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The biggest jewel heist in history!


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Now I'm REALLY confused! My husband and I have a joint account.  We were able to get all the clues and gemstones plus the extra 35 caches. Then a screen pops up that says access the lock. Then 3 spaces pop up where you enter a number to unlock the vault  Hint.......check your souvenirs! I don't get it.........any ideas?

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10 minutes ago, cybercat said:

Now I'm REALLY confused! My husband and I have a joint account.  We were able to get all the clues and gemstones plus the extra 35 caches. Then a screen pops up that says access the lock. Then 3 spaces pop up where you enter a number to unlock the vault  Hint.......check your souvenirs! I don't get it.........any ideas?

I could tell from the first souvenir that it had something important I'd need later!

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On 7/12/2019 at 2:39 PM, The A-Team said:

It's all about optics. The issues with past promotions have undermined their members' confidence in the company, and dissatisfied customers can become ex-customers. If they're fine with having unhappy users, then so be it. However, if they want to make sure their users have a good experience and are more likely to stick around, they either need to throw more resources at the problem in order to develop this more-complex system, or scale back the complexity of the system such that the available level of resources can successfully build it.

You may think it's important to present perfection, but obviously GS doesn't have a problem with having us play test things. And I don't have a problem with that, either. It's one of the few things they do these days that makes geocaching seem more like a community instead of an impersonal business. But thanks to all the complaining, I'm sure they'll learn their lesson about mistaking us for collaborators instead of customers.

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I noticed the following: I'm at 'level 2' (need to find the shadow, fingerprints & footprints), but in the app I already have found 2 of the diamonds as well. When I look on the website, it says 0/3 for all diamonds. So there is a difference of my progress between app and website.

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6 hours ago, CaracalShan said:

I noticed the following: I'm at 'level 2' (need to find the shadow, fingerprints & footprints), but in the app I already have found 2 of the diamonds as well. When I look on the website, it says 0/3 for all diamonds. So there is a difference of my progress between app and website.

Screenshot, please!

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I went caching, and after finding a cache with a clue, it did'nt show up in the app. So now I had jewels on the app, but misses one of the footprints, and 2 footprints on the site, but no jewels. After this I re-installed the app, and everything worked ok then, on both the site and the app.

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10 hours ago, dprovan said:

You may think it's important to present perfection, but obviously GS doesn't have a problem with having us play test things. And I don't have a problem with that, either. It's one of the few things they do these days that makes geocaching seem more like a community instead of an impersonal business. But thanks to all the complaining, I'm sure they'll learn their lesson about mistaking us for collaborators instead of customers.

 

I would love to be a collaborator instead of a customer.  Heck, I have been trying for over ten years!  I agree that the ability to playtest is nice.  But in this case, I don't think that our feedback was ever considered "playtesting" as the details of the promotion were kept secret until it was too late.  Had it been presented otherwise, I think everyone would have been much more forgiving.  Instead of a collaborative effort, IMO this came off much more as an attempt to force participants to use the official GC app on smart devices.  That feels manipulative to me.

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We've enjoyed it, with no bugs noted.... there was an event in the area on Saturday morning, so armed with our detective, we made a plan to grab the needed evidence the next day, then, as we were in a no-coverage zone, drove back a bit to find some 3G coverage, and plotted our way from jewel to jewel, then just cached as usual with the GPSr. Thanks to Groundspeak for a fun souvenir promotion - we liked the added layer of hunting/searching you've incorporated..... now we just need 35 more finds this month, no sweat.... :)

 

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On 7/12/2019 at 1:17 PM, NYPaddleCacher said:

The clue is only hidden when one is viewing a cache listing from the website but is clearly displayed when viewing the cache listing in the app.   I'm curious why GS decided to "hide" the clue type on the web site.  The only explanation that I can come up with is that it was intentionally done to encourage users to use the app instead of the web site. 

 

The clue type (for a locked Stage) is shown on the Android App, but on the iPhone it shows ‘Hidden’, like the website.  I think the Android version is out of step with what was intended...

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7 hours ago, Max and 99 said:
13 hours ago, CaracalShan said:

I noticed the following: I'm at 'level 2' (need to find the shadow, fingerprints & footprints), but in the app I already have found 2 of the diamonds as well. When I look on the website, it says 0/3 for all diamonds. So there is a difference of my progress between app and website.

Screenshot, please!

 

Actually I'll confirm that happened with someone in my group today as well. The app showed more evidence clues collected than the website summary view. But I think their stat is all up to date now. Probably a timing thing, or maybe a web caching thing.

 

5 hours ago, fizzymagic said:

Instead of a collaborative effort, IMO this came off much more as an attempt to force participants to use the official GC app on smart devices.  That feels manipulative to me.

 

I'd agree except for 'manipulative'. It's their app, and it's an optional side-game. People can choose to play or not, and if they don't then it's a negative stats for the promo analysis. Manipulative would be using underhanded tactics to force people to do what they don't want to do. No one's being forced to do anything here. But a whole lot of people want all the things, and want to get them all their own way. Again, not a defense that the methodology is flawless or even optimal, let alone bug-free. But 'manipulative'? Nah.

 

38 minutes ago, lee737 said:

And we actually found that the official app is better than Cachly when navigating to a cache.... we've used it so little over the past 2 years we neglected to see some good work has been going on in the app development department....

 

Definitely getting better, but I'm finding almost every app has some hitch in the general geocaching process that a different app got right :P The official app has usability issues; Cachly has usability issues; Geosphere is sorely lacking updates and MIA (sigh); Looking4Cache has usability issues; etc etc. That other android app doesn't want to play nice with GC's requirements even though it offers better usability in many areas (as I gather)... no app is perfect. Sadly. :laughing:

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1 hour ago, IceColdUK said:
On 7/12/2019 at 1:17 PM, NYPaddleCacher said:

The clue is only hidden when one is viewing a cache listing from the website but is clearly displayed when viewing the cache listing in the app.   I'm curious why GS decided to "hide" the clue type on the web site.  The only explanation that I can come up with is that it was intentionally done to encourage users to use the app instead of the web site. 

 

The clue type (for a locked Stage) is shown on the Android App, but on the iPhone it shows ‘Hidden’, like the website.  I think the Android version is out of step with what was intended...

 

I checked the Android Official App while searching for the 1st (Detective) and 2nd (Clues) levels, and this revelation of Clue Types above my game level never occurred for me.  In fact, it showed NO clue; I had to Open in Browser.  Until this morning. (Could've been last night.).  It's now showing the clues in the App's cache description - hallelujah!   But hey, once you get to the second level, if it still says "Hidden", you know it's a .... 

 

Although some people report getting credit for having found Jewels before completing the previous level, I'm going level by level, rather than hoping that [what, to me, seems] a glitch in the intended game-flow remains intact.   I.e., Log Detective; Log Clues; Log Jewels....

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Lackeys in charge of programming the filters for the Museum game:

please omit any caches that have 2 or more DNFs from their latest logs. I went to four geocache locations today and half of them needed maintenance and three of them had more than two DNFs as their latest logs. I’m sick of you using this “game” to make me hike around for hours with hardly a find to show for it. It’s like someone at HQ said, “hmmm... how can we identify all the caches that need to be removed from the system? Oh! I know! We’ll make a ‘game’ that causes endless frustration and angst amongst our members by sending them out to find caches that have been ‘forgotten’ in their area!” I have never hated Geocaching before today, but after trying really hard to get these badges for the Museum quest and finding that over half of them have multiple DNFs as their latest logs without the CO maintaining them - I’m about done with this sport.

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11 minutes ago, Paurian said:

please omit any caches that have 2 or more DNFs from their latest logs.

 

Okay, but then you'd have to eliminate all the slightly more difficult hides, like this D2.5 of mine (GC5XVYC) where 2 of the last 3 logs are DNFs. That cache is still there as good as the day I placed it, it doesn't need maintenance, you just need to read the description carefully, note the attributes and maybe think a bit laterally to spot some of the other clues that will help narrow down the search.

 

There may well be a good case for excluding caches with outstanding NMs, since you can't filter those out in the search page, search map or app. But a couple of recent DNFs doesn't mean a cache is missing.

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7 hours ago, Paurian said:

Lackeys in charge of programming the filters for the Museum game:

please omit any caches that have 2 or more DNFs from their latest logs. I went to four geocache locations today and half of them needed maintenance and three of them had more than two DNFs as their latest logs. I’m sick of you using this “game” to make me hike around for hours with hardly a find to show for it. It’s like someone at HQ said, “hmmm... how can we identify all the caches that need to be removed from the system? Oh! I know! We’ll make a ‘game’ that causes endless frustration and angst amongst our members by sending them out to find caches that have been ‘forgotten’ in their area!” I have never hated Geocaching before today, but after trying really hard to get these badges for the Museum quest and finding that over half of them have multiple DNFs as their latest logs without the CO maintaining them - I’m about done with this sport.

 

I do love a good forum-door-slamming-storm-off! Thanks.....

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7 hours ago, Paurian said:

We’ll make a ‘game’ that causes endless frustration and angst amongst our members by sending them out to find caches that have been ‘forgotten’ in their area!” I have never hated Geocaching before today, but after trying really hard to get these badges for the Museum quest and finding that over half of them have multiple DNFs as their latest logs without the CO maintaining them - I’m about done with this sport.

 

I can share your experience but I managed to make required finds so I am not as frustrated as you are. Generally, every time I am "forced" to make a find and there is some problems with the cache, it may feel quite frustrating.

 

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My experience with this year's "summer promotion" during the last weekend...

 

I'm living in a relatively cache-dense area (Munich), but I'm also a very active cacher. As a result, I have more or less cleared (except for a long ignore list with caches I'm unable to do) an area of 45+ km around my home. Because new caches will only get the "Detective" clue, it was clear that I'd need to travel a bit to get clues and then jewels. No principal problem with that - there are areas about 50-60 km away, where I still have many caches to find. BUT: I make a habit (and I didn't want to change that) out of logging my finds a) at home on the PC (I find it a nuisance to type long texts on the phone) and b) in the sequence in which I actually found the caches.

 

Therefore it was effectively impossible to plan a single trip to find clues and jewels. Before completion of the "clue level", I wouldn't know which caches to search for which jewel. Of course I could blindly trying to find as much caches as possible with still "hidden" clues (which must be some jewel), but I'd probably end up with, say, tons of diamonds but only a single ruby or so ;) . So I planned two trips: On Saturday I'd go for the clues, and after logging the finds in the evening, I would plan a Sunday trip for the jewels. The clues thing went well - I had designated 4 caches for each of the three clues, to have two "backups" each in case of DNF(s). Also, these 12 caches were not too dispersed, so it made a relatively decent tour. As a bonus, I also managed to find two "hidden jewel" caches along the way (a third opportunity ended in a DNF, though).

 

For the Sunday trip, I didn't want to return the same area as on Saturday (caching should be fun, and not repetitive work), so I went for a more rural area with somewhat less caches than the semi-urban environment where I was on Saturday. So I filtered for jewels, and excluded unsuitable caches (puzzles I couldn't solve, too-high T-ratings, very long multis). I came up with a tour which was on one hand a more or less "well-rounded" tour which I could also have attempted on a "normal" Sunday trip when the weather forecast is a bit mixed, but also  barely adequate for the jewel hunt: I had absolutely no "backup" for any of the 5 jewel types :wacko:! So, to quote arisoft...

2 hours ago, arisoft said:

Generally, every time I am "forced" to make a find and there is some problems with the cache, it may feel quite frustrating. 

... yeah, exactly ;) . Normally I don't fret much about DNFs ... I have logged hundreds of them, it doesn't hurt. But this time, I admit that I was a bit irritated when the search for one of the crucial jewels caches took longer and longer (I found it in the end).

 

My bottom line is: The challenge in this promotion was much more interesting than the ones in previous years (where it was essentially about finding as much caches as possible). But I didn't really like the feature, that a premature find of a cache (e.g. a jewel cache before completing the clues level) can be "harmful" to the overall progress. It makes playing the game in an "honest" way (i.e., without re-arranging logs etc.) rather difficult, if you don't have that many caches left in your area in the first place.

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Yeah it's the mechanics of geocaching - find once - that would be hard to integrate into something like this, where there are 'levels' to achieve (part of the difficulty) while in doing so you reduce your options if you find not-yet-qualifiers before their time. Perhaps they could have made caches with clues you found prematurely worth 1/2 the value once they're unlocked, or have a kind of 'gutter' as an alternate goal and build it into the plot somehow; perhaps even provide a different souvenir.

 

As a game concept itself, MATM is certainly appropriate for a side-game to a location-based game of collecting 'stuff'. But there could have been some other options to accomodate the geocaching-specific play mechanic.

 

That said, once again, this is the first time they tried a mechanic like this as a layer on top of the standard hobby, and I'm sure they're collecting feedback (especially constructive feedback, positive and negative) so it can be incorporated into a future promo.

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On 7/13/2019 at 8:53 PM, Toeb said:

Well, that was anticlimactic.  Went all out,  only to get slammed at the end.  You could've at least put ALL the requirements up front.  Second thoughts here on out.....

 

LOL! We looked that very differently.  I was just glad there wasn't a requirement like having your 81 grid completed for the final :) 

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Another way I explained this was the progression is much like video 'achievements'.  Gamers can't expect or demand to be able to earn them all, and sometimes they even won't tell you the requirements until you've earned a lesser tier or other achievement. In that gaming context/community they can become more like a competitive trophy (look at what I accomplished because I'm a better player) which isn't really as good a fit in the geocaching community, but they can also be just a mark of personal achievement.

 

It's like, these aren't horizontal achievements where everyone has equal chance/ability to earn them all.  They get progressively harder. The only difference here is that unlike seeing the tiers up front, you have to progress through the 'levels' in order to collect them and for one, to be able to even what has to be done to collect it. The question is how well that mechanic fits as a layer over the basic geocaching activity.

 

I think the presentation of the promo could certainly help to assuage that "I can't earn it so I don't like it" mentality.  Whether it's a different name for such a "souvenir" or whether it's wrapped in a different box when presented. 

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40 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

That said, once again, this is the first time they tried a mechanic like this as a layer on top of the standard hobby, and I'm sure they're collecting feedback (especially constructive feedback, positive and negative) so it can be incorporated into a future promo.

Like the feedback they got from the AR Survey? 

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On 7/12/2019 at 11:16 PM, Max and 99 said:

Pffffftttttt. Fuhgettaboutit! 

 

Wait, it's 1, 6, then 15. Right? That's a total of 22 

I’m so glad I checked the message boards! I’m just starting on the gems and thought the ending would be some type of puzzle. Honestly, I would have been seriously pissed if I got to the end and surprisingly found out I need 35 random more caches. I really liked the concept of finding the detective and clues and then the gems. Agree that the ending is not related, a letdown and tedious finale. It was fun finding the detective and clues anyhow.  I’ll probably find the rest of the gems. Even an easy puzzle at the end would’ve satisfied me. Hope  I’m not being overly critical, because I’m sure this is tough to develop. This quest took me to some unique caches And pushed me to find some tough caches to meet the goals. I had a fantastic caching day today!

Edited by BugLuv
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7 minutes ago, BugLuv said:

I’m just starting on the gems and thought the ending would be some type of puzzle. Honestly, I would have been seriously pissed if I got to the end and surprisingly found out I need 35 random more caches.

 

Read just a little more through the thread... :P

 

It's 1, 6, and 15 for 3 souvenirs - then level 4 which is 35 (random) caches. THEN a final task to earn the last souvenir. But it's easy if you know where to look.

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1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

 

Read just a little more through the thread... :P

 

It's 1, 6, and 15 for 3 souvenirs - then level 4 which is 35 (random) caches. THEN a final task to earn the last souvenir. But it's easy if you know where to look.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I know how to solve the "puzzle" at the end of tier 4.

Instead of 35 more random caches, I think it would have been more satisfying to me if I had to find 1 puzzle to access the vault.

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1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

 

Read just a little more through the thread... :P

 

It's 1, 6, and 15 for 3 souvenirs - then level 4 which is 35 (random) caches. THEN a final task to earn the last souvenir. But it's easy if you know where to look.

Yes, I understand. I just don’t know if I’ll have time to find the 35 caches in the time frame 

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16 hours ago, baer2006 said:

BUT: I make a habit (and I didn't want to change that) out of logging my finds a) at home on the PC (I find it a nuisance to type long texts on the phone) and b) in the sequence in which I actually found the caches.

^^This.

Hubby and I cache together, with our phones.  He logs in the field, at the time we find the cache (or within a few minutes, once we get back to the car or a park bench or whatever).  I prefer to log as a draft, a few quick keywords, a timestamp, and then write a full log, log TB activity, post photos, etc on the computer.  Both of us keep the chronology, and number our finds.  We've also pretty much cleared out our home area, except for a few "problem caches" for us, with our 2018 challenge to find a cache every day and fill our calendar grid.

 

Coincidentally, we had this trip to Southern CA planned before the promo dates were announced; we managed to find a Detective and a Fingerprint on the drive down.  This afternoon we are hoping to find the rest of the clues and maybe a jewel or two.  And over the next couple of days, we'll track down several of the jewels in Palm Springs.  It's supposed to be 113°F, so I 'm not sure if we'll get much done or not, unless they are hidden at the resort near the pool!

UPDATE:  We found the requisite evidence clues (Fingerprint, Footprint, Shadow), but no jewels this afternoon.  A couple of DNF's and other issues, but we did get all the evidence, and are now ready to go hunting jewels!  Plus, I was able to draft my logs on thephone, then log our finds on the computer this evening.  I got the souvenirs, as expected.  It's all working for us, at this point.

 

And finding 35 more, on the way home, and before August 11?  Seems doable for us.

Edited by CAVinoGal
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Yeah, i fyou don't try to do the entire promo in a day or two, it should certainly be just as if not more feasible to complete over the entire month, especially with only 3 planning walls (the level breaks where you're not intended to see future requirements).  In theory, you could do a level a day, so 4 caching days over the month and you're done, if you don't like the idea of having to log live just to see what to find next. In theory (because there are always exceptions)

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20 hours ago, VAVAPAM said:

Although some people report getting credit for having found Jewels before completing the previous level, I'm going level by level, rather than hoping that [what, to me, seems] a glitch in the intended game-flow remains intact.   I.e., Log Detective; Log Clues; Log Jewels....

 

We played it this way as well.  i got the detective on my lunch break Thursday,  the clues over Friday evening and Saturday between errands and thunderstorms, and 14 jewels yesterday.  I lucked into jewel 15 on my lunch hour today.  Now I'm ready to go full speed ahead into the last set of finds.

We had a lot of fun just going with it the way it was intended, especially my daughter.  It was funny to hear "Ugh! Another stupid diamond!" from the back seat.

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Hello! I wanted to drop in and give an update on what we have been working on.

  • As the promotion began we saw that new caches being published were not correctly being awarded a detective so on Friday we deployed an update to automatically assign the detective. We also made sure that events that get published would only receive a clue if the event falls within the same time frame as the promotion. 
  • Before the promotion launched we made a last minute decision to exclude disabled geocaches from the general distribution algorithm so that rare clues would not be placed in geocaches that might not be available during the promotion. We wanted to make sure that disabled geocaches that were re-enabled would include a clue, but because of the last minute nature of the decision we did not have time to make the changes necessary to add those automatically. For that reason we chose to assign all disabled geocaches with a Detective from the start. In hindsight we understand that this caused some confusion and searching on the web was hindered by the large number of disabled geocaches in some regions. We have been working to make adjustments and the system will now automatically add a detective to geocaches when they are re-enabled. With that change in place we have removed the clue from the disabled geocaches that we seeded before the promotion. A separate background process is now running that is updating the search results so that the disabled geocaches will not show up when searching for a Detective on the web map. Going forward, geocaches that get disabled during the promotion and include a clue (of any level) will still be displayed based on the normal behavior of the search results.
  • In a small number of cases when a geocache is published there is a longer than normal latency between the publishing of the geocache and a clue being added. Because of this latency the clue does not always get registered in the search results because the registration is triggered before the clue is added. We are currently adding an extra check to ensure that every clue is registered properly after the geocache is published.
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We started to work on the Mystery yesterday.  I am more inclined these days to geocache when I have a goal and these souvenir adventures provide a good opportunity to do so.  I started yesterday and got the defective.  Since I have cleaned out much of my local area--I had  to learn how to search for the clues and have them somewhat nearby.  Got my Detective Souvenir and on to the clues.  I compiled 3 lists of clues and today I found one of each.  Surprisingly this did not cause the 2nd souvenir to appear nor am I able to search for jewels yet.  

Then I realized I needed to find two of each clue to open up the next level.  1/2 implies that I need 2/2 to complete.  At this point on to the next.  I am enjoying the adventure. 

Edited by 3Woofs
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Just now, 3Woofs said:

We started to work on the Mystery yesterday.  I am more inclined these days to geocache when I have a goal and these souvenir adventures provide a good opportunity to do so.  I started yesterday and got the defective.  Since I have cleaned out much of my local area--I had  to learn how to search for the clues and have them somewhat nearby.  Got my Defective Souvenir and on to the clues.  I compiled 3 lists of clues and today I found one of each.  Surprisingly this did not cause the 2nd souvenir to appear nor am I able to search for jewels yet.  

Then I realized I needed to find two of each clue to open up the next level.  1/2 implies that I need 2/2 to complete.  At this point on to the next.  I am enjoying the adventure. 

You need 2 of each Evidence clues, not one of each.

P.S. It's a Detective Clue. ?

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1 hour ago, Max and 99 said:

You need 2 of each Evidence clues, not one of each.

P.S. It's a Detective Clue. ?

 

I mean, "Defective" works, given that the souvenirs were "misbehaving" a little at the start of the promotion ?

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Sorry I meant Detective, bad spell checking.  It  must have been a senior moment.  Because when I looked at the clues and saw 1  /2 (1 of 2) the light came on and I realized I needed 2 of each evidence clue and then will need 3 of each Jewel.

Thank you.

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11 minutes ago, Harry Dolphin said:

Twenty-nine caches to go! 

 

This is turning into quite a struggle for me to make much headway at all. I got the detective on Saturday after a nearby disabled cache I hadn't previously found was re-enabled, then found a shadow on another fairly local cache. Now I look at the map and wonder how I'm going to get much further into it without spending a fortune on fuel. These are the unfound unowned enabled level 2 caches I have in my 20km radius, so it looks like it'll take at least 3 or 4 fairly long drives to get the remaining 5. In another thread overnight, thebruce0 said, "But level 1 and 2, maybe 3, are fairly easily done by most people in a day" so I can only imagine that "most people" are supposed to live in big American cities with caches under every lamp-post.

 

image.png.79b22054c2857dc313bfac7c45c9f544.png

 

Looking at the souvenirs of the other active cachers in my region, most aren't faring any better than me. I'm thinking of throwing in the towel for this promotion now and just going back to my usual caching routine, which is to pick a nice place for a day trip where there are one or two caches that look interesting.

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42 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

This is turning into quite a struggle for me to make much headway at all. I got the detective on Saturday after a nearby disabled cache I hadn't previously found was re-enabled, then found a shadow on another fairly local cache. Now I look at the map and wonder how I'm going to get much further into it without spending a fortune on fuel. These are the unfound unowned enabled level 2 caches I have in my 20km radius, so it looks like it'll take at least 3 or 4 fairly long drives to get the remaining 5. In another thread overnight, thebruce0 said, "But level 1 and 2, maybe 3, are fairly easily done by most people in a day" so I can only imagine that "most people" are supposed to live in big American cities with caches under every lamp-post.

 

image.png.79b22054c2857dc313bfac7c45c9f544.png

 

Looking at the souvenirs of the other active cachers in my region, most aren't faring any better than me. I'm thinking of throwing in the towel for this promotion now and just going back to my usual caching routine, which is to pick a nice place for a day trip where there are one or two caches that look interesting.

Jeff, for what it is worth, the lamp post caches tend to be in the suburbs in mall parking lots. The lamp posts in big cities tend not to have liftable skirts where you can hide caches.

I live in a pretty cache rich environment but, given that I have been caching for 12 years, I've had to travel more than 40 k to get 14 of the 15 needed gems.

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2 hours ago, barefootjeff said:

 

This is turning into quite a struggle for me to make much headway at all. I got the detective on Saturday after a nearby disabled cache I hadn't previously found was re-enabled, then found a shadow on another fairly local cache. Now I look at the map and wonder how I'm going to get much further into it without spending a fortune on fuel. These are the unfound unowned enabled level 2 caches I have in my 20km radius, so it looks like it'll take at least 3 or 4 fairly long drives to get the remaining 5. In another thread overnight, thebruce0 said, "But level 1 and 2, maybe 3, are fairly easily done by most people in a day" so I can only imagine that "most people" are supposed to live in big American cities with caches under every lamp-post.

 

image.png.79b22054c2857dc313bfac7c45c9f544.png

 

Looking at the souvenirs of the other active cachers in my region, most aren't faring any better than me. I'm thinking of throwing in the towel for this promotion now and just going back to my usual caching routine, which is to pick a nice place for a day trip where there are one or two caches that look interesting.

I bit the bullet yesterday and went for the "Dog" series north of here. At the start I already had Detective and Fingerprint level. I started off just doing the series in order with my GPS but I didn't really understand the order they should be found. Anyway I kept going until I got to one that wasn't on my GPS but I used the coords off my phone. At GZ I also lost the phone signal as I was getting further away from civilisation. I realised that I had set up GSAK with a 100klm radius from home and the Dog series went further than that. I turned around and headed back the way I came and this time I started using the phone a bit more and by trial and error worked out the filtering. By the time I got back to Paterson I had found 38 caches in total and had all the jewels but only had 1 find of the 35 last group. Not sure what happens next. Can I just find any ol' cache to make up the 35, even ones that are jewels?

Although the series looks like a PT there is a variety of cache sizes, mostly small and regular, and a variety of hides all within a few metres of the road.

Edited by colleda
typo
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3 minutes ago, colleda said:

I bit the bullet yesterday and went for the "Dog" series north of here.

 

Yes, I think the Dog series would be about my only chance of getting over the finish line in this, but it's well over a hundred km of driving just to get to the start. There are some clustered series and short power trails in Sydney but they appear to be mostly along main roads which doesn't sound like much fun given what Sydney traffic is like these days.

 

1 hour ago, Michaelcycle said:

I live in a pretty cache rich environment but, given that I have been caching for 12 years, I've had to travel more than 40 k to get 14 of the 15 needed gems.

 

The detective one I got, which was on what I consider to be a local cache, was a 23km drive each way. I'm just about to drive over to one of the "nearby" shadow caches, the one marked with a red arrow below. It's 34km each way, a fair bit along a narrow winding road, and there are no other level 2 caches either on the way or anywhere in the vicinity of it.

 

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6 minutes ago, barefootjeff said:

 

Yes, I think the Dog series would be about my only chance of getting over the finish line in this, but it's well over a hundred km of driving just to get to the start. There are some clustered series and short power trails in Sydney but they appear to be mostly along main roads which doesn't sound like much fun given what Sydney traffic is like these days.

 

 

The detective one I got, which was on what I consider to be a local cache, was a 23km drive each way. I'm just about to drive over to one of the "nearby" shadow caches, the one marked with a red arrow below. It's 34km each way, a fair bit along a narrow winding road, and there are no other level 2 caches either on the way or anywhere in the vicinity of it.

 

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May I suggest my "Two Beaches" and "Ridge Fire Trail" series. They're about an hour from you and you wouldn't have to battle  city traffic.

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2 hours ago, colleda said:

May I suggest my "Two Beaches" and "Ridge Fire Trail" series. They're about an hour from you and you wouldn't have to battle  city traffic.

 

Thanks. I've already done all but two of your "Two Beaches" series, but the Ridge Fire Trail ones are still unattempted by me. Unfortunately, having now found my quota of shadows but still needing all the footprints and fingerprints, they only offer two qualifying caches, one of the two remaining Beaches ones and one from the Ridge trail. There's a qualifying puzzle cache nearby too but it has an outstanding NM on it so I'm not sure if it's actually findable. If I can get past level 2, perhaps the ridge trail will have enough of the various jewels to warrant the drive up there.

 

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Edit to add: Caves Beach is still an 80km drive each way from here.

Edited by barefootjeff
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I did make it past the Clue level, and was trying to reconcile finding 50 caches and not caching out my home area.  Suddenly remembered a 48-puzzle geoart that came out in January that I'd already done solved.  About 70 miles from me, I'd thought of maybe swinging by there on my way to the Deep South.  Checked it out:  Of the first 18, only 2 are non-jewels, so a minor track-back of a couple of miles to grab those for the last level.  Then smooth sailing, just find and log the rest.  Grab a couple more on the way home, and done.  Yessss.

Locked and loaded and heading south!  ?

Edited by VAVAPAM
duh
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