Virtual Caching Down Under

A very exciting trip last month took the oldest goat to Australia for the first time. Since I was very upset not to go along, I made him promise to find at least one cache on my behalf while there. His hotel was near downtown Melbourne so there were several caches in walking distance, however there was also a festival on at the time (Moomba) and the muggles were abundant so caching was difficult. Two of the closest caches were muggled that week and two others were right in the heart of the action along the boardwalk so Allen did not feel comfortable searching for them. The only one he was able to do in plain sight was GCJ8HR (Yes, but is it art? II) which is a virtual cache. It is based on a public sculpture so the old goat just had to walk to it, take a photo of himself there and answer some questions in an e-mail to the cache owner.

So now we have a cache found in Victoria, Australia which gave us a new badge for our geocaching.com souvenir page. I do hope I eventually get a chance to see Australia myself (and do some geocaching of course!) but it was cool to see Allen's photos and hear about the wombats and koalas and other truly Australian things.

Summer trip to Vancouver and a little caching

I had hoped to reach 300 cache finds by the end of the summer (I know, its not about the numbers!!) but our recent trip to Vancouver and back  has blown that goal out of the water! We may be heading for 400 before the end of the year!!

My Mom came to Calgary for a visit at the beginning of August, flying out here on the 8th and spending a week joining in on our activities. Then my daughter and I packed up the truck and drove her back to Vancouver and stayed for our own visit. While we were in Vancouver we went to White Rock beach for an afternoon of playing in the sand, collecting pretty rocks (not to keep) and visiting with friends.

Imagine our surprise to find out that there was an earth cache just metres away from where we sat?! So we walked over to the White Rock (GCP6M8) and took photos of it and logged our find!

Like many Earthcaches, this is a glacial erratic that was left behind when the glaciers receded from this area. It has been painted white to aid in navigation as it can be seen for a long way out to sea and from satellite photos. Finding an Earthcaches always brings a geology/ecology/earth science lesson with it and makes geocaching that much more interesting. Usually to log an earth cache you need to answer some questions about what you see and take a photo of the cache to prove you were there since there isn't a log book.

The next day we went with some friends to the PNE (Pacific National Exhibition) for the day. We had two 8 year old girls along and spent most of our time following them from ride to ride as they tested their mettle on swinging, sliding, twisting, turning contraptions! By the smiles and shrieks, fun was the order of the day! After a quick bite for dinner, I explained geocaching to everyone and then we set off to find the one cache that is hidden on the PNE grounds. (GC3APCA) Hastings Park Cache is located in a nice treed area with several walkways surrounding a pond. The reeds of the pond hid a few ducks and a heron the day we were there and we could hear a frog as well. It is a welcome respite from the noise of the fair grounds and offers time for digestion before heading back to the rides.

Our next adventure was more laid back as we went to visit my sister in North Vancouver for lunch and a few caches. She is a new cacher and had dropped off a travel coin in a cache and then had decided she'd like me to pick it up and take it on our trip back to Calgary. However when we visited the cache, the coin had been taken but not logged. We are hoping the previous cachers were just inexperienced with geocoins and will log it soon, but there is always the chance that they have decided the coin is something they want to keep. Unfortunately, this happens frequently to geocoins and travel bugs and is one of the drawbacks in letting go of these objects. They may be taken by collectors or muggled by non-geocachers.


In my next post I'll tell you all about the caches we found on our drive home from Vancouver including cache #300!! Keep reading!

Spring into geocaching

We have been having some nicer weather in Calgary this week and I have managed to get out twice to grab a few caches. Adding some smiley faces to our 'found' list felt great after a slow winter with not much geocaching going on.

On Friday I just had time for one hunt and combined it with a walk for our chocolate lab. I had tried to find this multi-cache before and had found the first stage but did not know how to attempt the second stage. After reading a little tutorial on projecting a waypoint with your Garmin GPS I managed to complete the second stage of the cache hunt and found the final container. And Scooby got a great walk when I went a kilometer in the wrong direction before realizing what I'd done!
There are many of these rocks walls (pictured behind Scooby) in Calgary and frequently the cache you are looking for will be hidden in one of the spaces between rocks. The only problem is being brave enough to stick your hand in and retrieve the cache or move the smaller rocks to see if the cache is behind them. I am quite certain one day something will bite me when I reach in so I am very careful!
The final cache for this multi-cache was in a recess between some rocks (not shown above) but I had a view of the cache container before reaching in. I had to be quite stealthy because there were several muggles (non-geocachers) nearby but I managed to sign and replace the cache quickly.

Today while my daughter was at a birthday party, I talked the old goat into doing a few caches in a nearby neighbourhood. We found two small caches and a micro cache before heading back to pick up our daughter. The micro cache was down in a ravine near a footbridge and we were surprised to see that there was still lots of ice and snow in the creek there. Luckily the cache was not under the bridge and we did not have to test the ice or get wet. We did have to disturb a spider from the cache and I was grateful the littlest cacher was not with us as she would have screamed and ran!

I am looking forward to doing more caching as the weather continues to improve. Even if I have to sneak them in one search at a time!

Location, Location, Location

The amazing, relaxing time we had in Cuba was diminished slightly for me because of a poorly placed cache. When we planned our trip to Cayo Coco, Cuba for Spring Break, I was very excited to find out that there was a cache hidden just beyond our resort and would be within walking distance for the three of us. This would be our very first time geocaching outside of Canada! I eagerly printed descriptions and photographs of the area (no GPS allowed in Cuba) and checked to make sure the latest logs confirmed the cache was found recently. I took along a travel bug to leave in the cache and made sure I had a pencil and extra notepaper just in case.

On our second day in Cuba I convinced my daughter and husband to accompany me on my quest for the cache. We had a beautiful walk along the warm beach, put our sandals back on and started searching the area where the cache had been placed. There were plenty of muggles (non-geocachers) and a couple of tourists taking photographs, but no cache. We searched and searched and turned over rocks, and crawled around in the sand, but nothing was found. The area really looked like there had been recent demolition.

In a fit of desperation, I e-mailed the cache owner and asked him to check the cache and let me know if it was still there but he e-mailed back and said he could not get there until the next week. He also said that because of the busyness of the area and the fact that Cubans are keen to pick up anything outsiders leave behind, this cache was often missing and that I should just leave another container and some paper where the cache should have been. I am afraid the owner of that cache has missed the purpose of the game. Or at least the rules. If you cannot find a cache you do not just make another to leave in it's place. There is a chance we were looking in the wrong place or that the cache was really well camouflaged and we just could not see it. But if the cache is in a place where it keeps getting destroyed or taken, then a new hiding place should be found so those looking for the cache are not disappointed and the owner does not need to keep replacing it.

So we returned to Canada with colour in our faces, relaxed and renewed spirits but no out-of-country finds. Maybe this summer we'll go caching in the states.

Travel Bugs and tracking codes

There is another fun element to geocaching that add to the educational angle as well. Travel bugs are small trinkets or pre-made tags that travel from cache to cache via the cachers who find them. They each have their own mission, whether it is to arrive at a destination cache or to travel around the world or even to race other travel bugs to a certain city, and they are aided in their travels by us geocachers. In order to keep track of the bugs, they are given unique codes that must be registered on-line before beginning their treks. Then, when a geocacher finds a bug in a cache, he/she enters the tag code on www.geocaching.com which will show where the bug has travelled from and what its destination or mission is.

Our family has three plastic goat figurines that we have attached travel bug tags to (because our team name is 3billygoats) and these have all travelled in different directions, one down to New York city after a stop in Hawaii, one has become lost in the Czech Republic, and one is currently wintering in North Dakota after a long stay in Manitoba. This adds an opportunity for a geography lesson for interested kids.

If you do decide to pick up a travel bug, it is a courtesy to make sure you move it on fairly quickly instead of keeping it at home for an extended period. We have lost a few that we have to assume have been either kept by an uncharitable person, or have been lost when a cache has been muggled (destroyed by vandals). We are always sad to lose one of our bugs but we hope that the majority of cachers understand that the fun is in keeping the bugs moving.
Have you found any unusual bugs? Tell me about the most interesting bug you have helped along.