We recently had a very nice holiday on the northern coast of New South Wales at Coffs Harbour. The weather was perfect, and Shoes Junior had a great time in the pool and at the beach. He loved going down the waterslides.
During our time away we managed to find two more caches (Rotary Lookout above Bellinger River and Rest at Repton). We had a bookmark list of about 35 caches that were in Coffs Harbour or on our way, but we'll have to save them for next time.
The milestone that occurred was that Shoes Junior found his 50th cache (Rest at Repton). Not bad for a 16 month old. He still doesn't really understand what this whole geocaching caper is all about, but it will be more fun once he does.
We're hoping to be able to go on a cache-a-thon on Easter Monday. Our current most finds in a day is 11, and that was before Shoes Junior came along. It would be nice to beat this, but it will be tricky.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
We're still around!
It's been quite a while since our last post, but we've been pretty busy and haven't had any spare time to update the blog. We'll try and summarise the last seven months in this post.
We mentioned in our last post that we were off to the South Coast for a holiday, and we had a lovely time down there. Of course we did some caching, which included our first EarthCache. Our find count increased by ten, and these were the ones we found:
For our wedding anniversary, we returned to the city and went on a little cache-a-thon. We managed to find five out of five for the day. They were:
Another nemesis has been crossed off our list. El Guarda has been found! Mr S took his sister (a recent convert to geocaching) for a bit of local caching. El Guarda was the first stop for the morning. While we were there a fellow cacher by the name of jkcourtz joined the hunt, and made the find. It feels good to have taken another cache off our to-do list.
Meanwhile, Shoes Junior has accompanied us on our caching trips, and is closing in on 50 finds. His pram has served us well by providing cover while we search. We'll hopefully be at a local event in a couple of weeks, so more people can discover his Travel Bug.
We've now got one less active cache, as we had to archive Weekend at McBurney's. It was attached to a slippery-dip in a park near our house. The local council deemed the slippery-dip unsafe, and had it blocked off for several months, so we removed the cache and disabled it. Eventually the slippery-dip was replaced, but it was plastic and didn't have any metal supports, so our magnetic nano was useless. We're on the hunt for another spot to place it.
In March we're heading north to Coffs Harbour for a family holiday. There's a pretty good chance that some caching will be done as part of the trip. Hopefully we'll update the blog before then.
We mentioned in our last post that we were off to the South Coast for a holiday, and we had a lovely time down there. Of course we did some caching, which included our first EarthCache. Our find count increased by ten, and these were the ones we found:
- Saddleback
- No flies on me
- Kiama Little Blowhole
- Quality
- Life's A Beach
- My 505
- Radium
- VH-USU
- Flip It
- Don't Fence Me In!
For our wedding anniversary, we returned to the city and went on a little cache-a-thon. We managed to find five out of five for the day. They were:
Another nemesis has been crossed off our list. El Guarda has been found! Mr S took his sister (a recent convert to geocaching) for a bit of local caching. El Guarda was the first stop for the morning. While we were there a fellow cacher by the name of jkcourtz joined the hunt, and made the find. It feels good to have taken another cache off our to-do list.
Meanwhile, Shoes Junior has accompanied us on our caching trips, and is closing in on 50 finds. His pram has served us well by providing cover while we search. We'll hopefully be at a local event in a couple of weeks, so more people can discover his Travel Bug.
We've now got one less active cache, as we had to archive Weekend at McBurney's. It was attached to a slippery-dip in a park near our house. The local council deemed the slippery-dip unsafe, and had it blocked off for several months, so we removed the cache and disabled it. Eventually the slippery-dip was replaced, but it was plastic and didn't have any metal supports, so our magnetic nano was useless. We're on the hunt for another spot to place it.
In March we're heading north to Coffs Harbour for a family holiday. There's a pretty good chance that some caching will be done as part of the trip. Hopefully we'll update the blog before then.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Mother's Day caching
After having a nice breakfast at a local cafe, we headed off to do some Mother's Day caching. We picked four local caches, two of which were in a park which we didn't know much about. With the weather looking a bit threatening, we wanted to be able to get back to the car in a hurry if we needed to, and these caches all had parking close by.
It was a successful trip, with a 100% success rate. Shoes Junior enjoyed the whole trip, but was really happy at Tennis Anyone?. We're lucky that he enjoys being outside in the fresh air.
After getting on a bit of a caching roll recently, we're hoping that we'll get to 200 finds by the end of the year. We've got a four-day trip to the South Coast next month, so hopefully we can grab a few caches while we're away. There's also a chance that we'll be going to New Zealand in October, so we might have the chance to add to our international caches.
It was a successful trip, with a 100% success rate. Shoes Junior enjoyed the whole trip, but was really happy at Tennis Anyone?. We're lucky that he enjoys being outside in the fresh air.
After getting on a bit of a caching roll recently, we're hoping that we'll get to 200 finds by the end of the year. We've got a four-day trip to the South Coast next month, so hopefully we can grab a few caches while we're away. There's also a chance that we'll be going to New Zealand in October, so we might have the chance to add to our international caches.
WWFM V
Recently we attended the Sydney World Wide Flash Mob V (WWFM V). Ms S wasn't able to attend the fourth WWFM last year, so was quite excited to be able to attend the fifth. We got to Luna Park in plenty of time, and fed Shoes Junior while we were waiting for 10am to arrive. When we saw the blankets being spread out, we headed over and joined in. The event probably didn't have the impact it could have, because Luna Park didn't open till 11am. It was good to see quite a few cachers there being part of this world-wide phenomenon.
There are plans for another WWFM later in the year, and we'll try and be there.
There are plans for another WWFM later in the year, and we'll try and be there.
Our Easter caching trip
We spent a couple of days in Canberra over Easter, and managed to fit in some caching around visiting friends. There are a series of caches at some of the rest areas along the road between Sydney and Canberra. We did some of them during our last trip, and managed to find a few more this trip. There are still a couple to do during our next trip south.
One cache we were happy to find was On Target. As we said in our log, third time lucky with this one.
The main aim of the trip was to find some of the puzzle caches that Mr S had spent several weeks solving. We've only found a couple of puzzle caches, and we figured that this was a good opportunity to increase our tally. There were 27 in total that Mr S had solved, but we knew we wouldn't get to all of them. We managed to find two of them - Canberra Karst and Budgie's Science Homework. There were a couple of others that we had a quick look for but couldn't find. Mr S needs to check his solutions to those. Plenty more to keep us bust next time we're in Canberra.
We finished the trip with a total of nine finds, most of which were on the way down and home. We're lucky that Shoes Junior enjoys travelling in the car and we can combine geocaching with travel. It gives us an excuse to break up the drive and grab some caches on the way.
One cache we were happy to find was On Target. As we said in our log, third time lucky with this one.
The main aim of the trip was to find some of the puzzle caches that Mr S had spent several weeks solving. We've only found a couple of puzzle caches, and we figured that this was a good opportunity to increase our tally. There were 27 in total that Mr S had solved, but we knew we wouldn't get to all of them. We managed to find two of them - Canberra Karst and Budgie's Science Homework. There were a couple of others that we had a quick look for but couldn't find. Mr S needs to check his solutions to those. Plenty more to keep us bust next time we're in Canberra.
We finished the trip with a total of nine finds, most of which were on the way down and home. We're lucky that Shoes Junior enjoys travelling in the car and we can combine geocaching with travel. It gives us an excuse to break up the drive and grab some caches on the way.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Another one off the to-do list
On Sunday, Mr S took his sister out for her first geocaching experience. The trip didn't get off to a good start, with DNFs on the first two caches we looked for - Shape Confusion and Mr. Cache. Both of them had quite a few places to look in, and we were on a time limit. We'll try for them again.
Luckily we were able to find the third cache on our list - High Adventure. This was a DNF from last year that Ms S was adamant that Mr S wasn't to go back and look for alone. So when there was interest from Sensible Sis in going caching, this cache immediately went on the list. It was a bit of a scramble up the steep slope, and there was a bit of luck involved in the find. Mr S happened to look under a rock and spotted the container. High Adventure has the highest terrain rating of the caches that we've found so far at 3.5.
We're going to Canberra at Easter, and Mr S has been busy solving some of the puzzle caches down there. At last count he's solved 27 of them, but we don't think we'll get to all of them (not with Shoes Junior with us anyway). So far we've found two mystery caches, and we think we'll be able to add to this tally after our Canberra trip.
Luckily we were able to find the third cache on our list - High Adventure. This was a DNF from last year that Ms S was adamant that Mr S wasn't to go back and look for alone. So when there was interest from Sensible Sis in going caching, this cache immediately went on the list. It was a bit of a scramble up the steep slope, and there was a bit of luck involved in the find. Mr S happened to look under a rock and spotted the container. High Adventure has the highest terrain rating of the caches that we've found so far at 3.5.
We're going to Canberra at Easter, and Mr S has been busy solving some of the puzzle caches down there. At last count he's solved 27 of them, but we don't think we'll get to all of them (not with Shoes Junior with us anyway). So far we've found two mystery caches, and we think we'll be able to add to this tally after our Canberra trip.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Canberra caching
We headed down to Canberra on Saturday for a visit with friends and family. Naturally we'd planned to do some caching during our visit. Mr S had spent a few weeks solving some puzzle caches (there are quite a few of these in Canberra). We managed to grab McForest on the way down, which was where we discovered that we'd left the geobag at home. This meant that we didn't have anything to swap, so we had to include "TNLNSL" for all our finds.
We left Canberra on Sunday morning with a list of 18 caches that were along the road home. Most of them were located at the rest areas, so they were fairly easy finds. Our greatest achievement was going unintentionally paperless and finding Remembrance Driveway - Gordon. We had the co-ords loaded into the GPSr, but didn't print out the cache info, so weren't really sure what we were looking for. Luckily Ms S was on the case, and pointed Mr S in the right direction.
Our tally for the day was six, and our total of seven for the weekend brought Shoes Junior's total finds into double figures. Not bad for a fifteen week old baby. Unfortunately we didn't get to look for any of the solved puzzle caches, so they're on the list for the next time we're in Canberra.
We left Canberra on Sunday morning with a list of 18 caches that were along the road home. Most of them were located at the rest areas, so they were fairly easy finds. Our greatest achievement was going unintentionally paperless and finding Remembrance Driveway - Gordon. We had the co-ords loaded into the GPSr, but didn't print out the cache info, so weren't really sure what we were looking for. Luckily Ms S was on the case, and pointed Mr S in the right direction.
Our tally for the day was six, and our total of seven for the weekend brought Shoes Junior's total finds into double figures. Not bad for a fifteen week old baby. Unfortunately we didn't get to look for any of the solved puzzle caches, so they're on the list for the next time we're in Canberra.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Map of our finds
After a bit of experimenting with Google Earth and Google Maps I've finally figured out how to add a map of our cache finds to the blog. It's at the top of the left-hand panel. We'll keep it updated as we increase our finds.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Our first event cache
On Saturday Mr S attended our first event cache - WWFM IV Lap of Honour. Ms S wasn't able to attend due to being in hospital, but Mr S made sure there was a video of the event so she could see what she missed out on. The event was the Sydney part of the World Wide Flash Mob IV, and was one small component of the international WWFM IV organised by Sonny and Sandy from Podcacher.
It was a fun event to be part of, even though Mr S missed out on the FTF. If the next one involves running, there'll need to be some training as Mr S struggled a bit and there was a bit of huffing and puffing. It was worth it though to be part of this event, and we can now claim a find on our first event cache.
There is talk of the next WWFM in Sydney being held at the same time as the San Diego event, which would be anywhere between 3am and 5am Sydney time. We'd love to be part of it, but we'll have to see how much sleep our baby geocacher is letting us have.
It was a fun event to be part of, even though Mr S missed out on the FTF. If the next one involves running, there'll need to be some training as Mr S struggled a bit and there was a bit of huffing and puffing. It was worth it though to be part of this event, and we can now claim a find on our first event cache.
There is talk of the next WWFM in Sydney being held at the same time as the San Diego event, which would be anywhere between 3am and 5am Sydney time. We'd love to be part of it, but we'll have to see how much sleep our baby geocacher is letting us have.
Our baby geocacher's nearly here!
On Friday Ms S was admitted to hospital after her obstetrician was a bit concerned about how things were progressing with her pregnancy. The opinion of our obstetrician and renal specialist is that our baby will be here sometime this week. It's a bit of a scary thought, and although 32-33 weeks is a bit early the baby's doing well so everything should be OK.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Stumped no longer
We managed to remove another cache from our to-do list. Stumped... has had us, well, stumped, for a while now. We weren't able to find it when it was initially placed as a multi-cache, and Mr S had no luck trying to find it when it was converted to a traditional cache. Last weekend we went out on another mission, and made the find.
It turns out we (well, Mr S) were looking near the wrong stump. Once we saw that there was another likely hiding spot, it wasn't long before we had the cache in hand. This was our lesson in not being too focussed on the arrow on the GPSr, and stopping to look around to see if there are any other likely hiding spots nearby.
Our to-do list is shrinking, and hopefully we can cross a few more off soon.
It turns out we (well, Mr S) were looking near the wrong stump. Once we saw that there was another likely hiding spot, it wasn't long before we had the cache in hand. This was our lesson in not being too focussed on the arrow on the GPSr, and stopping to look around to see if there are any other likely hiding spots nearby.
Our to-do list is shrinking, and hopefully we can cross a few more off soon.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Event caches
We are still yet to attend an event cache. The first one we could have attended was C.C.C.C.C. #3 (All Rogues Day) last year, but it was on the same weekend that we moved house. Last month was the first meeting of Geocaching NSW Inc., but that fell on our wedding day. Finally, we think there's an event that we'll be able to attend - the WWFM IV event in Sydney.
After hearing Sonny and Sandy from Podcacher talk about the WWFM III event, we thought it would be fun to take part in a WWFM if there was one organised in Sydney. Ms S will be on the support crew and take some photos and video of the event, while Mr S will take part in the run. Sounds like a fun day, and we'll finally have the chance to put some faces to geocaching names.
After hearing Sonny and Sandy from Podcacher talk about the WWFM III event, we thought it would be fun to take part in a WWFM if there was one organised in Sydney. Ms S will be on the support crew and take some photos and video of the event, while Mr S will take part in the run. Sounds like a fun day, and we'll finally have the chance to put some faces to geocaching names.
Another milestone in our caching career
After a bit of a lull in our caching activity which was caused by the fact we had to organise our wedding, we finally made another find yesterday, and it was another milestone in our caching career.
Pearce Family Plot was the first cache that we found as husband and wife. It was also memorable for the fact that we discovered the battery in our car was flat when we got back to it after finding the cache. After waiting for the NRMA Road Service, we were on our way again.
With daylight saving starting in Sydney this Sunday, we may be able to hunt some caches after work.
Pearce Family Plot was the first cache that we found as husband and wife. It was also memorable for the fact that we discovered the battery in our car was flat when we got back to it after finding the cache. After waiting for the NRMA Road Service, we were on our way again.
With daylight saving starting in Sydney this Sunday, we may be able to hunt some caches after work.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Sad news about our first cache placement
The first cache that we placed, Sshhh! had a few DNFs recently, and those cachers that had found it had commented on the amount of litter that had been building up in the area. Mr S went for a look on Saturday, and confirmed that it had been muggled. We decided to archive it, as the area seemed to be becoming unsuitable as a cache hiding spot. We've got a cache container ready to go. All we need to do is find a suitable location for it.
Our second first to find
We recently managed to snare our second FTF. It was The Sacred Order of the Stonecutters, and there was a bit of confusion whether or not we were actually there first. We think we were lucky to try this one during school holidays when some of the regular FTF-hounds were out of town.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Back in Oz
With Mr S back in the country, we've managed to make a few more finds. During his week off after arriving home from the US, Mr S tried to find a couple of caches that have been bothering us for a while.
The first of these was No Trolls Here. We'd had two previous attempts at finding this one, so armed with some fresh ideas of where to look, courtesy of the logs of some of the successful finders, he hoped that our third search would prove lucky. We'd figured out that the cache was a magnetic key container, and that it was hidden near one corner of the bridge. Mr S spent some time walking slowly backwards and forwards across the bridge to try and figure out which corner was the correct one. The GPSr managed to keep pointing pretty much to one corner (with occasional variation), so the hunt began. There weren't many places to search, so it wasn't long until the cache was in hand. It felt good to finally cross that one off our list.
Inspired by his success with No Trolls Here, Mr S set off the following day to search for another of our nemesis caches, Stumped .... We'd had no luck with this one in its original location, so hoped that the new location would be easier. After searching GZ fro half an hour, though, Mr S came up empty. He thought that muggles might have discovered this one, as there was a newly-constructed BMX track next to GZ. It was a bit disappointing to log a DNF for this cache again. Turns out that the muggles hadn't been there, as the cache has been found after his unsuccessful attempt. I guess we'll have to go back!
The first of these was No Trolls Here. We'd had two previous attempts at finding this one, so armed with some fresh ideas of where to look, courtesy of the logs of some of the successful finders, he hoped that our third search would prove lucky. We'd figured out that the cache was a magnetic key container, and that it was hidden near one corner of the bridge. Mr S spent some time walking slowly backwards and forwards across the bridge to try and figure out which corner was the correct one. The GPSr managed to keep pointing pretty much to one corner (with occasional variation), so the hunt began. There weren't many places to search, so it wasn't long until the cache was in hand. It felt good to finally cross that one off our list.
Inspired by his success with No Trolls Here, Mr S set off the following day to search for another of our nemesis caches, Stumped .... We'd had no luck with this one in its original location, so hoped that the new location would be easier. After searching GZ fro half an hour, though, Mr S came up empty. He thought that muggles might have discovered this one, as there was a newly-constructed BMX track next to GZ. It was a bit disappointing to log a DNF for this cache again. Turns out that the muggles hadn't been there, as the cache has been found after his unsuccessful attempt. I guess we'll have to go back!
California cachin'
During late June and early July, Mr S travelled to the US to attend a conference in Anaheim. Of course there was no way he was going to let work get in the way of some geocaching. He had a few days in San Francisco before flying down to Anaheim, and was able to do some a couple of caches.
He managed to find our first virtual cache, WPArt: Lillie's Cache, as well as I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah.... Being a Star Wars fan, there was no way he was going to leave that one alone. He was able to set our Gingerbread Man geocoin free, and it didn't take for him to be moved on.
There were a couple of other caches on his list that he would have liked to have found, but the muggle factor was too high, and he doesn't like doing urban caches in Australia, let alone overseas. Ms S got into the caching spirit too, and dropped off a couple of travel bugs and coins that we'd held onto for quite a while.
It was nice to come home after adding a couple of overseas finds to our tally. If only he'd known about geocaching two years ago during his seven week holiday in the US!
He managed to find our first virtual cache, WPArt: Lillie's Cache, as well as I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah.... Being a Star Wars fan, there was no way he was going to leave that one alone. He was able to set our Gingerbread Man geocoin free, and it didn't take for him to be moved on.
There were a couple of other caches on his list that he would have liked to have found, but the muggle factor was too high, and he doesn't like doing urban caches in Australia, let alone overseas. Ms S got into the caching spirit too, and dropped off a couple of travel bugs and coins that we'd held onto for quite a while.
It was nice to come home after adding a couple of overseas finds to our tally. If only he'd known about geocaching two years ago during his seven week holiday in the US!
Baby geocacher on board
As mentioned in our previous post, we may need to reconsider our goal of reaching 250 finds by 20th May next year.
Just before we left for our trip to Port Macquarie, we found out that we're pregnant with our first child. This will probably mean no more long weekends away where we can devote ourselves to going geocaching. Now that we're over the initial shock, we're both very excited about becoming parents. Apparently prams and kids make good cover while caching, so we can't wait to take our child with us to distract the muggles.
The baby's due on 2nd January, so it will be a quiet Christmas and New Year in the Sensible household. So far everything's going well with our mini-cacher. It (we find out in a couple of weeks whether it's a boy or girl) will have a geocaching.com profile, so will be able to log the finds that it accompanies us on.
Just before we left for our trip to Port Macquarie, we found out that we're pregnant with our first child. This will probably mean no more long weekends away where we can devote ourselves to going geocaching. Now that we're over the initial shock, we're both very excited about becoming parents. Apparently prams and kids make good cover while caching, so we can't wait to take our child with us to distract the muggles.
The baby's due on 2nd January, so it will be a quiet Christmas and New Year in the Sensible household. So far everything's going well with our mini-cacher. It (we find out in a couple of weeks whether it's a boy or girl) will have a geocaching.com profile, so will be able to log the finds that it accompanies us on.
Another caching milestone
Since our last post, we've reached another caching milestone. While on a trip to Port Macquarie in May, we made our 100th find. It ended up being Light-A-Tack (GCR6QN) on 5th May. We'd set ourselves the goal of getting to 100 finds before our one year cache-a-versary (May 20th), so we were happy to be able to do that. We've bought a 100 finds geocoin and will drop it in a cache once we get it engraved with "Sensible Shoes".
We managed to find nine caches on our trip (along with one DNF which was the first of many for that cache so the owner has disabled it). There were some nice spots along the way that our caching led us to. The caches that we found were:
Our goal now is to reach 250 finds by our second cache-a-versary. However, this might not be as easy as we first thought ...
We managed to find nine caches on our trip (along with one DNF which was the first of many for that cache so the owner has disabled it). There were some nice spots along the way that our caching led us to. The caches that we found were:
Our goal now is to reach 250 finds by our second cache-a-versary. However, this might not be as easy as we first thought ...
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Yes, we're still here!
It's been a while since our last post, mainly because we've been too busy planning our wedding to go caching, and it's been too wet over the past few weeks. However we fixed that situation last weekend with a trip to Shoal Bay, in the Port Stephens region of New South Wales. We had our bookmark list of 21 caches ready to go. Ms S also figured out how to use GSAK to download the caches as an OV2 file, which she then imported into her HP PDA which includes TomTom GPS software. This saves us from entering them all manually.
The weather on Saturday was perfect for caching - sunny, but not too hot. We didn't find as many caches as we would have liked - we ended up finding ten. They were:
Taylors Beach
Pied Piper
Sailing @ The Bay
Ducks and Quackers
Corlette Head
Millionaires Row
Sitting by the Bay
Bagnals Boardwalk
Dutchies Dolphin Walk
Gardens and Views
We're off to Port Macquarie this weekend with another bookmark list ready to go. Hopefully we'll be able to find eight caches and reach our 100 finds milestone!
The weather on Saturday was perfect for caching - sunny, but not too hot. We didn't find as many caches as we would have liked - we ended up finding ten. They were:
Taylors Beach
Pied Piper
Sailing @ The Bay
Ducks and Quackers
Corlette Head
Millionaires Row
Sitting by the Bay
Bagnals Boardwalk
Dutchies Dolphin Walk
Gardens and Views
We're off to Port Macquarie this weekend with another bookmark list ready to go. Hopefully we'll be able to find eight caches and reach our 100 finds milestone!
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