Lizzzzeeeee

Can I suggest that before you consider placing a cache you find a few? Will give you a much better idea of what is and what isn't a good cache. Also, I've just spent a couple of minutes and found that there are two caches already in Knole Park (Oh! Deer GC2AAF and Dyb Dyb Deer GC1D5VQ). Happy caching!

A few words of advice: If you've placed a cache in a place that is special to you, you should state why it is special and why you have placed it there. I've found caches in the past in places that were nothing special but the story of why they were placed there made them special to me too. Although the name of your cache and the reference to your daughter's dance school are linked, that link alone is of no interest to anyone not connected with you or your daughter. Your description mentions nothing about the trees that are special to you - mention them and someone might try this one in daytime rather than a quick night time C&D. Don't start the description with the type of container and its contents. After all they will only be the contents for the first finder! If you must put them in put them nearer the end. There's a cache near me that started with a very short description, the first few logs stated that they coulnd't see the significance of why it had been placed there. The cache owner amended the description and the negative comments stopped! I understand your concerns about placing the cache too near a school, how about using a clue near the trees or maybe on a nearby sign to make it into an offset cache? Just my 2p worth, hope it helps reduce the negative comments! Happy caching!

I haven't had any notification emails since 7.40am yesterday (Saturday) morning. Is anyone else affected by this on Demon? As I know they've just improved (!) their spam filtering and I'm not getting any spam either.

Thanks Dorsetgal for bumping this topic up as I don't often read these forums and missed it first, second and third times round. I've been caching for just over 4 years and leading a Cub pack for 6. We frequently do geocaching activites and I've organised many caches events at County fun days and for other packs & districts. One thing we do every couple of years is based on land owned by one of our parents so we are able to pretty much let the Cubs run free with GPSs without any problems. I tend to make the caches puzzle based or something to do with map reading or orienteering to keep them educational. I like the idea of anything organised nationally for scouting and caching. I would also like the idea of a TB race with Cubs/Scouts/Beavers against each other. If anyone is interested in hearing more of what I've done email me through my profile. Lizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

It's where frogs go to dance!

Believe me, the intensity with which they were examining each other's crotch area left little to the imagination, but I didn't want to leave the gory details in the log for posterity. Let's say that had they indeed been comparing GPSr devices, they would both have been highly polished by the time they'd finished. However, I agree with you about the general possibilities for misunderstanding. When I emerge from the woods with my wife we occasionally have a good chuckle at some of the looks we get. Nick is right, this is one of the major Surrey dogging areas. My poor hubby had the misfortune to have to wait in that area for me once (I was returning from France on a coach along the M25) and he got propositioned several times in the space of 10 minutes. I have a friend who is a Sergeant with Surrey Police and tells me that one side of the A3 is for hetro and the other for homo (can't remember which way round!). Appartently its common practice to send new recruits up there to investigate the nocturnal goings on without warning them what to expect!!! I hope it doesn't put people off going on this lovely common, you just need to enter from a different direction (oh err Mrs) and walk across the common.

The first time I drove through Headley ford in my oversized Chelsea Tractor all my warning lights came on and stayed on for the next week! Next time I drove a bit faster and everything was fine: The car in the Ford is a Toyota!

Was this before you took up Geocaching to while away those mispent hours???

Like a lot of other cachers, I watch everything I've visited or heard about (eg if someone posts something odd about a cache on the forum). I too have rules to put them in a separate folder as they soon mount up. I probably would take things off my watchlist after a few days if it was easier to do. Why can't we bring up a list of watchlist caches with tick boxes next to them, tick as many as we want then hit delete once. I'm not technical but that seems to work in other software. To have to wait whilst the page refreshes then hit the "are you sure" button just takes too long and I find it quicker to delete the subsequent emails I receive. Has anyone noticed the bookmark listing too. I can't see much difference between these and the watch listings. You still get an email.

Last time I spoke to Volvo Man he said he planned to blitz a load of caches for a couple of months then do none for a while. I guess this is just a bit of downtime for him! He does still seem to be logging in to geocaching.com from time to time though. We mustn't encourage him though - I'm getting the chance to get a few FTF around this area at the mo!!!!

Thank you Stuey, it worked . I'll lock off this topic now.

My PC crashed recently and I lost all my favourites. Does anyone know where the visible chart portion file sits just before you say OK to the Size of Chart pop up? Or what it's called so I can search for it. It saves me a lot of time by allowing me to use my card reader rather than transferring everything directly to the PDA. Thanks

I use an eMap and so do Ann and Brian (850+ caches). I really like it. I don't know the Legend well but I also use a little yellow eTrex and I find the buttons much much faster for data entry on the eMap. One of my reasons for buying the eMap was the ability to use an external aerial, though I've never used one!!! It's not waterproof though, I've seen condensation inside my screen but it doesn't seem to have done any harm. It's pretty frugal on batteries. I also has a strange yellow rubber case which protects it from bumps and bashes. If you can get an eMap cheap I'd say go for it!

OK, I think I get it; although I swap constantly between D MM.MMM and British Grid and my Garmin eMap, as 60North pointed out, swaps the datum from WGS84 to OSGB, because I always set MY OWN waypoints with it set to D MM.MMM WGS84 I've never had a problem. The problem would only happen if I went out setting a cache with it set to British Grid. Am I right? If not I'm really confused about something that I've not had a problem with in over two years. Probably best not to reply if I am wrong!!!!

I've just spotted this thread having just been the FTF on the cache mentioned. The coords I came up with when I averaged my GPS for a good 5 minutes (over 200 readings) were N51°08.825' W0°36.200' which are as near as damit those that Forester came up with. Fortunately Forester's note on the cache page prompted me to read the clue and I used that alone to find the cache - I was a bit suspicious when I put the published coords into Memory Map and came up with the middle of an apparently clear field! The description about views etc also seemed strange! I'm pretty sure wildlifewriter's sequence of events is probably accurate, I thought it would probably be a WGS84/OSGB36/decimal point in the wrong place - what I don't understand when these errors occur is how the cachers have already managed to find so many caches with their GPS set to the wrong thingy - maybe I should try caching without a GPS more often - for one thing you look much less suspicious!

You don't have to wait to get your first GPS, I know a couple who are now heading for their 1000 cache who did the first 70 without a GPS, I'm sure you'd be able to find a couple before the unit arrives. Top tip though, I suggest you read the clue and choose one with a good clue, avoid the "hidden amongst the heather" clues when you're out on the moors! Happy caching!

See this cache that we did a few days ago in California. This one is impossible during the day. T PS Some fireflies may be making their way over here soon...... I seem to remember we had one very similar in UK a year or so ago, until it got muggled, any one remember it................. I think you're thinking of Chris's GCCDE5 Night Vision, I'm sure he used retroreflective strips of tape, are the fireflys the same stuff? They look a bit more complicated to me.

Glad to hear that the local powers that be have re-opened that Byway. When I checked it out earlier this year it was closed to everything, even pedestrians and you could see why. I drive a serious and very high 4x4 and I would have got even that stuck! Byways should be kept open to all traffic. Horses regularly churn up bridleways much more than a couple of 4x4s. Unfortunately there are some byways, particularly around me which get far more traffic than they were designed for. The subsoil in a lot of areas is also too soft for heavy weight vehicles, persons and horses! As a 4x4 recreational user I try to keep off any tracks that I am going to leave tracks on, I regularly go on AWDC off road days when we can play around in as much mud as we like without going anywhere near a right of way! It is the responsibilty of local councils to keep rights of way in good condition, it's good to see that Berkshire are taking their job seriously. I must go back sometime and try it (via Headley Ford of course!)

This is your last chance to bid on the original T&J Mark 1 Bear! The auction ends in just over an hour. Don't forget he was the first bear ever released from Tim and June's captivity and that all the proceeds go the appeal!

I was willing to give these Scouts the benefit of the doubt. "Poor things," I thought, "they've probably completed all the caches in their little country and can't travel the huge distances required to log any more real ones. It's easy for us to critisise when we live only 20 miles from a cache mecca like Winchester" so I looked at nearby caches to the ones they had actually visited in Luxembourg and find there are over 100 caches within 25 miles!!!! My sympathy has evaporated and they should get out hiking more rather and playing on the computer! Still, whatever floats your boat!

Just looking at the other caches on the Island - Klaus, I take it "The Rookie" did "The Big One" with you as his log says the answer is in your email - maybe we could all say the same!!!!

I'm off to France next month and was looking for suitable caches to find yesterday when I came across this cacher Xspert. He was showing only 3 finds yesterday and he admitted that he hadn't managed to find any of them! At least he seems to have finally broken his duck! I wonder how many more like him there are????

I've done lots of geocaching activities with Cubs in my pack, district and county. If anyone wants to contact me through my profile I can let you have details of what I've done. I have on occasion met resistance from people who think that using a GPS for navigating is cheating and the Scouts/Cubs should be taught the "proper way". Unfortunately times have changed since the 60s and kids are only too quick to cheat if possible. By using GPS's to get them to find needles in haystacks (not literally!) I at least hope to get across some of the important points of navigation. If they show and interest and enjoy what they're doing, hopefully they'll pay more attention next time I try to show them how to do it the "proper way". I heard of a recent exercise where some Scouts were left on a drop hike to make their way back through the woods to their Scout hut equipped only with a map and compass. It was the first time they had done this so the leaders followed at a discrete distance. Despite there being a relatively short and direct route through the woods they bushwacked straight to the nearest main road and walked down the dangerous and noisy road back to their hut. Kids today just don't seem to want the challenge and are afraid to fail. They are also cossetted by their parents and so lack confidence to journey into the wider world. Just my 2p worth!

I've just received a watchlist notification for Pharisee's new cache by a cacher known as Virtualcacher. He logged it with a brief "Been there done that. TNLN The VC" so I thought I'd look at his profile as it seems a little brief for such an "involved" cache! Virtualcacher profile It seems he's been a member since September but found 60 caches yesterday - could this be something of a record????? Or maybe this thread has stirred him up?????

Yes, definitely. And a big thank you to all the committee for all their hard work, and for the cachers who set it up in the first place in spite of a lot of negative comments. I'm thinking of placing a cache near my new house, discovered it was Forestry Commission land and was amazed (not dipping into these fora too often) to see the simply guidelines and permission application forms available for us all to use. Thank you to you all, Lizzzzzzzzzzzzzzeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee