There be treasure here

Cache #6 Ghosts of widford

2008-03-14T09:04:00.000-07:00

I've been stuck in Brize Norton, waiting for a flight overseas. Time for a spot of cheeky caching? Certainly!

Found some wifi, and got set looking for what was around. The easiest one to find for me was the 'Ghosts of Widford' cache. Its a good cache, and another easy find.

Nice location, the hint needs to be considered in terms of the hill as a whole!

The cache site itself almost seemed made for the job, like it was a cache site waiting for a cache to be dropped off in there.

Top tip: Watch out for the hidden stream.

Left the balloon geocoin, took the travelling bug 'Moose on the loose' TB XKDRG9, had a quick snack, then set off back.

If youre stuck in Brize Norton for a while, you can get to, and from this cache on foot in under 4 hrs. Makes a great walk. Just be aware you'll have to cross the A40, and a small river to get to it. I'd suggest going through either Swinbrook, or following the tiny village of Widford itself to find a suitable bridge over the river. So plan your route accordingly.

TFTC

Using sat-nav to find cahces.

2008-03-10T18:23:00.000-07:00

OK, this post is more to do with using sat-nav than using a GPSr.

For those not familiar with the difference, sat-nav has the road maps, and is great for navigating on the road, but get off road, and the sat-nav will try to lock on to the nearest road. An example of this is when you drive on a new section of road, that's not on your maps, as you move on, it will look for the nearest road, and try to navigate you to there. This is because the programming expects you to be on a road at all times, and is therefore tied to the road system of your maps.

A GPSr on the other hand essentially just gives a location not tied to a road network, regardless of where you are. If you use it to navigate, it will direct you in a straight line, regardless if there's a river, cliff or road in the way.

But to get to locations, the chances are you're going to have to drive, unless you live next to the cache you are seeking. This part is where sat-nav becomes really useful. What I'm about to describe relates mainly to my TomTom unit, but if you can add POI's to your satnav, then the principals will be similar.

Firstly I go on geocaching.com, and look for a few caches together in an area.
Next I study the local map on streetmap.co.uk, the first thing i'm looking for is the local town or village name.
Now I go into my TomTom, selecting the options to add a new POI, in the group I've named 'Geocache parking'
Select to add POI from a point on the map, on the TomTom.
At the bottom of the map screen, on the TomTom, select 'Find', 'address', 'city centre' Here you type in the town or village name youre looking for.
Now compare the maps on streetmap.co.uk with those on the TomTom. Youre looking for somewhere obvious to park up. Car parks, Pubs, churches, and other such places will have parking that will usually be free.
Select a likely parking slot, select 'done' name it and its done. Should you so wish, if there are several caches in a localised area, you can enter as many as you like. Doing this you could cover an area, and find a several caches in a day.

Currently I'm trying to build up a POI list of every cache within 20 miles of my home. When I get my next GPSr I'll be able to add directly from my computer all the POI's I need to match the area's I have in my tomtom, so I can get up and start doing some multiple cache days in summer.

Hope this makes as much sense as it did in my head!

Using this technique is how I was able to cut from my forth to fifth caches as the light was failing, and still get the cache.

Toodles....

Cache #5 The cracker cache

2008-03-10T17:48:00.000-07:00

I'd just finished my fourth cache, and decided to see what else was near before the light failed me. I found the nearest cache to me that I had details of was The cracker cache. I drove up to the cache site, and found there's a lay-by less than 50 yards from the cache site.

I know it says drive to the cock pub, but there's a public road almost all the way up to the location, have a look at the streetmaps map you'll see what I mean. From there use your GPSr, and trot along the footpath, using the hint, you should have the cache in your hands within a couple of minutes.

This was a good quick find, and fitted in nicely, as the light was starting to fail. Again this was well hidden, I'm starting to get a feel for cache's and how to hide them, when I get back I'd like to make my own, but that will be mid may when I get back.

Cache #4 Seek and you shall find.

2008-03-10T17:12:00.000-07:00

My forth cache was "seek and you shall find", its located in a churchyard, and has a couple of hints that relate to Bible quotes. The first quote is a bit more obvious, but the second is a lot more subtle.

To get there, drive along the main road, as you approach, slow down, you'll see a pair of BIG stone gate posts, without any gates on them, an unmettaled driveway, and a sign telling you that the driveway leads up to the church.

Drive and park up outside the church. Can't really tell you more, other than its in the church grounds, even with my crappy GPSr the grid ref was close enough, combined with the hints, and the pictures on the cache log, you should find it ok.

Suffice to say its in a fairly easy to find, and the location is in full view, but you'd have to be looking for something to stumble onto the cache. The cache itself was nice and dry, I didn't take anything, but I left a new, unopened deck of playing cards.

After my failure the day before, it felt good to find something again.

Cache #3 Kings meadow

2008-03-09T17:43:00.000-07:00

My third cache, Kings meadow turned out to be my first failure. Its situated in a lovely country park called Needham lakes. I've been here plenty of times before with my family, and can say its nice to visit regardless of weather you're looking for a cache or not.

This was my first multi point cache. You start by finding a notice board near the car park. As explained in the cache log you take a telephone number, and use the digits from this to get the final grid. I made the mistake of heading off on the wrong side of the river that runs through the park, and had to double back to get on the right side of the river.

At the location, again once I got within 30m of the location I kept getting various places it could be located. After an hour of beating round the bush I gave up in defeat.

On reflection I know people can point fingers and say "A bad workman blames their tools", and I accept that finding caches will be difficult at times for a novice like me. But I also believe that because I couldn't find the location accurately, because I could not enter the full co-ordinates that I found from the noticeboard.

In short this will be one of my first intended targets when I get my new GPS. Then I'll be back on the hunt with a vengence!

Cache #2 Combs wood

2008-03-09T17:02:00.000-07:00

My second cache was at Combs wood. This is a nice wood at the back of Stowmarket, with an old church to wander round.

Like the instructions say, park in the cemetery car park. To get to the wood itself, you can either walk up the hill, staying on the road, through the farm yard at the end, and across to the wood (less muddy this way) bear with the path round the left edge of the woods, so the church is on your left, till you find the gate. Its slightly longer as a route, but it is less muddy.

The alternative is to go towards the church, keep going straight and cut directly through the graveyard, and at the back's a gap in the hedgerow where you can get on the path up the hill and right to the entrance of the woods. Be aware while its shorter, its very muddy (or was in early march when I went) and quite steep, which means the chance slipping and ending up on your arse is quite high.

OK I dont want to give spoilers here, so i'm going to be deliberately vague here. There are lots of paths here, and the wood is quite thick, so have a good rummage. Also the oak tree in the hints isn't so obvious when its winter (no leaves to identify it by).

At the location my old GPSr showed up its short comings, it kept taking me to various points in the same area, however after 20 mins I eventually found it. The cache itself was double wrapped in plastic, and was in good order. I signed the log, and put everything back.

In a way one of the things I'm interested in is seeing a range of caches to see what's good and whats bad, so eventually I can go about making my own cache.

Oh well two for two, so thats a result.

My current GPSr, and why I want a better model.

2008-03-09T16:39:00.000-07:00

OK my current model of GPSr is a Magellan Blazer12. Its a 12 channel model, and about 6-7 years old. While it helped me find my first cache, there are a few problems with it:

It takes ages to find a satellite fix when switched on, typicaly about 5-7 mins. As I'm a little impatient this time stood about is no good to me, I just want to go caching.
Accuracy: most locations get described in Lat/Long co-ordinates in the format DD MM.MMMM, however I can only enter 3 decimal places to the minutes on my GPSr. This can lead you to an inaccurate location, as the GPSr will lead you to the centre of a given grid square, which is no good if its on the edge of the grid square.
Waypoints, I can only log 100, the basic units now can log 500.
It can't hook up to a computer, dosen't sound too important, but if you can hook up to a computer, you can download co-ordinates, and export them directly to the GPSr.
Battery life, some of the newer units have a better battery life.

Its a well understood thing that technology moves on, but unless you are rich or a buisness is paying for it, then whatever the device, there is no real need to update a device each year (weather it be a GPSr, laptop or mobile).

But after a 7 year gap since any device was updated, the differences between old and new will be noticeable. So for these reasons, sooner rather than later I'll be upgrading.

Cache #1 Rising Sun

2008-03-09T16:22:00.000-07:00

Ok my first find was made at the Rising Sun cache. Its in a nice area, and was relatively easy to find. It was well hidden though, even though its a few feet from the public footpath, you wouldn't find it by accident.

However the contents were a bit soggy. I returned the next day to drop 3 large silica gel packs to dry things out a bit.

I took two hitch hikers to move along to the middle east next week (one power tape measure, and one balloon geocoin), and left a small screwdriver set here.

All in all I was happy with finding this for my first cache, it also happens to be my nearest cache (about 2.5 miles from my home)

Geocaching, my new interest....

2008-03-08T17:49:00.000-08:00

OK, so I've taken up a new interest called Geocaching, for the un-initiated think of it as like a modern version of the treasure hunt. I'm still quite new to this, and learning about things as I go, but I'll try to explain a bit.

In the old days when pirates would have a buried treasure chest, to find it again they would use a scrap of parchment map, with a big X to mark the spot, and instructions along the lines of 20 paces north, 30 paces west etc. This wasn't the most accurate method of finding all them thar riches.

Today we have accurate maps, and GPS devices (not to be confused with sat-nav devices) that can get you within a few feet of a plotted location. Lets first look at the basics of GPS, and the eventual development of what has become known as Geocaching.

GPS (Global positioning system) was developed by the USA, using satellites to allow its military, (and that of freindly nations) to be able to navigate accurately anywhere in the world, using a relatively small handheld device (although these are still quite large in comparison to current civilian equivelents). However the signals were encrypted so the Ruskies, and other bad guys could not use the system. At the time of development the cold war was still in full flow, so this was a sensible precaution.

Time passed, and the Berlin wall fell. In 2000 the US government finally allowed unencrypted GPS signals, prior to this the encryption meant that positions on non military GPS devices could be up to a couple of hundred feet out, which is no good if you need an accurate position. After 2000, the signal was decrypted, meaning civilian GPS units suddenly could locate your position within a few feet.

After the decryption, and increase in accuracy, ordinary people could start using GPS for their own needs, a good example of this is sat-nav. But off the roads, people can mark positions of things they want to find again, for example a good spot for fishing or having a picnic. Now lets suppose you use the GPS receiver to mark a position, and you left something special there to be returned to, by someone else you don't know.

It sounds a bit like a plot line from a spy story, but lets assume you published those co-ordinates online at a website for like minded individuals, and the something special left behind is a selection of interesting trinkets, of low value, all housed in a waterproof container. This is the treasure I mentioned earlier, and is known as a cache (pronounced 'cash'). So if we take the 'GEO' from Geographical, and add it to the word 'cache' we get the word 'Geocache'

Common items in the cache itself will be:

A watertight container usualy a plastic sandwich box or similar to house the cache, but can be anything thats watertight, Ammo boxes film canisters and buckets are also used sometimes. This will be labelled giving some basic details and informs anyone that finds the cache that the contents are not harmless, plus a few basic details.
A log book, and sometimes a pencil so people visiting the cache can log their visit.
A collection of trinkets for people visiting the cache, the general rule is that if you take something, then leave something in its place. So when visiting a cache its wise to bring a few items of various sizes, so you have something that will fit depending on the size of cache (some of those caches can be quite full).
Some owners leave a cheap camera or disposable camera, so finders can take a photo of themselves for the owner to look at (and maybe post online for reasons of curiosity)
A note explaining the purpose of the cache, and some contact details like an email address etc.
Finally there may, or may not be some special trinkets which are traceable online, known as hitch hikers. These fall into two types, the first are Geocoins they are specially produced 'coins' with a unique design. They will have a serial number that can be tracked online at geocache.com (see the links!). The second type are 'Travel bugs' they look like a US army dog-tag in shape, and have a serial number stamped on them (again trackable at geocache.com). The travel bug or TB then gets attached to an item (this can be within reason anything its creator likes, my first one was a tape measure.

The idea of these hitch hikers is that someone will release them in a cache, someone else will pick it up, and then take it on to another cache. Someone else will move it on, and so on, and so on. Each time a hitch hiker is moved, it gets logged at geocache.com which allows the original owner, and anyone else to track its progress. This log can be displayed as an overlay on a map. Some of these items can travel thousands of miles.

These days caches can be found on all the continents of the world, and chances are there's one near you!

So what basic equipment do you need to find these geocaches? I'll give you some thoughts of what I'd take if I was going to a cache in a rural location.

Well obviously a GPS reciever to find these caches, I'll post something later about these.
Access to the internet, to find where they are located.
A map of the area you intend to go to.
Some good stout footware, suitable for walking trails.
Other assorted outdoors equipment, the kind of things that you'd take on a trek in the countryside, such as waterproofs, warm clothing. The location will dictate what you take, for example a cache on the top of a mountain will need more equipment, than a cache in the middle of a city centre.
Some trinkets to trade, if you want to swap items.
A notebook, and pen to keep any notes that seem important.
A camera, a lot of these locations are picked for their scenery, so why not take a few photos for the album along the way?
For isolated locations a first aid kit would be a good idea.
Keep a torch to hand, just in case you get caught out in the dark, and some caches may need a touch of extra light to see what you're doing.
Some kind of backpack to keep everything together.
In rural locations, a bag to put any litter in that you may find along the way.
Some food/drink if you see the need, maybe make a day of it, and take a picnic.

This is not an exhaustive list, you may think of other things, and you'll probably think up other things that become important (make a note of it in your notebook!), like i said I'm new to this, and you may well see other things that seem important, use your initiative. If you're already into walking, or outdoors activities you'll probably have most of these items already.

If I was going to a urban location, I'd probably just take the GPS in a pocket, and some spare change for parking.