Goldenwattle

This confused me. I thought this was referring to the Northern Territory in Australia. I see it is Northwest Territories in Canada.

I have made 356 Write Notes, for various reasons, including revisiting. Works for me.

When I do that usually my friends include me in the list of who visited, so I don't need to make a log.

With that in mind I placed a good sized small cache with a note pad log and hid it beside a quiet country road. It was there for a statistical reason explained in the description, and accidentally also has a nice view as a bonus. It didn't get many logs. But then someone placed a power trail along the road , which incorporated my cache. Suddenly lots of logs. Fortunately I had placed a good sized log book .

I wouldn't be upset, although I rarely hear it these days. Gesundheit is an alternative sometimes heard. Expressions such as "God bless you" are virtually never heard in Australia. We are far more secular in nature than America, and religion does not play a major role in the lives of much of the population here. Most people never go to church, except maybe as an invite to a wedding. And the person getting married in the church might never go to church either, except for their wedding. Many who have some beliefs regard it as a personal, private thing and not necessary to discuss. The largest tick on the last census was no religion. 'No Religion' covers many things from Atheism through to believe in a God, but how the person believes is personal to them and they don't have the need or want to belong to a religion. Little Free Pantries is a more acceptable and understood term here. A "Blessing Box" would likely not be understood. Personally if I had not heard it here with an explanation, I would have thought of those Catholic Grottoes as found in Catholic countries with a blue dressed Mary and guessed that meant there was a box there for money donations. I would not have associated it with a place to donate food. It's a great idea, but "Pantry" translates better internationally.

As a CO I would hate this, as it would increase my work load to maintain caches.

Then I get on my bike and travel further afield; taking public transport if necessary across the city. I live in Australia and our public transport is nowhere as good as public transport in Europe (I am so jealous ), but I still manage to do that. Then I go travelling a lot to new areas.

I left a TB with small bear attached in a cache. Then a scout group came by and this was logged, " We have taken the bear hostage. ". I sent an email to the one who logged this and also to who I suspected was the adult with them. No reply and the bear TB has not been heard from since . Certainly no cause for that smiley with the hostage note.

I was having a friendly on line chat with an American recently and when we ended our conversation they wished me a blessed day. NO-ONE has ever said that to me before, and I didn't know how to take it. Huge culture gap there. But I knew they meant it as a friendly thing, so I just sent a smiley face back, because I didn't know how else to respond to that. There is a lot of presumption in that term...as well as it being creepy. Far better to call them Little Free Pantries. A less controversial and more international term, accepted better across different cultures..

I have seen one little free pantry, and in the right area it's a very good idea. "Blessing boxes" would not be a term I can imagine being used in Australia, as we are a far more secular society than the USA. It reminds me of The Handmaidens Tale, as that's the first time I heard the expression 'blessed' and it sounds creepy to me now. The one I have seen was next to a LFL and was well stocked. But as it was in a fairly expensive suburb to live in I do wonder how many of the really needy visited it. Still I understand why it was there; it's the same reason that I put a LFL (and TB Hotel) outside my house; so that I can maintain it easily. I wonder how well the food lasts after a spell of hot weather. But how well the box is insulated and sheltered (shaded) would affect that.

'Write note' is the log to use. The rare time I revisit a cache - mainly to drop a TB - 'write note' is available to use.

I have only ever revisited a cache to drop off a TB. I have no interest to do otherwise and I can't imagine being interested to do this if this were introduced. When I drop off a TB I just make a Note and write 'TB drop'. There appears to be many caches where you live, but once you have found all the caches in walking and cycling distance, can't you take public transport and go caching in another area? Maybe even take your bike. Today for instance I put my bike on the bus to go geocaching the other side of a steep hill.

A group of three people attempted to find this, but found only the plastic tube. While one only logged a note, but the other two logged finds. As an extra comment, this cache was listed by the CO as a 1D/1T, while describing this cache as a sneaky little cache . Reviewer 23/Nov/2019 Archive Reviewer Temporarily Disable Listing 22/Sep/2019 Needs Archived 17/Sep/2019 Write note 15/Sep/2019 The short plastic is here but log missing Found it 15/Sep/2019 Found the cache but the log was missing at the time of find. Didn't have paper on me to replace. Found it 15/Sep/2019 Found with ..... and ..... . Log missing. Found plastic. Needs Maintenance 02/Aug/2019 Didn't find it 02/Aug/2019 Didn't find it 19/Jul/2019 Found it 17/Jul/2019

They also attract wild dogs, etc that then proceed to chew the cache in an attempt to get to the food. Soap will attract them too.

And that's presuming it's a drive-by and people have arrived in a car. Many caches require walking to, and most people don't want to carry a ladder. Although we did (or actually my caching companion) to a cache recently, but that was only a short one kilometre walk. I would hate to need to carry a ladder for several kilometres.

Naturally I carry several pens. Although, charcoal is commonly available in the bush.

I stripped once to swim to an island in a river. The photo-shoot I allowed was limited. GLADYJVN

Nice. At my last MEGA, from memory all I bought were some bison tubes, and some stickers and more bison tubes to fill an order for a friend.

That might vary between states and territories. I don't have any caches in nature reserves in the ACT, but others do, and it's my understanding they are allowed here. Just check out the Mount Ainslie Nature Reserve. It's packed with caches. https://www.geocaching.com/map/default.aspx?lat=-35.331817&lng=149.152183#?ll=-35.271243,149.160573&z=15 Or these reserves: https://www.geocaching.com/map/default.aspx?lat=-35.331817&lng=149.152183#?ll=-35.179713,149.167598&z=14

I have never heard anyone here mention one of these, or seen one in geocaching shops at events, but perhaps I was being unobservant. Plus I tend to go in with a shopping list and ignore much of the rest. Anyway, finding a cache is often unplanned. In fact, I don't carry any geocaching gear beyond a GPS and a camera, as I so rarely need to use any tools. Most can be found in the bush if needed. If it's known that a cache need a special tool, as one the other day needed a ladder, I will take one then. Most nanos don't need a special tool to get the log out, as most COs are thoughtful/intelligent enough to realise that a very tight log will be a problem *, and they don't leave a log this tight. It's only a few COs who cause a problem. *Added: Or someone else has already trimmed the log .

For those that live in America. I'm not planning to visit there any time soon.

So, would it have been preferable if I had just left the log, as I couldn't get it back, on the ground? Never heard of or seen a 'log roller'. No one should be expected to get one of these obscure things, especially when most of these caches have low D&T ratings, that don't indicate (and shouldn't be expected because of the low rating) to have to use a special obscure tool. COs shouldn't have so long a log that it makes their logs so tight some people struggle to get them back in the nano; let alone out. I have seen many logs, because of this, that say, "Couldn't get the log out. I have a photograph if needed." The log will likely get damaged and even more jammed, as people struggle with all sorts of tools, often improvised, to get the log out. Taking a bit of paper off will probably avoid much of the damage. As you reacted to this, are you a CO who puts as long a roll of paper in as possible, thinking it will last longer? If it gets damaged because it's overly long, it could actually last less time than a slightly shorter roll.

I have one cache with 6 FPs. It got those quickly soon after I published it, but in the years since no more FPs. The reason was that I had made a cache out of the 'cutest' plastic tortoise. I found it on a road and had never seen a cuter plastic tortoise toy, before or since. Others obviously thought the same, because those 6FPs arrived quickly, but then I guess someone did think it extremely cute, because it was stolen. I didn't even try to replace that tortoise as I doubt I would have found another to match it, so I used a plain plastic box as a cache. Now it is a large metal bison tube-like cache. Functional, but not worthy of a FP, and the cache no longer gets points. This can be one reason a cache stops getting FPs; the cache is changed.

I think percentage has a lot more meaning than number of favourites, because in some areas of the world caches get a lot more visits than in other parts. A cache with say 20 FP doesn't look great against a cache with say 150FP, but a closer inspection might reveal a much higher percentage of FPs for the one with lessor FPs.

Unrolling and particularly re-rolling the rolled log is a lot more time consuming and difficult then turning a few pages in a log book. There is no comparison. Some people also have great difficulty with rolling logs, particularly if too much length has been included for the size of the nano. Especially in those caches it's also MUCH easier and more pleasant to open a log book, than to get a tightly wound and stuck nano log out of the cache. Then to put it back. I don't like doing this, but a couple of times I had to rip off some paper from a nano log as it was the only way I could get it back. I've never needed to rip pages from a log book to get it back inside a cache.