Another years caching over... 2012 in review

What a year 2012 has been for caching! Unlike 2011, it hasn't really had any major downs - apart from not finding much caches in the second half - but instead has seen a rise in the quality of caches, and I've surprisingly managed to break ALL my previously set records. You're in the right place as I'll be reviewing my years caching in detail, looking back to the past, and the future as another years caching begins tomorrow. It's surprising how quickly time does fly, and this year was no exception!

The year kicked off with some ABFTN caches, which were very clever. We then embarked on several trails in Wiltshire, before Wrighty invited me to an event with him on January 15th - never before would I have imagined the local caching celebrity, Wrighty, to invite me caching - it was an honour! We went caching in the area beforehand, and generally had a great day.

I went with him again in February where we completed the QBS series, before summiting White Horse Hill and going onto the Cold War Cache, which I can announce is my cache of the year! This was where my new rule of quality over quantity began taking play - one simple cache could represent hundreds!

This month was also the start of a long and fun journey, as I attended the CacheWalker Butcher Bash event, having helped out with some of the activities. I launched a new forum as admin for CacheWalker on February, and introduced all sorts of new ideas such as Weekly Polls. The forum was the start of a journey for me with CacheWalker, as I ended up co-organising the next two CacheWalker events after that, which was an honour to play such a part in a caching groups of what was originally my local caching celebrities!

March and April saw me break whole new records. In March I finally logged my 1000th find, Topofthehill, after a super day - it was my main goal of the year, and it was already achieved on a very worthy cache. April saw me break an even bigger record, which wasn't even a goal, originally! I found 156 caches throughout the month, which I felt was a huge achievement. Plus, by this time, my series 'Snowshill Scramble' was receiving very positive reviews, and I enjoyed checking over it on my first maintenance run. I also checked over my resoundingly popular (somehow) Westcote Wander and got each and every cache back into tip-top condition.

The summer truly was a festival for Geocaching, as the Geolympix branded it as. After a quieter month in June having missed out on the CacheWalker climb up Snowdon, July brought more records and highlights for the year. I attended the Geolympix Mega event, on the very day that I managed to bag 11 icons in 11 hours. Then two days later, I broke my record for most in one day, with the Geolympix Mega Ring, bagging 65 caches in a day! The summer continued with some caching Spanish-style, and then in September it ended with a rather wet CacheWalker picnic event!

In October, I remembered I had set myself another goal to find 100 more Geocaches by my fave cache hider Wrighty. So, we set off to do one of his most talked about series' "Many Steps" which was wonderful, and one of my highlights. Caching then took a slow down until Twixmas, as things got busy elsewhere in life (in other words... 'taxi's' were booked! Haha!)

And, of course, the years caching concluded in true CacheWalker style yesterday at the Twixmas Bash.  A perfect end to a good years caching.

So how did I do? Well I didn't find 100 more Wrighty caches, so that's one for next year! But I did beat my best in 1 year, one of my original goals, hitting 510 caches for the year. I also managed to reach my last original goal - to find my 1000th cache. So overall a successful year of caching for me, the best yet.

What does 2013 hold? Will I spur on to 2000 finds? Will I find 200 more caches by Wrighty? No goals set yet, just going to go with the flow and enjoy whatever the caching world has in store for me next year.

Happy new Year to all!

Griff Grof

CacheWalker Twixmas Bash 2012

Power to the CacheWalker | 8 caches | 5 miles | Guiting Power 

Hello!

Yesterday was a superb day! It was the CacheWalker Twixmas Bash 2012, which we'd been organising since mid-September!

We met up outside the venue in the village of Guiting Power, The Farmers Arms, at 09:00 for a 09:15 set off for the pre-event group walk. I was already spotting some familiar faces, and checking people off as I saw them, so that the pub knew who was here for food. I went to give the landlady the list, and when I came back out everyone had already set off! We quickly caught up with them, and were well underway on the group walk!

The group walk was planned and set by Wrighty (How lucky can we be?!) and it took us along tracks that I love but hadn't been on for years - it was like walking along memory lane! The caches were all great, and I even got joint-FTF on one of the caches - my second, and undoubtedly last for 2012!

The walk and caches were all great, the walk took us along some beautiful woodland, over river valleys, right on top of hills with far reaching views, and also some pretty Cotswold villages like Kineton. 

Talked to a lot of people on the walk, there must have been at least 40 of us, and everyone was friendly as useful, and having just as good a time on the group walk as I was. 

The walk really was a special one, and made the event even better than it would have been otherwise. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the CacheWalker company, with the series finishing with a large ammo can, in true Wrighty style.  Highly recommended 

Once we arrived back in Guiting Power, it was back to The Farmers Arms for the main event. It was a HUGE success with everything going to plan in the end... nearly 60 people were booked in to eat! 

Food was enjoyed, as was Wrighty's quiz, and before too long it was time to announce the winners of the CWSBC 2012 and the CacheWalker Forum Awards. I was honoured to be crowned the winner of CWSBC at 949 miles, and also the CacheWalker Forum Member of the Year! Congratulations to all the other winners, and to walkingwood for winning the quiz. Secret Santa was fun, too, with everyone getting a fun gift at the end. 

The company at the event was superb too, and it was great to catch up with bikermel76, who made it to the event! Everyone was lovely, and I enjoyed talking to several people and putting faces to names too. The younger cachers also had a great time playing skittles! 

Overal the event was AMAZING! One of my 2012 caching highlights... talking about my caching in 2012, you better check back here later for "2012 in review" - a must read, plus the announcement of my cache of the year. 

Griff Grof

Many Steps Through Old Times

Many Steps Through Old Times, 5 caches, 8 miles, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire 

Hello!

It's been a while! Got a bit bored of caching, so took a break, and now knowing that I won't be able to go again until just before Christmas, I decided to spend this crisp, cold sunny day on one of the best walks I've ever done. Quality ALWAYS surpasses quantity, and this super Wrighty series is a fine example.

The series gets it's name for reason - on the walk you pass a castle, the ruins of a watermill, the old Cotswold way, and best of all the remains of a roman villa! Not only that, but along the way there were stunning views! The whole loop is spread out over a variation of terrain; from fields, to tracks, to woodland, to lanes - it has it all! I highly recommend the series, and below I am going to take you through it in more detail!

The walk begins in the ancient Cotswold market town of Winchcombe. We set off with the sun beaming, along the old Cotswold Way - paths were quite boggy/muddy, but we managed to walk along them alright. Cache #1 took us up a slight slope, giving us lovely views over the valley and across to the hills beyond. Amazing, and just like all Wrighty caches, this one was a well-stocked, dry one!

There was a gap of just under a mile to #2. The path took us further up hill, revealing absolutely amazing views! We took advantage of this by taking plenty of photos, before walking even further up, along, and then back down at a left turn. It was amazing walking down into the views around is - these were REAL 180 degree views! 

As we arrived at the second cache, we were greeted by the sound of trickling water. It was a right turn into some woodland where we discovered an old water hatch, and the remains of old cottages! We loved how Wrighty took advantage of these to hide the cache - very clever - and it was here that the deducted this as one of the best days caching ever! Loved the water hatch, seeming to be doing okay. Took more photos, then it was back out and onto the path to #3! 

It was along a byway, then up a lane to the next cache! Once we reached the top of the gently sloping hill we were yet again rewarded with cracking views - we could see where we were earlier from here! I promptly found the cache, and was reminded that where we were going next was the most special cache of all - the one everyone talks about "at the ruins of an abandoned Roman villa". It was onwards, and downwards to this cache, awaiting to see what these ruins would be like. 

After slipping and sliding down the muddy path through the woods, we arrived at GZ. There, we spotted a little roof cover over a part of the floor. The floor was covered, with a black sheet of plastic, with stones on top (to stop the wind blowing it away). We carefully removed the cover, and were amazed to discover the mosaic! Amazing, brilliant - one of those "We'd never have come here if it wasn't for caching" moments! 

The cache was found quickly after gently replacing the cover on it. We took a look around the rest of the ruins after, too, very interesting!! By now we'd both decided that we must come back and do this walk with other family members, it being so wonderful and interesting at the same time! 

It was then off to the fifth and final cache, to our disappointment - one of those ones you never want to end! The paths as we left the villa ruins were still just as slippery as they were as the walked down into the woods. Must be all that wet weather, I have to say we were very lucky with the weather today! 

As we approached #5, I recognised the tree the GPS was pointing to. In fact, for those of you who don't know, this was the inaugural CacheWalker group walk - it was on this walk that Wrighty himself, Mrs Wrighty, JimJinks, bikermel76 and Schnarff came up with the concept of CacheWalker! I had seen photos of them all sitting at the base of the oak, which does remarkably form a bench as it meets the ground, and so I sat down on it and had my photo taken to recreate the photo from the day it all started. 

It was finding the cache that was the next problem, though! So many places to look, but after having a break to have our lunch, we unearthed the nice, big, well-stoked final cache, entering us into the "Hall of Fame"! Sad to have finished all the caches, but still had to walk back to Winchcombe! 

As we began to do so, more and more walkers seemed to appear from the blue, as we were approaching a castle - yes, a castle - Sudely Castle! With the views on our left, and the striking castle on our right, it was the perfect end to a perfect walk! 

As I said before, the entire series is a little gem! It is truly wonderful, each cache is at an interesting/fascinating location, there are jaw-dropping views, variation in terrain - EVERYTHING! To sum the series up in two words? Simply Superb! A worthy walk for my first since September! 

Griff Grof

Happy fifth birthday, CacheWalker!!

Hello,

Today was CacheWalker day - and my first event (with help from the rest of the CacheWalker group). Overall, I would say the day was a success, despite the horrendous weather! It was organised to celebrate our CacheWalker group turning five years old! Five years ago (next Sunday) the first group walk took place, and here we are five years later celebrating CacheWalker's success with cachers old and new, from near and far. The idea of holding an event to celebrate came about in February, and if we had gone with our original plan, today would have been very different. But I'm glad we decided to hold the event up on Dovers Hill instead, and I think it's fair to say that everyone would agree.

Arrived a little earlier to set everything up, to the most horrible rain - it was bitter, cold and windy. Set up the event GZ under a large chestnut tree, within a cluster of trees for shelter. Loads of cachers arrived throughout the two hours (yep, we cut the event short due to the weather) there must have been 35 people in total! I had thought most people wouldn't even turn up having seen the horrid weather when they woke up. I had fun talking to everyone, and collecting presents for the "Secret birthday presents" handing out at the end. I had made a wonderful A3 Birthday card for CacheWalker as the logbook, but by the end of the event it had sadly become soggy mush.

We had hidden five new caches over five icons (to celebrate five years) and so I set off with walktall to find some of them (that I didn't hide), by tarmacjohn. Fab caches in fab spots, I have to come back on a clearer day, but they were fab (though micro, which disappointed a bit!) Got back to the event to find nearly everyone had left, but Wrighty soon informed us that everyone had returned to the car park to have their picnics in the shelter of their cars, and to draw the raffle. We all made our way over there, drew the raffle, handed out the secret birthday presents and said our final farewells. We all also laughed at how this was the first CacheWalker event where it had rained, I guess these spells break after five years!

Overall, despite the worst weather in months, and the fact that we were all wet within 10 minutes, I still think the event was a huge success - nearly 40 people turned up, laughed, smiled and joined in the birthday fun and celebrations - just the fact that all those people still arrived shows how much people cared enough to come and give CacheWalker a happy fifth birthday!! I had a great day, and I think everyone else did too! Thank you all for coming - next up is Twixmas - back to the (dry) pub events with pre-event group walks, 30th December, location TBA.

Happy Fifth Birthday CacheWalker, and here's to the next five years! I'm honoured to have organised an event to celebrate this, and honoured to be a part of CacheWalker for the last two years!

 Griff Grof

Lloret Ring

Lloret Ring, 32 caches, 8 miles, Lloret De Mar, Catalunya, Spain

Hola,

Back from a great holiday in Spain now, so time to write up on the only Geocaching series we had time to do :)

It was August 18th, an important day for us cachers - International Geocaching Day 2012. Even though it was unimaginably hot, we decided to celebrate in Spanish style, hiking in the forested mountains surrounding Lloret de Mar, about four towns south from where we were staying. Woke up bright and early to yet another warm, but this time very foggy day. The Lloret Ring seemed do-able in the heat, so it became the main focus of the day.

From the start, it was clear that most of the caches were going to be micros. But that didn't really matter, because the first few were quite well hidden. The walk was nothing short of excellent from start to end; there were some very steep hills/mountains to hike up at the start, with views of Lloret, the sea and surrounding hills and forests emerging behind us. Every cache was placed in a nice viewpoint, or by an interesting structure.. there were quite a few odd stone structures on the route - including a traditional cottage, abandoned but in perfect condition, a pillar which seemed like the "Devils Chimney" near Cheltenham, UK, and even a church - all remote within these forested mountains! I loved how there were all these interesting things to see, along with lots of hills to keep us moving in the first half of the loop. International Geocaching Day was going fantastically. 

My uncle, "el fantasma", was keen to join us on the series. We'd done a few caches with him when we last came to Spain in 2010, but a whole walk with lots of them was a completely new experience for him. He liked the way the micros were hidden too, I think quite a lot of thought and effort had gone into them. However, a few had been VANDALISED! : Lids missing, logs missing - I had no lids with me, but I did have logs so we signed those and placed them in the caches which didn't have one, meaning we could still claim those finds. My favourite of the day involved a little bit of tree climbing, too :D.

Although most of the series took you along broad sandy paths within mountain woodland, I still thought the route had a good variation in terrain, particularly on the way back down (second half, no longer hiking up mountains ;) ) I enjoyed admiring the views as we made our way back down, too.

Another thing I loved about the series was how remote we were. No civilisation to be seen, our elevation was quite high - we were really within what seemed like endless woodland, lots of different trees and nature to be seen, one of the trees we saw more frequently in these forests was Cork Oak - cut for making corks for bottles. I was also surprised on how big the ants were in Spain!

Unfortunately, as we were nearing the end of the series and walk/hike we were running out of water, and were also running tight on time. It was now midday, so the sun was at its highest point, and we didn't want to push ourselves... we only searched briefly for the last nine or so caches, and most of them resulted in DNFs (can you really blame us?) and we skipped #31 and #32 altogether to get back to car quicker... well, we did, and we enjoyed a nice, cool drink in a nearby restaurant to round off a very enjoyable morning celebrating International Geocaching Day, and getting the all-important souvenir - I missed getting it last year! 

A cracking hike and series, I recommend it if you're ever in the Costa Brava/Lloret area. Definitely a days caching that I will remember for a long time! Back in the UK now too, and the next CacheWalker event has been published - 23rd September, Dovers Hill in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire. Click here for more, and log your WILL ATTEND now - GC3N6X0 

Griff Grof

Geolympix Cyclerama

Geolympix Cyclerama , 27 caches, 13 miles, Thame, Oxfordshire

Hello,

Well - today was interesting! Or should I say pathetic? 31 caches attempted and more than 10 DNFs! The temperature was 30 degrees c, and we had a long way to ride (6.5 miles each way, it's a Linear series) and, being far from home again, we concluded that we didn't have much time to dilly dally. And we gave up on many; the whole trail was packed with muggles - and we looked silly starting and stopping every 500 metres! The thing that most annoys me is that for the Bonus, when we arrived at GZ I dismissed it, and moved on. Now looking at the pictures in the gallery, I found out we were indeed in the right place. I dismissed it because the listing said "In a forest" - there were four or five trees, in one line!

I didn't bother with #25 and #1 - what in the world is a "blue WO"???? That wasn't a good start to the series, then at #2 another DNF - I moved on quickly after seeing all the litter - I didn't really want to bother searching within litter and who knows what else! This happened a few more times in the series - I skipped about four others due to large amounts of litter. After #2 things got better and we were out of Thame and into the countryside. But there were many more DNFs to follow due to muggles. They were all over the place.

There were some nice spots on the route; with good views over to the Chiltern Hills; reminding us of the rest of our Geolympix glory a few weeks back; accomplishing 11 icons in 11 hours and most of the marathon series. We were glad to be able to complete (in distance, not caches ;) ) the cycle series too - so now we feel we've had a bit of everything the Geolympix had to offer.

Caches were, to be honest, quite boring. Micro after micro. I think you could have fitted a couple of smalls and maybe regulars on there; I do see the bonus and bonus bonus are of that size - but it would have been nice to have more - and more sneaky containers to keep you on your toes.

The  route itself was enjoyable and there were some interesting sculptures and seats to have a rest on. We decided not to bother trying again with the DNFs on the return route; and to just enjoy the ride. Overall a good route, in a lovely area, but not sure the quality of the caches were as high as they should be. We still enjoyed it a lot though, and recommend it for a family day out for caching. 

Of course this was my replacement for not being able to make the Mega tomorrow - instead I might be able to grab a few caches in Devon, then we're off to Spain on holiday where I might be able to bag a couple more. 

I'll post back as soon as I think I have enough to tell you about. 

Griff Grof

A not-so Mega Weekend

Hello! 

Still not found a cache since all the Geolympix days; but hopefully setting out to that area again tomorrow to do the Cycling series. And then on Saturday we'll be off to Devon for the weekend due to some unforeseen issues... I know what you're thinking! 

Yes, Mega 2012 is on Saturday. Unfortunately, I will now be unable to attend due to these issues. You can't imagine how upset I am that we'll no longer be able to make it; so many cachers I was looking forward to catching up with in Cartmel. Apologies if you were hoping to meet me too, but there's always next year - www.mega2013.co.uk which, thankfully, is a LOT closer to home! However, it would have been a good long weekend up in the lakes doing some "proper" caching and camping too. But I guess that wasn't meant t be; I might be able to bag one or to not-so Mega caches while down in Devon. It's just all a matter of the dates crashing; to be honest I have no idea why Mega 2012 was scheduled so late in August; all UK Megas were previously late July/early August. Oh well. 

So, I wish everyone a safe trip to Cartmel; and a very enjoyable Mega weekend; mine will somewhat be not so Mega. See you all next year if not before; and congrats to the organisers of Mega 2012 - the whole event programme and Mega looks outstanding and simply superb; for what is promised to be the BIGGEST UK Mega to date! 

Griff Grof