Day 229: Something New

Today we completed nine caches on International Geocaching Day.

International Geocaching Day is celebrated around the world on the third Saturday of August. This year International Geocaching Day also falls on the 17th day of 31 Days of Geocaching. Congratulations! By earning this souvenir, you have joined tens of thousands of geocachers in a global adventure.

As I was saying, today we completed nine geocaches, seven of them for a challenge. Theses challenge style caches are becoming ever more popular and they add a different element to the game. This particular one requested that a cacher find seven caches covering all seven different container types (like most things in the geocaching world, containers have a set range).

1. Large – GC4B120, Lost Cachers in Billy Woods.
2. Regular – GC4HK5N, KYS# Newmarket Stickoflage Driveby.
3. Small – GC4HK51, KYS# Big Boulder layby.
4. Micro – GC4HK3K, KYS# Lay-by Tree.
5. Other – GC4HK4E, KYS# Chevron Corner.
6. Not Chosen – GC3HK42, KYS#By The Motorway.
7. Virtual – GC9922, When???

There are a few things to explain about the above list. KYS stands for Keep Your Streak – the 31 days of caching is difficult if there are no new caches in your immediate area, so a few colleagues have clubbed together to place quite a few easy ones to be found and keep your streak going! The not chosen container means it could be literally anything, same as other really. The virtual caches are caches that aren’t actually there… these usually involve a small task, to prove that you visited the location, such as identifying a date on a plaque or monument. This one was a plaque about the Battle of Towton in 1461.

The new thing mentioned in the title was the first cache in the list – Lost Cachers in Billy Woods. This was a Wherigo cache. This involves downloading a special app and information. At the location you needed to load the app and following the directions. When each of the eight locations had been visited, you had the details to find the cache. The twist was that each new location wasn’t known until you had visited the previous one. A cool little thing – you had to be inside a certain radius of the part  required before that trigger was activated. I love technology, me.

The other two caches were the 7 cache container challenge and another of the KYS ones.

This really helps the advancement towards 1000 as we are now on 933 and our average is now around 4.7 needed each day.

Related articles

• 31 Days of Geocaching
• 31 Days of Geocaching.
• Happy International Geocaching Day!