in all we highly recommend all the caches we tried, but we did manage to pick up a tick so do watch out. Hope you have a good time.

    Floods

    in United Kingdom and Ireland

    Posted · Edited by Lydford Locators

    We have a series of Thames Path caches running from source to St John's Lock near Lechlade - an area that's severely flooded. Our attempts to carry out cache maintenance was abandoned at the weekend as the floods were too deep for our cachemobile. :)

     

    Luckily most of our hides were in elevated positions so hopefully will have survived, but some were not so elevated as they were on higher ground - however we now suspect it may have not been high enough! :P

     

    We've got our fingers crossed that the caches survive - with just some drying out required, but at this stage all we can do is sit and wait for the water to subside. :)

    I'll be camping at The Trout Inn the first weekend in August.... assuming that their camping field isn't still somewhere under the River Thames... for a small folk festival. Now I get 'folked out' after a couple of hours and was looking forward to finding your caches when I get an hour or two to sneak off on my own. Hope they've survived.... :)

     

    Your nearest cache will be GCYN7G and we've managed to see it in the distance safe and dry (although at present unreachable) - can't say the same for the caravans in the site, with the water level half way up their doors! We fear that many of the other nearby Thames caches will be submerged, if not lost, but we'll do our best to do maintenance visits ASAP after the floods subside. :rolleyes:

    Floods

    in United Kingdom and Ireland

    Posted

    We have a series of Thames Path caches running from source to St John's Lock near Lechlade - an area that's severely flooded. Our attempts to carry out cache maintenance was abandoned at the weekend as the floods were too deep for our cachemobile. :P

     

    Luckily most of our hides were in elevated positions so hopefully will have survived, but some were not so elevated as they were on higher ground - however we now suspect it may have not been high enough! :P

     

    We've got our fingers crossed that the caches survive - with just some drying out required, but at this stage all we can do is sit and wait for the water to subside. :lol:

    "I Pledge" Geocoin

    in United Kingdom and Ireland

    Posted

    We saw the coin at Burrington Coombe Event (didn't log it then as we lost the code number), but then saw it again at the Dreaming Spires Cache Bash 2007. We've subsequently set a wheelchair friendly urban multi called Historic Cricklade GC11K3K.

     

    Hope you manage to get all your data back, keep up the good work.

    Ran into a plant...

    in General geocaching topics

    Posted

    We can certainly tell that you are not over here in the UK!

     

    Nettles are probably the worse part of caching this side of the pond - for more than half the year they take over almost every hedgerow and large expanses of field edges. Most cachers we know wear long trousers and sleeves even in the hottest weather, and carry sting spray at the top of their caching bag because it's almost impossible to reach the majority of caches without the liklihood of getting stung by the little devils. :o

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