Caching al estilo español

Siempre me encanta buscar Geocaches en España, porque - no, don't worry, I won't write this post in Spanish - I may well disengage you all if I did!

So, let's start this again: I love going caching in Spain; since I started caching, we've found at least one  every time we've gone. Back then, in 2010, there were hardly any around! Just goes to show how much the times have changed... there must now be hundreds and hundreds within a two-mile radius of where we stay - and only three years have been and gone!

We always enjoy cycling up the various local paths, and so we welcomed the fact that a new linear series of caches had been published, covering a five mile stretch. Of course, we wouldn't be stupid enough to do all the caches on our doorstep in one go - so we only did a few (probably passing several    of the others) in order to save the rest until next time. If you're a real cacheaholic, then you must be thinking I'm crazy passing caches and not looking for them - what if they're archived come next year? Good point, I'll just have to hope that they're not! In all seriousness, though, perhaps the main reason for not doing them all in one go was the heat - the area was going through a particularly warm patch, and so we concluded that it wouldn't be wise to push ourselves too far.

Caches feel so much more rugged in Spain, if you know what I mean. It's as if they haven't caught up with the containers we tend to use here, for there are hardly any film canisters in sight, and most caches seem to be of a larger size. Of the four we found along this stretch of the route, there was one sneaky hide (which we chuckled at!) and the rest were generous regulars! Plus, you won't see a lizard if you turn over a rock here in the UK either - in Spain, we did see a couple in this scenario, makes caching feel a bit more exotic!

~

Our next caching trip, an early morning stroll along the beach, wasn't quite as successful and enjoyable. Gosh, there are some REALLY HARD caches in Spain!!! Of the eleven we attempted, we found one. Yes, ONE. Possibly the most unsuccessful day caching ever, for anyone, let alone for someone with nearly 1500 finds. In my defence, the caches were in a very high-muggle area. There were people all over the beach, even this early in the morning and there were people sat outside the restaurants and hotels which back on to the beach... as you can guess, it was, therefore, very stressful trying to find caches in between all this, the only possibility for their placement were palm trees, but their trunks were smooth-as-paper each time, no hidey-holes to be found. I've no idea where all these caches were or if they had been muggled, perhaps they were all archived after I loaded the PQ: but then why did we find one of them? It's all a mystery, and not the caching I enjoy, so next year I'll make sure to hit the trail each time, rather than the beach, when it comes to caching!

Hasta el año que viene,
Griff Grof

A MEGA day caching

Ah, and so it's that time of year again - the day of the annual UK roving Mega Event. And this year it's visiting the West Midlands; I felt this event was close to me. Not only did we have a fund-raising raffle for the the Mega at our CacheWalker event, but I had got very familiar with the names of the committee and supporters, through the (now gone) West Midlands Regional Forum. My expectations were high, and I was looking forward to putting these faces to names. Walk Tall invited me to attend with him; he even hinted that we may be able to squeeze some caching in during the day (well, no one wants to be sat in a venue cramped with people all day, do they?!)

We did literally pop in to the venue to register, chat to friends from home and look around the stalls -  then we were off caching - hurrah! Walk Tall wanted to take part in the CITO, and rightly so (I enjoy them!) We moved with the crowd, collecting whatever rubbish we could find as we reached the village of Gaydon. Gloves off, it was time to have a go at the new Wherigo - it was quite confusing, as the cartridge wasn't really working on our GPS, but thankfully there were others who weren't in the same situation who could help get us back on track: with this, the cache was now found not much later.

There was an icon challenge - 11 in 11 - going on throughout the day, but we had no interest in this having achieved it at the Geolympix last year. But we were starting to collect quite a few icons! Three so far, and a fourth as we bagged a Multi, and a fifth as we found the standard traditional once we teamed up with some other cachers to complete part of a Marrow Bone - sorry, that's MARROW BONE - series.

The part we did was quite enjoyable, nothing outstanding, but good caching. The hills to our left, (where they held a Kite event on Monday) looked nice, I expect there are great views from up there! Don't get me wrong, though, just like the Ottmore series, the scenery was lovely and alive, this was especially noticeable under the sun. What I love about Mega events is the fact that there are so many cachers about - we must have passed nearly a hundred throughout the day by this point!

With a pleasant walk over in good company, and all caches bagged, it was time to grab our sixth icon - an Unknown. And finally, we completed another quick walk which had two more 'In Honour of...' caches (these were published on the day, one for each past UK Mega; we found a couple whilst on the series earlier.) We bumped in to even more familiar faces here, and put some more to names. Then it was back to the Heritage Motor Centre to watch the closing ceremony; I cannot wait until Ayrshire next year, it'll be fab! (that's if I can make it: Scotland is a long drive away!)

I'm sorry for no photos again, didn't take any!

Griff Grof