We found our first cache WITHOUT searching for it!

[+TOPONA]

And actually that's how my girlfriend and I got started.

 

We were hiking and we spotted the entrance of a cave. I am a curious guy, so I entered it. Fortunately we had front lamps. It was quite narrow and short (no more than four meters deep).

 

"Is there anything inside?"

"Nope, [someone] left a cheese case that he had for lunch just right here"

 

I left the cave. I HEARD about geocaching before, but I never considered it ("what a nerdy thing"). For some bizarre reason, that though came to my mind.

"That would be a good place to put one of those cach... wait a little".

 

I got back and looked again at the junk piece, which turned out to be a cache. Wow!

We took pics, and we spent the evening registering here and on other caching sites and googling for the user names that signed the log, and for what TFTC meant, and the like. We were hooked.

 

But, we could NOT find that cache in any site. Bizarre.

 

Later, I thought, it must be a "multi" one, if I got it right, the final cache coordinates are NOT published anywhere but you discover them only by finding other caches.

 

For the curious one, the waypoint is "grotta degli opilionidi" in this trip:

http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1384125

 

The whole stuff - cache, infos, and log - where in German. The place is in Italy. There was no single word in Italian or English (I am Italian by the way and I can't understand any German). That's an area very frequented by German and Austrian people, so maybe the cache is listed in a German-tailored website.

 

Thanks all for reading!

Edited December 26, 2011 by Keystone
potty langauge removed by moderator

[+Touchstone]

Funny, but several years ago we were in the Brenta area to take in the via ferrata along the crest, and once up in the mountains, going hut to hut, we rarely ran into anyone that spoke Italian. By far, German was predominantly spoken.

 

Welcome and Congrats!

[+briansnat]

Welcome to the sport. I took a look at the area and there are no Geocaching.com caches listed. I checked for active, submitted but not activated, and archived but came up empty. I found a multi that ended in a cave, but it was 4 miles to the east of where you found this.

 

Are you sure it was a geocache? Perhaps it was a letterbox. Was there a stamp inside? If so then it was a letterbox. Or it might be listed on one the alternate listing sites, but I checked Opencaching.de and the nearest OCDE cache to that location is 2 miles north.

[+The VanDucks]

Well, regardless of whether it was a real cache or not, you found out how much fun geocaching can be! I hope you continue to seek for caches and to have a lot of fun with this hobby!

[+TOPONA]

Hello all,

 

yup, I searched over that very site with no results.

 

I am sure it was a geocache because of the "official" logo on the box and on the logbook also. The logbook was not self-made but looked like a bought gadget.

This morning I discovered that there could be caches for paying members only. So I can see two options here for that cache: it is listed as a "paying users only" in some site (this one or another) or it's the final cache of a multi-one.

 

Is that correct?

 

Cheers everybody.

[+Fianccetto]

Yes, or it could be a puzzle cache or mystery cache. These caches are not at the published coordinates either.

It is probably a 'premium member only' cache (we pay for a lot else on this site than just the premium member only caches, there are other perks too).

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Hello all,

 

yup, I searched over that very site with no results.

 

I am sure it was a geocache because of the "official" logo on the box and on the logbook also. The logbook was not self-made but looked like a bought gadget.

This morning I discovered that there could be caches for paying members only. So I can see two options here for that cache: it is listed as a "paying users only" in some site (this one or another) or it's the final cache of a multi-one.

 

Is that correct?

 

Cheers everybody.

 

Looks like you're learning about the many nuances of the game rather quickly. It could be a "paying users only" (usually referred to as Premium Members Only, or PMO) cache but briansnat would have discovered it if it was a PMO cache. It certainly could be a mystery cache, or it's possible that whoever placed it there has archived the cache, left the game, and never picked up the container. Those that had previously found it would have included the date when they found it. If this is a cache you can get back to you can take a look at the log book and write down the names and dates of those that have found it. Then you can search the geocaching.com site for their handles and find what caches they found on that date. That's one of the few ways you can discover the name of a cache that has been archived.

 

I see that you've found a few other caches now as well. I've only done a little caching in Italy and only in Rome, but I've been there four times in the past few years for work. I came through the area where you found the cache on my first visit. It's beautiful country.

[+W4G_SOTAGoat]

Then you can search the geocaching.com site for their handles and find what caches they found on that date. That's one of the few ways you can discover the name of a cache that has been archived.

 

Looks like they have some names. Earlier the OP mentions that they googled some of the usernames that were in the logbook.

[+TOPONA]

Then you can search the geocaching.com site for their handles and find what caches they found on that date. That's one of the few ways you can discover the name of a cache that has been archived.

 

Looks like they have some names. Earlier the OP mentions that they googled some of the usernames that were in the logbook.

 

Yes. We took pictures, but very quickly and definitely inaccurate. We were excited, totally unaware about cache names, codes, and the like. So the pics are quite odd. They are on the GF's camera. I'll happily share them when I'll find a way to transfer them to a PC (I know it's usually a trivial task but that's a camera with Compact Flash memory card and a proprietary cable and in the place we are living in those days we probably don't have access to a suitable card reader neither to the proper cable. I'll triple-check it tonite).

 

About "private only", I saw that briansnat is a premium member, but I have no idea if there are other cache listing sites that offers members only caches to THEIR users. Oh, as far as I remember there was only a log entry.

 

Thanks all for the nice feedback!

[+briansnat]

Hello all,

 

yup, I searched over that very site with no results.

 

I am sure it was a geocache because of the "official" logo on the box and on the logbook also. The logbook was not self-made but looked like a bought gadget.

This morning I discovered that there could be caches for paying members only. So I can see two options here for that cache: it is listed as a "paying users only" in some site (this one or another) or it's the final cache of a multi-one.

 

Is that correct?

 

Cheers everybody.

 

There caches for premium members, but I would have seen them when I searched. Since you are certain it's a geocache then that leaves two possibilities. It's the end of a mystery or multi but the beginning of the cache is more than 8 miles from this location (that's how far out I searched), or someone hid it and never bothered to submit it for whatever reason. If there are signatures in the logbook, that might rule out that possibility.

 

If there are signatures in the logbook that might be a clue. Look up the player's account and check for his finds on the day he signed the logbook.

[+TOPONA]

We searched for the names we could partially read from the pics but we couldn't find the users. We just uploaded the pics on Everytrail!

 

http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1384125

 

I can read "gunzzz", and that is the only found I could get by GOOGLING for the username and the "geocaching" keyword. That lead to a site different from this one but I couldn't get the hang out of it (unknown idiom).

 

The others looks like lord_delicious and Mulgaroth. We couldn't find 'em.

 

That's it. I hope you can solve the puzzle!

[+Harry Dolphin]

These look like the cachers you're looking for:

Es grüßen die Thüringer Lord Delirious, Mulgoroth, L-M-K-G, gunZZZ und der konsolenritter.

But they haven't logged any cache on-line since July. And only in Germany.

[+TOPONA]

These look like the cachers you're looking for:

Es grüßen die Thüringer Lord Delirious, Mulgoroth, L-M-K-G, gunZZZ und der konsolenritter.

But they haven't logged any cache on-line since July. And only in Germany.

 

LOL. "Lord DELICIOUS" is quite different from "Lord Delirious" indeed.

 

I wonder how did you found that, was it geocaching.de? Cheers

[+Harry Dolphin]

These look like the cachers you're looking for:

Es grüßen die Thüringer Lord Delirious, Mulgoroth, L-M-K-G, gunZZZ und der konsolenritter.

But they haven't logged any cache on-line since July. And only in Germany.

 

LOL. "Lord DELICIOUS" is quite different from "Lord Delirious" indeed.

 

I wonder how did you found that, was it geocaching.de? Cheers

 

I checked the photo you took, and read the one name as Mulgoroth, instead of Mulgaroth, and checked "Hide and seek a cache" "Found by username". And that's what I came up with. They do not seem to have logged caches on-line in a while, and it doesn't look like gunZZZ logs any caches on-line.