Caches By County

[+harrogate hunters]

Is there a list of the UK caches broken down by county ?

 

I have had a look on uk site but I cant find any...

 

Sorry Teazel if I have just given you some more work !

[Deego]

Search page

 

4th box down select the county from the dropdown list

 

listed by county (count only) here

 

If your logged in click the (Show just for you) link at the top. Then (Only logged) this will show your finds and % for countys you have cached in or click here

Edited October 19, 2005 by Deego

[+Snosrap]

North Yorkshire - 352 caches, 349 logged.

 

Does that mean that there are 3 FTFs out there for you HH??

[Leoness]

Deego

 

When you say "listed by county", how are they listed? By what criteria?

 

The reason I ask is that when I was doing all the caches in N Yorkshire (like Harrogate Hunter), some were very close to the county boundary and in a few cases were actually ON the county boundary and I had to email the owner of the cache to establish precisely which county they 'fell' into!

 

I also remember one cache as being listed (meaning the county was included in the title of the cache) in N Yorks but was in Cumbria and another being listed in Co Durham but was in N Yorks!

[+Moote]

Deego

 

When you say "listed by county", how are they listed? By what criteria?

 

The reason I ask is that when I was doing all the caches in N Yorkshire (like Harrogate Hunter), some were very close to the county boundary and in a few cases were actually ON the county boundary and I had to email the owner of the cache to establish precisely which county they 'fell' into!

 

I also remember one cache as being listed (meaning the county was included in the title of the cache) in N Yorks but was in Cumbria and another being listed in Co Durham but was in N Yorks!

I think it is only estimated data; as it would take someone sometime for an accurate county positioning. But it is near as dam it, after all it can only be slightly out and just because a cache is in Cheshire and not Manchester is not going to stop you getting it if you are in the area. Treat it as a guide and not the definitive answer.

 

Milton (aka Moote)

[+Teasel]

The counties are only approximate, though generally no less accurate than the counties given in some cache names!

 

Basically I have a coloured-in map of the pre-1995 counties (if you want modern counties, you're SOL). When a new cache is placed, I 'plot' the cache on this map and see what colour the dot is. Crude, yes, but it works much of the time.

 

If anyone has accurate coordinates for county boundaries that they could send me, it'd be much appreciated!

[+harrogate hunters]

Thanks for the data.

 

I am down to 38 caches left (actually 29 in May 2005 !) out of 352 !

 

Third bigest behind Greater London and some unknown county down south

 

At least I can be proud when (and if Wetherspoons dont keep producing caches like they are going out of fashion ) I achieve my goal.

[+The Blorenges]

(if you want modern counties, you're SOL).

I may regret asking this ....what's SOL? Mrs B

[+The Blorenges]

some were very close to the county boundary and in a few cases were actually ON the county boundary and I had to email the owner of the cache to establish precisely which county they 'fell' into! 

 

A good point! For one of our caches you have to park in Wales, but the cache is across the River Wye in England After considering the approach roads to the cache we decided that it made most sense to put Monmouthshire (where the parking coords are) after the title, although technically it's hidden in Gloucestershire Mrs B

[Leoness]

some were very close to the county boundary and in a few cases were actually ON the county boundary and I had to email the owner of the cache to establish precisely which county they 'fell' into! 

 

A good point! For one of our caches you have to park in Wales, but the cache is across the River Wye in England After considering the approach roads to the cache we decided that it made most sense to put Monmouthshire (where the parking coords are) after the title, although technically it's hidden in Gloucestershire Mrs B

 

Been there and done that one!

[+Hi-Tek]

I am currently in the process of making up some GSAK 'Polygon' filters for each county. So far I have all the English/Wales counties from the South Coast up to North Yorkshire and Lancashire.

 

If anyone would like a copy as it stands thus far please PM me and I'll zip 'em up for you. The files are in GPX format and thus are easily loaded into the Polygon filter function of GSAK. They are reasonably accurate but I cannot guarantee that they will pull in all caches to the correct county.

Edited October 19, 2005 by Motley Crew

[+jochta]

The counties are only approximate, though generally no less accurate than the counties given in some cache names!

 

Basically I have a coloured-in map of the pre-1995 counties (if you want modern counties, you're SOL). When a new cache is placed, I 'plot' the cache on this map and see what colour the dot is. Crude, yes, but it works much of the time.

 

If anyone has accurate coordinates for county boundaries that they could send me, it'd be much appreciated!

I could classify caches by county using GIS (official Ordnance Survey boundaries).

 

I did it for this Cache Density but these will be the current ceremonial counties.

[+Moote]

Put my thinking head on again; I can’t actually see the importance of this County data, as they are only administrative boundaries and not political.

 

Surely what you would be more interested in is nearest caches from a location and from a bearing from a location.

 

Are we all getting obsessed here by minor details?

 

Milton (aka Moote)

[+Teasel]

I may regret asking this    ....what's SOL?  Mrs B

Sorry Outta Luck!

 

I think it's a dadgum Americanism

[+sTeamTraen]

Put my thinking head on again; I can’t actually see the importance of this County data, as they are only administrative boundaries and not political.

 

Surely what you would be more interested in is nearest caches from a location and from a bearing from a location.

 

Are we all getting obsessed here by minor details?

I agree 100%. See also here.

 

I can think of two reasons to have this data:

 

1. "Geek factor" - I want to have found all the caches in county X. Well, we all find our geek aspects to this game, I suppose. (Some of us even like to imagine that we have non-geek aspects )

 

2. The site lists states/provinces for the USA/Canada/Belgium (yes!) but not Germany/UK etc, we're being discriminated against. Hmmm.

 

In an ideal world (and I am *not* a hippy, past or present) the site wouldn't even list countries. Or at least, a country search wouldn't be available. In fact a country search is generally pretty useless, as attested to by the number of forum threads that say "I'm going to <country>, how can I narrow the search down to near where I'm staying ?". A list of all 7980 caches in the UK isn't much use for anything.

 

So while this stuff is "nice to have", I can think of a dozen other features I'd rather have first. Probably.

[+Teasel]

Are we all getting obsessed here by minor details?

Certainly! And you object to this because...???

 

So while this stuff is "nice to have", I can think of a dozen other features I'd rather have first.

Name six! (Preferably things which wouldn't require the voluntary co-operation of all x thousand cachers, or need modifications to the GC.com website itself).

[+The Blorenges]

Sorry Outta Luck!

 

Thanks, Teasel I'm going to have to make a list of all these TLAs!

 

One reason why I'd find it useful to have the counties put on the end of the cache names: I've been looking at the long listing of the "Top Rated" caches in the country thinking about which the Blorenges might attempt as their Big 100. Whilst we may be happy to go as far as Devon, Hants, Shrops, Bucks we're unlikely to choose one in Norfolk, Northumberland or Highlands... not for a quick weekend away. So the county detail would be useful to me.

 

(Now I guess someone really geeky/clever will tell me that if I do this, this and this and select up to 8 counties and click on here and press "top caches" and hi-light my belly button, back space Alt+C and press "eject" the computer will do this for me ) Remember, you're communicating with a woman who's only just found out how to insert those cute little animated smilies (Thanks, HH )

Edited October 20, 2005 by The Blorenges

[markandlynn]

I've been looking at the long listing of the "Top Rated" caches in the country thinking about which the Blorenges might attempt as their Big 100.

Have a look here and hopefully the distance from home should be listed for you

[+Haggis Hunter]

Remember, you're communicating with a woman who's only just found out how to insert those cute little animated smilies (Thanks, HH )

You're welcome, but I haven't read any of your posts that have any of the smilies that I showed you?

[+Haggis Hunter]

I've been looking at the long listing of the "Top Rated" caches in the country thinking about which the Blorenges might attempt as their Big 100.

Have a look here and hopefully the distance from home should be listed for you

WOW!! Perth Pathfinders are doing alright out of that, I counted at least 5 of the top UK 20 belong to her.

 

Edited October 20, 2005 by Haggis Hunter

[+purple_pineapple]

OK HH, now you're showing off! I don't know about others, but I haven't a clue - any chance of a very quick forum tutorial, or is it Top Secret?

 

Dave

[markandlynn]

Its hard

 

try quoting HH you will then see the code he uses.

[+purple_pineapple]

Its hard

 

try quoting HH you will then see the code he uses.

sheesh - this place is full of showoffs!!

 

 

Still, I think i deserve a round of applause - like you say, Its not hard!

 

Thanks Mark

 

Dave

 

PS - I'm going to lookk REALLY stupid if this hasn't worked!

[+Haggis Hunter]

OK HH, now you're showing off! I don't know about others, but I haven't a clue  - any chance of a very quick forum tutorial, or is it Top Secret? 

 

Dave

 

Sorry, It's top secret I'm afraid, but it's easy once you know how!

[+Haggis Hunter]

Ach!! That's the game out of the bag

[+purple_pineapple]

Yep - a whole new world opens up!

 

 

he he he

[+Haggis Hunter]

I've just found a smilie for SP

 

Now i'm going to stop on this track, as I think we have well and truly hijacked this thread.

[+purple_pineapple]

Rather subtly hijacked I thought.... Still, I shall attempt to get it back on track by saying that South London is seriously lacking in Top rated caches, so clearly I'm going to have to put some out myself!

 

I must say though that Kewfriend's caches are top notch!

 

Dave

[barryhunter]

One reason why I'd find it useful to have the counties put on the end of the cache names:  I've been looking at the long listing of the "Top Rated" caches in the country thinking about which the Blorenges might attempt as their Big 100.

On the Top rated page, you should be able to point at (with the mouse pointer ) the name of the cache, and a little yellow box should popup showing the county for that cache. Not ideal for quick viewing but possible.

 

As for seeing top rated in just one county (not posisbly to select multiple counties yet), just select the county in the dropdown at the bottom of the CacheTools page, and press the Go button.

 

Will see about makeing the county more prominent and being able to select multiple counties

[barryhunter]

Have a look here and hopefully the distance from home should be listed for you 

You can do the same direct on G:UK

 

Just run a search, by entering a postcode/placename etc into the top box of the search, then on the results page click the 'rating' column, this will then show the top rated ones at the top. The county and the distance to the entered location will still be shown

 

This has the benifit that you can filter your search a bit more to just show caches you are interested in, as well as showing lots of other information.

[barryhunter]

Is there a list of the UK caches broken down by county ?

 

I have had a look on uk site but I cant find any...

 

Sorry Teazel if I have just given you some more work !

On the download page of G:UK, there is a option 'County Update for GSAK' which is a special GPX file that includes the county, which can be used to similar effect. (I'm pretty sure GSAK will have the option!)

Edited October 20, 2005 by barryhunter

[barryhunter]

I am currently in the process of making up some GSAK 'Polygon' filters for each county. So far I have all the English/Wales counties from the South Coast up to North Yorkshire and Lancashire.

 

If anyone would like a copy as it stands thus far please PM me and I'll zip 'em up for you. The files are in GPX format and thus are easily loaded into the Polygon filter function of GSAK. They are reasonably accurate but I cannot guarantee that they will pull in all caches to the correct county.

 

See also Counties of British Isles which is a set of files I made for someone to use in GSAK, (although I have to admit no idea how to use them ), they are plain text files rather than GPX.

 

(this also uses county data at approx 1995)

 

[and yes I am a geo-geek ]

[+Teasel]

On the search page, you can restrict the results to the top (or bottom!) few percent of caches. So it's easy to get a list of top 5% caches near your postcode. Eg if you're looking for something really special here's a map of the top 1% of UK caches.

[+Moote]

Are we all getting obsessed here by minor details?

Certainly! And you object to this because...???

 

Teasel, I'm not objecting I'm just making an observation. County boundary's are very mobile in the UK some of the counties are not even recognised on the G:UK file, so in reality it is just a paper exercise which looks good but has it's limitations. We should concentrate on caching and not whether a cache is misplaced county-wise by a few hundreds of yards, as I stated in an earlier part of the thread, just because a cache is in another county you are not going to neglect bagging it if you are in it's vicinity.

 

Milton (aka Moote)

[+Hi-Tek]

Is there a list of the UK caches broken down by county ?

 

I have had a look on uk site but I cant find any...

 

Sorry Teazel if I have just given you some more work !

On the download page of G:UK, there is a option 'County Update for GSAK' which is a special GPX file that includes the county, which can be used to similar effect. (I'm pretty sure GSAK will have the option!)

Yup there is but I wanted to get the archived cache countries/counties into GSAK

[+The Blorenges]

Thanks everyone for all this useful stuff on selecting/finding top rated caches - I'll have to try it out tomorrow cos I've just come in from a "noshing night out" and my little brain can't cope with anything more complicated than a horizontal surface at present...

HH - if you have a look at my "musical reply" on the "Nicknames" thread you'll see I used two of the smilies on there, to give an agricultural feel Howver, they're not actually animated, just animal...

Nite, nite folks!