Delta68's Caching Year in Review - 2014

Oldest Cache in Spain - Montserrat GC2D4

A Happy New Year to everyone!

This brings us to the end of yet another action packed year of caching.

We started the year wondering what to aim for as we had already completed as much as we could with regards to statistics grids.  Plans soon started to fall into place and we ended up doing more travelling this year than in previous years.

Leuven, Belgium

Here are some of the trips we did:

April - Belgium, Netherlands, Germany
May - Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, Germany
May - Belgium
June - Portugal
July - Cornwall
July - Isle of Man
July/August - Scotland
August - Germany (Munich Giga)
October - Spain - Andorra

Here's a very quick summary of achievements for this year and a few pics:

New furthest cache found:  1105 Miles, The End of the World [Sagres] GC12CRJ Portugal

New most westerly: Weathering Heights - DP/EC17 GC1CEF9 Portugal

New most southerly: CAIS COMERCIAL GC53B5R Portugal

New highest:  Säntis der berg Switzerland

Once again we concentrated on 'rare' caches and in 2014 we found:

175 Wherigos
17 Webcams
23 Virtuals
85 Lab Caches
11 CITO events
9 Mega Events
and 1 Giga.

Marienplatz, Munich

We also attended more CITOs, more Events and found more Unknowns and EarthCaches than in any previous year

Removing Ivy - CITO - Portugal

Two new cache types: Giga Event, Lab Caches.

Six new countries: (Switzerland, Portugal, Austria, Liechtenstein, Andorra, Isle of Man).

We hosted 3 events:

Goedenavond - Eindhoven, Netherlands

Fastyr Mie - Douglas, Isle Of Man

Bona Tarda - Andorra

So there it is, we can't wait for our next adventure.........

A Mega Weekend in Ypres

Mark had spotted The Great War Mega Event being promoted while at the Brugse Beer Mega Event last year so we had put it as a 'maybe' on the calendar, then after Christmas our plans for this year were starting to fall into place so we decided to book a weekend in Ypres so we could attend.  Initially it was just for the two of us then Beth asked if she could come along too, she was already due to take part in the Race for Life on the Sunday but managed to change this to a different location on a different day so she could still come along.  We were really pleased that Beth wanted to join us on one of our trips, she'd visited Ypres with the school a few years ago and was keen to come back to the area again.

Saturday

At 3am Saturday morning the alarm clock went off and our crazy weekend adventure started.

Our crossing on Le Shuttle was for 8.20 so we hoped to get there in time for last check-in at 7:50 - we made it in plenty of time and even managed to get an earlier crossing.

We arrived in Calais and headed straight for a boulangerie in  little town called Herzeele, where Mark had visited on his way to the the Brugge Mega event last year.  Luckily Beth speaks French which made things very easy for us as she was able to buy everything we needed for our lunch.

Then we headed straight to the Mega event which was about an hours drive.  The event was held in the grounds of a pub called De Dreve in Zonnebeke, Belgium.  The owner has had an interest in the First World War since childhood and the pub is also a museum.

We were really surprised to bump into cacher, Lima2311 who we'd met at our event in Eindhoven.  He'd travelled down to the area for the day.  We often wonder when we meet cachers far away from home whether we'll ever bump into them again.

A really well organised event, everyone was very friendly and helpful.

Fun, fun, fun!

We had purchased a roadbook with all the new caches in but unfortunately, apart from the Lab caches, we ran out of time to do them as we were keen to do the Wherigo in Poperinge which had been set for the mega event and also another Wherigo in Roselare which was on our to-do list.

Lab caches

There were five lab caches set for this mega event and they were all very well thought out.  They involved 'discovering' three of the organising team (wearing green polo shirts), selfies with three other helpers (identifiable by their orange shirts), climbing ropes to obtain a code, studying a magic eye picture to get final co-ords for an ammo box and the last one involved using a 'layar' app on a smartphone which is something we hadn't come across before - very clever!

A little bit about the wherigos:

The first one Shot at Dawn was a town trail walk around Poperinge.  During World War I Poperinge was one of only two towns in Belgium not under German occupation.  It was used to billet British troops and also provided a safe area for field hospitals.

Execution post

The wherigo followed the last days of a young Jamaican soldier who was shot for desertion.  It took you to the death cells and execution point and was a poignant and stark reminder of the horrors of war.  It also included many other points of interest around the town.

We had no idea how long it would take us when we set off but in the end it was quite a long walk around the town, some of the stages were quite far apart and it took us a good couple of hours to complete but well worth it.

The next wherigo was:

alles of niets

This means 'all or nothing' well it very nearly was nothing, on several occasions.  The cartridge was completely in Dutch but was only 1.5 difficulty so just how difficult could it be?

The wherigo was a straightforward walk from zone to zone answering a question at each zone, some of the zones were more difficult than others as we tried to get the gist of what was being asked and a wrong answer meant backtracking to the previous zone.  We had been working our way through the stages for about an hour when we hit upon what seemed an impossible question, well we understood the question but just couldn't find the answer.  We had to find the number of the house where two 'kabouters' lived.  We fathomed that it meant gnomes but after walking up and down the road we couldn't see any and thought maybe they'd moved out.  A man was working on a car outside one of the houses, he had been watching us intently so Mark thought we ought to explain what we were looking for and maybe he could help.  It seemed that Dutch wasn't his strong point so he went and fetched his neighbour who also didn't understand Dutch  very well and neither of them knew what 'kabouters' meant. They couldn't speak English or German either but could speak French! - it just so happens that we had someone who could speak French as well - by this point Beth had disappeared around the corner as she could see what was about to happen, I manage to 'encourage' her to come back and speak to them as it would be good practice.

Within moments they were deep in conversation about 'little men with pointed hats' and our new friends then smiled and started laughing when they realised what we were looking for and turned round in the direction of said gnomes and then we all spotted them - UP ON THE ROOF!  Even though we now had the information we wanted they still carried on chattering away in French to Beth about something they had seen on the internet about people stealing gnomes and thought that maybe we were collecting gnomes, luckily Beth managed to reassure them that we only needed to look at them ..... you had to be there, it was hilarous.  We thought then that maybe this was the last stage but there were a few more tricky translations to get through and then a timed zone to run at the end!  But we did actually find the final and very rewarding it was too.

We arrived at our B&B a bit later than planned and the owner said he didn't think we were going to turn up, what we hadn't realised was that we were the only guests and that the B&B actually only had one guest room.  The owner was very friendly and helpful and we'd highly recommend it as a base to stay for the area.   We definitely hope to return in the future.

Basketcase Crew, Dadu13, Delta68 and Pegz

Sunday morning we got up bright and early ready to attend the CITO .  We arrived and met up with caching friends Basketcase Crew and Dadu13.  The CITO was also slighly unusual in that there was a choice of 3 areas to work with 3 separate finishing/collection points.  We all chose to head back to the one at Ypres so we could explore the town picking up litter as we went.  This was a really great idea. 

We definitely needed more time in Ypres itself as there was so much to see but we did find time to visit the Menin Gate Memorial to the missing which was extremely moving and poignant.  

We had to meet at 1pm for a group photo to be taken by the organisers and for the litter to be taken away.  

Then we went our separate ways and we headed off to do the Steenstraete cycle series which was a completely bike friendly series of 23 caches plus a bonus.  This was a lovely flat cycle ride along good cycle roads, all caches were very clever hides but all very easy to spot by the trained eye.  The route was very popular with other cyclists and is situated near a really good cycle friendly cafe, Steenstraete Eetkaffee where we stopped for a well earned cuppa at the end.

We were so lucky with the weather too, the sun shone the whole weekend.

Our crossing was for 8.20pm at Calais but we'd stopped to photograph poppy fields on the way so were 10 mins late, which probably would've been OK but there were long queues at check-in due to it being the end of the school holidays, we had to wait 1½ hours for the next available crossing.  Arriving home at 12:20am - Wheesh!!

Road Trip to Germany

Back in April 2013 Mark asked if I'd like to go to the Bruges Mega Event but as he was only going for the day I decided to give it a miss and he went on his own.  When he got home we agreed that we'd both go this year and make it into a holiday.  As the weeks went on, plans started to fall into place and then Mark suggested we could go to Germany after the Mega event as there was a great looking  wherigo series in Göttingen which was inspired by the Cornish wherigo series we did last May ...... Hold on a minute! Germany? That's quite a long drive from Bruges!

So here is a very succinct account of our trip.  Check out our profile for all the caches we found and the wherigos we played, I've only detailed the highlights and any funny stories as to list everything would get a bit boring to read and take far too long, also I've tried not to give any spoilers away:

EAT, SLEEP, CACHE, REPEAT......EAT, SLEEP, CACHE.......

We have been planning this epic trip for months and at last the time has come to set off on our crazy adventure.  Our destination is Göttingen in Germany to do the Farbenspiel Wherigo trail.  On the way we'll be attending the Bruges mega event, visiting the beautiful and historic city of Bruges, hosting our own event in Best near Eindhoven, Holland and finding as many wherigos and webcams as possible along the way as we travel through Belgium, Holland and Germany.

We love the challenge of learning other languages in preparation for caching trips.  Mark can speak fairly good German and mine is, let's say, conversational holiday standard - so we brushed up on a bit of Dutch beforehand and realised that a lot of Dutch words are pretty similar to German - the rest the smartphone app will hopefully be able to handle.

We made up our minds when on holiday last year that we'd concentrate on doing less common cache types, such as wherigos, webcams and virtuals as when you visit an area they are generally in more interesting locations than the nearest power trail.  So this holiday we decided to concentrate on mainly wherigos and web cams.

The pic above is our B and B, right in the centre of Bruges and was perfect for exploring the city.  The owner was a lovely lady,  really warm and friendly, she asked us we'd like breakfast around 10 and we asked if we could have it earlier (we are cachers we don't do Sunday lie-ins) she answered 'how early?' 'Erm.... Is 8 ok?' We didn't dare ask for earlier as it seemed a bit cheeky.  She was a little surprised that we didn't want a lie-in on a Sunday and said she'd get up earlier.  I felt really bad but she was so lovely and didn't seem to mind.  Incidentally Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson stayed in the same B and B in 2007 whilst filming the movie 'In Bruges' and there was a photo of him and the landlady in the guest book.

Brugse Beer IV Mega Event



Enjoyed mingling and meeting other cachers. It was good to meet the organisers of the UK Mega 2015.

and also Zuurtsje who originally placed the BP's Brownsea Island cache in 2001 which we found in August 2012.

Discovered lots of trackables, chatted to lots of other cachers, bought a nice shiny new geocoin then it was time do the next leg of our journey.

Next stop.... Eindhoven, Holland

This doesn't look too far on the map but obviously we didn't go the direct route so instead via Utrecht some way to the North.  Unfortunately one of the wherigos we'd planned to do had been archived a few weeks ago so we decided to attempt another one which looked a bit daunting as it was completely in Dutch and looked like it might be quite involved.

This wherigo was extremely challenging, mainly because our Dutch is very limited and we had to keep stopping to translate any words we couldn't understand.  Just when we thought we had reached the final stage we were told to stop and enjoy a coffee, the information made it sound as though this was where the final location for the cache was, we had a look around the grounds of the cafe but wouldn't see anything so went inside, ordered a coffee, translated as best we could the information but still we couldn't understand where we were supposed to look so Mark decided that the waiter must know where the geocache was hidden as the cartridge mentioned the co's relative worked there but he replied that he only had 'normal cash', we asked if he knew the person mentioned in the wherigo and even showed him the photo and he said he didn't, we even showed him another hint picture which he didn't recognise either, by this point I think he was getting ready to call security so we decided to beat a hasty retreat.

So we got back on our bikes, scratched our heads a bit more and then I spotted the hint item that was in the picture further down the road, it was nothing to do with the cafe after all, doh!  The final was brilliant and we were really pleased to find it even though we were close to giving up at times.

Goedavend event

When we are away from home, especially in another country we love meeting other cachers but it's not often you get to just bump into people in such a short space of time.  Last year we decided it would be good fun to host our own event to meet up with local cachers and we held a very successful event in Hungary.  We thought we'd continue the theme from last year and find a prominent landmark statue to gather at.

After a bit of research Mark found a 50ft statue of Michael Jackson in the car park of a Mcdonalds, we're not particularly big fans of Michael's but thought the location would be ideal for a short 'meet and greet' event.  The Maccys is the first of its kind we have been to and was all done out in 50s diner style complete with Wurlitzer juke box, life-sized Marilyn Monroe and Chevrolet Corvette hanging from the ceiling!

We were a bit surprised at how many will attends came in as soon as it was published and not sure how many would turn up on the night but there were 40+ names in the log book so an excellent turnout.  We had so much fun, everyone was so friendly and once again, as a Dutch cacher once said to us back in 2010 when we were in Belgium 'we all speak the common language of geocaching', my favourite geocaching quote, it's so true and you always have something to talk about.

Cache Hopper

After chatting to as many cachers as we could, including Cache Hopper who has found at least one cache every day since Feb 2008 and the setter of the Speeltuin Wherigo that we'd had great fun playing earlier in the day and exchanging and discovering trackables it was time for us to go back to our hotel as we're off to Germany tomorrow.

GERMANY

Arrived at Göttingen in the dark and the rain after an 'exciting' 313 mile drive from Eindhoven, great fun blasting along the autobahns but not so much fun when it's raining!

Farbenspiel wherigos

This series of wherigos was the main reason for our trip, we first spotted them about a year ago and noticed how many favourite points they had and that they were also doable by bike.

 The questions at each stage were all in German but we managed to translate enough to understand what we had to do.  Apart from one stage, we'd completely misinterpreted what we had to do next and spent ages looking for the cache only to realise we were just at a 'via punkt' and was placed to show what path to take next.

The location was beautiful and we saw loads of red squirrels and lots of unusual birds.  Thoroughly enjoyed the series.

Later in the evening we enjoyed a bike ride back to the area to do an earthcache.

We'd originally planned to stay 3 nights in Göttingen but decided to check out a day early and stop a night south of Bonn to break up the journey back to Leuven in Belgium.

After doing some of the local caches we headed off to do the Picture Postcard from Cologne webcam, it took us ages to find somewhere to park and had to go around the ring roads quite a few times before we could make Tom Tom understand where we wanted to go.

The picture refreshed regularly so we were able to get a few pics.  Great fun and lovely view from the bridge.

You can just about see us standing on the bridge

Then as we had about 30 mins left on our parking ticket we headed off to find a nearby traditional that has had  2696 finds since 2007 and met caching team Katunde who were already searching.

BELGIUM

Arrived at our B and B in Leuven.

We'd visited Leuven back in 2010, after a day out in Brussels while on a family holiday at Erpeheide Centerparcs but didn't really have much time to explore so it was great to come back and have a proper look around.  The

Leuven Anders wherigo was perfect for seeing the sights (English version available).

So then we'd reached the end of our trip and it was time to head to Calais to the Eurotunnel.

TRIP SUMMARY:

Miles travelled: 1752
Nights away: 8
Hotels stayed in: 6
Countries visited: 4
Wherigos completed: 47
Webcam photos taken: 6
Mega Events attended: 1
Events hosted/attended: 1
Cakes eaten: lost count
Max speed on autobahn: erm... not saying


Hope you've enjoyed reading our blog.