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Is Wiltshire the micro capital of the UK?


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We spent a long weekend in Wiltshire where we found 107 caches.

Out of these, 59 were micros. Many of these were placed in woods, where even an ammo box would not have been hard to conceal. We haven't seen this many micros in any other county so far and were wondering if Wiltshire is the micro capital of the UK, or even the world? :D

 

Unfortunately, yes. :ph34r:

 

Perhaps it's a plastic variant of swine flu..... seems you can't move down there without tripping over film canisters and trails :blink:;):PB)

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We spent a long weekend in Wiltshire where we found 107 caches.

Out of these, 59 were micros. Many of these were placed in woods, where even an ammo box would not have been hard to conceal. We haven't seen this many micros in any other county so far and were wondering if Wiltshire is the micro capital of the UK, or even the world? :D

 

Unfortunately, yes. :ph34r:

 

Perhaps it's a plastic variant of swine flu..... seems you can't move down there without tripping over film canisters and trails :blink:;):PB)

 

Some places in Somerset are the same. I had been out today, only done 8 caches. All but one was a micro, what is the point in putting a micro out where a good sized cache should be. Just seems like someone had flown over the south west and chucked a big box of 35mm canisters with logs in them.

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We spent a long weekend in Wiltshire where we found 107 caches.

Out of these, 59 were micros. Many of these were placed in woods, where even an ammo box would not have been hard to conceal. We haven't seen this many micros in any other county so far and were wondering if Wiltshire is the micro capital of the UK, or even the world? :P

 

Sadly yes it appears to be. Of all the places I have cached, Wiltshire and Sussex seem to be the worst for micros.

I generally ignore the whole of Wiltshire now, even though I only live 20 minutes away B)

 

At the mega I met a Wiltshire cacher who was bragging that he'd just hidden his 100th micro. Sorry, but I see nothing in that to be proud of - 100 decent sized hides appropriate to their surroundings and I would have been been impressed, as it was I was just disappointed that someone felt that was something to brag about :D;):blink:

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We spent a long weekend in Wiltshire where we found 107 caches.

Out of these, 59 were micros. Many of these were placed in woods, where even an ammo box would not have been hard to conceal. We haven't seen this many micros in any other county so far and were wondering if Wiltshire is the micro capital of the UK, or even the world? :P

Here's a rough idea of the percentage of micros in some SW(ish) counties.

42% Devon

40% Avon

40% Wiltshire

31% Somerset

31% Herefordshire

25% Cornwall

24% Gloucestershire

13% Gwent

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We spent a long weekend in Wiltshire where we found 107 caches.

Out of these, 59 were micros. Many of these were placed in woods, where even an ammo box would not have been hard to conceal. We haven't seen this many micros in any other county so far and were wondering if Wiltshire is the micro capital of the UK, or even the world? :P

Here's a rough idea of the percentage of micros in some SW(ish) counties.

42% Devon

40% Avon

40% Wiltshire

31% Somerset

31% Herefordshire

25% Cornwall

24% Gloucestershire

13% Gwent

Oh I don't like seeing Cornwall near the bottom of the list... I must get out and hide some more micros..

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We spent a long weekend in Wiltshire where we found 107 caches.

Out of these, 59 were micros. Many of these were placed in woods, where even an ammo box would not have been hard to conceal. We haven't seen this many micros in any other county so far and were wondering if Wiltshire is the micro capital of the UK, or even the world? :anibad:

Here's a rough idea of the percentage of micros in some SW(ish) counties.

42% Devon

40% Avon

40% Wiltshire

31% Somerset

31% Herefordshire

25% Cornwall

24% Gloucestershire

13% Gwent

 

Interesting that Avon and Wilts tie on this list - With the huge urban sprawl of Bristol taking up a significant chunk of the Avon area, I would assume neccessity woul dictate that Avon should have a larger ratio of micros to Wilts. The fact they tie to my mind says that the balance it wrong somewhere.

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All I can assume is that us Wiltshire Cachers need more of a challenge big boxes are easy to find.

Not necessarily true! The cache below, that's the blue container that my daughter is sat on, had a 20% (ish) DNF rate before it ended up getting archived. It took 3 of us 15 minutes to find it.

 

ea4e4568-f890-4c6c-bdbb-9cf41ed2cb4f.jpg

 

So big boxes that are hidden with some thought put into them can be a challenge. I'm not against the micro, I have placed a few myself, but I do believe in hiding the largest container that fits into the area.

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Unfortunately this is now a self-perpetuating issue.

If new cachers only ever find micros, that is all they are going to hide.

And if the norm is for cachers to hide 101 caches in their first 6 months, other new cachers will assume that is the correct thing to do.

 

The days of micros being in the minority, with most caches being large enough to hold swaps are now far, far in the past - and there really is nothing we can do to reverse the trend (without starting a sub-game)

 

It's sad, but I only hope that when the day comes when plastic film pots are the only caches you can find, all those micro apologists come to realise what they've helped this game become and eat their words...

 

:anibad::laughing::anitongue::laughing:

Edited by keehotee
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We spent a long weekend in Wiltshire where we found 107 caches.

Out of these, 59 were micros. Many of these were placed in woods, where even an ammo box would not have been hard to conceal. We haven't seen this many micros in any other county so far and were wondering if Wiltshire is the micro capital of the UK, or even the world? :anibad:

 

Thanks for the tip.

I'm on my way. :laughing:

 

Didn't Pizza Express pizzas used to be bigger.

Didn't Wagon Wheels used to be bigger.

Oooh I remember "back in the day"

Blah blah blah!

 

You all sound like my gran! :anitongue:

Edited by currykev
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Didn't Pizza Express pizzas used to be bigger.

Didn't Wagon Wheels used to be bigger.

Oooh I remember "back in the day"

Blah blah blah!

 

You forgot creme eggs and walnut whips! :laughing:

 

Bring back Marathon bars, Opal fruits and big caches please. The old days were much better :anibad::laughing::anitongue:

Edited by *mouse*
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Had a free day the other week, felt like getting out in the country and having a fun day doing a loop of caches.

Unfortunately I chose Wiltshire to do it in.

 

Quite nice scenery, nice weather, complete frustration looking for pain in the **** small pots hidden in the woods where much larger containers could have been placed without any trouble at all. Add to that Tree cover and poor clues.... Gave up after half the loop feeling like i'd wasted the day.

 

Sound like your gran? Well obviously she has a clear sense of what's worth doing and what's a waste of effort. :anibad:

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Didn't Pizza Express pizzas used to be bigger.

Didn't Wagon Wheels used to be bigger.

Oooh I remember "back in the day"

Blah blah blah!

 

You forgot creme eggs and walnut whips! :D

 

Bring back Marathon bars, Opal fruits and big caches please. The old days were much better ;):laughing::D

 

Some people like 'Mini Marathons' & 'Fun Packs of Opal Fruits'

 

Must agree that although I quite like Micros in many cases and locations I recently found 4 or 5 on Dartmoor and all in the visinity of old quarries.

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I'm sure that the Wiltshire Cacher at the Mega that you mentioned was chuffed that he had just placed his 100th cache and not micro! If it is the right person his caches are 98% medium sized boxes always full of good purchased swag as well, twice he has used tennis ball containers as well and all caches covered in DPM tape. Yes a Wiltshire cacher who has taken time, effort and thought...nice caches as well. What's that other saying 'Half a loaf is better than none'

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I'm sure that the Wiltshire Cacher at the Mega that you mentioned was chuffed that he had just placed his 100th cache and not micro! If it is the right person his caches are 98% medium sized boxes always full of good purchased swag as well, twice he has used tennis ball containers as well and all caches covered in DPM tape. Yes a Wiltshire cacher who has taken time, effort and thought...nice caches as well. What's that other saying 'Half a loaf is better than none'

 

No we can't be talking about the same person then - I just double checked their profile and they have hidden nearly all micros. There's a handful of smalls, but not very many.

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I'm sure that the Wiltshire Cacher at the Mega that you mentioned was chuffed that he had just placed his 100th cache and not micro! If it is the right person his caches are 98% medium sized boxes always full of good purchased swag as well, twice he has used tennis ball containers as well and all caches covered in DPM tape. Yes a Wiltshire cacher who has taken time, effort and thought...nice caches as well. What's that other saying 'Half a loaf is better than none'

 

No we can't be talking about the same person then - I just double checked their profile and they have hidden nearly all micros. There's a handful of smalls, but not very many.

 

Why not boycott these micros? The way to get them out of favour is for people to stop finding them!

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Why not boycott these micros? The way to get them out of favour is for people to stop finding them!

 

I agree. We have started series in the past and just stopped if we do not enjoy them. We will drive past caches that look to be in horrible places if there are a string along every layby, street sign or whatever we will possibly do a couple then leave the rest. My ignore list is getting bigger and bigger.

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Nothing wrong with micro's

For me the essence of a good caching walk is to visit somewhere new or which introduces me to a variation of somewhere not so new,I really don't care what size the actual caches are on the route,be they large, micro or nanno,I don't mind if the caches consist of nothing more than a log book and pencil either,in fact not to bothered about the pencil, one thing I don't like to see however is 35mm film canisters used for the cache,they were never designed for anything like the purpose,and simply aren't up to the job.

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We agree that there are just too many 35mm film cannisters out there, especially where some cachers just seem to throw them into hedgerows without any thinking - in these circumstances we'd much rather find larger containers.

 

However, other containers (larger than the 35mm film cannisters) are ofically defined as micros and perhaps Wiltshire cachers are more inclined to correctly label cache sizes. I know when we've been caching away from our home area we've often been disappointed and surprised by how small the caches are compared to the named cache sizes.

 

(As a matter of interest we looked at our hides to see if the finger was being pointed our way - out of our 60 hides we've hidden 3 film cannisters all of which are hidden in places either where nothing larger could be hidden but mainly where they are "sneaky" and essential for that hide, we have hidden 9 others considerably larger but as per the guidelines we've classed them as micros.)

 

... I'm running for cover now! ;)

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However, other containers (larger than the 35mm film cannisters) are ofically defined as micros and perhaps Wiltshire cachers are more inclined to correctly label cache sizes. I know when we've been caching away from our home area we've often been disappointed and surprised by how small the caches are compared to the named cache sizes.

 

 

Not sure where you get that from - if anything, more containers seem to get marked the other way (35mm film pots marked as small, because you can get small items in)

 

Micro (35 mm film canister or smaller – less than approximately 3 ounces or .1 L – typically containing only a logbook or a logsheet)

Small (sandwich-sized plastic container or similar – less than approximately 1 quart or 1 L – holds trade items as well as a logbook)

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Why not boycott these micros? The way to get them out of favour is for people to stop finding them!

 

I agree. We have started series in the past and just stopped if we do not enjoy them. We will drive past caches that look to be in horrible places if there are a string along every layby, street sign or whatever we will possibly do a couple then leave the rest. My ignore list is getting bigger and bigger.

 

Oh I do!! Regularly!

 

Wiltshire is on my doorstep, but I rarely go there because of the micros. I'm far more inclined to pay my £5.30 and head over the bridge to South Wales....

It's a shame really, because I expect there are some really nice decent sized containers in the county that I'm missing out on, but I just can't be bothered to sift through the micros to find them......

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should ban micros (afterall I own a fair few myself!), but I do object to them when something bigger could be hidden in the same place.

 

Edited to add:

I personally think with bigger containers, you could turn a dull cache trail into a good one. And all it takes is some bigger containers - not much to ask of cache setters really!!

And Birdie's peach jar challenge has proven you don't have to spend a fortune on tupperware to achieve this - an old plastic jar works just fine as a regular cache container.

Edited by *mouse*
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"complete frustration looking for pain in the **** small pots hidden in the woods where much larger containers could have been placed without any trouble at all. Add to that Tree cover and poor clues...."

 

I think Mr. Nobbs has actually got to the truth of the matter in the long running and continually cycling debate about micros. Unless you are caching with kids are you really bothered about swaps? How many threads have there been about the declining standard of swaps? So does a box full of broken tat, or just empty, hold so much more magical attraction than a smaller container with just a log book and pen?

 

With the exception of caches for specific purposes (puzzles, tricky sneaky ones etc) the general point of geocaching is location, location, location. To write off a whole county on the basis of the size of the container seems rather short sighted.

 

Let's be honest, we don't like micros cos they can be frustrating and tricky blighters, as Mr. N says above. If I'm out for a walk I don't want to spend 30 minutes looking fruitlessly for a cache - I want to have a short break and then get on with the walk. The key is IF they are badly hidden: woods, tree cover, poor clues etc mean they can be very hard to pin down, which leads to frustration and turning the area over. A well hidden micro, which has been thought about, can be found with a short search, using a useful clue, can often lead to a satisfying Ah! moment. Plus you also get to visit that lovely location that the hider has brought you to. What's wrong with that for a caching experience? Perhaps even better than yet another larger box under the blindingly obvious pile of sticks requiring no thinking or searching at all?

 

So, perhaps folk should campaign for "good" caches of whatever size. Sure, if you think it isn't going to be an Ah! cache then ignore it and enjoy the walk.

I guess that if you want power trails they are more likely to be micros 30x35mm=£0, 30xsmall L&L=£36 plus swaps & note books so £60+

I also assume that perhaps there are more "less well thought out caches" in the micro scale than in the bigger sizes. They are cheap and easy to use so maybe a higher proportion aren't hidden well so that's why they have a bad rep. (Agree with Fellsmanhiker that unless 35mm pots are used in a sheltered spot they often aren't waterproof. Make good 'indoor' caches!)

 

So the question isn't "is it a micro"? The question is: "is it a well hidden micro"? Closely followed by "is it somewhere that I would like to visit"? If the answers are "yes" - let's go caching!! ;)

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It's funny how our perceptions vary. We are in Swindon so most of our caching has been in Wiltshire. Whilst it is true that sometimes we see micros where a larger cache could be more appropriate, most of the great series that we are able to enjoy comprise a varied and interesting range of caches, including many well thought out and disguised caches.

 

We did a series in Staffordshire a while ago which was a lovely rural trail and a really nice walk. But all but one or two of the caches were 35mm pots. We had hoped to move on some coins and TB's but it was simply impossible.

 

Equally, I try to move TB's over to Berkshire where sadly I work, and there are so many micros and nanos, but not so many larger boxes where I can place these.

 

Perhaps we are all so used to what we initially find in our own areas when we start the hobby that we don't like the changes that we might find elsewhere! I like the fact that around Wiltshire, most of the larger caches are well disguised in camo bags and therefore a bit more of a challenge. Other places I have visited, this doesn't seem as common a practice - it's each to their own!

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With the exception of caches for specific purposes (puzzles, tricky sneaky ones etc) the general point of geocaching is location, location, location. To write off a whole county on the basis of the size of the container seems rather short sighted.

 

 

rufus and myself have just spent the last five weekends caching in wiltshire and i've got to admit that yesterday there did seem to be quite a few micros amongst our finds and at least one of them was a badly thought out, disappointing hide.

 

however, i love wiltshire and the scenery and trails we've followed have more than made up for the lack of larger caches. admittedly i don't want to see a plethora of badly placed micros but to ignore this entire county just because it's not awash with ammo boxes is a shame.

 

the thing that irks me the most is ill thought-out caches placed by owners just for the sake of placing one and maybe it's most often micros that are used in this type of hide, thus giving them a bad name.

 

and just for the record, the hound and myself will be driving back down the M4 again on saturday to do yet more caching in wiltshire ;)

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I think the truth of it is that Wiltshire has a lot of circulars. These are naturally going to be on foot paths and other PROWs. Therefore it gets a bit difficult hiding a cache that needs to be found quickly in order to finish the series and yet be muggle safe. If there is a one off location cache then there are plenty of normal sizes caches and a few ammo boxes as well.

 

At the base of it the thrill of the cache is to get the number of finds up as quick as possible, and some are very competitive about this. To do this the circulars are easy fodder. As they are made mostly of micros. As, I suspect, those who make this point are in that catagory then we find the reason for this point.

 

Go and find some singular caches in Wiltshire, their not all micros!!

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You forgot creme eggs and walnut whips! :D

 

Bring back Marathon bars, Opal fruits and big caches please. The old days were much better :laughing::laughing::laughing:

 

Can I get a quick vote in for Spangles since we are OT :D

 

And Cheddar cheese Hula Hoops.... :laughing::D

 

Ooh ooh ooh and proper kit cats with silver paper.

 

And bring back proper cheesy nic-nacs and mojos (specially the minty ones) and and Wispaccino

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You forgot creme eggs and walnut whips! :D

 

Bring back Marathon bars, Opal fruits and big caches please. The old days were much better :laughing::laughing::laughing:

 

Can I get a quick vote in for Spangles since we are OT :D

 

And Cheddar cheese Hula Hoops.... :laughing::D

 

Ooh ooh ooh and proper kit cats with silver paper.

 

And bring back proper cheesy nic-nacs and mojos (specially the minty ones) and and Wispaccino

Who remembers Jubblys? :D

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