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tliuska

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Posts posted by tliuska

  1. Really interesting statistics, thanks for your effort Mohammad!

     

    Since the number of cachers in the area has been relatively low, I would guess that quite minor things impact in the caching activity. Whenever somebody introduces caching to his/her friends and if they happen to get more interested in the hobby you can see the impact on cache visits etc quite quickly. And when the visits increase then people are probably getting more interested in placing caches as well.

     

    Micro/nano caches are one thing that's currently totally lacking here in Riyadh area. There's probably several reasons for it, one would be just the personal preference, at least I prefer to do caching in the desert instead of city. Another thing is probably that people don't want to take any risks on doing geocaching in public places inside the city, just in case police for example comes around and starts asking what you're doing. Well, luckily we have at least the M&M's Faisalia virtual cache in city, which is quite easy to catch for any short-term business visitors. There would be several interesting places inside Riyadh, for example the Old Diriyah area, but ensuring that caches stay in good shape there longer term is quite problematic as there's so much muggles in the area.

     

    Happy caching,

    Timo

  2. I think it is a good idea. If the old cache log is still readable you could leave it in the cache with the new logbook. I've been replacing cache boxes and logbooks etc in my area and if the cache hasn't been visited for over a year I try to remember to take some cache maintenance items with me.

     

    I don't know the cache maintenance situation in your part of the world, but here in Saudi Arabia most of the cachers are expatriates and thus sometimes you run into caches where the cacher is no more living in the country. That makes any maintenance for the cache owners of course pretty much impossible, but it would be shame to archive all those nice caches if some minor cache fixing is needed. Luckily in here the area is so dry and there isn't many muggles around, so usually the caches stay in mint condition for several years.

  3. Hold on now, don't blame the reviewers. There are no regulations against TB trading requirements before or after it's listed.

     

    And there are no requirements to follow the cache trade rule, you just might end up with your found it deleted.

     

    AFAIK the only requirement for traditional caches is officially stated to be the name in the logbook. So, the owner of the cache does not have any privilege to remove your 'found it' log if you happen to move all travellers from that particular cache to elsewhere. Mystery caches can have some additional rules besides the name in logbook, but still it's at least very impolite to have any rules in the cache that are against the primary goal for the travellers, which is to move.

  4. It is really sad to see this happening. I've seen number of caches trashed as well, sometimes due to natural forces (e.g. baboons) or sometimes due to muggles scattering contents around. What makes it more problematic is that for example here in Saudi some of the cache owners for example might not be staying anymore in Kingdom, which makes the maintenance quite problematic. Thus I think it would be good idea for cachers in the area to have some basic cache maintenance items with them when going to rarely visited caches.

     

    Anyways, happy caching to everybody in the region!

  5. I guess there's as many opinions about this topic as there are geocachers. I as a geocoin owner think that the main goal for my items is to move. The described goal is like a secondary target, i.e. if you have lots of choices then try to move it towards the described goal. Anyways, moving somewhere (even in wrong direction) is much better option than to sit in a cache box.

     

    Just my 2 halala's :drama:

    Timo

  6. I have bought my first GPS. It should arrive in the next few days. They said it had Mapsource on it but no Topo US or the one with roads. Anyway I plan on purchasing those in May with birthday money. I was just curious are there any old versions or Beta test versions available for free ? I will be getting a Garmin Vista CX. I have never been on a catch, but from what I gather I can get by with just a local map until that time?

     

    Hello!

     

    I found out about this project called OpenStreetMap.org, seems like they have some kind of support to Garmin as well (see wiki.openstreetmap.org). Haven't tried to upload those to my GPSr yet, since it seems to be lacking the maps to my area (so I started creating some tracks there).

     

    I don't know how's the coverage in your area, but it doesn't cost anything to try it out, and if you get interested you can participate yourself in creating the maps.

     

    Best regards,

    Timo

  7. I would LOVE to visit you guys in Riyadh to do some caching, but the hassles of getting a visa makes it virtually impossible. I have a friend who lives and works in Riyadh as well that I wouls like to visit, but unfortunately no go. One day when the travel restrictions are relaxed - inshallah - I will be able to visit!

     

    Cheers

     

    cincol

     

    Yes, the visa procedures quite painful in heree and even when you have the visa, there's additional hassle if you try to cross the Saudi-Qatar border with rental car. Last time when we went to Qatar (last year) we had to leave our car to Saudi and hitch a ride across the border and then order taxi from Doha to the Qatari side of border. If getting the car to Qatar would be easier, I'd like to come caching to Qatar again, now that there's lots of new caches.

     

    Happy new year!

     

    Timo

  8. Officially the UAE has 89 caches. Qatar now has 44! Soon we will have caught the UAE even though we are much smaller in terms of population, area and cachers!

     

    Come on Qatar cachers, let's see if we can catch up with our neighbours!! :huh:

     

    Happy caching.

     

    KSA is still leading, we'll beat you even if you combine all other Gulf area countries together [:lol:] Nice to see increasing number of caches in the region, I've been couple times caching in UAE and once in Qatar as well. Keep up the good work everybody!

     

    Cheers,

    Timo

  9. Very nice to see new active cachers in the magical Kingdom. Haven't ever been myself in Jeddah, but I'd like to visit there sometime. I'm living in Riyadh and there's some cachers around here every now and then. Once you have found some caches in the area, you could try to think some good locations for caches and place new ones. Maybe that'll get more people interested in caching in there as well.

     

    Happy hunting!

    Timo

  10. Okay, got quite a bunch of travelbugs and geocoins from GeoCRAt today, I'll be placing those around Riyadh little by little in upcoming future. I'll prefer to put those in caches that are quite easily reachable with 2WD, so that those are easy to pick up by visitors who happen to come to the area.

  11. ... and hopefully some will come out!

     

    Good point. Saudi Arabia seems to be quite good place to get the travelbugs stuck for long time. I'm anyways thinking about heading to Tanzania or elsewhere in Africa after Ramadan, so if you want, I can just dip the coins somewhere in magical Kingdom and move those forward to Africa.

     

    Cheers,

    Timo

  12. 100 tuli täälläkin mittariin tänään (3.8.2007). Kätköltä kätkölle linnuntiekilometrejä on tällä hetkellä kertynyt 60 123 km ja purnukoita on löytynyt yhdeksästä maasta (Saudi-Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Arabiemiraatit, Oman, Suomi, Ruotsi, Norja, Australia). Harrastus tuli aloitettua viime vuonna keväällä. 100 kätkö oli Undercarriage Down, vajaa 30 km linnuntietä kotiosoitteesta.

  13. So far ive found one with minefields around it :laughing:

     

    Whats your opinion?

     

    That depends how you determine dangerous, but this one is pretty hardcore without proper caravan of 4WD's with the right equipment. Cache is located in the middle of desert, hundreds of kilometers away from nearest roads and houses. Quite hopeless to find any help if you end up being in trouble in there.

     

    Hadidah's Meteorite (Hadidah, Ar-Rub' al-Khali, Saudi Arabia) (GCAA76)

  14. Maisemat on mullakin se päällimmäinen syy, mm. täällä Saudeissa missä toistaiseksi olen enimmäkseen kätköillyt on paljon semmosia loistavia maisemapaikkoja joihin ei olisi muuten tullut lähdettyä. Ulkoilu luonnossa tulee sitten hyvänä kakkosmotivaationa.

     

    Eka kätkö oli The Water Hole (GCG05Y) joka tuli Ville Saaren kanssa bongattua. Paikka oli melkoisen syvä luola, jonne laskeutumiseen meni jokunen tovi ja ylösnousemiseen vielä monta tovia enemmän. Kokemus oli sen verran eksoottinen että harrastukseen heräsi heti mielenkiinto, paikalle ei olisi varmaan ikinä sattunut jos ei sitä purkkia siellä olisi ollut.

  15. Since there isn't that much caches in the region, I think it shouldn't cause too much problems to create for example pocket queries that contains all caches in both countries. Or if you aren't a premium member, you can see all the caches in both countries with Google Earth and with gc.com maps for example. If you happen to check the area map before going geocaching you should quite easily see that there's Omani areas on the way. But as visitors are quite probably coming from UAE, I would recommend to specify in cache details if you need to go through passport check and/or if you'd need special permit for rental vehicles to enter the country.

     

    So, I would be personally in favour of fixing the country details in those caches. If you are using some external geocaching statistics service, such as www.itsnotaboutthenumbers.com, you would get the correct per-country statistics that way.

  16. Moi/ Terve/Hello,

     

    My daughter and I are new to this, and we are located in the Helsinki area. We are looking for a bit of advice and help in getting started.

     

    Please drop a line if you can help out.

     

    Much appreciated.

     

    regards,

     

    Don

     

    Moi!

     

    The "Nordic and Baltic countries" group might be better place to reach them, as Finland belongs there. Group is quite actve, so you should be able to find help :D

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