Oxford Stone

I can see I'm quite heavily outvoted on this one by the "528 is sacrosanct" brigade. While I understand and respect the reasons behind 528, I think some people forget that this is a game that's existed for a decade or so, not a professional sport. I used to go Dartmoor letterboxing where no such restriction existed - and this in a National Park - and an area dense with caches was something to enjoy not tut at. I have much more of an issue with poorly maintained caches than ones whose co-ords are out (but see my thread on gently suggesting correct ones) or too close to another. Back to the fact that there are 5 million of us and we all perceive geocaching in different ways. Apologies to those who seem to think I'm some sort of low-life for suggesting flexible pragmatism on "528".

Having started caching last October (currently on 238 and a 24-day stretch; 1st FTF last weekend; most in a day = 9) 366/366 by next Feb 29 - should be easy, really wont start worrying about that for another year or so! 365 in first year was a challenge set by the friend who got me into GCing - well on target 10 in a day. Stop sniggering at the back, I know that's pretty modest. But if I'm not caching in my lunch break (record = 5) then I'm usually with OS Junior who's not 4 until May. However I can see some easy 12,14,15 walks around so I'm sure that if you ask me again this autumn I'll say 20 in a day. Really not bothered about FTFs. Did Saturday's just to get out of the house. Got my first D5 last week, that was very satisfying. Holiday in Italy in May and work trips to Paris and Genoble in April - move some trackables worthwhile distances! IT makes me smile to see the continued journey of a teddy I took from UK to Vegas. She's now in New Mexico. Want to put out my first 3 caches and hopefully see some favourite points as I'm going to make an effort to make them interesting. That's all the numerical / measurable stuff. Otherwise, as per others, have some fun, watch my son enjoy it too. Only cache I really have my eye on is the D1/T5 Swing Lower cache in Oxford, under a bridge. Boat trip planned.

So jack gets access to a service he didn't pay for (the equivalent of you opening the exit door Ina theater to sneak him in or maybe the trunk of your car to a drive in) and he then decides he won't go to movies any more if he has to pay. My advice to jack would be if you liked what we did pay up. Fair point. S'pose the answer is for him not to log the point, though I've shown him how, if you really think that's the raison d'être for premium caches. Can't take away from him the pleasure of the find though. Conversely - he intends to do the local 5/5 which involves diving in the Thames. I'll watch, might even hold a rope or some such, and will feel involved but won't log a found it, just a Note (long thread on this on the Facebook Extreme Geocaching page).

The creation of a fun multi has to be the answer, doesn't it. I think I posted in a "found by accident" thread that a couple of months ago I found a brand-new cache, abut a week after it had been put in place, while unsuccessfully looking for the end to a nerarby multi. Got home and my "FTF" was not, as not published yet, was at review stage... and got refused as too close to the end of the multi. CO has since re-positioned... and guess what's happened to the multi... archived as cache gone missing and CO emigrated (I think). Doh! No-one's fault, an inevitable consequence I suppose.

More pragmatic - and playing devil's advocate - than lacking integrity, I like to think. Rules are rules I know - and if you start allowing 516ft then next time it's 515, etc etc. Have to admit that after 10 years of living in France, circumventing rules is something I've kind of picked up. That said - I want to put out 3 caches in my new home town, which is pretty saturated already at least in the centre. So I've used common sense and gone for places on the edge - one of which is in a nature reserve belonging to an organisation that had banned caching (a dormouse nest was disturbed 8 years ago). So I wrote to them asking if they'd reconsider and bingo, they have. I will make a cache page that encourages people to visit the site and make it clear the cache is accessible from the path and no dormouse trampling will be tolerated. Then I really think I'll stop at 3 - as people have said in so many threads, quality rather than quantity eh?

Scenario - I (PM) go caching with Jack (basic, newer member than me and keen). We find a cache together that I'd stored on my phone. In fact he finds it, rummaging deeper into leaves than me. Only when he tries to log it does he find it's a PM cache (bu tI give him a work-around to log it anyway). If a CO were to delete this find, I think it would be so discouraging for Jack to treated like a lower-class citizen in what is after all just a game.

Apologies for posting same thing on 2 threads but - would "accidentally" posting inaccurate co-ords @529 feet, so 12 feet off, the sort of thing which cachers are quite used to suffering anyway, be a terribly naughty thing to do in the circs?

Bearing in mind we have other threads on here mentioning co-ords being inaccurate and several threads from prospective COs annoyed at the proximity rule (there was one where it was down to 12 feet I read last week, can't find the thread right now) - I know what I'd do... I'd just submit co-ords that were 529ft from the nearest cache (keeping the reviewer happy) but make my hint / spiel helpful enough that cachers just forget the slightly inaccurate co-ords. Then everyone's a winner.

Has to be on a cache-by-cache basis. In the Chilterns there are 5 circuits of about 6 or 7 miles with a total of about 100 caches. Some people have done all 5 circuits in 2 days. I've done 9 in a day but our chosen pub walk meant we went from loop D to A and back to D (or something) and I've also cached and dashed one and it's the only time I've ever bumped into another geocacher - who was halfway through his 7-mile walk in the pouring rain! so arguably the physical difficulty was much harder for him than for me on that occasion. Other thing about these loops though is the CO has made them ALL 2.5 2.5. Now as they're nearly all at corners / path junctions, I'd say D=1 for most (many are visible from 20 feet away) and although some are a mile form a road and at the top of a hill so warrant the 2.5, many others are 1.5 or 1. I think the cacher - not renowned for maintaining caches once put out - is a Quantity person. They make for a great day's caching or more to the point a great day walking in the Chilterns and knowing there's a cache in 250m that will be in the same container type as the one at the base of the last stile. Oxford Stone Junior loved the 9-cache walk and in the summer we'll no doubt do the rest. Plus as an ex-Dartmoor letterboxer I look forward one day to tackling some of Dartymoor's caches!

Map on geocaching.com in google chrome, won't drag (just tries to drag a layer of cache icons). Apart from going back to IE - any ideas?

So that is actually a brilliant hint. An extra twist of the cryptic sword. There's one I've done and the hint is "near base of post" - the fact that the cache is INSIDE the post is for you to joyfully discover. That "Under Tree" one likewise is superb I think. But have to agree that people who use L or R, before / after, assuming you're doing a trail in one particular direction... nv helpful. Chin height etc, ditto.

This is making me think it's time to talk to a reviewer before I get too carried away placing my first caches - I've got 3 ideas up my sleeve and have sussed out 3 sites that look OK on a ma, but... Going back to the original post - why get angry at mysteries and multis and say they're for hardcore cachers only? Come to Oxford and try Spies Like Us - Honeypot (GC1Y4K5 - currently disabled) which takes you to a really cool exhibit in a lovely museum (but you can be in and out in 2 mins) to pick up numbers for the co-ords. Our 3-year-old got the idea so I don't get the negativity. I understand the frustration but as has been said, live with it.

Did a reconnaissance for a possible cache last night and noted co-ords as given via c:geo compass on phone. Google Maps disagrees by .004 and .001 (urban cache, site easily spotted on satellite view) - so I'll go with Google I think!

I've just spent a couple of minutes tweaking co-ords on Google Maps to get the green arrow right where I intend to hide a cache. Next step will be to go there with C:Geo on my phone and see how close the two readings are! I think I'll use the Google ones if in doubt and will do elsewhere. I know this won't work for caches hidden in forests, but surely it's a fail-safe check otherwise? (And no, I don't live on the Nicaraguan border) This lunchtime GPS took me straight to a cache in woods without having a hissy fit and bouncing around. Not complaining but it's rare!

I did 4 caches today (taking me up to 200 to give you an idea of my experience or lack of it) and in all 4 cases including a previous DNF, it was a case of using GPS to get within 10m and then using my eyes and my rule of thumb, "where would you have hidden it?" Those who moan at bad co-ords would hate Dartmoor letterboxing where clues were often of the type "156 paces on 221 degrees from the granite boulder". This would be on a hillside strewn with granite boulders; the bearing would be disputable, maybe good +/- 10 degrees; and as for paces on undulating ground, forget it. It was a case of looking at every possible hidey-hole, spotting flattened grass or pile-up stones and just plain guessing. I think, bickering aside, we've established that there are times when it's useful to suggest better co-ords if a lot of logs show people are getting frustrated.

Thanks, interesting feedback. I'm pernickety and helpful, and glad to tidy things up.

Apologies if this has been covered before - couldn't find it in a quick search though: A pet hate in a log entry is "the co-ords were miles off". If you find yourself thinking that, with a cache in your hand, look at your GPS and add the correct co-ords to the log! Not difficult, surely - and a common courtesy in a community game like this? I've done it twice this week - message of thanks from one CO who's put in my co-ords and saved people needleesly crossing a busy road. The other was in a concrete canyon where the GPS just goes bananas but I used google maps to suggest a better reading after a string of "coords 30m out!!!" comments. One of the caches I want to do this lunchtime, same thing, half a dozen pepole moaning, no-one helping.

True it's an unusual choice of language - Flemish would have been closer to the mark, but as the blurb says they wanted to reflect ALL the native languages passing through and took Esperanto as a representative of that. They've got my curiosity, I've solved stored and hope to find next week. I know I'm being a bit snobbish about people who only speak English - as I mentioned with a chemistry-based quiz, I'm sure there are scientists and mathematicians who will think I'm an ignoramus for taking one look at their puzzles and giving up! Takes all sorts - which is part of the charm of GCing.

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?wp=GC3T6MT The coordinates are written in words in... esperanto??? Brilliant! This cache will only be found by people with curious minds who accept that not everyone speaks English.

Thanks for the advice! Actually, most of the people doing the challenge are from the Marlow area, so if we decide to do group training those suggestions would come in useful I think! That's great! Like I say the caches are pretty easy so you would not be breaking the rhythm of the walk by spending 20 mins looking for a magnetic nano...

I'll chip in with the Chilterns. Not massive hills but some short sharp 100-150m climbs... then down the other side and start again so you could easily do 750m of climbing in a day's walk. I'd get a train to Marlow or Henley and then get a bus to Hambleden, between the two, and head north to where Lord of the Cachers has put out about 100 caches designed to be tackled in 5 loops of about 7 miles each. But there's such a good network of paths that you can pick and choose. Someone did all 5 loops in 2 days late Dec., I see from the logs. Oh and in the middle of the loops are three rather good pubs in the villages of Fingest / Skirmett / Turville (used for Vicar of Dibley filming, and the windmill was in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang). The caches are all pretty easy but nice breathers every 300m or so! Having Dartmoor letterboxed before geocaches were thought of, I'd like to go back there one day and pick up some hybrides. Get a bus to Widecombe and... I was going to say fill your boots, but with the notorious bogs on the moors that could be taken literally!

Thing is, from a cacher's point of view, we all look at our scores differently don't we? There are people who will not go to a cache that's too close to houses even though they've found it. I'm not big on virtuals - am in Vegas this week and have logged 4 but to me they don't really have the same interest as trads / mysteries. Walked 2 miles before breakfast this morning to visit 2 trads including the only one I'd found in town suitable for dropping off a TB - this is geocaching for me. My "score" is 166 so I can't get excited about 200 or 250 just yet. Back home I'll go for a Sunday walk and will be just as happy if OS Junior and I find 1 cache or 9. And as for the famous route 66 picking up obvious boxes every 0.1 mile - what's the point in that? I don't understand that.

Agree with Walts. I've introduced a Finnish colleague to GC - his town seems quite rich in caches. He went out looking for two having only ever found one cache when over at our UK office - and failed x2. I went to Google Maps and Streetview and said "did you try looking in those stones at the base of that wall?" and bingo I'd found the cache for him from 2000 miles away. It would never have occurred to me to log a find though! Now we're at a conference in Vegas and finding a few together!

BOMB SCARE!!! Where exactly did it say that in the report? I read suspicious package, which could be anything! Bomb scare, security alert... 6 and 2 3s... they get fairly desperate for news at the Oxford Mail! There has been anti-vivisection hooha in that area, thus the... security alert.

Do you know which cache is was, Oxford Stone? I wish I did - what's intriguing is that there are no traditional caches in University Parks - just a couple on the far side of the river. What Oxford has plenty of is fiendish mystery / multis - so it must be part of one of those. Take a look at the map and you will see what I mean.I'd bet on one of the Lewis ones. Not the alchemy one which looks like it's going to be very close to the Uni chemistry department. There has been trouble in this area in recent years from the anti-vivisection lobby when a new research lab was built (don't get me started...) so if someone thought it was suspicious then fair enough.