Oxford Stone

Astronomer. Speaking of, looks like I'm going observing for a week at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, in June. I was last in Arizona a decade ago, pre geocaching for sure, so yay new state for the stats! (Not on Kitt Peak tho as that's on an Indian reservation, I'll have to nab one while in Tucson.) I sell software to the French market from the UK and as such am often taking the train under the English Channel. This inspired me to dream up http://coord.info/GC5G49W You're A Star, a multi with clues at either end of the train journey. After a spate of rude messages from Parisians accusing me of breaking the rules, it's doing quite well. Brazil holiday booked. Precisely 2 caches to go for.

http://coord.info/GC14BV6 Transit of Mars is very clever, plus a nice stroll and subtle hide at the end of it. Only one find since mine 18 months ago which is a real pity. Message me if you're intrigued and wonder what it's all about.

Just waiting to get paid tomorrow, then will start looking at trips to Brazil (Pernambuco, in the NE) for late July - early August. Not many caches there, but will be happy to get one. My UK counties map is pretty poor, hardly ventured out of one corner, so that's a cheaper and easier project!

Definitely recommed project-gc as above. You can specify a central point and a radius, and you get a map with links to caches you need for the D/T, hidden date or hidden month grids. This has helped me zoom in on caches for the 2nd and 3rd of these grids in new places on many occasions and gives ideas for local-ish walks to tick a few more boxes. Last July 2 of us spent the day Reading-Newbury way just going for about 6 hardcore caches to colour in that bottom right corner of the D/T grid and without project-gc, planning would have been a lot harder. Do you get to watch OUFC much, YY?

Almost infinite possibilities. Yesterday, for tomorrow's trip to London, I solved one using Pythagoras Triples (numbers like 3-4-5...) Loads of ciphers out there. I go for a theme to make a letter become a number: eg pool balls giving black = 8. A recent one the GC number was used to give the answer. Just like crossword or pub quiz setters, people have their ways of doing things. Several scientific / IT / electronic COs round my way. Some you'll stare at and never get, others you'll have a "what if I try...?" moment. Some are just wiki research. Have fun and don't overlook them! One of mine was "resuscitated" (over a year since previous hide) only yesterday.

In an ivy covered tree, no doubt.... Back in the day, it was a decent walk and very little ivy on the tree... Now-a-days the tree is more ivy than tree, and there's no decent walk and no view... Beakers from wilko are my favoured rural container. The lip below the screwtop lid makes them ideal to tie to trees (not saying what height!) Update - Oxford army surplus has piles of ammo cans at £8.

OK thanks - interesting to know. It makes the map of Lisbon look quite dramatic as half the caches are grey right now!

Hello, I'm delighted to be back in Lisbon 19-22 January for a conference, after a lovely family trip in late 2013. Strange to look at the GC map of Lisbon and see Team Ribeiro (and another team)'s caches all disabled since 3/1 "while CO is inactive". I know I can still find the caches but wondered what was going on?

Visiting a new area / city, looking at the caches with most FPs and having a read of the cache pages, to decide on a wishlist, is definitely worthwhile. Mind you it can lead you to some duff ones too. Look me up on project-gc and you'll see my 3 most favourite finds are all in Hamburg - the one 544 steps up the spire and the one in the old tunnel (recommended by NY Paddle Cacher of this parish) yes, but the 3rd one, some paper in a bag stuck on the back of a roadsign, isn't. A a cacher - I have 2 FPs in stock at the moment. I use them on good puzzles (field or mystery), nice scenery or clever hides but also caches which led us a merry dance (one in La Coruña, back or roadsign but involved giving piggy-back to son day after DNFing it, springs to mind). # 1800 got a FP as a thanks for the trail of 19 neat but ordinary caches that helpd me rack up that number. The last in a series of 120, tackled over a year and finished at dusk on Christmas Eve 2013, got a FP from me becuase for me it was an achievement. Still its only FP out of 259 finds but I bet the first and last numbered caches will have a disproportionate number... which is a good way to flag up a trail as recommended I suppose. As a CO I love to get a FP. A FP with a nicely-written log from an experienced cacher is even better than an "awesome!" + FP from a newbie (but that's a whole new subject...) And guess what, I put out caches like the ones I enjoy: puzzles, field puzzles, minimum of tupperware or film pots. Things with a bit of humour / quirkiness involved. (Thinking of my leader on 10FP at the moment - if you lived near a sign saying "<-- MAGNETTE CLOSE", what would you do, eh?)

I bought 1 of 2 that were on sale in an antique shop (of the slightly flea-market type!) in Lechlade. £10. I'd imagine places like that, plus car-boots, are good options. Might go back for the other one one day - but have only just been to Boots to scrounge some film pots so I need to hide them in the middle of a wood 50m off the path first

I'll admit to scouring undergrowth for 20 mins, going home in a sulk with a DNF and THEN seeing the tree climbing attribute!!! In the UK we have bridleways which are paths open to horses and push-bikes; footpaths which are not. So if one of my caches is on a public footpath I put no bikes.

I sometimes use the title as a hint, either to the hide or a puzzle - where's the cheque? http://coord.info/GC4A8G3 - it's in the post, of course. (Bison tube - fishing line - magnet; idea copied from metal-bijou and soon to be recopied by a CO around Goring, for those of you in the Oxon-Bucks area!)

I agree with both of you. I always find the comparative height clues ambiguous, but they do typically get me thinking in the right area. "waist height" is not on the ground nor over my head, and that's often very helpful. I had the opposite experience from crb11: one CO used a clue that was "eye level", and since I knew she was on the short side, I was looking at her eye level. It hit me on the head, just about at her other half's eye level. And the very next day what do I run into but a hint "5 feet up" and it wasn't! Very true, the above comment about ruling out ground level (useful at the moment with the banks of wet fallen leaves).

"Head / chest / waist height" - really? For me or for Oxford Stone Junior aged 5? How tall are you, CO?

Here, have a two-stage multi! http://coord.info/GC5G49W Hardest bit here was sorting out permission in London, but the reviwers were fine with the international element.

Interesting. Hopefully another category that reviewers look at carefully is the 5/5. Too many caches have D = T but these are the worst because of the kudos attached to owning and finding 5/5s. I'm looking forward to a kayak trip in the spring, about 50 miles from home - all the caches in the series are T5 and it seems rightly so, but none are D5. That'll get me to 77/81...

I've exchanged PMs with the CO to "make peace" on this one but found his reaction to my daring to climb a tree and question the lack of a hint, slightly excessive: The last log was certainly an annoying one to receive and such things never help when received when driving home after a long caching trip. The cache listing clearly says the containment is fragile and cannot be replaced together with the invite to avail yourself of all the information you may need through Geocheck. Certainly irritating to read that statement I can't find a fragile container so I'll risk climbing all over it. I'm dumbstruck by modern caching attitudes but guess we just have to contain our venom and carry on. Container was still there. It has now been relocated slightly, safely away from any idiotic climbing activities and a more secure tether placed but it does mean it's less accessible than it was. Sorry folks you know who to blame. Game on so who will be the 24th finder? ******* Oxford Stone Premium Member 1795 Didn't find it 26/10/2014 No luck. Micro and no hint in that sort of environment - seriously? Consoled myself with a gratuitous tree climb at what seemed to be GZ. Probably within touching distance of the cache?

There have been a few threads about what people carry when they go caching - but I'm sure I'm not the only CO with a drawer of bits and pieces that might just make part of a cache, one day. Currently old bootlaces (good way to attach caches to trees), black tape, magnets, a zinc plate with some numbers on, an inertia-reel "yoyo" thing off a broken office security fob, ziploc bags. Always on the lookout for bits of bark / hollow branches - these make really simple and rewarding camo; fishing line to thread bison tubes inside the aforementioned; I have on my radar an antique shop with ammo boxes on sale, and a film developer with film pots going free. Plus of course purveyors of waterproof plastic containers and bison tubes. A favourite I picked up and used was a bird ring with a whole series of numbers and letters on, that I put onto a split ring and then onto a fence as part of a multi. So what's in your garage / kitchen drawer? What's the best bit of random kit you've made into part of a cache?

Thought I'd revisit this thread - relevant to see what lumbricus says above about making new friends, as I've done a whole lot of high-terain caching since my last post with a local cacher I only knew as a prolific CO until my event a year ago. Much tree / bridge climbing, kayaking and tunnel-crawling later I'm now on 70/81 D/T, and you can't stop there can you? Friendships made and reinforced, caching ideas swapped, caches found that would be impossible or at least rather dangerous alone. 21 caches owned, about 60 FPs on them. 5 of them up trees. Just passed 2nd anniversary, about 2/3 speed compared to 1st year. (1050, 700) Over 100 multis, 99 mysteries, 10 countries. Date found grid 365/366 as planned; date, month hidden still not really a priority but their day will come. Junior on nearly 900, more than half my number and finds most of the ground level ones before I'm within 20m now. Ticking off a few challenge caches - some are plain daft but others quite interesting and, well, challenging. I think the teamwork, and the accesss that gives to harder more interesting caches like http://coord.info/GC4T7NM , is this year's unexpected bonus.

Look for a multi in Ghent called Enfant Terrible - the cache is in a bar and the CO picks up your tab for a drink!

I do like the cache retrived as planned one. "Safely hidden in tree" might get used next time I find a micro in an ICT (hate ivy...) If I've cached on the way to a Maidstone United game, or it's a cache belonging to a fellow Maidstone fan, you might see a COYS (Come On You Stones)... Finnish for TFTC is KK, BTW (IIRC)...

https://www.facebook.com/#!/GeocachingGoodies?fref=ts JJEF has about 100 caches out near Windsor, all home-made clever and witty field puzzles. (On the FB page don't be put off by the ladybird, scroll down to some of his wooden gizmos). He's found a way of embedding magnets in layers of wood so you suddenly have... a magnetic wooden box. When he brands numbers on the box and attaches a padlock, the fun begins. Not unique I know but the doorbell in box 1 to locate box 2, was hilarious. Too many pulleys and springs to mention.

I forgot to one mention another challenge local to me that it seems rude not to look at - but I'm sure some of you will say "Oh FFS" under your breath when you see it... http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC55MY3_explorer-180-challenge and yes there are loads of these in the UK I couldn't make the GSAK macro thingy work so have peppered 129 squares on my poor unsuspecting paper map with pink highlighter dots. Glad to have encouraged some good-natured debate on the subject. Reviewers getting involved in the quality of a cache?!?!? Can of worms!!! You'll be asking them to comment on the D/T ratings next!

They come in all shapes and sizes - some you look at the logs and noone with under 5000 caches has got it because it's so hard. I've done a 100-day stretch challenge, qualify for a 365/366; am working on rainbow (need indigo and orange OR violet as all must be from different trails); working on 50 church micros (zillions of these caches - clue in the name - in the UK; there are dozens of challenges based around them. IMHO they're over-valued as a series but that's another matter) and one where you need a cache in every 5-mile increment from home up to 250 (have about 20 missing - past about 60 miles it gets hard. 245-250 was in Paris!) So yes a good one encourages you to find more caches along a theme; some are just a bit too rarefied. 200-day stretch, for example. There are some on having a whole line or column on your D/T grid, that I think I qualify for but not worth the drive.

Two very reasonable arguments! Mind you I've only met 1/2 of these people - and when I mentioned it on a local FB page, one of the COs was actually the other way, he doesn't want his caches over-visited! Meanwhile the discussion made me remember the row of challenges near here (Marlow UK) I'd set aside as being too hard but the Xmas one (caches with 12 words including green, inn, holly, ivy, church...) is actually pretty easy so it's all good. Plus I'm pretty happy with the 3 alternative puzzles I came up with... all based on... local cachers! (amazing what you can do with the letters and dates on someone's profile...)