Geocaching events abroad!

I've never really considered going to a geocaching event abroad before but when I was looking at my nearby options for caching in Madeira, I noticed a quick half-hour event held by another tourist which was going to be on while I was there so I thought "Why not?" and logged my "Will Attend".

The event in question, Fantasia Event Madeira, was kindly arranged by Danish cacher snabelvasker and during my attendance, there was a mixture of nationalities present including one Dutch and two Portuguese. I believe more locals turned up after I'd gone. What a great idea to hold mini-events when stopping off at ports whilst cruising. Might have to make an attempt to do likewise if ever I go on a cruise.

The photo below shows us total strangers bonding over our common interest of seeking out Tupperware in the woods! I love geocaching!

Funchal Airport

So we've just been away to Madeira for a week.

Madeira is a beautiful Portuguese island west of Morocco and north of the Canary Islands. Its topography is fantastic - so mountainous! Madeira is not a popular destination of choice for people my age (24) as it is lacking in night-life and activities associated with young people. But it seems to be very popular with older holiday makers. I don't think it matters how old you are; you just have to enjoy walking!

The first thing you'll notice about Madeira, if you fly there, is the airport east of the capital, Funchal. As I've said above, the island is almost totally mountainous and so finding enough space for a flat stretch of land even to accommodate a runway has proved tricky! The location selected for the airport is literally on the coast and the runway used to be quite infamous as it was very short indeed (1,600m / 5,249ft). Following a tragic incident 1977 where a plane pretty much ran out of runway and tumbled off the end at speed, hit a bridge, crashed on the beach and burst into flames, the runway was extended by 200m / 660ft. As shown in the photo, the runway is held up on stilts and amazingly there is loads of stuff underneath the runway, including a main road and sports facilities.

We approached the airport from the east and did a sharp turn to line up with the runway without having to come too close to the mountains. Our pilot did an excellent job and touched down with no problems, and certainly didn't run out of runway! Landing at Madeira's airport is not quite the hair-raising experience that it used to be but it is still not a good one for pilots to start on, or for people who fear flying to touch down at!

Around the World in 80 Clicks

Did you just come to my blog to see if I would tell you what to bring with you to my new multi/puzzle cache? Oh, cunning!

Slower reviewing with Waymarking!

In July 2011 (i.e. half a year ago) I thought I would make a Waymark in Abu Dhabi, UAE. You can't normally publish caches abroad unless you go out there regularly, have someone local to perform maintenance or it's a an Earthcache or something, but a Waymark is not a physical container anyway so there's nothing to stop you making them anywhere in the world. This was in the days before Groundspeak conceived of their "Challenges" idea. I personally am not a big fan or follower of these challenges, although I can see the appeal. For me a challenge will always be a challenge cache (where you have to meet a requirement before going and finding a physical cache). I wish Groundspeak would recognise that these aren't puzzles or mysteries though and give them their own icon. Now that Challenge has been usurped I think something like "Quest" would have to come in.

Anyway, back to Waymarking. I'm not a huge fan of this either and I log places that I went to years ago for no real reason other than I get bored sometimes and end up searching for places I've been before. There's not the same sense of satisfaction in Waymarking. Anyway, I wanted to see how many countries I could get Waymarks in and found that one of my favourite destinations ever, the UAE, does not actually have any which I can claim, so I made one of my own with the intention of logging that! Well, why not? It's not quite as lame as logging a find on your own cache (that is something I would never do!) I created a Waymark at the race track where we went to see the Formula 1 and as I say, it's taken half a year for the powers that be to publish it! Amazing!