Our golden geocaching tally!

Tonight, at 7:50pm, we found our 50th geocache! It was a nano called The Lone Pine (GC181Z4).

2007 was our first year of geocaching, and we've had a ball. So far we've made finds in NSW, ACT, and Victoria. Early next year we should be able to add Queensland to the list as well. We still have a couple of DNFs that we need to revisit and hopefully find! Our geocaching New Year's resolution is to aim to have at least 200 finds by the end of the year. Now that we've added a proper GPSr, and have a bit of know-how under our belts, hopefully this won't be too unrealistic.

Our geocaching career began on 20th May, when we found Little Beach (GCTZ15). Since then, we've found caches in trees, under rocks, in lightposts, fire hydrants, artillery pieces, PVC pipes, and fenceposts. Although adding to our tally of finds is nice, we have really enjoyed seeing places that we wouldn't have gone to if it wasn't for geocaching. These include places close to home, and also further afield that we've visited while on holidays.

Our geocaching hitlist for 2008 includes our DNFs for this year, the Royal National Park, and a walking tour of our local caches. We've also got a cache stocked and ready to hide, as well as a number of empty micro containers. Ms S will also search with Cupcake for one which is hidden in the graveyard at their workplace.

We're looking to open our account for 2008 with a find on 1st January. There are a couple of candidates located nearby. Hopefully we'll start 2008 on a successful note!

Finally, some time to go geocaching!

We went out on our first geocaching trip for six weeks this morning. We had a list of four caches that we wanted to find, all close to home. We needed three more finds to get to 50 finds on geocaching.com.

The first cache we headed for was Sydney Cache Relocated! (GC1F11). The idea of finding a nice big container appealed to us, as we've found quite a few large items during the house move that are suitable to be left in caches. As we got out of the car the rain started to come down, but we decided to push on. It was a nice walk down the track towards GZ. We made our first mistake by turning right instead of left. This put us close to a wire mesh fence, which we followed as per the instructions. However it turned out to be the wrong fence.

We then headed down into the valley, and this was where Mrs Sensible came to the fore. She'd read all the logs for this cache and had a look at the gallery, so when we got to the bottom and saw the tunnel, she knew where we had to go. After emerging from the other side, we scrambled around for a bit, then spotted a fence and some likely-looking twin saplings. Shortly after, we located the cache.

The contents were a bit of a disappointment. We'd expected a fairly well stocked cache, but there wasn't as much in there as we hoped, considering the size of the cache. With the rain still falling lightly, we signed the log, made our swaps, and headed back to the car.

With the weather staying wet, we decided to call a halt to our geocaching adventures for the day, and headed off to Bunnings to do some shopping (and have a sausage sandwich for lunch). The other three caches we'd planned to do will have to wait for another day. At least we're now one find closer to 50!

All quiet on the geocaching front

It's been a while since we went out geocaching, as we've been preoccupied with moving house. Our spare time has been taken up with packing, unpacking, cleaning, buying furniture and appliances and tools, rearranging furniture, and generally settling in.

We will log a "did not find" for the No Time, No Cache! virtual cache on Geocaching Australia soon.

Geocaching and birthday presents

Mr Sensible found out recently that geocaching can provide inspiration for birthday presents. He received the following geocaching-related presents from Mrs Sensible:

• several containers for micro and nano caches
• small magnets
• a headlamp
• premium membership of geocaching.com

I think the micro and nano containers will be put to good use soon - once we finish settling in to our new house.

Danny and Delinda

Danny and Delinda is the name we gave to the first travel bug that we released. They were handmade by Mrs Sensible. Their mission is to travel to Las Vegas, and then return safely to Sydney with lots of photos of their travels.

They were set free in Sshhh!, the first cache that we hid. So far they've travelled 34km, so there's a long trip ahead of them to get to Vegas. If you come across them, please help them on their way.

It was a dark and stormy night ...

... and two "sensible" geocachers were on top of The Skillion, Terrigal, in search of Ski Lion. When we got to the top the lightning was lighting up the fishing boats out at sea. Luckily we had decrypted the clue, so we could make a quick find, sign, and swap. The rain was coming down, and the walk down the hill was a bit slippery.

The find was made at 10:30pm, on our way home from a family dinner (which included the first of four celebrations for Mr Sensible's upcoming birthday). It was dark, it was wet, and it was wild, but those birthday drinks certainly helped convince us it was a good idea to go caching in such conditions. This is certainly the latest in the day that we've gone caching, but it was fun. We might come back in the daytime and to enjoy the view that we missed.

Aladdin's cave

A couple of our photos taken on a geocaching mission in St Kilda, while we were on holiday earlier this year, have been included (with permission) in the online travel guide, Schmap!! Ours are the two for the St Kilda Advenure Playground & came from Aladdin's Cave (GCV9MN).

Our rules for geocaching

Rule #1
A good geocacher always gets their hands dirty and has a good poke around. Never just stand and look for the cache.

Rule #2
Always carry a toolkit with you. You never know when you might need a tool to help open the cache e.g. Shock the Monkey.

Welcome to A Sensible Life!

Welcome to our blog. This is where we, Sensible Shoes (a much better geocaching name than our first one - Fairy Spice), will describe our geocaching adventures. We began geocaching in May 2007, when we came into possession of a PDA which came with a GPS receiver and software built in. Now we're hooked. We've upgraded from the PDA (which is still useful for navigating us to the nearest parking spot for a cache) to a Garmin GPS60 (nicknamed The Inspector).

As yet, geocaching doesn't rule our lives, but we do look out for an opportunity to go geocaching whenever we can. We've found (and not found) caches in Sydney, the Central Coast, Canberra, Melbourne, Port Stephens, and the Hunter Valley. Upcoming trips to Brisbane, Port Macquarie, Kiama and the US will undoubtedly provide abundant caching opportunities.