Hello, Hello, Hello, What's All This Then?

[+allieballie]

A couple of months ago I hid a micro cache (container was an old sweetie tube) in between two rocks about a metre or so from a side road, in an area which was close to a burn and trees but which wasn't immediately near to any houses, although some houses could be seen from the cache site and vice versa. Today, a friend of mine visited the cache site and emailed me to say that there was police tape attached to the cache and did I know anything about it? I didn't and we were intrigued! She said the cache itself was intact and that someone had logged it recently but hadn't yet done their log on their website, so we waited to see if their log would shed any light on the reason for the police tape. It certainly did - they also found it with the police tape but the police had left a note inside too! It read:

 

"From Tayside Police. Local residents have expressed concern at the level of activity in the woods. Whilst we appreciate it is harmless could you please contact the administrator and suggest they move the clue to somewhere else!! " Followed by the police officers initials, number, telephone number and "Perth Police Office".

 

Obviously I have now archived the cache, and will retrieve it asap (not sure if I will be able to move the clue somewhere else - the whole point was that it was an Abba quiz cache and located in the hamlet of Waterloo - and given the watchful behaviour of Waterloo residents I would be wary of moving it to somewhere else in the place!), however I thought I would share the story with you!

 

I think the thing I am most amazed about is how on earth a cache in the location it was in, and which had been visited by only 5 geocachers by the time the police must have been called in, managed to attract so much local attention! It's quite comical in a way!

 

It was also the icing on the cake for a disasterous day which saw a CD shatter within my computer disc drive, my car looking like it's sprung a petrol leak (to be confirmed tomorrow morning in daylight!) and finally this! I have to say though that I have found this last part really amusing (perhaps thats because I had had an enormous glass of wine to block out todays previous incidents before finding out about the police visit!). At least it's made me laugh and has also made me forget that tomorrow I will probably have to spend the day in Kwik Fit rather than going geocaching!

[+snaik]

No more carefree laughter

Silence ever after

Walking through an empty house, tears in my eyes

Here is where the story ends, this is goodbye

Knowing me, knowing you (ah-haa)

There is nothing we can do

Knowing me, knowing you (ah-haa)

We just have to face it, this time we're archived

 

Edited November 27, 2004 by Snaik

[+Bill D (wwh)]

Perhaps you were really rather fortunate - judging by various incidents in the States recently, over there they'd probably have blown it up and then tried to send you a bill for their time!

 

I'm impressed with the polite and diplomatic way they handled it.

[+Bill D (wwh)]

Snaik wrote:

No more carefree laughter

Silence ever after

Walking through an empty house, tears in my eyes

Here is where the story ends, this is goodbye

Knowing me, knowing you (ah-haa)

There is nothing we can do

Knowing me, knowing you (ah-haa)

We just have to face it, this time we're archived

[+Travers]

A similar thing happened with this cache:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...decrypt=y&log=y

 

There was an entry in the log book from the police to say they had been informed of an increase in activity in the area and had come to check it out.

 

They didn’t ask for it to be removed though – in fact they left a swap!

[+Team Ullium]

A similar thing happened with this cache:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...decrypt=y&log=y

 

There was an entry in the log book from the police to say they had been informed of an increase in activity in the area and had come to check it out.

 

They didn’t ask for it to be removed though – in fact they left a swap!

It wasn't a parking ticket was it???

 

 

Ullium.

[+Travers]

A similar thing happened with this cache:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...decrypt=y&log=y

 

There was an entry in the log book from the police to say they had been informed of an increase in activity in the area and had come to check it out.

 

They didn’t ask for it to be removed though – in fact they left a swap!

It wasn't a parking ticket was it???

 

 

Ullium.

No, but I've come close!

 

It was actually the rubber glove they used to examine the cache. I generously left it for another cacher who may collect such things.

[+allieballie]

No more carefree laughter

Silence ever after

Walking through an empty house, tears in my eyes

Here is where the story ends, this is goodbye

Knowing me, knowing you (ah-haa)

There is nothing we can do

Knowing me, knowing you (ah-haa)

We just have to face it, this time we're archived

 

Ha! ha! ha!

 

Yes, it really is "Thankyou for the Music" for this cache!!

 

P.S. Snaik I know you pretended that you didn't know much about Abba before you did this cache, but you were FTF for it, and now you're quoting Abba lyrics - so are the rumours true? Are you really Perthshires No. 1 Abba fan?!!!!

[nobby.nobbs]

have you thought of phoning the officer??

 

you never know you might be able to persuade him that he's ok with it staying there. chances are he's the local beat officer so he's getting it in the neck from some old biddy who has nothing better to do than moan about people they see. he might be able to explain to them that it's perfectly harmless and that he's happy for it to stay. you aren't actually breaking any laws.

 

he might even join you never know.

 

the concerned resident might be convinced that increased activity will discourage the criminal element of society. cito and so on. only has positive benefits for lawfull people.

 

worth a thought.

[+The Forester]

A few months ago I placed a cache in some woodland near my home. It was a gentle puzzle cache, the idea being that the seeker had to identify the species of six trees and then do a simple alphanumeric substitution to obtain the decimals of minutes of Lat/Long of the cache.

 

I gave the unpublished cachepage and a GPSr to a neophyte geocacher to check whether I was being unreasonable in expecting an 'average' person to be able to identify six species of tree and find the cache.

 

By the time he was at the third tree, the polis had blocked his car in and two large polismen in flak jackets and full belt-kit were approaching him with the opening gambit of conversation of "Can we hae a wee wurrd wi' ye, Surr?".

 

Although the cache had full permission of the landowner and I expected no problems with it, there was a background. Not long previously a nearby property in the rural area had been raided and a £16,000 motor caravan had been nicked. Since then another property had been invaded by neds who were toked up on a lethal cocktail of hard drugs and hard liquor. They beat and kicked the resident's face and head into an unconscious bloody pulp and left him for dead near the roadside.

 

The residents of the widely scattered neighbourhood were thereafter ultra cautious about strangers behaving in an unusual manner and someone had called the rozzers as a precaution.

 

Geocaching was soon explained to the cops and that was that, but I learned a lesson about cache placement!

[+Haggis Hunter]

To The Forester,

 

I am not quite sure what the lesson is that you have learned, by the sounds of things you had done the correct things on placing the cache i.e. got permission and had someone try it out.

Are we supposed to check the local crime history or ask everyone that lives nearby if it is OK before placing a cache? For I do not see how you could have foreseen that your cache could have attracted the police.

 

I also take it that you have decided not to go ahead with it? As I don't see it against your profile. This is a dissapointment, as the landowner has given permission for it to be there.

[+Firth of Forth]

have you thought of phoning the officer??

 

you never know you might be able to persuade him that he's ok with it staying there. chances are he's the local beat officer so he's getting it in the neck from some old biddy who has nothing better to do than moan about people they see. he might be able to explain to them that it's perfectly harmless and that he's happy for it to stay. you aren't actually breaking any laws.

 

he might even join you never know.

 

the concerned resident might be convinced that increased activity will discourage the criminal element of society. cito and so on. only has positive benefits for lawfull people.

 

worth a thought.

Good suggestion Allieballie. It's worth a try - and don't feel too embarrassed phoning up about it. Remember that there are more than a handful of Scottish cachers who are also police officers. You could consider asking any of them for advice.

[+The Forester]

I am not quite sure what the lesson is that you have learned, by the sounds of things you had done the correct things on placing the cache i.e. got permission and had someone try it out.

 

I also take it that you have decided not to go ahead with it? As I don't see it against your profile. This is a dissapointment, as the landowner has given permission for it to be there.

I learned that local knowledge of local circumstances ought to be taken into account when considering cache placement whenever possible. In my mentioned case, this was entirely possible because for me it's practically a doorstep cache. I just hadn't taken into account the twitchy sensitivities of the neighbourhood and I had failed to properly inform the neighbours to expect to see strange people disappearing into the woods with a piece of paper in one hand and staring vacantly at their mobile phone in the other!

 

In the circumstances, I should have consulted the neighbours because of the severity of the two highly unusual and unrelated criminal events which had occurred in an area which is normally quite free of crime.

 

 

I also take it that you have decided not to go ahead with it?

 

Yes, I'm going ahead with it, but I've decided to delay making it live until the Spring.

 

Obtaining permission for this one was easy. It was an inside job, as the old Bill would say!

 

It is a well thought out cache and I'm sure cachers will have a lot of fun with it, but it has been plagued with problems since I placed it.

 

The first problem was that the very wet ground conditions in the summer and autumn had turned the two fields, which must be crossed to get to the two woods, into a quagmire which sometimes resembled a rice paddy. Warning cachers that they'd need boots would have been inadequate. They'd have needed wellies, long ones!

 

Another of my placed but 'pending' caches is in one of the Colzium Springs. It is the source of the Water of Leith and is an elegant beginning to the "thread of silver" series, but I've refrained from submitting it for approval and publication because the area (like many river sources) is naturally very boggy and this year has been atroceously wet underfoot. Geocaching should be challenging at times, but there's no point in turning it into an endurance test of wading through a mile or two of glutenous mud.

 

Anyway, in the case of my "Trees" cache, I wouldn't have wanted people trampling the soggy grass seedlings into the ooze in the two fields of my "Trees" puzzle cache.

 

The next problem was that my co-ordinates for the final cachesite were rather poor due to the heavy wetness of the tree canopy on most days. I spent ages refining the co-ords using averaging and other techniques, but that was pointless as most cachers wouldn't know how to find a co-ordinated spot in realtime without realtime GPS signals. I decided to move the final cache to an easier spot (for the finders) and start the whole thing all over again.

 

The next problem was that harvest time was coming up. I couldn't have cachers turning up while we were using heavy machinery to harvest the crop from the two fields.

 

Next problem was that I decided to put 40 sheep into the fields to nibble the edges and to tamp down the soft ground with their feet and firm it up. This meant that I had to make sure that gates were shut and locked. There's a geocaching rule against devising a cache which forces or encourages cache-hunters to loup over fences and gates.

 

Next problem was that as the autumn leaves fell and blew away, the previously very inconspicuous cache box now stood out like a dog's wotsits. I had to move it to a more secluded part of the woodland and that meant I had to do the whole clue setting thing all over again.

 

The current problem is that it's winter and most species have no leaves. That's a major problem of tree recognition for townies who can't tell a beech from a birch or an oak from an alder or an ash from a rowan or a hazel from an apple without seeing the leaves. My plantations never have species labels on them! This ain't the Botanics!

 

The cache is still there and I will activate it formally and publically some time around the second week of May when the leaf growth explosion occurs. Until then, it is only available to a select few who specially ask to have a go at it on a 'sneak preview' basis; and anyway they can't bag it as a proper geocache 'cos it ain't been approved and published.

 

The reason for the cache was a double celebration. It celebrates the tenth anniversary of when I designed the shape of those two woodlands and selected the 24 species and planted them with spade and aching back. The second celebration is a big Hooray for the fact that someone for whom I'd been lobbying the Norwegian and British parliaments for years to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize finally won it this year. She is one of my heroes. My pitiful efforts in tree planting amount to little more than a few thousand stems and a couple of bits of rather well managed rehabilitated fragments of the ancient Caledonian Forest. She is responsible for a massive effort in the re-arborisation of Africa and she has caused well over 30 million new trees to be planted in parts of Northern Africa which desperately need trees.

 

Cheers, The Forester

[+Team Ullium]

The first problem was that the very wet ground conditions in the summer and autumn had turned the two fields, which must be crossed to get to the two woods, into a quagmire which sometimes resembled a rice paddy. Warning cachers that they'd need boots would have been inadequate. They'd have needed wellies, long ones!

 

With all due respect Forester ... if the ground under foot is that bad that one needs to almost don waders to do this cache ... then maybe it might be wise to have second thoughts....I realise you are hoping that during the Spring/Summer seasons things might improve....but remember this is Scotland

 

I am absolutely certain that you could do a matrix transform to a different location to a more suitable location for all round Scottish weather geocaching

 

Ullium.

Edited November 28, 2004 by Ullium

[+allieballie]

To The Forester,

 

I am not quite sure what the lesson is that you have learned...

Are we supposed to check the local crime history or ask everyone that lives nearby if it is OK before placing a cache?

 

I have to say that I agree with HHs comment here. Whilst it was unfortunate and terrible that such a crime should have taken place in the location where you wanted to place your cache, this sort of occurence, sadly, could occur anywhere. I'm sure that many caches are placed near areas where crimes of one sort or another have taken place in the past.

 

In my own case, the cache was placed only a metre from a road, and it wasn't even as far in as the trees. What also irritates me in this case was that I tried desperately to find a hiding place at the edge of the main road, and there were lots of great trees with wonderful nooks and crannies just right for hiding a micro, but the entire area was covered in filthy, disgusting rubbish - old cans, broken bottles of beer and spirits, crisp packets, fag packets - I was truly shocked at the state of it. Its odd to think that the locals haven't noticed this, rather than 5 strangers poking about a rock right next to the road over a period of two months!

[+allieballie]

have you thought of phoning the officer??

 

 

... don't feel too embarrassed phoning up about it. Remember that there are more than a handful of Scottish cachers who are also police officers. You could consider asking any of them for advice.

The thought had crossed my mind, but I have a fear of authority figures!!!! Knowing me (knowing you - ahha! - sorry couldn't resist adding that) I would end up speaking to a really bad-tempered policeperson! Seriously, yes, I might phone up once I have got over the events of the weekend. However, I wouldn't mind asking some police cachers for advice, as you suggested - if you email me with a name or names, I will try that avenue ("let's be avenue" - oh no these awful jokes just keep popping into my head tonight!) first!

[+The Forester]

if the ground under foot is that bad that one needs to almost don waders to do this cache ... then maybe it might be wise to have second thoughts....I realise you are hoping that during the Spring/Summer seasons things might improve....but remember this is Scotland

In a normal year, the underfoot conditions in those two fields are not at all bad. This has been an exceptionally wet summer underfoot. The ground never dried out from one rainy period to the next, so even a relatively small amount of rainfall just became surface water runoff instead of percolation and evapotranspiration.

 

We had a similarly wet summer two years ago; and 10 years ago we had very wet conditions in March, but otherwise the location of my cache is just about ideal.

 

This month has been quite dry and the ground conditions are now pretty good.

 

The current problem of the cache is not the local area or its conditions. It is that I don't think the average cacher can recognise half a dozen species of trees, even very common simple native species such as larch and rowan and oak, at this time of year when there are no leaves to help. I may be wrong about that and I'd love to be proven wrong!....

 

One of my ongoing projects is to write a series of articles, for Inukshuk's mag, which describe the recognition features of the 32 native species of trees, with special mention of how to recognise them in winter without the benefit of foliage.

 

Cheers, The Forester

with apologies for the thread drift (Lothian's finest can hardly be blamed for the weather!)

[+The Forester]

Whilst it was unfortunate and terrible that such a crime should have taken place in the location where you wanted to place your cache, this sort of occurence, sadly, could occur anywhere. I'm sure that many caches are placed near areas where crimes of one sort or another have taken place in the past.

Yes, the two crimes were completely unrelated to eachother and were quite unconnected with the locale and were completely uncharacteristic of the generally peaceful nature of the place.

 

Nevertheless, they did impinge upon local sensitivities, so it would have been wise of me to take this into account.

 

The military have some good adages: such as 'time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted' and 'obtain and use local knowledge whenever possible'.

 

My error in this particular case was to ignore the latter adage.

 

The point you raise about establishing good relations with the polis is a good one. FoF may be able to help you with specifics on that one!

[+The Forester]

matrix transform

Ullium,

 

You've just given me a wonderful idea for a cache placement and for its name.

 

Thanx!

[+The Forester]

To The Forester,

HH,

 

I'm delighted to say that I've just had a call from the polis to tell me that one of the two neds who carried out the assault near my cache has been found Guilty. The sentence of the Court has been postponed pending background reports, but we now know that he has a long history of attacking people unprovoked.

 

Ironically, his surname is Love!

 

 

Cheers, The Forester

[+snaik]

P.S. Snaik I know you pretended that you didn't know much about Abba before you did this cache, but you were FTF for it, and now you're quoting Abba lyrics - so are the rumours true? Are you really Perthshires No. 1 Abba fan?!!!!

I will take a Lie Detector test on this one AB and PP's, this could ruin my street cred if this got out!!!

 

I have a dream, a song to sing

To help me cope with anything

If you see the wonder of a fairy tale

You can take the future even if you fail

I believe in angels

Something good in everything I see

I believe in angels

When I know the time is right for me

I'll cross the stream - If you do

your in the wrong place

I found the cache

 

[+Team Clova]

I will take a Lie Detector test on this one AB and PP's, this could ruin my street cred if this got out!!!

 

 

I think you doth protesteth too much

[+perth pathfinders]

Did I hear my name being mentioned??

Don't worry Snaik, your secret was always safe with us.

Guess you let the cat out of the bag all by yourself

PPs

[+Haggis Hunter]

his surname is Love!

Not me Sir, Honest!! My Surname is Hunter, ask anyone here???

[+The Forester]

Not me Sir, Honest!!

HeeHee!!!!

 

That wasn't the irony I was thinking of, but I'll take your word for it that, Mr Hunter.

 

Do you have a brother called Hillman Hunter? Goes quite fast in open country, especially downhill, but makes a tapping sound along the way!!

 

Cheers, The Forester