Two Emerald badges in one week!

As you might know, I am quite addicted to my stats, always trying to earn a new BadgeGen badge or belt. Well this week I managed to get two new Emerald ones, the second highest to be earned after Diamond (which I will get one of next week, at this rate). Firstly, I have now somehow managed to find 25 Letterbox Hybrids, mainly thanks to a good loop of them in Wiltshire and plenty on the Isle of Wight. I'm a little disappointed that a lot of these caches don't have the fun factor of following instructions and bearings on how to get to GZ, although there are exceptions. I think the only requirement of a Letterbox Hybrid is that it has a stamper in it.

Secondly I managed to get day 365 checked off on my caching calendar today. This would normally be exciting but with day 366 coming up next week, I think I'll wait for that instead. Looking forward to getting my 1500th milestone shortly afterwards, and know just the cache for it!

Token mushrooms

American geocachers seem to be pretty big on token items that cachers leave behind in caches as a way of showing that they've been there, in addition to signing the log. I've not really seen this here in the UK, with the exception of business card style "We found it" notes which are pretty cool, but can quickly clutter up a cache and tend to go a bit manky when exposed to the elements.

I've never really given much thought to token items although I did wonder if it would be practical to leave a little carved mushroom or something in the caches I find. I couldn't work out how I would do that (cheaply!) so I stopped considering it.

Until ukgeocachers.co.uk advertised personalised engraved wooden tags. I drew a picture of a couple of 'shrooms and got them engraved. The service I received was top quality. Not only did I get a nice batch of tags sent to me, but they came straight away too! Now I've just got to start leaving them somewhere. I hope the happy mushrooms bring a smile to future cachers' faces!

CITO in the rain!

Sunday morning brought the much-anticipated Meon Shore CITO event!

Not the best time to decide to go do a clean-up operation, but we turned out in our masses despite the constant rain! I'd never done a CITO (Cache In Trash Out) event before but even though I got soaked through, I still had fun. I must admit I was not expecting to find anything bigger than the odd can, but wow, we got loads of stuff including a discarded lobster box next to a field, several metres of weed-entwined wire, and a hefty amount of loft insulation.

Will I attend a CITO event again? - Without a doubt! I think I might try to get into the habit of carrying a carrier bag with me when caching so I can practice CITO whilst looking for ordinary caches more easily. I want us geocachers to give off the right impression that we do genuinely care about the environment and that our little boxes in the woods are not rubbish (because they have a purpose) but that we don't like careless litter which is not only ugly but also detrimental to wildlife. Let's look after our surroundings!