Jump to content

what would you class as a good cache?


thehazes

Recommended Posts

hello

 

i am a true newbie, the haze family found their first ever cache yesterday :D we are well and truelly hooked the kids think its great going on a 'treasure hunt' theyre 6 and 7 gets the out of the house etc.

 

sorry a little of track there, my question is what would you class as a good cache, we found one yesterday ina great place that we never knew existed :D and wouldnt have known about if it wasnt for geocaching.

 

so whats good and what was your favourite cache??

Edited by thehazes
Link to comment

Like everything else different folks like different caches, I personally avoid micro's but I still do em now and again. for me a good cache would be before during or at the end of a walk in the countryside with views if possible and a good sized traditional box, if you have kids with you these tend to go down better. Happy caching. :D

Link to comment

hello

 

i am a true newbie, the haze family found their first ever cache yesterday :D we are well and truelly hooked the kids think its great going on a 'treasure hunt' theyre 6 and 7 gets the out of the house etc.

 

sorry a little of track there, my question is what would you class as a good cache, we found one yesterday ina great place that we never knew existed :D and wouldnt have known about if it wasnt for geocaching.

 

so whats good and what was your favourite cache??

I look for one or more of:

 

a great walk, lovely views, an interesting place, unusual or challenging terrain, a clever hide, originality, humour, a good quality container, clean and dry, with an original and interesting collection of swaps.

 

I award unique, home manufactured geocoins to the owners of the best caches I've found. If you feel inclined, visit http://www.amberel.com/topcache.htm , that web page lists a lot of very good caches.

 

Rgds, Andy

Link to comment

hello

 

i am a true newbie, the haze family found their first ever cache yesterday :D we are well and truelly hooked the kids think its great going on a 'treasure hunt' theyre 6 and 7 gets the out of the house etc.

 

sorry a little of track there, my question is what would you class as a good cache, we found one yesterday ina great place that we never knew existed :D and wouldnt have known about if it wasnt for geocaching.

 

so whats good and what was your favourite cache??

 

Hello and Welcome! :D

 

Personally, I class a good cache as one that takes me somewhere special that I wouldn't have known about otherwise. We liked Senuna's Springs, Saunton Pink Erratic, and our very favourite cache of all time is Look into the Light (Down an old mine) to name but a few that pop into my head. Anything that gives me a good story to tell friends, or something to take a good picture of. We also like creative containers, and those hides that take you half an hour to find, but when you do you think "THAT is so clever, and worth the long hunt!". We're also big on nice long walks out in the country, so any caches that take us around on a circular walk are good with us!!!

 

The problem is, unless you ask someone it's quite hard to find good caches in an area and say "Right I want to go "HERE" and find a few good caches" Unless you read through all the descriptions and logs it's a bit tricky to pin-point somewhere special. There's the Firefox script GCVote that you can install if you're using Mozilla Firefox to browse the internet (A free download if you're not) that allows you to see how others have rated a cache which can help.

 

Happy caching!!! I hope you find a lot more that you all enjoy! :D

Link to comment

GCVote works with Chrome, too.

 

Last I saw, Groundspeak were looking into implementing a 'kudos' system as an alternative to a vote. I think the idea is that there'll be a few kudos categories like 'clever container', 'interesting location', 'great walk' and you get to place ticks next to those that apply to the cache you've just visited.

 

EDIT: found it here.

Edited by I!
Link to comment

For us, a good cache is...

 

one that brings us to any one of the following

 

A good view

An interesting building/structure/sculpture

An interesting/unusual memorial

An ancient/historical site

 

Or it may be (any one of the following)

 

A cache that challenges in some physical way - something that requires some effort (but not too extreme for our age/abilities!)

 

A container and/or hide that surprises - where it's obvious that the cache owner has made an effort to do something original.

 

A cache with interesting info in the description - Well written - Enough, but not too much - Tell us why you wanted to bring us to the spot.

 

Something that makes us smile/laugh/grin when we find it.

 

If it ticks two or more of the above then it's on it's way to being a very good, or excellent cache. :laughing:

 

MrsB

Link to comment

Hi and welcome to the {insert descriptive word here}

 

MrsB's thought summarise my thoughts these days too but I'd add also:

 

A great walk, I love an isolated geocache

 

A new county/county/region, I'm a bit of a stats freak an I got overly excited yesterday with a magnetic nano on a street sign just because it filled in a new country on my map ;-)

Link to comment

Echo what everyone else says, something that brings me to a part of the world I haven't been to before. You don't have to have a walk in order to do that, some of my favourite finds were just off the road.

 

A lot of people don't like nanos. But I personally think that size doesn't matter (!) and it's the location that counts, I'm just as happy to find a nano in an interesting city area as I am a big tupperware box deep into the countryside.

 

Bad caches, firstly there are the bad containers, those that leak and you're confronted with a damp cache log, and the absent owners who don't maintain their caches.

 

Then there are the boring hides, such as attached to a bus stop half way down a residential street with no special features.

Link to comment

I tend to enjoy a cache if it's a nice location, if it takes me somewhere new that's nice to visit, if I enjoyed the trip to or from the cache, or if I found the hide particularly interesting or challenging.

 

It's worth differentiating bad hides from bad owners - a good hide can degrade into a bad hide if it's not maintained.

 

The trouble is it's hard to come up with hard and fast rules as to what is a good cache and what is not. A film pot hidden behind a post isn't particularly inventive but if it was at the end of a nice ride and in an enjoyable park it might be fun to find and therefore good. If it was in a dark corner of a car park among whatever trash had accumulated there then chances are I'd rate it as a bad cache. A large cache well hidden at the end of a lovely walk in the forest is the kind of thing I suspect most people would rate as a good cache but if the container isn't waterproof and all the swaps are soaked and mouldy it becomes an unpleasant end to a nice walk.

 

Then there are the caches I ignore completely because they are rated terrain 5. From reading the logs the people who find them rate them very highly but if a cache involves climbing with ropes, abseiling etc then I give it a miss - until I lose some more weight that kind of cache just seems like an invitation to test the theory of gravity.

Link to comment

We found a cache in Belgium last week which was in a CarPool carpark so by definition it was a drive-by, but it's obvious that a lot of thought/effort had gone into setting it.

 

The cache was an excellent 'hidden in full view' hide, regular sized, visible from 100yds away once you know it's there - can't say what it was though as we might copy it! :laughing:

 

 

Mark

Link to comment

thanks for all the replies its nice to know what others get out of it.

 

we have found 8 so far lol however we are starting to get some idea of the ones we enjoy the most, we like ones that are on a nice gentle (its hard to do anything to big with the baby and pushchair) or ones that are in a n interesting place, like an old church (we went to one yesterday) .

the kids like ones with stuff to trade as it feels more like a treasure hunt, and i dont think dad haze has the patience for micro caches lol. maybe in time.

 

the ones at the moment we are liking the least are the ones that require lots of walking past stinging nettles and brambles in the wood, just because its hard to make sure the littlest haze doesnt hurt himself, we like ones they can run off ahead too :yikes:

Edited by thehazes
Link to comment

We are very new to this too. Our favourites have been in safe loactions for the kids, and the ones which make a special effort to be a bit magic- an unusual cache container, a surprise in the box or a kid friendly multicache. Anything that involves serious hunting at the end gets REALLY stressful as the toddlers go bananas!

Link to comment

I'd class a good cache as one I enjoyed doing...

 

I like a nice walk, a spot of history, a pretty spot I'd not of found otherwise, a bit of a challenge maybe, and yep, I've really enjoyed some of the circuits in Wiltshire and Devon that I've done, maybe more because of the countryside and the wildlife than the caches themselves - but very enjoyable none the less.

Link to comment

A good cache for me is one that doesn't involve spilling my blood.

:lol:

 

Looking back, the caches I liked most were actually the ones I was spilling blood, sweat and tears for! :laughing::sad:

 

What I love geocaching for is that it brings you to locations that you otherwise wouldn't have known about. I also love mountains, so my ideal cache takes me on a hike somewhere in the mountains, where I get amazing views over the landscape.... :yikes:

Edited by luzian
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...