Danielc

Hi, I'm using Firefox. My "decrypt" will work to decrypt the hints, but won't work when I attempt to decrypt parts of logs that have been encrypted. I don't get any messages, I just get a new page with the encrypted part of the log still encrypted. I can't understand why it should work in one situation and not in the other. Still - that's computers. Cheers, Dan

I have a Garmin Map60CSx. It's pretty good under North Queensland Tropical Rain forest canopy. Can't compare with others as I've had no experience with them - but it's a hell of a lot better than my old etrex. Cheers, Dan

Jeeese!! I looked at that list and said "Bloody Hell! I'm not going there!!! Cheers, Dan

Sad to say this has happened lots of times and it's getting more fequent. I click links that look straight forward and find myself on a site that is totally incomprehensible to me. I sometimes wonder if I've fallen asleep and woken up in a new era. Perhaps age has something to do wdith it. Cheers, Dan

Hi, I have 50 something caches hidden in my district. I spent a great deal of effort in researching and developing the caches and I still have to do a lot of maintenance. What do I get in return? I get the pleasure of reading the logs and in that way connecting with the people who find them. I think that if all I ever got was "found it" or less, I would stop maintaining and eventually archive the lot except for the Earth caches. Cheers, Dan

Hi, I've never been stopped by cops, but I suspect I was once reported to them. It was at Crawford's Cache in North Queensland. This is a lookout on a busy road through rain forest. There were lots of tourists stopping so I had to wait. At last all that was left was a large motorhome housing a couple who were almost caricature English tourists. It was a 37 degree C day and he was dressed in the driving cap, long-sleeved shirt, tie, shorts with wide legs, shoes and long socks. Well they went down the walking track Which runs about 5 ks so I thought they would be away for a while, and I went to the other side of the road to search for the cache. Just found it in the buttress roots of a large tree and stood up with the container in my arms as the couple popped out of the rainforest. They looked at me in a sort of horror. I thought I had better explain what I was doing and started across the road towards them. Well, he dadgum near broke the poor ladies back hussling her into the vehicle, and then actually spun the wheels of the bloody great lumbering motorhome taking off on the loose gravel of the side of the road. I got the log signed and shot through as I reckoned he would be reporting a drug dealer or something real soon. Cheers, Dan

Hi, I bought a cane - something like a fine bamboo from a bloke at the local markets. As to height, I made it just below eye level, and then inserted a screw into the top so that I could screw my camera onto it, turning it into a mono-pod. I find this really helpful when bush walking and geocaching to get a sharp photo and to put myself in the picture when walking alone. Another use is to push it into dark rock crevices which might contain a cache and equally might contain a taipan snake. With a little hook, I can take a photo with the flash and all is revealed in safety - though the pictures tend to be rather blurred. Cheers, Dan

Hi all, Some weeks back I updated google earth to its latest edition. 6.something I think. Thereafter I got about 5 to 10 minutes use and then got a message that google earth had experienced a problem and was forced to close - sorry for the inconvenience etc. This nearly drove me crazy trying to find the problem. I went through all google's suggestions about updating drivers etc without success. Then by a process of elimination I found that the geocache viewer seems to be the cause. In other words, without the viewer google earth works along happily; with the viewer it crashes. I am using a PC running Windows XP. Has anyone had a similar experience, and, if so, did they find any way to solve the problem. I hate not being able to use the viewer to find the general locations of caches to see what areas would be good to concentrate a search. Cheers, Dan

Hi All, Though I cannot offer a solution, I'm very sympathic with Olewaif's problem. I have a similar problem in that I live in an area that does not have a lot of local cachers. Apart from my caches there are not many around. When I first started caching I could take an afternoon and do a couple and I loved the sport. Now it is a packed lunch and a whole day's activity to get some and I just don't have that time. Hence, I now cache just about only on traveling holidays, many of my caches have not been sought for yonks, and I'm losing interest. Geocaching can only survive while new caches are being hidden and waiting for old ones to be achived before new ones can be placed seems to me to be too slow to allow the sport to survive. Cheers, Dan

Hi all, Today, for the first time, I came across geocaching as an incident in a novel. It is in the murder mystery novel by Stephen Booth called 'The Dead Place'. Two detectives climbed up onto a limestone outcrop as part of an investigation into a murder and came across a container containing what one describes as "junk". I found the author's description of the police trying to make sense of it in the light of their investigation quite amusing. Has anyone else come across geocaching as part of a work of fiction, and if so, what book was it, and is it worth searching for. I wouldn't mind adding such a search as another aspect of my geocaching experience. Cheers, Dan

Hi, I live in an area which boasts some fairly difficult rain forest country thick with wait-a-whiles and other prickly plants. I have found that a pair of garden secateurs in a pouch on my belt is often worth their weight in gold. You will only ever slash at a wait-a-while that has hooked onto you with a machete once. Cheers, Dan

Hi all, Me thinks we could solve this problem by creating a new sport called Geologging. Then the rest of the community could concentrate on geofinding. Both coming under the general heading Geocaching. Cheers, Dan

Hi, After writing a log on a puzzle cache that I found particularly difficult, and getting just beaten to a first find, I received an email from a fellow cacher. It read, "Have just read your log - loved it." That was one of my most enjoyable moments in geocaching. I feel that a cacher who goes to that extra effort to make a really good cache deserves equal effort from the finder, or indeed the did-not-finder. Cheers, Dan

Hi, I think here we have to consider the philosophy of the cacher. To some the cache and the search are the all important and obviously they would not allow the find. To others such as myself the cache is mainly to get people to visit a significant site. Some of my caches are on tops of mountains. If cachers put in the effort to climb the mountain then they are presented with an easily found cache. In such a case I would allow a find if they could show that they had seen the cache. Other caches are close to roads. These are more difficult to find, but I would still allow a find of a cache that the cacher could see but not reach. A photo of the cache would certainly satisfy me. I like my caches to be found - that's why I put them out. Cheers, Dan

Hi, The other day I got a cache note to the effect that there was a snake in one of my caches - or to be more accurate sharing the cache hide. This put me in a bit of a quandary. The cache is in a state forest in which the wildlife is protected. Would evicting the snake from its home - even though I made that home - be considered interfering with the wildlife? Should I have just disabled the cache until such time as the snake vacated the site? Since I live in taipan country, and the log didn't state what sort of snake was there, it could have been a pretty serious situation. As it was, I armoured up fit to survive a minor nuclear explosion and went to do battle. Thankfully the reptile had departed. Have you been faced with a similar situation and what did you do about it? Cheers, Dan

Hi, If I was asked to move one of my caches, and it was possible for me to do so, then I would gladly move it, and I'd be first-to-find the new one. Cheers, Dan

Hi, Mine working now. Just got a notification. Cheers, Dan

Hi, Just a tip here. I attempted to get permission to place a cache at a local tourist place, actually a waterfalls with cabins and youth activities etc. I couldn't get an answer when I tried to contact owners and management. Then I hit on the idea of emailing a lowly worker. He took my request to management and I got an interview. Sometimes its the lowly worker who has less emails and so are willing to read your request. Cheers, Dan

Hi, I'm in Atherton North Queensland. Two new caches came on line in my area today and I haven't received notification yet. They have both been found. A bit frustrating. Cheers, Dan

Hi, If the cacher's co-ordinates are consistently about the same distance off, It would be worth sending him a message. He may have his GPS set to the wrong map datum or whatever. Cheers, Dan

Hi, Ain't it just soooo frustrating when you find that perfect hide, and some rotten cow has put one too close to it.

Hi, When I found the first signature card in one of my caches, I thought it was a great idea. Actually I took it as greeting from the finder to me as they had made other swaps. I brought it home and started a collection. It is now something to look forward to on my maintenance runs. Sadly my collection isn't very big. Anyone wanting to put signature cards (preferably home made ones) in my caches please know that they are very welcome. Cheers, Dan

Hi all, I've read this thread with interest as I came upon a situation in which I was unsure of the etiquette of my action. The cache was in a fairly isolated area - it gets visited about 4 times a year I think. I found it a couple of years ago. I noticed that there was a number of DNFs. As I had cause to go to the area, I called in to check it out. I found that the stump it had been hidden in had been broken or burned out. There was no sign of the cache. I found a container and a log book in the car and as the remnants of the stump was no longer a viable hiding place, I hid the cache in some rocks a couple of metres away. I then wrote a log explaining my action and giving the new co-ordinates. I sent an email to the owner telling him of my action and explaining that if he renewed his cache himself, I would remove mine at my next visit to the area. That was a couple of months ago. I have not heard from the owner, nor has he logged in as far as I can tell. I'm now at a loss as the new co-ordinates will gradually be lost as my log works further down the list. Any suggestions? Cheers, Dan

Hi, As far as swaps go, I've been lucky. I've never found anything that was offensive - some things that I thought were a bit dumb but then its a long time since I was a kid. I did find some very offensive stuff written in the log book of a cache by a muggle that seemed to think the comedy and crudity were the same thing. I tore the pages out. Cheers, Dan

Hi, Did previous logs indicate an "easy find" or a "difficult find"? Sometimes when a cache goes missing the hiding place seems fairly obvious. If you really do believe it has gone missing try photographing the likely spot/spots and sending those to the owner. If the owner sees an empty hole where his cache used to be, he'll very often get onto it at once. Cheers, Dan