Thursday, December 30, 2010
My first 10 hides
After some months running around (mostly on my trusty bike) I started to be interested in placing my own caches. At the same time the oldest physical cache I had found (GC7168 In Between) was needing maintenance, with the log book wet. The cache was found exactly on the day one month after starting, a bit late if you consider the closeness to home, but I thought it was pity that this almost-10 years old cache would degenerate. I contacted Anton Ymer and asked about it. I suggested adopting the cache, as I thought I could do a better job and also to get practice as a cache maintainer. "Fine... ", said Anton, "... and you can take Becquerel as well". Ok, said I and thought of the old proverb, "Think of what you ask as you can get your wish come true". So, that is the reason I own two caches that I have logged, but the logging was done before I adopted them...
With two trads under the belt it was time to go for the next category; why not a mystery? Influenced by mystery fanatics like tor_selden and jacob8h (see entry on Kvarn event) as well as the Summer mystery series by Team Fetchez La Cache I do enjoy mysteries, but I think that they are often to hard. So why not make a mystery series with mostely easier caches? Another good reason to make caches is to use you love and knowledge in other areas. In my case the most natural one was games! Something I have loved since I was a little boy. For example, the first money I earned (by selling Kvällsposten news papers at the doors, don't remember if I had had my 10th birthday yet) was spent on a board game of Risk (Alga's version).
The plan is to continue with the series, and I have ideas to at least double the number. They seem to be appreciated judging by the logs, although I need to improve the hiding spot for one or two of them after the winter ends.
Of course, you can not only put out caches in series, so I added a solitaire one as well, GC2GY6A A Canticle for Leibowitz, which was once more based in an interest I love, namely SF- and Fantasy.
With the mysteries under the belt I turned my attention to multis. I love good multis, more than most it seems. They often give extra knowledge of an area or place, although they can take some time. Doing good multies is a hard task, but I think I did quite nicely with my complementary Garnisonen cache GC2GY5K Minnesstenar på Garnisonen which was just outside my door... It shows interesting memorial stones from the previous military installations there. I would love to have included Livgrenadjärmässen but did not know how. Instead I recommend to visit that place with a good guide, preferably an old officer.
With two trads under the belt it was time to go for the next category; why not a mystery? Influenced by mystery fanatics like tor_selden and jacob8h (see entry on Kvarn event) as well as the Summer mystery series by Team Fetchez La Cache I do enjoy mysteries, but I think that they are often to hard. So why not make a mystery series with mostely easier caches? Another good reason to make caches is to use you love and knowledge in other areas. In my case the most natural one was games! Something I have loved since I was a little boy. For example, the first money I earned (by selling Kvällsposten news papers at the doors, don't remember if I had had my 10th birthday yet) was spent on a board game of Risk (Alga's version).
The mysteries with a game theme can be found in this bookmark list. Of these alla the first 5 are games I have spent loads of time on, especially #1, which I spent 30 years to become a grand m
Of course, you can not only put out caches in series, so I added a solitaire one as well, GC2GY6A A Canticle for Leibowitz, which was once more based in an interest I love, namely SF- and Fantasy.
With the mysteries under the belt I turned my attention to multis. I love good multis, more than most it seems. They often give extra knowledge of an area or place, although they can take some time. Doing good multies is a hard task, but I think I did quite nicely with my complementary Garnisonen cache GC2GY5K Minnesstenar på Garnisonen which was just outside my door... It shows interesting memorial stones from the previous military installations there. I would love to have included Livgrenadjärmässen but did not know how. Instead I recommend to visit that place with a good guide, preferably an old officer.
| Doing good traditionals requires a good place, an interesting building or story, or something similar. Just throwing micros around is just good for the statistics. In my case I had a nice place with a good scenery not very far from the city center. As it is placed just outside the Tinnerö area it is rather unknown. I also choose to place a rather large box to make it suitable as a TB Hotel but the place is not that good at winter... so I might have to reconsider that in the future. The future? My plan is to reach at least 25 hides during 2011. I have even already acquired the 25 Hide geoCoin.... Here is a list of some of my ideas for 2011:
|
GeoCaching in Egypt
As my girl friend an me had not been abroad since September 2003 (in Turkey, during our second day there we was notified that Anna Lind had been attacked, and later died), so it was high time to take a charter trip somewhere. The main reason for the non-tripping was that we bought an appartment in Hagaberg, Linköping, September 2004, but now we decided to go for it.
Our choice was for Egypt in November, Hurghada. We do like to go to warmer places and to flee the winter. As we flew Friday 12th November from Arlanda no snow had fallen yet. I wanted to go to Africa, but where? After checking the cache count in Ghana (4!) and Egypt (> 100) the latter was chosen.
We started our trip from home Thursday night, but first we had to leave our Chihuahua King to a guardian.
With that done, we could start the car trip. Leaving the car on the long time parking Benstocken we got to Terminal 5 around midnight. As the plane lifted at 7 am we had a long wait ahead. I guess I'm to old to do this so next time I will make a better planning...
Anyway, the plan lifted more or less as planned. The trip down to Egypt, over Eastern europe, was uneventful except for the fact that out of the 180 passengers a third was children! Of these a couple of babies. And one thing babies don't like is to fly; when they don't like it they make everyone aware of the fact... Gah! Thanks for the trip being quite short, just 5 hours.
In Hurghada the international airport have been growing constantely but it worked quite nicely. One interesting observation was that the security at the airport felt lower than at the town. In the town you could see police jeeps here and there with heavily armed polices watching for terrorists and other criminals. Anyway, I felt more secure in Egypt than I did in e.g. London.
After passing the controls we got out to get a transport. We had decided to go for a taxi, both to get a feel of the town and that it could be cheaper. At least we got a feel for how good we were at bargaining. The first taxi driver we contacted offered to drive of for 100 £E (about 13 €). Actually he wanted to have 20 LE extra for the car tolls, and then I paid him and only had hundreds he had only 60 LE change... So he got paid 140 LE in all. At least I learnt something and going the other way I managed to bargain for 50 LE and did not have to pay any tolls (which seemed to be 5 LE), and that driver still seemed happy. To sum it up Egypt is cheap if you can bargain.
The choice of hotel was Triton Empire Beach, an all inclusive. This was the first time for all inclusive; previously we had just went for breakfast buffet and to eat everything outside the hotel. But one of the problems with Egypt is that a big risk of attracting stomach problems, for example by handling bills of cash, so caution with food and washing hands often was recommended.
Part of the garden just after the lobby. Looks very green but actually required watering every day as it only rains 10 mm or so per year... Water used is from the Nile or desalted sea water. It is actually so that many poor drink the water from the Nile while those that can afford it by water on bottle. Although you probably have a stronger stomach if you're born in Egypt... Also, it depends on where in the Nile you take up water.
Straight ahaed is the main restaurant where breakfast, lunch and dinner buffet was served.
Going left on the previous picture and then right you came to this part, where you have the pools to the right and some of the rooms to the left. The path goes down to the beach and the sea which you can see up front.
One of the pools. The beach and the sea could be seen in the distance. We only bathed in the pools the first day when we arrived around 3 pm, otherwise we choose the beach. Temperature wise it did not matter as it was 27-28 degrees celsius regardless of choice (and 28-30 degrees in the air).
Our balcony on the bottom level. The air condition above is ours, and it was not the quite version. So during nights they where turned off so you could sleep. Night temperature was still above 20 degrees so you sweat some.
The rooms was a bit small, and only had room for two beds, and bathroom a chair with table, a refrigirator and a hall. The door in the picture is out to the balcony.
In Egypt it is rare to see women working. For example the cleaning staff was all men. But still they showed their talents. Each day we got a surprise with the fresh towels. Above is the first creation - a swan.
And the last creation was two love birds... We actually brought these birds home.
The other creations were Cobras and Boat in waves.
The first couple of days we spent relaxing, learning how it worked, and doing some business. One standing point was people going around offering experiences, trips, etc. The beach area was part of the hotel, and part of a gated area, so the sales persons was approved by the hotel. One of the trips was to go snorkling and to visit Giftun. Great, I thought! Both to go on a snorkling trip again and also as Giftun is one of the Earth Caches; GC2EGK8. So we decided to make the trip. Other trips you could make was desert trips or day trips to Luxor or Kairo. As Luxor was 350 km away and Kairo 500 km we decided not to. (The ones going to Kairo started at 3 am in the morning and got back 11 pm in the evening.)
Besides Luxor and Kairo the best to do in Egypt is to dive or snorkle in the Red Sea. Highly recommended. There are a lot of coral reefs, even close to our hotel beach. The Egypts protects their reefs.
The monday trip to Giftun I wrote a log entry for: My Giftun log
I do highly recommend doing that trip if you have the chance. Also it has a Scuba attribute so it is good for your statistics ;-)
After the full day it was time to relax again. But for the next day I decided to go out caching on my own. Before going to Egypt I had loaded the GPS with caches there. Unfourtunatly not any map as I still have not managed to get any memory extension for this; the ones I have tried has been wrong.
One thing to think about when it comes to caches is Egypt is that the distances can be quite large, and walking in near desert conditions is an effort. I started out towards the nearest one (Hurghada Sunrise) as it was only 6 km away. Hah! If you'd been a bird that is. After about 2 km walking I instead choose another taxi that agreed to drive me in that direction for just 20 LE. (He was happy so I guess I paid to much, again.) The taxi driver was a bit confunded when I wanted to be dropped of at this place; a couple of sandy hills between the old town and the new town. He even warned me that the military had used that place before as artillery exercise... and that the police guarded the radio station that was the target. But I persisted. So he changed tactics and offered to wait for me 10 minutes. Sure, I said, but as it took 20 minutes to get this cache (climbing sandy hills is difficult) he was not there when I got back.
The hide was not difficult when you got up on the hill. The view from the hide spot was spectacular, although I did not go there during Sunrise.
The box contained quite a lot of TBs, among them one TB that had as a mission to get back to Sweden. Alas, I did not bring my smart phone so I could not check the mission and left the TBs as is.
(One of the two hotel cats.)
After the Sunrise cache I started to walk towards the next one, El Shamseya. This was in a gated hotel area, so you had to get into that area. But this was not a problem if you looked like a tourist.
The cache and the area confirmed my feeling that it was quite a few Germans at these parts. My hotell had no germans but instead a lot of East Europeans, mainly Russians. The Russians behave as they own the world, still not used to the new freedom. While the Scandinavians and Dutch (the other larger groups at the hotel) are more low key.
Time to go back the hotel. This time I choose to go with the local bus, a cheap and interesting, and more authentic, way of travelling around.'
Authentic Egyptian (!) Fodka (!). Did not see any reindeers but at least one camel...
The All Inclusive included drinks, with a choice of soft drinks, local beer or local booze. Alas, no wine. The last night (Thursday) we went out for dinner and tested some local Wine; I think you can skip that.. So I actually choose beer, which is exceptional as I almost never drink beer. Even though the easy access to alchohol (10 am - 9 pm, every day) I did not see any problems with drunks, although the Russian did live up to their reputation.
The ordering line at the beach "pub", that also served (to the right) snacks, pizza slices, etc during afternoon.
Thursday was our last full day in Egypt so I decided to make another caching trip; this time to El Gouna which is a less than 20 year old tourist resort about 20 km north of Hurghada. To get there I used one of the coaches, in my case the Orange line. This costed just 5 LE one way while a taxi would cost something like 100 LE.
Caches I logged there were:
I walked around El Gouna which took some time. Should have used the TucTucs that were present there.
El Gouna was a strange experience; I did not feel at home at all here. Felt very un-authentic... More like Palm Springs or Florida than Egypt.
Also the security was very high; the bus was searched both going in and out of the El Gouna gated area. Everybody (but me - I looked very touristic) had to show identification.
The trip to El Gouna and back in all took about 6 hours so my fiance was not pleased... But she had spent the day together with a couple from Southern Sweden we met at the beach.
The next day it was time to go back; the trip was uneventful and soon we were back to the Swedish winter.
The temperature was 30 degrees lower outside, so my choice of sandals and short was not the best, but I actually thought the subzero temperature was nice after the hot Egyptian weather.
Going back to Linköping 1 am, after a stop in Stockholm to visit family, we decided to fetch King the next day.
To summarize my trip I managed 6 finds, amongh them my #300, and my long distance statistics looks quite nice (3752 km). Caching in these part of Africa takes some effort as it is both hot and long distance, so car is recommended. Also, remember that the number of caches is low in most part of Africa.
So where will the next trip go? Good question. I would like to top my long distance (which means Australia or New Zealand) but that will have to wait to the future.
Our choice was for Egypt in November, Hurghada. We do like to go to warmer places and to flee the winter. As we flew Friday 12th November from Arlanda no snow had fallen yet. I wanted to go to Africa, but where? After checking the cache count in Ghana (4!) and Egypt (> 100) the latter was chosen.
We started our trip from home Thursday night, but first we had to leave our Chihuahua King to a guardian.
Anyway, the plan lifted more or less as planned. The trip down to Egypt, over Eastern europe, was uneventful except for the fact that out of the 180 passengers a third was children! Of these a couple of babies. And one thing babies don't like is to fly; when they don't like it they make everyone aware of the fact... Gah! Thanks for the trip being quite short, just 5 hours.
In Hurghada the international airport have been growing constantely but it worked quite nicely. One interesting observation was that the security at the airport felt lower than at the town. In the town you could see police jeeps here and there with heavily armed polices watching for terrorists and other criminals. Anyway, I felt more secure in Egypt than I did in e.g. London.
Straight ahaed is the main restaurant where breakfast, lunch and dinner buffet was served.
The other creations were Cobras and Boat in waves.
The first couple of days we spent relaxing, learning how it worked, and doing some business. One standing point was people going around offering experiences, trips, etc. The beach area was part of the hotel, and part of a gated area, so the sales persons was approved by the hotel. One of the trips was to go snorkling and to visit Giftun. Great, I thought! Both to go on a snorkling trip again and also as Giftun is one of the Earth Caches; GC2EGK8. So we decided to make the trip. Other trips you could make was desert trips or day trips to Luxor or Kairo. As Luxor was 350 km away and Kairo 500 km we decided not to. (The ones going to Kairo started at 3 am in the morning and got back 11 pm in the evening.)
Besides Luxor and Kairo the best to do in Egypt is to dive or snorkle in the Red Sea. Highly recommended. There are a lot of coral reefs, even close to our hotel beach. The Egypts protects their reefs.
The monday trip to Giftun I wrote a log entry for: My Giftun log
I do highly recommend doing that trip if you have the chance. Also it has a Scuba attribute so it is good for your statistics ;-)
After the full day it was time to relax again. But for the next day I decided to go out caching on my own. Before going to Egypt I had loaded the GPS with caches there. Unfourtunatly not any map as I still have not managed to get any memory extension for this; the ones I have tried has been wrong.
One thing to think about when it comes to caches is Egypt is that the distances can be quite large, and walking in near desert conditions is an effort. I started out towards the nearest one (Hurghada Sunrise) as it was only 6 km away. Hah! If you'd been a bird that is. After about 2 km walking I instead choose another taxi that agreed to drive me in that direction for just 20 LE. (He was happy so I guess I paid to much, again.) The taxi driver was a bit confunded when I wanted to be dropped of at this place; a couple of sandy hills between the old town and the new town. He even warned me that the military had used that place before as artillery exercise... and that the police guarded the radio station that was the target. But I persisted. So he changed tactics and offered to wait for me 10 minutes. Sure, I said, but as it took 20 minutes to get this cache (climbing sandy hills is difficult) he was not there when I got back.
The hide was not difficult when you got up on the hill. The view from the hide spot was spectacular, although I did not go there during Sunrise.
The box contained quite a lot of TBs, among them one TB that had as a mission to get back to Sweden. Alas, I did not bring my smart phone so I could not check the mission and left the TBs as is.
(One of the two hotel cats.)
After the Sunrise cache I started to walk towards the next one, El Shamseya. This was in a gated hotel area, so you had to get into that area. But this was not a problem if you looked like a tourist.
The cache and the area confirmed my feeling that it was quite a few Germans at these parts. My hotell had no germans but instead a lot of East Europeans, mainly Russians. The Russians behave as they own the world, still not used to the new freedom. While the Scandinavians and Dutch (the other larger groups at the hotel) are more low key.
Time to go back the hotel. This time I choose to go with the local bus, a cheap and interesting, and more authentic, way of travelling around.'
The All Inclusive included drinks, with a choice of soft drinks, local beer or local booze. Alas, no wine. The last night (Thursday) we went out for dinner and tested some local Wine; I think you can skip that.. So I actually choose beer, which is exceptional as I almost never drink beer. Even though the easy access to alchohol (10 am - 9 pm, every day) I did not see any problems with drunks, although the Russian did live up to their reputation.
Thursday was our last full day in Egypt so I decided to make another caching trip; this time to El Gouna which is a less than 20 year old tourist resort about 20 km north of Hurghada. To get there I used one of the coaches, in my case the Orange line. This costed just 5 LE one way while a taxi would cost something like 100 LE.
Caches I logged there were:
I walked around El Gouna which took some time. Should have used the TucTucs that were present there.
El Gouna was a strange experience; I did not feel at home at all here. Felt very un-authentic... More like Palm Springs or Florida than Egypt.
Also the security was very high; the bus was searched both going in and out of the El Gouna gated area. Everybody (but me - I looked very touristic) had to show identification.
The trip to El Gouna and back in all took about 6 hours so my fiance was not pleased... But she had spent the day together with a couple from Southern Sweden we met at the beach.
The next day it was time to go back; the trip was uneventful and soon we were back to the Swedish winter.
Going back to Linköping 1 am, after a stop in Stockholm to visit family, we decided to fetch King the next day.
To summarize my trip I managed 6 finds, amongh them my #300, and my long distance statistics looks quite nice (3752 km). Caching in these part of Africa takes some effort as it is both hot and long distance, so car is recommended. Also, remember that the number of caches is low in most part of Africa.
So where will the next trip go? Good question. I would like to top my long distance (which means Australia or New Zealand) but that will have to wait to the future.
Kvarn Event i närheten av Rökstenen
I had only been to small event (Sommarmysteriet 2010) so I decided it was time for some real caching during an event and I choose to visit the Kvarn Event September 25th 2010 near the "Röksten" outside Ödeshög. To increase my experience I decided to go for a real GPS and choose the Garmin eTrex Legend HCx as a complement to my HTC Desire. But I just ordered it the week before and had not had time to test it live.
As I realized that going there by bus or train might not a good idea I managed to get a lift with tor_selden and jakob8h. When we arrived to the event it was time to get ready.
The weather during the event was perfect for caching, especially in the terrain we were up against. The time of year also ment that mosqitous was not a problem. Perfect!
At the event I also met Höögarna with their geoDog Sigge.
Sigge really loves to get out into the terrain (even snow) and hunt for caches. I actually met with Höögarna and Sigge during another event in Katrineholm in December but more about that another time.
The whole familly of Smokestoners had prepared for a fun event, with 24 caches placed in the shape of a board of the Kvarn game, with 1100 meters between the sides. The choice had been for position before suitability of location so we experienced quite a lot of different terrain. I recommend you to try these 24 caches, but avoid it during winter...
The plan was to go out in the terrain, so I joined Tor and Jakob in their car. As they were much more experienced they had suitable clothes and foot wear. I have after this acquired sturdy working pants (similar to the ones in the picture) and suitable boots but at this time I used normal pants and rubber boots. (Actually, rubber boots is a good choice for these caches.) In the car Tor and Jakob had all sorts of equipment, with several GPSs, multi-chargers for the car, laptops, webcams, etc. GeoCaching can really be a high tech hobby at times.
So it was time to go out chasing caches, which in total became 19 as part of the event (including event itself and one mystery).
We choice to head for a good starting point (#6) and managed to get 6 straight FTFs, by crossing swamps by foot, driving along forrest roads etc. I was happy as I had had no FTFs before this event!
After #6 we got to #13 Petra (Rubber boots!), #17 Tyr, #18 Bjarka, #14 Eoh and #15 Algiz. Strange names. Of these #14 Eoh is really the only intersting log by me; the suggestion of a good mushroom place could maybe be something? After #15 we started to run into gangs of other cachers so we stopped our FTF race and started to log next in line. Which in our case was #22 Ing which was a large rain barrel filled with beer bottles... So we got our prizes. I brought that prize back home and my girlfrind got it...
The next cache of interest was #21 Lagu, which was a 3/5. By using a fallen tree it was possible to get to the cache. Only one of us three needed to make the climb so it is good to do this as a group. After this we decided that it was time for a food break and to solve the event mystery. Once more, a group effort made the day. At the next cache (#24 Dagaz) Tor managed to leave his cell phone... Luckily he had not muted it so backtrack with another phone made it possible to find it. The remaining caches I have no special recollection of. But eventually we got back to the event site in time for the final. Also Mum Smokestoner sold warm Goulash that was delicious.
In all a great event which was much enjoyed by all I think. I do recommend y'all to go to the next event here in May 2011. Stay tuned!
After the event I joined Tor and Jakob for a hunt for more caches nearby. They had a couple of mysteries they had solved and also we found a minor "power trail" in the forrest (maybe remains from some older event?) that we cached. Östergötland is a fine region to go around, mix of terrain. The most memorable cache is probably Syllerstorpett-två-tre, a site I have passed many times without realizing what it was hiding. (Or rather, the E4 motorway passes close to it, but to get to the spot you to use small roads.)
Eventually I got home. After saying goodbye to Jakob and Tor I decided I should get one more... Why not a multi (Let's play) which had been bothering me. This time I managed to solve it.
So, at last back home, after a total of 37 finds. Record (by far) for me so far. I will try to make 50 someday, and I am interested to make a try for the magic 300 some time in the future. But more than that, no. Of course there is always someone who wants the record but those kind of numbers are ridicolous; I don't think I would manage even if I had them in a great pile on the floor in front of me...
As I realized that going there by bus or train might not a good idea I managed to get a lift with tor_selden and jakob8h. When we arrived to the event it was time to get ready.
 | ||
| At the registration. jacob8h bending down to get something from his rucksack - tor_selden in the front is ready |
At the event I also met Höögarna with their geoDog Sigge.
 |
| Sigge, the geoDog |
Sigge really loves to get out into the terrain (even snow) and hunt for caches. I actually met with Höögarna and Sigge during another event in Katrineholm in December but more about that another time.
The whole familly of Smokestoners had prepared for a fun event, with 24 caches placed in the shape of a board of the Kvarn game, with 1100 meters between the sides. The choice had been for position before suitability of location so we experienced quite a lot of different terrain. I recommend you to try these 24 caches, but avoid it during winter...
 |
| Ready to go, Tor in red and Jakob in blue |
So it was time to go out chasing caches, which in total became 19 as part of the event (including event itself and one mystery).
We choice to head for a good starting point (#6) and managed to get 6 straight FTFs, by crossing swamps by foot, driving along forrest roads etc. I was happy as I had had no FTFs before this event!
After #6 we got to #13 Petra (Rubber boots!), #17 Tyr, #18 Bjarka, #14 Eoh and #15 Algiz. Strange names. Of these #14 Eoh is really the only intersting log by me; the suggestion of a good mushroom place could maybe be something? After #15 we started to run into gangs of other cachers so we stopped our FTF race and started to log next in line. Which in our case was #22 Ing which was a large rain barrel filled with beer bottles... So we got our prizes. I brought that prize back home and my girlfrind got it...
 |
| Dad Smokestoner giving directions at the start, surronded by mum Smokestone and their children (pebbles). |
 |
| Happy and tired cachers at the final |
After the event I joined Tor and Jakob for a hunt for more caches nearby. They had a couple of mysteries they had solved and also we found a minor "power trail" in the forrest (maybe remains from some older event?) that we cached. Östergötland is a fine region to go around, mix of terrain. The most memorable cache is probably Syllerstorpett-två-tre, a site I have passed many times without realizing what it was hiding. (Or rather, the E4 motorway passes close to it, but to get to the spot you to use small roads.)
Eventually I got home. After saying goodbye to Jakob and Tor I decided I should get one more... Why not a multi (Let's play) which had been bothering me. This time I managed to solve it.
So, at last back home, after a total of 37 finds. Record (by far) for me so far. I will try to make 50 someday, and I am interested to make a try for the magic 300 some time in the future. But more than that, no. Of course there is always someone who wants the record but those kind of numbers are ridicolous; I don't think I would manage even if I had them in a great pile on the floor in front of me...
Summer mysteries in Linköping
The Summer Mysteries was my first encounter with a mystery series. I think Knappsats might have been the first one I noticed. That one buggered me a lot and it took two months to solve. But I struggled with all the rest and when the final event took place only Knappsats remained.
The problems I had with these mysteries triggered me to make mysteries of my own, easier ones. More on that in another posting.
The mystery hiders TeamFetchezLaCache (Robert and Johanna) was very active that summer, and also have hosted several smaller events. It is good that there are some local activity so that one get to know the people behind the aliases. Also gives good reason to enlarge the friend list.
The problems I had with these mysteries triggered me to make mysteries of my own, easier ones. More on that in another posting.
The mystery hiders TeamFetchezLaCache (Robert and Johanna) was very active that summer, and also have hosted several smaller events. It is good that there are some local activity so that one get to know the people behind the aliases. Also gives good reason to enlarge the friend list.
Presentation of LHCper
Welcome to Blogger.
Thanks.
How come you started to blog?
I met with The Explorist during a cache collecting walk after Mellandagscaching i Katrineholm 2010 and he spoke nicely about his blog, so I thought I should try.
You have chosen to use English. Why?
The main reason is that I published a fanzine between 1989 and 1999 (Lepanto 4-ever) which was published in English, and I want to continue that tradition. And the main reason for that choice was to build bridges between hobbies abroad. Therefor I also write most of my geoCaching logs in English.
How come you started with GeoCaching?
Just before my vacation started July 2010 I met with an old fried (Krister), his wife (Åsa), children and brother-in-law (Stefan) at a restaurant in Ryd, Linköping. Åsa mentioned that she had started geoCaching and had 20 finds around Indianapolis where they live. I had also received a new smart phone (HTC Desire) at work two months earlier which had a GPS. These two things got me started and I spent most of my vacation that summer geoCaching, reaching 200 finds after 7 weeks.
You seem to enjoy the hobby?
Yes. It fits my interest fine as well as giving my a good opportunity to get out in the nature as well as a goal on any travel. One of the reasons I started was also to get exercise during the summer, as a complement to the "Jympa" I usually do during the rest of the year. I have managed to loose somewhere around 6 kg since I started and put myself on a stable, lower, level.
Besides this, I am one of those that like to have goal, and like statistics. So I put up goals for the future. That can be seen in my previous hobbies. For example after playing Bridge for quite a few years I set up the goal to collect enough "master points" to become Grand Master and I reached this goals after 30 years! So long term goals is not a problem. Or rather, I have a problem if I don't have any goals....
But of course the main reason is to have fun. GeoCaching has that aspect, as well as meeting lots of happy people during events, so I like it a lot.
What do you prefer when it comes to hides? Are you a mystery guy like everyone else?
Not really. Of course I like great caches like everyone else, but I do seems to have some inclination towards good Multis. They often show interesting places in a good way.
Many of the most active cachers seem to be into extreme sports, and enjoying hunting for Terrain 5:s. Not so in my case. I think I am to cowardic to climb mountains, crawl dungeons or to dive in the ocean.... Maybe if I have started this hobby 25 years ago? I do enjoy difficulties but 3/3 is probably enough for me.
One of your TBs is a (manual) bike. How do you travel?
Most of the caches I have found so far I have taken within a 20 km radius of Linköping. For these I have used my feets and my bike as the main transportation.
When I go to other places I usually go by bus or train, but a few time I have used car or even airplane, to get to a location. I think my ideal choice would use a car or a van, with a bike on tow. Actually the familly possess a car (a Toyota Prius '03) but I let my fiance drive as it is a bit too small for me. And she does not like geoCaching at all... so I go on my own.
Actually a car is more or less mandatory when you have combed the area near where you live. It is too much effort to get larger number of finds otherwise. So maybe I will get a (geo)car of my own in the future. But at the same time I do not really enjoy cars which I think is bad for the environment. So maybe an electric bike could be something? The car problem was also the reason I stopped playing golf (not that I ever was much of a golfer anyway).
What are your goals for the future?
For long term I would like to find caches in all continents (except Antartica...), and in at least 10 European countries.
In the short term (2011) my goals are:
Thanks.
How come you started to blog?
I met with The Explorist during a cache collecting walk after Mellandagscaching i Katrineholm 2010 and he spoke nicely about his blog, so I thought I should try.
You have chosen to use English. Why?
The main reason is that I published a fanzine between 1989 and 1999 (Lepanto 4-ever) which was published in English, and I want to continue that tradition. And the main reason for that choice was to build bridges between hobbies abroad. Therefor I also write most of my geoCaching logs in English.
How come you started with GeoCaching?
Just before my vacation started July 2010 I met with an old fried (Krister), his wife (Åsa), children and brother-in-law (Stefan) at a restaurant in Ryd, Linköping. Åsa mentioned that she had started geoCaching and had 20 finds around Indianapolis where they live. I had also received a new smart phone (HTC Desire) at work two months earlier which had a GPS. These two things got me started and I spent most of my vacation that summer geoCaching, reaching 200 finds after 7 weeks.
You seem to enjoy the hobby?
Yes. It fits my interest fine as well as giving my a good opportunity to get out in the nature as well as a goal on any travel. One of the reasons I started was also to get exercise during the summer, as a complement to the "Jympa" I usually do during the rest of the year. I have managed to loose somewhere around 6 kg since I started and put myself on a stable, lower, level.
Besides this, I am one of those that like to have goal, and like statistics. So I put up goals for the future. That can be seen in my previous hobbies. For example after playing Bridge for quite a few years I set up the goal to collect enough "master points" to become Grand Master and I reached this goals after 30 years! So long term goals is not a problem. Or rather, I have a problem if I don't have any goals....
But of course the main reason is to have fun. GeoCaching has that aspect, as well as meeting lots of happy people during events, so I like it a lot.
What do you prefer when it comes to hides? Are you a mystery guy like everyone else?
Not really. Of course I like great caches like everyone else, but I do seems to have some inclination towards good Multis. They often show interesting places in a good way.
Many of the most active cachers seem to be into extreme sports, and enjoying hunting for Terrain 5:s. Not so in my case. I think I am to cowardic to climb mountains, crawl dungeons or to dive in the ocean.... Maybe if I have started this hobby 25 years ago? I do enjoy difficulties but 3/3 is probably enough for me.
One of your TBs is a (manual) bike. How do you travel?
Most of the caches I have found so far I have taken within a 20 km radius of Linköping. For these I have used my feets and my bike as the main transportation.
When I go to other places I usually go by bus or train, but a few time I have used car or even airplane, to get to a location. I think my ideal choice would use a car or a van, with a bike on tow. Actually the familly possess a car (a Toyota Prius '03) but I let my fiance drive as it is a bit too small for me. And she does not like geoCaching at all... so I go on my own.
Actually a car is more or less mandatory when you have combed the area near where you live. It is too much effort to get larger number of finds otherwise. So maybe I will get a (geo)car of my own in the future. But at the same time I do not really enjoy cars which I think is bad for the environment. So maybe an electric bike could be something? The car problem was also the reason I stopped playing golf (not that I ever was much of a golfer anyway).
What are your goals for the future?
For long term I would like to find caches in all continents (except Antartica...), and in at least 10 European countries.
In the short term (2011) my goals are:
- Today I have 340 finds. I expect to reach a total of 500 finds during Spring 2011, and I hope to reach a total of 1000 finds at end of year 2011.
- At least 2 Mega Events during 2011.
- Today I have logged in 2 countries (Sweden and Egypt). I hope to have logged in at least 3 more countries during 2011.
- Currently my hide count in 11 but this Summer I should reach 25.
- I will continue to add easier mysteries in my Games people play and expect to add a traditional series similar to Östgötapendeln.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)