Beautiful Budapest

I was fortunate enough to go to Budapest on business recently and even more fortunate to be able to stay in a luxurious hotel and have enough free time between long meetings to enjoy this fine capital city. Of course, nabbing caches was important too!

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the city but I was not expecting to be strongly reminded of London with its landmark river, magnificent buildings and professional appearance. It's nothing like several of the cities I've visited across Europe before which all look a bit tattier. But whilst I love London, Budapest felt cleaner and safer and I hope to return. Everyone speaks Hungarian of course, but I managed to find people who spoke English when we needed them. 

The city is full of culture, history and attractions. Methods of transport are plentiful and we did a couple of short, cheap boat trips up the Danube (unlike London, Budapest prices are incredibly reasonable and not extortionate!). Other novel methods of transport included segways, bicycles for hire (SO TEMPTED!), pedal carts and trams.

The bridges over the Danube are iconic and whilst the Chain Bridge is the most well known, I think I liked the Liberty Bridge best. I'm glad we went out at night and during the day as the city offers a completely different feel for each. I'd love to come back here!

70 mile trek around the Isle of Wight!

As mentioned in a previous post, my friends and I had decided we'd like to set ourselves the challenge of walking around the Isle of Wight in three days and I decided I'd like to do it for a charity I'm keen to support, Crohn's and Colitis UK.

So here's a map of the island so that when I mention places they make sense! We came across from Southampton bright and early and kicked off the Friday at 8am in Cowes. We took the more standard approach of following the coastal path anti-clockwise so that the wind would be in our favour. As it was, there was no wind! The sun was out the whole time and to my mind it was a little too hot to walk in but better that than pouring with rain!

The walk from Cowes to Gurnard and beyond was nice and straight forward but then we had to cut inland a bit, still following the official coastal path, to get around the estuary at Newtown. This seemed to take forever! I was chuffed to be able to collect a couple of caches as we passed through the various towns and it made up for how muddy that particular stretch of the journey was!

So then we were able to meet the coast line again as we approached Yarmouth. This was a busy area and it was here I claimed my 2500th cache milestone. We stopped for a bite to eat then continued on in the late afternoon sunshine through Totland and up to one of my favourite places on the island, Alum Bay and the Needles.

Alum Bay is famous for its multicoloured sand as it's a geologist's dream. They make quite a trade in selling empty glass and plastic containers for people to fill with the various different coloured sands and I've done this on three occasions now.

Alum Bay

What made this trip to the Needles special was that it was totally empty of people. We were the only ones there and it was so very peaceful with just the sounds of wildlife and the odd distant buzz of a plane or boat. We were also up by the lighthouse and on Tennyson Down as the sun was beginning to set so the views were even more spectacular.

A glimpse of the lighthouse on the far west of the island

Sunset over Tennyson Down

We had to clamber to the top of this hill before descending the other side and then hurriedly finding our way through the town of Freshwater to our B&B for the night and after 26 miles of hiking, boy was I aching!

I was still hurting after a good night's sleep but there's no rest for the wicked and we were up and out straight after breakfast. We had another long walk ahead of us as we made our way from Freshwater round to Shanklin on the other side of the island. This day we didn't have the mud or detours away from the coast so much but the chines were enough to keep us going up and down like yo-yos. So many slopes and steps! Why did I pack so much?!

Looking back, you can just make out Tennyson Down

This walk was interesting for the fact that the recent bad weather has taken its toll on the west side of the island's coastal paths. We were precariously close to the cliff edges a lot of the time and fences had been moved back. Whole paths had crumbled and crashed to the beach below and it was clear that more were on their way! Best to keep as far away from the cracked soil as possible. Geological structure change is not something consigned to the past - it's happening all the time, and who's to say you won't be the one who is walking across the cliff when it decides to give way?!

Later in the afternoon we came to the southernmost tip of the island where St Catherine's lighthouse is situated. Halfway round at last and I have no idea how I'm still standing upright!

We continue onwards and through a really delightful narrow cliff-top coastal path past St Lawrence towards Ventnor. The early evening in late spring is a perfect time to be here when the sun is shining! The views are fantastic!

I like this type of walk!

Ventnor was quite busy and after walking through a wood for what felt like hours as the sun was disappearing, we emerged to see the lights of Shanklin and Sandown ahead of us! Quickly we made our way to our next B&B before the owners went to bed!

Our third and final day was the most straight forward. We just needed to climb the odd hill or steps but most of the time it was flat which I was extremely grateful for as my legs by this time were putting up a very firm protest at the notion of continuing!

Bembridge was the furthest east on the island we went and shortly afterwards we stopped for more food and to rest the legs.

Bembridge

Finally we pushed on and made it past the back of Queen Victoria's Osbourne House and enjoyed the view from Wootton Bridge before cracking on back to Cowes.

Wootton Creek

The first time I saw a sign pointing to Southampton, I could have cried with relief! The small chain ferry ("Floating Bridge") back to Cowes from East Cowes took a little while to return to us but thankfully it was in time for our ferry home to the mainland. 

I am very glad to be able to say I've done this walk now, and I really did enjoy it all but I don't think I'll be signing up for anything like this again in the near future! As long as I raised some awareness and money for Crohn's and Colitis UK (Not too late to sponsor me: www.justgiving.com/walk-the-wight) then I feel it was worth every step. The official route was 67 miles but what with recent diversions due to cliff falls and treks i and out of town to get to our B&Bs, I think 70 miles is more appropriate!

Not sure if I'll ever do something like this again. Perhaps my next ambition should be to take the island by bike? Now there's an idea...

Abbey Road Web Cam

Web cam caches are now "grandfathered", which means that those created years ago can still be found and logged but new ones can't be created. I've found quite a few around the country now but by far my favourite is Abbey Road, not only for the Beatles connection and good quality camera, but also for the fact the website is live streaming and has 24 hours of archive footage stored on it so if there's nothing on TV and you're bored stiff, this will make for an amusing few minutes of fun watching.

Listen to the irritated taxi drivers beeping as tourists try to quickly grab a photo!

Click for Abbey Road Web Cam!

Geo Art: Maps and Logs

I love a good bit of geo-art, i.e. caches placed strategically so that when seen from above they make up a pattern. Normally this is done by using puzzles. The real coordinates are elsewhere but unsolved they make up a pretty question mark, smiley face or some other motif. Here are some of the ones I've seen on the maps...

A very nice big smiley face which is even better when made up of lots of little smileys!

This is quite commonplace: a series of puzzles in the shape of a question mark!

Seattle is home to a set of puzzles which form the peace sign. They are over water, presumably to stand out more, but I believe the caches are on terra firma! 

We had a couple of sets of Olympic rings pop up around the time London hosted the Olympics. Weymouth's have gone now but these still remain in Sussex.

What I find even more impressive though is when the caches are not puzzles but someone has carefully found the right place to put a series so that traditionals can be used instead. That means that when you find the caches you will actually trace out the shape of whatever it is. My favourite examples are in the United States. Clearly the desert is a good place to get your caches where you need them without the problem of housing, water etc.!

The ET Highway power trail in Nevada.

Kokopelli formation in Utah.

A very nice fighter plane. The guns were all Letterbox Hybrids but from a distance they look the same as Traditionals.

Geo-art extends to beyond cache maps, however. I've seen some pretty impressive flags on people's logs. Notably on the 2,000,000th published cache - people from all over the world were sending their congratulations and adding a flag made of smileys. Some of the best below:

2,000,000!

Canada

Germany

Czech Republic

Norway

United States of America

And of course the United Kingdom!

What do we think of Lab Caches?

The concept of geocaching started off simple: there's a container out there somewhere. Here are its coordinates. Now GO FIND IT! Traditional caches are still like this. Multis and puzzles throw another stage or two into the mix, whether physical or mental. Then of course there are letterbox hybrids, virtuals, webcams, Wherigos, and a range of event types.

Groundspeak always wants to keep geocaching fresh and interesting, and so they should, but in the last couple of years they introduced "Challenges" which was a total flop and for me was unnecessarily confusing as they were not like the existing Challenge Geocaches where you need to meet a requirement before logging. Groundspeak is clearly trying to find what works and what doesn't with geocaching and their new "lab caches". I've found 11 now and I'd sum them up as being "mildly interesting". The concept could easily become as tedious and abused as Challenges though. No idea what lab caches are? Read on.

According to Groundspeak, lab caches are the product of the Geocaching HQ's Research and Development team. They are rare and experimental. The ideas are going to come through this type and then, presumably, if they work, they'll be turned into real cache types.

The Groundspeak HQ offered cachers the chance to try them during its annual Block Party but they've since become a little more widespread. In February they plugged the idea of sending a lab cache invite to your Valentine, although to my knowledge people tended to just pair up and make a lab cache for each other. The idea was to set a location and ask a question about it or post some info there that you'd only know if you visited. So for example, you could site your lab cache at a park bench and ask what year the memorial plaque has on it. In that way it's a bit like a virtual cache or the first stage of a multi. But you could also do the whole thing online and just make your answers Googleable. Does that not defeat the object of geocaching? I've never understood why some people "armchair log" their finds without heading outdoors. If the caches are to take off, they need to be things you will be finding outdoors.

One of the locations for a lab cache at the Kent Mega. The code you needed was in the socks on the line.

But there are no cache containers! You don't go to a certain location, find a box and sign the log book. No, you're simply information gathering. Once you have your info, you log it online and claim a find. A bit strange but as I said, perhaps Groundspeak's attempt at resurrecting virtuals. Seriously, guys, just bring back the original virtual cache type! (And webcams, while you're at it).

The Kent Mega I attended recently was a good chance to find 10 more lab caches which were created specifically for the Mega Event. That's another thing about this cache type: they aren't long-lasting. A set of 10 exhibitions were set up in a woods near the Mega venue and each of them concealed the code you'd need to log a find. For example there was a large ball pit and you needed to find a silver ball with a code written on it. That was then what you put into Geocaching.com and a find was yours. That ball pit can't stay in the woods forever so ideas will need to be more permanent if they are to work.

There's a code in here somewhere!

All in all, I found the ten lab caches at the Kent Mega interesting, and certainly good for kids. It could work well with a murder mystery type theme where you are trying to find answers in your surroundings. Beyond that, I don't know what the future is for lab caches but if they scrap the idea then I hope the finds will still count unlike Challenges did. A lot of stats will be screwed up and it's confusing enough at the moment that GC.com says you've got X amount of finds and yet the lab caches aren't really re-accessible or counted by other stats generators. You can't write a log either - you just submit your code and bam, another find. I'll be interested to see how this pans out and what other new ideas crop up. Any thoughts?

3rd Annual Meon Shore CITO

2012 brought very wet weather; 2013 glorious sunshine. This year was somewhere in between but the aim was the same as ever: a team of eager geocachers meet with members of the Fareham Society and take to the Meon Shore beach to clean it of as much litter as possible. If you haven't attended a "Cache In Trash Out" event yet, try to get to one because they're just as sociable as standard events but you're outdoors and doing what you enjoy plus you are probably making a considerable difference to the local habitats and general appearance of a patch of land. What's more, you may pass a cache or two as you find rubbish so another find under your belt is no bad thing! Don't forget you'll get a rare icon for attending!

CITO Meon Shore 2014 was a successful venture and dozens of black bags of rubbish were collected off the coastline, some dropped by beach users, others washed up from vessels out in the Solent. As ever, there were the usual bits of green string which I used to tie my bag up with, plus bottle tops, cans, bottles and usual litter, but then you find weird things like a washing up brush and a workman's helmet.

 

If you're going to attend a CITO or any other litter clean up operation, be sure to bring some additional supplies than what you might bring with you to a standard event (note book, pen and trackables!) For a CITO, you are going to be handling dirty and unwanted stuff. A good tough pair of gardening gloves will help with broken glass as well as anything you don't want your skin to come into contact with. If you find a needle, make sure it does not make skin contact with you and dispose of it safely in a hard container so it won't puncture anything like a bin bag and cause injury and potentially disease. I take my reacher with me to CITOs. I half use it to grab caches I can't physically reach and half use it handling litter during CITOs. Great tool - every cacher should have one! I got such a suspicious look from the mobility shop I bought it from though!

I spotted the tip of this one but needed a lot of help dislodging it from the beach!

Hints for Hiders

Geocaching is very much what you make of it. If you like long treks out in the country, great! If you want tree climbing or abseiling off bridges, you can do that too. Would rather blend in around a bus stop in a suit a tie - also thousands of caching opportunities for you! But regardless of where the caches you look for are hidden, there are still good and bad ways to hide them and I'm beginning to be able to accurately predict which ones are not going to be very good. They tend to be hastily placed and ill-thought out and make a caching experience less than delightful. I think it's quite often a case of newbie cachers who have found ten or so and can't wait to hide one. To these people, I implore you, please wait until you've found a few dozen and of differing types and locations. See what works and what impresses you. My first couple of caches were very much of the hastily placed "can't wait to join in hiding!" variety and they embarrass me to think of them. Long archived, I'm pleased to say. I am still guilty of struggling to find a decent place to hide a cache once I've come up with the concept of a puzzle or a perfect container but experience certainly helps.

Below are ten top tips for hiding that awesome new cache of yours so that we seekers will truly enjoy finding it and the favourite points will roll in:

1. Have a good hint: this means something that will actually be of use at GZ, even if it's a bit cryptic. The hint "ivy" when every single tree within a 20m radius is smothered in the stuff is NOT helpful. Anything that doesn't narrow your search down is simply frustrating. "No hint available" is often depressing when the hide is a tricky one but if you don't want to leave a hint, then fair enough!

2. Accurate coordinates: When the hint fails... refer to coordinates! Really it should be the other way around but sometimes the coordinates are so woefully bad that keeping your eyes open and looking for geoflage or consulting the hint first are better tactics. Having said that, the coordinates should be pretty much spot on for the orthodox cacher. Advice here includes using a specialised GPS device rather than a smart phone, and taking multiple readings. Have a look on Google Maps at your coordinates to make sure that they are where you expect them to be and maybe even get a friend to try the coordinates out first before publishing them. It's easy enough to change your coordinates but they must be at least 0.1 miles from all other caches or physical stages of multis. If you are hiding a puzzle or a multi cache final, the coordiantes are even more important to get right because if you need to update them, it's a lot more work to correct!

3. Use the cache attributes: The attributes on a cache page are there to help potential finders. Thankfully the latest way of creating a hide on geocaching.com now adds this in as routine rather than as an optional afterthought. Some people create pocket queries (PQs) based on attributes so if your cache is dog friendly or bike friendly, say so. If it's not available 24/7 this might also be valuable to share. Is it a cache 'n' dash (what our American friends refer to as "Park & Grabs", please use this attribute! Night cache? UV light required? Can bring a snowmobile? You can tell your finders all these things so that people can plan ahead and make the most of their caching experience.

4. A good location: This is probably the most important. Think long and hard about where you are hiding the cache. I do not like caches which don't seem to have any thought behind them and they feel like they've been thrown out of a car window. Please don't go putting caches in people's hedgerows, and even if you do have permission from the owner the likelihood is that curtain-twitching neighbours will get panicky. Don't let your cache look like a bomb. An innocent Tupperware box coated in black tape and magnetically attached to a railway bridge might seem like a good idea and a geocacher might spot the treasure a mile off but to a muggle, this is suspicious. Any cache, if found by a muggle should not cause alarm. I had to spray over a label which said "explosive" on an ammo can because that could have scared the crap out of a geocacher let alone a curious muggle! If part of your box can be left transparent, for example the bottom, then that might be a good idea.

5. Good hide and geoflage: This is linked with the previous point. It's not just about finding a good location but a good way of hiding the cache from muggle eyes. Is under rock best? Under a bridge? Piles of sticks? The point of geoflage is you want the cache to blend in with its environment. Sometimes less is more. Just use enough to hide the cache and mix it up a bit with leaves, moss, some rocks and a log or two rather than a big pile of twenty sticks. Unusual piles of neatly ordered rocks will not help your cache blend in. It'll make muggles think they've stumbled into the Blair Witch Project.

6. Parking and trailheads: Geocaching.com has the helpful option of listing additional waypoints to your listing. Obviously you need the coords for the cache itself but parking coordinates are so insanely useful for visitors who are not familiar with the area or who are coming from a distance. If you have to pay to park, please say so so we can make sure we have spare change. If the parking is a layby big enough for two cars, that might be worth mentioning before a team of cachers turn up to do a series together. Trailheads and other useful waypoints may also be greatly valued by your finders.

7. Maintenance: So you've set up a wonderful cache. But unfortunately the elements have got to it and it's waterlogged, local fauna have shifted it from its hiding place or the lid is broken. Some caching Samaritans kindly fix minor problems by adding additional paper to a full log book, for example, but as the cache owner (CO) it's your responsibility to check on your cache when the "Needs Maintenance" log is used by a finder, or just routinely in a cache's life. So don't hide caches so far away that you can't go check on them or move them if necessary. You can delegate this responsibility to a friend or family member if they live closer and are willing to check on it for you but please, when the cache has been tended to, post an "Owner Maintenance" log and re-enable the cache is necessary. If it's disabled it might not show up on everyone's PQ and reviewers will start asking you to see to your cache or they'll archive it on your behalf. Better to stay on top of your hides and respond to concerns which are expressed in your finders' logs.

8. Don't bite off more than you can chew: As an addendum to the previous point, think carefully about how many caches you can successfully manage at any one time. A lot may be low maintenance but if you have several long trails and hundreds of complicated and far-flung caches, make sure you can dedicate the time required to keeping them in good shape before your local area is just full of geolitter. If you don't want to maintain a cache any more you can offer it up for adoption by another cacher or you should archive it and free up the space for another hider. If you do  use the archive feature, you must remember to actually remove the containers as well otherwise they are nothing more than litter.

Not massively inspiring, but short and sweet in the field I guess?

9. Design your listing: A good cache listing can make a huge difference to the find. For a start it can attract people to actually want to go and find your container. It's a blank canvas for you to advertise on! Explain why you've chosen to hide a cache here. Is there a historical significance to the area? Is there a viewpoint a few feet away? Add photos, edit your text in HTML if you want to snazz it up a bit, and describe what you might find at GZ. Bear in mind that a lot of listings are first consulted out in the field and not on the home PC so put the information about the hide itself at either the top or the bottom of the listing so that it's easily found by the active geocacher.

10. Swag and trackables: Is your container big enough for swaps? The listing should be able to give an indication to potential finders by the listed size and a lot of family caching groups look for containers which are big enough for swaps as it's likely to keep the kids interested - I mean this is a real treasure hunt for them! Do not put unsuitable objects in your cache. I've found sweets which although well intentioned were never going to be suitable to be eaten and would only attract wildlife. A boiled sweet in a cache plus rainfall can equal an incredibly sticky log book. Not nice. Don't put dangerous objects in caches - I can't recall seeing any but I'm sure somewhere, someone's stuck a box of matches in one. Make sure the toys and trinkets you put in are of good enough quality that someone else might actually want to trade. And if you're encouraging trackables to lodge in your cache, make sure that it's not in a prime location for muggling because it's one thing to lose lots of McDonald's Happy Meal toys and it's another to lose someone else's token momento which has been travelling the world since 2006. You can't help it when someone else's travel bug (TB) or Geocoin gets stolen or goes AWOL, but you can play your part in minimising the risk that it will occur because your cache was not suitable.

This sounds like a long list of moaning, but seriously, apply these simple principles and you'll have a fantastic cache which people will be recommending to their friends and fellow cachers at the next event. It'll result in nice detailed logs rather than "Quick find, TFTC" and will earn you other nice comments such as "Definitely worth a favourite point!" You may even encourage other cachers to up their game or place a cache inspired by yours. Everyone's a winner!

67 miles around the Isle of Wight!

As a geocacher, I do a lot of walking on a regular basis. Doing the Cranborne Chase Circular of 100 caches was a 15 mile walk which took all day but then I was stopping every few minutes to look for caches!

I don't think I've ever walked any further than I did that day and I was exhausted by the end of it... so what was I thinking when I said "Yeah, sure!" when asked if I'd like to walk the entire coastal path of the Isle of Wight with a friend of mine? Even though we'll be breaking it up into three days, that's still over 20 miles per day, and no idea what the weather will be like! Not very good if this country's reputation and the year so far are anything to go by!

We'll be walking anticlockwise and stopping off at guest houses in Freshwater Bay and Shanklin. I don't know whether my knees and feet are going to find it a doddle or will be aching and defiant by day three, but we'll see! If I enjoy this, maybe I'll do something similar again.

Anyway, I decided that I would use this opportunity to raise money for charity too as I'm really not in the habit of doing sponsored anythings and now is a good time to start! My chosen charity is Crohn's and Colitis UK. I have the privilege of working with a fantastic team in Southampton, looking at research into treatment options, and hopefully a cure, to these really debilitating diseases. The work of the charity is phenomenal and I am proud to support them. Please have a look at my JustGiving page and, if you are willing, please also sponsor me! It'd mean a lot to me, to the charity and to sufferers. Thank you!

I'll blog again once the walk is done; I have the Monday off to recover (and sleep) so maybe then will be an opportune time to do so. :)

Paragliding in Northern Cyprus

My husband and I have recently returned from a very enjoyable and relaxing trip to Northern Cyprus, the Turkish half of the country. I'm pleased to say that I managed to get some caches out there but that's not - for once - what this blog entry is going to be about.

We were staying at a very nice villa which had an array of leaflets about local activities. I had intended to go horse riding or mountain biking - hobbies I enjoy back in the UK - but the leaflets I had been expecting to see weren't there and rather than try to track down the companies on their websites, I had a better perusal of what leaflets were there.

Paragliding has never been something that takes my fancy but after reading the leaflet, I had to admit it sounded pretty good. Before I knew it I was checking out their website for further details (www.highlineparagliding.com) and made arrangements to fly tandem two days later! It wasn't exactly cheap (270 Turkish Lira - about £70) but it was worth every penny!

I met with Angela and Ozgur, husband and wife team, down in Kyrenia Harbour and then went with them in their all-terrain vehicle up into the mountains to the take-off point at 2500ft. Ozgur, a qualified and experienced pilot, got me kitted out with all the necessary equipment including spare parachute which he's never needed to use! He explained all I needed to know and before I knew it we were waiting for the wind to be favourable. All I then needed to do was run down a gentle slope at the top of the mountain and keep running until my feet no longer touched the ground. We were then flying! Ozgur was a very capable pilot and had camera equipment with him to get plenty of photos and videos whilst up there and the views were stunning. You could even see as far as Turkey! As we came in, Ozgur asked if I'd like a little trick of his where he spirals in and before my stomach could get too worked up by this manoeuvre, we were strolling back onto terra firma!

What a fantastic experience! I just wanted to get straight back up there to do it again! Oh well, next time!