Home

ok - So it has been a really busy but great summer. I have not been updating the blog here for some time but I hope to get back to it! Here are some geo-highlights from the summer…

• We had our first “muggle” experience - that’s right - someone snagged on of our caches. We were able to replace the container with a slightly smaller one and moved it a couple of feet away.
• We had to archive one of our caches as the tree it was hidden in was chopped down - right to the ground - gonzo! We were able to retrieve the cache as it was just tossed down the bank of a hill. We are still trying to decide what to do there.
• We took our annual trip up to the family cottage and made a trek out to a fabulous cache very near our cottage. We attempted this cache last year but got messed up with some technology issues Everything went fine this year though! I will try to post some pictures here later as it was a beautiful spot on a quiet lake - awesome!
• My wife surprised me with a trip to Prince Edward Island (PEI) - Canada’s smallest province. We went there right after the cottage and enjoyed some great time away from the kids. We were able to do a good number of caches on the island which brought us to some amazing places and some amazing views!

Well I hope to get into some more details about our adventures - but for now that’s the update!

“Even Hamilton police explosives experts say the device looked like a homemade bomb from a distance.” — The Hamilton Spectator

Today I had a conversation with a fellow local cacher (The Mighty Canadian Juicepig) about some caches in our area that are either too easy or in spots that may not be appropriate. He send me a link to a recent article that may give even better reasons to place caches with more thought.

This article from the Hamilton Spectator tells the story of a Hamilton cache being mistaken for a home-made bomb. The Explosive Devices Unit of the Hamilton Police used a robot to get close to the suspicious container and take a photograph — later discovering it was only a Geocache.

There are many things that could make a Geocache memorable to me. It might be a very creative or interesting location. It could be a difficult find that challenges your finding skills. Sometimes it is the level of stealth required in order to make the find and not look too out of place. In a recent cache it was the container that made it memorable - in fact - out right funny! I can’t divulge the actual part that made us laugh out loud - you will have to go find it yourself. I can tell you however that we will remember this cache adventure for some time. Thanks for a great laugh DRMOO!

DRMOO is a couples team that are very active cachers in our area. They have hidden some great caches that are most often very creative. When we met - Mrs. DRMOO confided with me that it was her with the ideas and Mr. DRMOO (an enginer by trade) who helps bring them to life. If you are ever in the Barrie Ontario area be sure to check out some of their great hides!

This is our first winter doing Geocaching. There are some obvious differences for us who live in the great white north (also known as Canada) - there is snow. With snow come snow tracks - footprints that sometimes can lead directly to the cache. This can be an advantage for the finder or possibly boring - the snow hints sometimes make it just too easy.

I have seen it a lot in the logs of our caches recently:

GC17K55: Nice little winter geo-trail to follow! - So grateful for large footprints in the snow!

GC17Q5J: It looks like somebody shoveled a path to the cache…

GC16Z1T: Must have been there a few min after Avanar, I followed the tracks in the snow.

While snow-caching can be easier in some ways - hiding a cache that is winter friendly might pose a few challenge. I posted a question in some local Geocaching forums to get some good hints on hiding winter-friendly caches. This is what I learned:

Read more

We have been really enjoying Geocaching since we started in June. Lately we have been getting into the other half of the game - the hide!

Our first attempts went really smooth - they were published quickly - people seemed to find them easy enough and we had some great reviews about our placements and our write-ups. We didn’t have a single DNF (did not find) yet at all! Well - that was the first five hides anyway…

Read more