A Night Of FTF's ... Not!

This evening several email notifications came through, well, 15 to be precise, for a series of caches in Fairfield, not far from home, so off I went after a quick look at the logs and saw that no one had put claim to FTF.

The first one I encountered was Walk 2, and I was hoping for an FTF as I opened the log book, but all my hopes were gone as I read 'FTF - Fungimanforager', there was now a real possibility that all were not going to be FTF tonight.

After tackling around six, I had to double back as I had missed one, due to my mobile being in a no service area, and so far I had been STF, with one TTF. I arrived at the GZ and the GPS was all over the place because of the tree cover, I spent a considerable amount of time looking and thinking of how the others were hidden, but had no joy finding the cache. When I checked the logs on the website, Fungimanforager had the same problem, so neither of us had FTF!

It was now quite late and I didn't realise how far I had walked from where my car was parked, it was a good 30 minutes back!

All in all it was a good nights caching with the lack of any FTF in sight, and Fungimanforager missed out on an FTF, possibly more, as one of the caches before I doubled back was already claimed.

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Lord Bazil Barrington III

Test the new iBlogger

Just downloaded an app for my iPhone called iBlogger.

Looks like it could be quite a good app.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

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Lord Bazil Barrington III

Dogwalk? No Dog!

This afternoon after doing a little shopping with the Golden Eagles, decided to go and attempt Dogwalk - 7 as it had evaded us a couple of weeks ago.

GPS was out by about 25 feet today with the tree cover overhead, certainly better than before. We searched for around 20 minutes before I logged on to get the clue again, I then continued to search for another 20 or 30 minutes while the Golden Eagles were swinging on a rope in the tree they had found.

Eventually we had enough of looking and decided to call it a day again. We will return!

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Treasure Hunt

Decided to pop out and do another spot of night caching and obtain some TB's in the process tonight so off I went to find some 'treasure'. First stop was Corngreaves Treasure not too far from home. Parking was a couple of hundred yards down the road as the gates were locked to the Park car park, it had been raining most of the day and the river was quite high and flowing very fast next to the pathway leading to the GZ.

Upon approaching the area it was getting cooler and very misty, making the woods feel very eerie. Not much light around here so my torch was all I had to help guide me across the slippery undergrowth and mud, with the river just feet away.

My GPS was not too clever with the directions but a quick look around and I decided on a place and sure enough found the cache. After managing to sign the log book and retrieve the two TB's inside, I put it back carefully and made my way back to the car in the mist.

A quick drive then around to the other side of the park and to have a go at the Gruffalos Treasure. A short walk from my car into the woods, and scaring a few pigeons and other birds in the trees on the way, the cache was soon in my hands.

On my way home afterwards I stopped by an area where I had an idea for a cache and I needed to check the coordinates and distance from another cache. Once I had this sorted I drove round to Ash Banks multi-cache and managed to find it without the help of the GPS as it was out by a good 20 feet or so. I then decided it was time to go home and leave the second part to Ash Banks for another day.

I enjoy the night caching as I find it quite challenging compared to searching in the daylight hours.

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Nasty Nano...? Oh Yes!

I was looking on the geocache map for a cache to do on the way to work and spotted the Nasty Nano just off my regular path to work and this Friday I managed to have a go.

I got up about an hour earlier than usual as I could see from reading the logs it was a very tough one, it hadn't been found since the beginning of May! It was raining lightly and when I reached the GZ there was a little bit of cover. The GPS was wavering a little and I walked back and forth to try and get a general reading then started to look. I searched all the obvious places I could think of but no joy. I then grabbed my torch as it was quite dull and looked around with that.

After nearly 30 minutes of searching I was about to give up when my torch light caught something unusual, it was the cache. The feeling I had was one of total elation, knowing I found it where others were failing to find it. Out of 83 people attempting so far, I was number 31! It felt like it was such a great achievement. So to all of you who are struggling and think it is gone... it is there, just look, its in front of your face!

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Ice Anyone?

Had to fill the car up with LPG and decided to pop over to Halesowen BP 24hr. It was about 01.50hrs, the rain was starting to subside to a drizzle, and I decided to do a couple of caches in the vicinity after filling up.

The first one I came to was Somers Park – Ice House. Parked the car in the lay-by and headed back to where the GPS was pointing. Eventually found a public footpath and headed off down there. The trees were blocking out a lot of the street light from the main road, so out came the wind-up LED torch. After a hundred yards or so, the torch was light was dwindling, the more I wound it, the more it didn't satisfy its hunger for power. Great!

Approaching the GZ, I noticed that the GPS was not too erratic as I walked, so I was hoping that it would be a quick find, as it was rather dark down here, quiet and creepy. I found the Ice House and had a quick look with what light the torch gave me, very eerie indeed, then I returned to the task of finding the cache nearby, hopefully.

A quick look around the area didn't produce anything and then as I turned and shone the torch into the trees something stood out that didn't quite look right in its colour. So a quick investigation revealed the cache. Yay!

Trying to write in the log book and hold a torch, with its light dwindling even more, made me more anxious to get out and back to the car. After signing I headed back out of the wooded area along the path and up onto Bromsgrove Road, eventually returning back to my car before the rain came down heavy again.

It was then off to my own cache, Stourbridge Junction – Travel Bug Motel, to drop off a TB I collected, to help it on its way to the US of A, then back home as it was getting to late.

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A Quick Cache & Dash

On my way home from work this evening I pass Stevens Park and noticed several weeks ago a new cache had been placed, so I thought it was time I found it.

After parking the car and a short stroll down to the stream I realised I had taken the wrong path so rather than go back, I went down the slope and crossed the stream as it was not too wide. I struggled up the other side as it was very steep and slippy with the loose dirt and mud, then set off to the GZ once at the top of the bank.

Recently my GPS has been very good and not had too many problems with the tree cover and it was the same today. Remembering what the notes were on the cache I climbed up and after a quick search in the undergrowth found the cache.

Within 15 minutes of leaving my car, I was back in it with a find from a very well hidden cache. Very quick indeed.

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Northumberland Holy-days

We arrived at our holiday cottage in Lowick late on Saturday evening of August 28th, 2010. Upon opening the door we were greeted by a modern and clean conversion of an old blacksmiths shop. The bedrooms were minimalist in decoration and were light and airy. The kitchen and living area was open-plan and was equiped with a washer, a dryer, a dishwasher, a large freezer and seperate fridge and an electric hob. En-suite shower and bath for the main bedroom and at the rear of the cottage was a seperate shower and toilet and upstairs was the main bathroom. The whole cottage was tastefully done.


On the side in the kitchen was a tray with tea, coffee, biscuits, a Stotie and a welcome letter from the owners. The place was so welcoming.


Once the kids were in bed and we had unpacked the car it was time to get out the laptop and connect to the geocaching website to see what was in the area and try to plan the following days sightseeing to hopefully incorporate some caching.

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On A Roller!

Third day of caching, and I'm on a roller!

Four caches today, three of which I managed to find but the last beat me. Oh well, you have to take the rough with the smooth I suppose.

The first two were Woody 2 and 3, between Amblecote and Brierley Hill. I arrived at Woody 2 around 02.00hrs and spent about 10 minutes trying to find it as GPS would not settle down. Trying my best not to make too much noise as it was close to the houses. A quick walk then around to Woody 3, GPS was warming up now, and I managed to bag the cache 15 minutes later. Getting late now, so off to bed as I had work in the morning.

Woke up early and set off for work, but first it was off to Lucky Ducky as I noticed it was up for STF. GPS was spot on this morning so the cache was quickly found. It was still early before I had to start work, so I went off to Harry & Josh 001 not too far away, but near to work, had a good look around but GPS was not responding too well because of the tree cover and my mobile battery went so I was unable to get any hints, so I left it for another day.

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My New GPS Arrives

I ordered a Garmin eTrex H Personal GPS Navigator from eBay the other day and it arrived today, so you've gotta try it out ain'tcha!


A quick look on the geocache site for a local cache came up with two of the Bromsgrove Feeder series, Bromsgrove Feeder (Clockwise) and Bromsgrove Feeder (Gallows Brook). These are the logs;


Time: 02.00hrs
Weather: Dry and cool.


My second go at a Geocache and it only took me about 10 minutes to find, after having my hat tugged off my head several times by the branches of the trees! 


Parked car in Field Lane and walked round. Excellent hide.
Received my new Etrex H GPS today so had to try it out. It was out by about 35ft.
TFTC TNLN SL


On to the next - Gallows Brook


Time: 02.15hrs
Weather: Dry and cool.


My third go at a Geocache and it only took me about 15 minutes to walk from Bromsgrove Feeder (Clockwise) and to find it. Excellent hide.


Etrex H GPS was out by about 35ft again. Have adjusted to grid North and will try out on next cache probably tomorrow night.


TFTC TNLN SL
On to the next cache.

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Time For Tee

Browsing on the internet I came across a link for Geocaching, I became curious as to what it is and read a few pages, a week later after signing up on the website I searched for my first cache to find.


It was late at night on February 11th 2010, I thought I would go for one a couple of miles away from home to save getting muggled, so armed with my sat nav, I set off for Hagley and 'Time For Tee'.


This was my log for that night;


Time: 01.55hrs (Dark? Not much! Very, very dark!)
Weather: Dry, freezing (-2.5°C), clear sky.
Going: Crispy after snowfall yesterday.


Scared a few pigeons in the trees, or did they scare me whilst walking to cache when I arrived? No chance of any mugglers/golfers this time of the night!


Managed to find after about 10 minutes; sat-nav said you are at destination and I noticed a possible location, didn't inspect... should have!


This was my very first find and I really enjoyed the challenge; especially in the dark! TFTH TFTC SL TN left a small metal retractable tape measure. Log Book starting to get damp, found it difficult to write.


'Time for Tee'? No, Time for bed! Ha! Ha!


NOTE TO SELF: Make sure battery on sat-nav charged fully; ran out just a couple of minutes after I found cache. PHEW! Good job my torch was a wind-up one.


After that night, I was hooked to geocaching!

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Lord Bazil Barrington III