"In your hands, the birth of a new day... " (Limahl)

17 August 2007

UK Travelbug Graveyard

I came across the UK "Travelbug Graveyard" whilst browsing the geocaching forums. It is a virtual place for geocachers to "bury" any trackable items that have gone missing.

A few months ago I dispatched a furry monkey (pictured) from Tesco and gave it the rather grandiose title "Under African Skies" (from a Paul Simon song).



The mission was to get to Africa. Unfortunately, the travelbug made it only 5 miles to a cache near the M4 which was then vandalised, resulting in the "death" of a handful of travelbugs. The monkey is actually in the hands of another geocacher but the travelbug tag (with its unique tracking code) has been lost.

I'm also worried about the fate of my "Aberystwyth race travelbug", last logged at the beginning of June, heading from Ireland to Georgia, USA. It was doing quite well in a race against other travelbugs from the "Abercachers" gang but I fear it may be destined for the travelbug graveyard...

"Mutuus sursum vel mutuus parkilis"

Bad Andy Geocoin


I haven't been able to find out who "Bad Andy" is or was, but there is a geocoin crafted in his honour. A glance at another geocaching blog revealed the Latin iinscription found on the coin.

mutuus sursum vel mutuus parkilis = "Trade up or trade even"

This is an important principle of geocaching - when retreiving geocoins or bric-a-brac gifts from people's caches - you are supposed to replace it with something of equivalent worth, or better.

I don't go in for leaving trinkets. And I'm afraid that I tend to take trackables without having anything to leave in return.

Nevertheless, it's always pleasurable to build up a horde of geocoins, dump them in one cache and sit back to watch the resultant scavenging...

Nevertheless - nice to pick up a new geocoin icon today after a fairly barren couple of weeks on the geocaching front.

Scavenging: 4

Mouse's Welsh Geocoin


Chilli the cool cat travelbug


Cathedral Capers travelbug


Crozet Crazy travelbug


Shape O' Ball travelbug (RETRAP!)


Lots of activity at my cache over the last 10 days or so, including a posse of geocachers bound for Flatholm. I ambled down in midweek to take a look at the remaining trackables -a wide variety of items with different goals. The cutest of which was "Chilli the cool cat" (pictured especially for Lorenzo and Raelha).

The retrap of Shape o' Ball















Anyone who has involved themselves in Maalie's ornithological work will be familiar with the concept of a "retrap".

A retrap occurs when Maalie catches a bird that he has already ringed.

A similar thing happened this week at the Cardiff Bay Travelbug Exchange, where I spotted Shape O' Ball travelbug - a childhood toy of a geocacher in America.

Back in September, I wrote a cursory note to log my discovery of Shape O' Ball at a geocache in Carmarthenshire. I took it up the west coast of Wales to Cors Cache, where I performed an upgrade of TCA's cache near Pyongyang.

Shape O'Ball originated in the west coast of the USA. After a long treck in north America, it made it across to the UK. After a brief residence in Scotland, it endured a long stint around north west England, before coming down to west Wales - where I picked it up.

In the last year, it has travelled from central Wales down to Dorset, then Bristol, then Cardiff - where I got my retrap!

Earth from the air

Regular visitors will appreciate that it has been a frentic last few weeks, with sparse travel or geocaching opportunites. I've even been too busy to update the blog!

Pic.1: "Autumn Forest in the region of Charlevoix, Quebec"

I should have added these photos several weeks ago. They are from the "Earth from the air" exhibition by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Just to stress that these are my own photographs of the works that were on display.

Pic.2: Bottle racks near Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, Germany














I saw the exhibition once before, in London, but it was great to see them again outside the National Waterfront Musem in Swansea.

Pic.3 Fields of tulips near Lisse, near Amsterdam, Netherlands

6 August 2007

Cathays Cemetary

"Mountainbug 2" (Travelbug)


Cathays Cemetary (multicache)


"Usolye Sibirskoye, Russia" (Unite for Diabetes Travelbug)



Extremely surprised that I have anything to blog about after the weekend I've had.

First up was the travelbug, picked up at Swansea West service station cache after midnight on Saturday night, whilst I was waiting for my latte to cool down.

Today, I did the Cathays cemetary multicache (i.e. a cache which requires completion of a set of numerical clues before obtaining the final co-ordinates). This is my 10th multicache.

The cache was placed by "Write and Mane", a formidable pair of geocachers who have placed dozens of caches arond south Wales. Most of their caches pay meticulous attention to detail, and are simply too time-consuming for me - I'm generally restricted to fairly easy caches on a "cashe and dash" basis by car.

On this cache, I had to go round the graveyard collecting dates and ages of notable gravestones. I've pictured the memorial stone which was placed as recently as 1998 to commemorate 21 French sailors from WW1. The year "1998" formed one of the clues.

I picked up a "Unite for Diabetes" travel bug - my first one for quite a while. The mission of these bugs is to visit the location prescribed for it on the bug listing.

OTHER NEWS

Glad to say that my own travelbugs and geocoins are enjoying some activity after a quiet spell. I've no doubt that the bad weather of late has had a major impact on geocaching this summer - all of a sudden I'm receiving lots of automated logs for my trackables.

After a mysterious period without a log, my "50th find geocoin" has recently taken up residence in a cache @ "Canoe Find it" (Llandysul - one of my regular haunts). I found this cache on a recent memorable trip.

My "75th find" coin has made it out of the Cambridge geocaching event and is in the safe hands of another cacher.

"London Calling" travelbug was coincidentally at the Cambridge gathering as well. It now appears to be heading inrto the "big smoke", as intended.

"Microskate" (destined for a tour of Europes smallest states) has also been picked up in Monmouthshire.

Regular updates for my trackables are on the sidebar.

3 August 2007

Mint 3

Mint 3 (Traditional cache).


Took a trip round town to find this cache, located on Cardiff Barrage. The less said about this trip the better - got soaked to my skin on my return back. Nevertheless, a well hidden micro in a peaceful spot. Quiet day so little threat of muggles. Dropped off the gnome geocoin.

1 August 2007

Feeling like a million Dollars!

Cardiff Parks 2: Thompson's Park (Traditional cache)


Cardiff Parks 3: Victoria Park (Traditional Cache)


Scanker's sTeamTraen geocoin


"Desert Ninja Warrior" Travelbug


"1622 Atocha" Travelbug


"$1M Travelbug"


Pic.1: The $1M Travelbug

Actually, I'm not feeling a million dollars today. But I did yesterday, after an unexpected day's geocaching.

First up was a stroll down to my own cache. Three interesting travelbugs were present. A Ninja Turtle, a repleca 17th Century Ecuadorian Escudo coin, and this beauty: a laminated million dollar note!

Later in the evening, I strolled over to Canton to meet a couple of friends. Happily, this coincided with two new geocaches that were placed in the area over the weekend.

The two caches were part of "Scanker's" Cardiff Parks series: microcaches placed in various locations around Cardiff's public parks. I had never known of "Thompson's Park" before so I was happy to find a cache in a new corner of Cardiff. It was a devlish little micro that I was lucky to find.

Pic.2: "Bronxite" and companion at Thompson's Park Cache

Whilst I was signing the logbook, I spotted two people who looked suspisciouly like geocachers. I tentatively approached them. It was "Bronxite" and a companion, looking for their first cache! I was glad to help Bronxite - over here from the states - in his first cache find.

Finally, I walked over to Victori Park for a magnetised micro cache that was placed under a public bench. The incentive here was a "sTeamTraen" geocoin. This is the signature geocoin of a team of geocachers from the Alsace region. The coin is pictured with Victoria Park in the background.

Pic.3: "Scanker's sTeamTraen Geocoin"