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

25 September 2007

3 Travelbugs / State of the blog / Tortoiseshell's Nephew

"To the Rescue" Travelbug


"Sondestrom Messenger" Travelbug


"Brotherhood of the Travelling Teeth" Travelbug


Earlier this year, I discovered the Historic Tenby geocache on my way back from a work assignment. On this occasion, I visited the same cache in more relaxing circumstances to drop off a travelbug I had held on to for too long. Surprised to find 3 travelbugs in the cache, which I duly took back to my own travelbug exchange.

The Historic Tenby geocache is located on the footpath near to the lifeboat station (i.e. just to the right of the slipway in the photo).

Incidentally, if I were to be cut off by the tide looking for a risky geocache in my region (e.g. Burryd Treasure), it is from tenby that the lifeboat would be launched.

On dropping the bugs, I picked up Chilli the Cool Cat travelbug which has been overly detained in my cache. By the way, a couple of (gloomy) pics of Gower have been posted below.

More generally, my regular readers will have noticed that I have been less active on the blog of late. Certainly, the number of hits I'm receiving has dropped to an all-time low of late. The reason for this is simply the pressure of work and lack of geocaching-based travel opportunities.

However, I have very good reason to believe that a geocaching renaissance could be on the way in a matter of weeks... In the meantime, my congratulations to my brother, TCA, on the birth of his beautiful baby boy, (aka Tortoiseshell's Nephew)!

15 September 2007

Grandpa's Bench

Grandpa's Bench (traditional geocache)


I went up the hill with the other Dr Tortoiseshell and we did an easy geocache that has materialised on the cliff overlooking Cardigan Bay.

13 September 2007

Settling in!


Masters of Caches 2006 Geocoin Club series geocoin


Cache Hiker Geocoin


"Tortoise" Travelbug


"Pennard Pill" (Multicache)



"Cycle up Tumble down: Pont d' Agen"


"Estuary Defences"


"Rippy's Rhosilli Rest"


"Arthur's Stone"


"Llanrhidian marsh: Llanrhidian"


"Llanrhidian Marsh: Crofty"


"Salthouse Point: Crofty"


"Llanrhidian Marsh: Wern Halog"


"Sirdi's Walk"



Just a quick post to keep in touch with everyone- some nice pics and weblinks to follow on this post when I get time to download and upload.
Yet another momentous week for me personally in RL (Real Life), but that didn't put a stop to the geocaching! With 3 lonely evenings apart from the other Dr Tortoiseshell, what else was I to do? I took the opportunity of getting to know the geocaching terrain on both sides of the Loughor Estuary.

"Pont D'Agen" in Llanelli is part of the "Cycle up Tumble down" series by "The Taffy Apples",
which I would anticipate completing sooner or later. I did this one on a quick cache-and-dash to Tescos, and did "Estuary defences" (on Llanelli beach) on the way back with a car full of shopping.

Pic.1: the imposing silouette of the water tower on Pennard golf course

The serious business started after dropping off the other Dr Tortoiseshell in Swansea. Set off immediately for Pennard, scene of many a happy childhood memories. The "Pennard Pill" multicache was based on clues involving the water tower, the golf course and Pennard Castle - and finally a well-hidden cache in a copse on the way down to the beach.

I went out to Rhosilli as night fell pitch black. The towns of Carmarthen Bay (including Burry Port) lit up like a Christmas tree to the north side. The more distant, milky lights of Devon to the south. In the far distance, the sweep of Lundy lighthouse (and another, possibly Hartland Point?) could be seen. Scrabbled around for "Rippy's Rhosilli Rest" in a gorse bush.


Next day was the turn of north Gower - which I'm not sure Nanny ever counted as "proper" Gower on account of its proximity to the "Welsh" natives of Penclawdd and Dunvant. Anyway, with a splitting headache, I knocked off all 4 caches in the Llanrhidian Marsh series set by "Iain4724". Apart from completing a series for the first time since the Aberystwyth Rainbow Series, I also aquired two nice geocoins, including the coveted "Masters of Caches" geocoin issued by the "Geocoin Club".

Pic. 2: Pennard Castle looms large

After all this excitement, it was back up the hill to Gower "proper" - and a handily placed cache at "Arthur's Stone" on another place of childhood memory, Cefn Bryn - where I picked up Tortoise the Travelbug (no relation to Tortoiseshell).
After my sojurns on the Republic of Gower, The next evening saw me safely back in Wales - a long sojurn through the Pembrey Country Park to "Sirdi's Walk", scene of a memorable fiasco early in my geocaching career. This was a well-camoflauged cache in an eerily quiet part of pine forest. I thought the remote location of the cache suitable for safely dropping off my newly-acquired trackables - and I reluctantly placed the Masters of Cache coin into the cache.












7 September 2007

Tortoiseshell's first geobirthday!


On the "Abercachers" forums my current avatar description is "grounded", as more important stuff has been going on. So, sorry to Lorenzo, Maalie, Raelha and TCA for the lack of tupperware container action of late

I was on vacation recently and so the anniversary of my first geocache without ceremony. However, it is only this weekend that the idea of the blog was concocted in a pub near Derby railway station, and spluttered into life.

As it happens, it appears that the first geo-anniversary coincides with a window of geo-opportunity for a cache or, er, 15. The only clue I'm giving is that the next blog may have some very evocative photos for the other bloggers in my family.

IN OTHER NEWS

The geocoin that I purchased to celebrate 75 geocache finds made it over to Indiana, USA for a geocaching event! It has now done over 4000 miles and has overtaken my "Tortie the Cat" travelbug as my most travelled trackable item.

The person who has since piked up the geocoin is called "Superstutz", who has over 1202 geocaches to his name. However, what is interesting about his profile is that he has a number of very rare icons...

(P.S. I have no intention to find any of these types of cache in the forseeable future...)

"GPS Adventures Exhibit" - from what I can see this is some sort of portable maze that the geocaching people put up in the middle of cities as a promotional item. I don't expect any to turn up in Wales anytime soon.

"Project APE cache" - A set of caches in the USA based on a film promotion. full explanation here.


"NGS benchmark" - Waymarks emanating from the National Geodetic Survey in the USA. Full explanation here.

"Mega event cache". Back in January, I had to explain to my wife that I was going to a meeting of geocachers, an "event cache", in the back of a Cardiff pub. I received some (understandable) torment from TCA about this. However, an "event" cache is as nothing compared to a "mega event cache" - for example, the Midwest geobash in the USA.

Finally, I have incorporated a picture blog about cats into my main blog, now that my new territory has excellent feline-spotting opportunities. I hope Lorenzo and Raelha will especially enjoy the pics! Ciao!

Cat blog 6: The original Tortoiseshell!

Cat blog 5: "Scaredy" (Long-haired ginger and white)

Cat blog 4: white and silver

Cat blog 3: white (long haired)

Cat blog 2: Black and white

Cat blog 1: Tortoiseshell