A Sensible Life

Caching at Coffs, and a milestone

2010-04-01T21:39:00.004+11:00

We recently had a very nice holiday on the northern coast of New South Wales at Coffs Harbour. The weather was perfect, and Shoes Junior had a great time in the pool and at the beach. He loved going down the waterslides.

During our time away we managed to find two more caches (Rotary Lookout above Bellinger River and Rest at Repton). We had a bookmark list of about 35 caches that were in Coffs Harbour or on our way, but we'll have to save them for next time.

The milestone that occurred was that Shoes Junior found his 50th cache (Rest at Repton). Not bad for a 16 month old. He still doesn't really understand what this whole geocaching caper is all about, but it will be more fun once he does.

We're hoping to be able to go on a cache-a-thon on Easter Monday. Our current most finds in a day is 11, and that was before Shoes Junior came along. It would be nice to beat this, but it will be tricky.

We're still around!

2010-01-31T20:46:00.002+11:00

It's been quite a while since our last post, but we've been pretty busy and haven't had any spare time to update the blog. We'll try and summarise the last seven months in this post.

We mentioned in our last post that we were off to the South Coast for a holiday, and we had a lovely time down there. Of course we did some caching, which included our first EarthCache. Our find count increased by ten, and these were the ones we found:

We managed to reach a milestone since our last post - our 150th cache. It was one of three that we found during a walk around Bicentennial Park. A very pleasant way to spend a day.

For our wedding anniversary, we returned to the city and went on a little cache-a-thon. We managed to find five out of five for the day. They were:

Another nemesis has been crossed off our list. El Guarda has been found! Mr S took his sister (a recent convert to geocaching) for a bit of local caching. El Guarda was the first stop for the morning. While we were there a fellow cacher by the name of jkcourtz joined the hunt, and made the find. It feels good to have taken another cache off our to-do list.

Meanwhile, Shoes Junior has accompanied us on our caching trips, and is closing in on 50 finds. His pram has served us well by providing cover while we search. We'll hopefully be at a local event in a couple of weeks, so more people can discover his Travel Bug.

We've now got one less active cache, as we had to archive Weekend at McBurney's. It was attached to a slippery-dip in a park near our house. The local council deemed the slippery-dip unsafe, and had it blocked off for several months, so we removed the cache and disabled it. Eventually the slippery-dip was replaced, but it was plastic and didn't have any metal supports, so our magnetic nano was useless. We're on the hunt for another spot to place it.

In March we're heading north to Coffs Harbour for a family holiday. There's a pretty good chance that some caching will be done as part of the trip. Hopefully we'll update the blog before then.

Mother's Day caching

2009-05-11T21:56:00.002+10:00

After having a nice breakfast at a local cafe, we headed off to do some Mother's Day caching. We picked four local caches, two of which were in a park which we didn't know much about. With the weather looking a bit threatening, we wanted to be able to get back to the car in a hurry if we needed to, and these caches all had parking close by.

It was a successful trip, with a 100% success rate. Shoes Junior enjoyed the whole trip, but was really happy at Tennis Anyone?. We're lucky that he enjoys being outside in the fresh air.

After getting on a bit of a caching roll recently, we're hoping that we'll get to 200 finds by the end of the year. We've got a four-day trip to the South Coast next month, so hopefully we can grab a few caches while we're away. There's also a chance that we'll be going to New Zealand in October, so we might have the chance to add to our international caches.

WWFM V

2009-05-11T21:36:00.003+10:00

Recently we attended the Sydney World Wide Flash Mob V (WWFM V). Ms S wasn't able to attend the fourth WWFM last year, so was quite excited to be able to attend the fifth. We got to Luna Park in plenty of time, and fed Shoes Junior while we were waiting for 10am to arrive. When we saw the blankets being spread out, we headed over and joined in. The event probably didn't have the impact it could have, because Luna Park didn't open till 11am. It was good to see quite a few cachers there being part of this world-wide phenomenon.

There are plans for another WWFM later in the year, and we'll try and be there.

Our Easter caching trip

2009-05-11T20:55:00.002+10:00

We spent a couple of days in Canberra over Easter, and managed to fit in some caching around visiting friends. There are a series of caches at some of the rest areas along the road between Sydney and Canberra. We did some of them during our last trip, and managed to find a few more this trip. There are still a couple to do during our next trip south.

One cache we were happy to find was On Target. As we said in our log, third time lucky with this one.

The main aim of the trip was to find some of the puzzle caches that Mr S had spent several weeks solving. We've only found a couple of puzzle caches, and we figured that this was a good opportunity to increase our tally. There were 27 in total that Mr S had solved, but we knew we wouldn't get to all of them. We managed to find two of them - Canberra Karst and Budgie's Science Homework. There were a couple of others that we had a quick look for but couldn't find. Mr S needs to check his solutions to those. Plenty more to keep us bust next time we're in Canberra.

We finished the trip with a total of nine finds, most of which were on the way down and home. We're lucky that Shoes Junior enjoys travelling in the car and we can combine geocaching with travel. It gives us an excuse to break up the drive and grab some caches on the way.

Another one off the to-do list

2009-04-02T11:00:00.003+11:00

On Sunday, Mr S took his sister out for her first geocaching experience. The trip didn't get off to a good start, with DNFs on the first two caches we looked for - Shape Confusion and Mr. Cache. Both of them had quite a few places to look in, and we were on a time limit. We'll try for them again.

Luckily we were able to find the third cache on our list - High Adventure. This was a DNF from last year that Ms S was adamant that Mr S wasn't to go back and look for alone. So when there was interest from Sensible Sis in going caching, this cache immediately went on the list. It was a bit of a scramble up the steep slope, and there was a bit of luck involved in the find. Mr S happened to look under a rock and spotted the container. High Adventure has the highest terrain rating of the caches that we've found so far at 3.5.

We're going to Canberra at Easter, and Mr S has been busy solving some of the puzzle caches down there. At last count he's solved 27 of them, but we don't think we'll get to all of them (not with Shoes Junior with us anyway). So far we've found two mystery caches, and we think we'll be able to add to this tally after our Canberra trip.

Canberra caching

2009-03-03T20:07:00.002+11:00

We headed down to Canberra on Saturday for a visit with friends and family. Naturally we'd planned to do some caching during our visit. Mr S had spent a few weeks solving some puzzle caches (there are quite a few of these in Canberra). We managed to grab McForest on the way down, which was where we discovered that we'd left the geobag at home. This meant that we didn't have anything to swap, so we had to include "TNLNSL" for all our finds.

We left Canberra on Sunday morning with a list of 18 caches that were along the road home. Most of them were located at the rest areas, so they were fairly easy finds. Our greatest achievement was going unintentionally paperless and finding Remembrance Driveway - Gordon. We had the co-ords loaded into the GPSr, but didn't print out the cache info, so weren't really sure what we were looking for. Luckily Ms S was on the case, and pointed Mr S in the right direction.

Our tally for the day was six, and our total of seven for the weekend brought Shoes Junior's total finds into double figures. Not bad for a fifteen week old baby. Unfortunately we didn't get to look for any of the solved puzzle caches, so they're on the list for the next time we're in Canberra.

Map of our finds

2009-01-03T19:43:00.002+11:00

After a bit of experimenting with Google Earth and Google Maps I've finally figured out how to add a map of our cache finds to the blog. It's at the top of the left-hand panel. We'll keep it updated as we increase our finds.

Our first event cache

2008-11-10T20:39:00.002+11:00

On Saturday Mr S attended our first event cache - WWFM IV Lap of Honour. Ms S wasn't able to attend due to being in hospital, but Mr S made sure there was a video of the event so she could see what she missed out on. The event was the Sydney part of the World Wide Flash Mob IV, and was one small component of the international WWFM IV organised by Sonny and Sandy from Podcacher.

It was a fun event to be part of, even though Mr S missed out on the FTF. If the next one involves running, there'll need to be some training as Mr S struggled a bit and there was a bit of huffing and puffing. It was worth it though to be part of this event, and we can now claim a find on our first event cache.

There is talk of the next WWFM in Sydney being held at the same time as the San Diego event, which would be anywhere between 3am and 5am Sydney time. We'd love to be part of it, but we'll have to see how much sleep our baby geocacher is letting us have.

Our baby geocacher's nearly here!

2008-11-10T20:16:00.004+11:00

On Friday Ms S was admitted to hospital after her obstetrician was a bit concerned about how things were progressing with her pregnancy. The opinion of our obstetrician and renal specialist is that our baby will be here sometime this week. It's a bit of a scary thought, and although 32-33 weeks is a bit early the baby's doing well so everything should be OK.

Stumped no longer

2008-10-11T22:24:00.002+11:00

We managed to remove another cache from our to-do list. Stumped... has had us, well, stumped, for a while now. We weren't able to find it when it was initially placed as a multi-cache, and Mr S had no luck trying to find it when it was converted to a traditional cache. Last weekend we went out on another mission, and made the find.

It turns out we (well, Mr S) were looking near the wrong stump. Once we saw that there was another likely hiding spot, it wasn't long before we had the cache in hand. This was our lesson in not being too focussed on the arrow on the GPSr, and stopping to look around to see if there are any other likely hiding spots nearby.

Our to-do list is shrinking, and hopefully we can cross a few more off soon.

Event caches

2008-10-02T22:11:00.003+10:00

We are still yet to attend an event cache. The first one we could have attended was C.C.C.C.C. #3 (All Rogues Day) last year, but it was on the same weekend that we moved house. Last month was the first meeting of Geocaching NSW Inc., but that fell on our wedding day. Finally, we think there's an event that we'll be able to attend - the WWFM IV event in Sydney.

After hearing Sonny and Sandy from Podcacher talk about the WWFM III event, we thought it would be fun to take part in a WWFM if there was one organised in Sydney. Ms S will be on the support crew and take some photos and video of the event, while Mr S will take part in the run. Sounds like a fun day, and we'll finally have the chance to put some faces to geocaching names.

Another milestone in our caching career

2008-10-02T21:38:00.002+10:00

After a bit of a lull in our caching activity which was caused by the fact we had to organise our wedding, we finally made another find yesterday, and it was another milestone in our caching career.

Pearce Family Plot was the first cache that we found as husband and wife. It was also memorable for the fact that we discovered the battery in our car was flat when we got back to it after finding the cache. After waiting for the NRMA Road Service, we were on our way again.

With daylight saving starting in Sydney this Sunday, we may be able to hunt some caches after work.

Sad news about our first cache placement

2008-07-31T21:17:00.004+10:00

The first cache that we placed, Sshhh! had a few DNFs recently, and those cachers that had found it had commented on the amount of litter that had been building up in the area. Mr S went for a look on Saturday, and confirmed that it had been muggled. We decided to archive it, as the area seemed to be becoming unsuitable as a cache hiding spot. We've got a cache container ready to go. All we need to do is find a suitable location for it.

Our second first to find

2008-07-31T21:02:00.004+10:00

We recently managed to snare our second FTF. It was The Sacred Order of the Stonecutters, and there was a bit of confusion whether or not we were actually there first. We think we were lucky to try this one during school holidays when some of the regular FTF-hounds were out of town.

Back in Oz

2008-07-18T17:44:00.002+10:00

With Mr S back in the country, we've managed to make a few more finds. During his week off after arriving home from the US, Mr S tried to find a couple of caches that have been bothering us for a while.

The first of these was No Trolls Here. We'd had two previous attempts at finding this one, so armed with some fresh ideas of where to look, courtesy of the logs of some of the successful finders, he hoped that our third search would prove lucky. We'd figured out that the cache was a magnetic key container, and that it was hidden near one corner of the bridge. Mr S spent some time walking slowly backwards and forwards across the bridge to try and figure out which corner was the correct one. The GPSr managed to keep pointing pretty much to one corner (with occasional variation), so the hunt began. There weren't many places to search, so it wasn't long until the cache was in hand. It felt good to finally cross that one off our list.

Inspired by his success with No Trolls Here, Mr S set off the following day to search for another of our nemesis caches, Stumped .... We'd had no luck with this one in its original location, so hoped that the new location would be easier. After searching GZ fro half an hour, though, Mr S came up empty. He thought that muggles might have discovered this one, as there was a newly-constructed BMX track next to GZ. It was a bit disappointing to log a DNF for this cache again. Turns out that the muggles hadn't been there, as the cache has been found after his unsuccessful attempt. I guess we'll have to go back!

California cachin'

2008-07-18T13:41:00.002+10:00

During late June and early July, Mr S travelled to the US to attend a conference in Anaheim. Of course there was no way he was going to let work get in the way of some geocaching. He had a few days in San Francisco before flying down to Anaheim, and was able to do some a couple of caches.

He managed to find our first virtual cache, WPArt: Lillie's Cache, as well as I met him in a swamp down in Dagobah.... Being a Star Wars fan, there was no way he was going to leave that one alone. He was able to set our Gingerbread Man geocoin free, and it didn't take for him to be moved on.

There were a couple of other caches on his list that he would have liked to have found, but the muggle factor was too high, and he doesn't like doing urban caches in Australia, let alone overseas. Ms S got into the caching spirit too, and dropped off a couple of travel bugs and coins that we'd held onto for quite a while.

It was nice to come home after adding a couple of overseas finds to our tally. If only he'd known about geocaching two years ago during his seven week holiday in the US!

Baby geocacher on board

2008-07-18T13:31:00.004+10:00

As mentioned in our previous post, we may need to reconsider our goal of reaching 250 finds by 20th May next year.

Just before we left for our trip to Port Macquarie, we found out that we're pregnant with our first child. This will probably mean no more long weekends away where we can devote ourselves to going geocaching. Now that we're over the initial shock, we're both very excited about becoming parents. Apparently prams and kids make good cover while caching, so we can't wait to take our child with us to distract the muggles.

The baby's due on 2nd January, so it will be a quiet Christmas and New Year in the Sensible household. So far everything's going well with our mini-cacher. It (we find out in a couple of weeks whether it's a boy or girl) will have a geocaching.com profile, so will be able to log the finds that it accompanies us on.

Another caching milestone

2008-07-18T13:08:00.000+10:00

Since our last post, we've reached another caching milestone. While on a trip to Port Macquarie in May, we made our 100th find. It ended up being Light-A-Tack (GCR6QN) on 5th May. We'd set ourselves the goal of getting to 100 finds before our one year cache-a-versary (May 20th), so we were happy to be able to do that. We've bought a 100 finds geocoin and will drop it in a cache once we get it engraved with "Sensible Shoes".

We managed to find nine caches on our trip (along with one DNF which was the first of many for that cache so the owner has disabled it). There were some nice spots along the way that our caching led us to. The caches that we found were:

Our goal now is to reach 250 finds by our second cache-a-versary. However, this might not be as easy as we first thought ...

Yes, we're still here!

2008-04-30T16:54:00.003+10:00

It's been a while since our last post, mainly because we've been too busy planning our wedding to go caching, and it's been too wet over the past few weeks. However we fixed that situation last weekend with a trip to Shoal Bay, in the Port Stephens region of New South Wales. We had our bookmark list of 21 caches ready to go. Ms S also figured out how to use GSAK to download the caches as an OV2 file, which she then imported into her HP PDA which includes TomTom GPS software. This saves us from entering them all manually.

The weather on Saturday was perfect for caching - sunny, but not too hot. We didn't find as many caches as we would have liked - we ended up finding ten. They were:
Taylors Beach
Pied Piper
Sailing @ The Bay
Ducks and Quackers
Corlette Head
Millionaires Row
Sitting by the Bay
Bagnals Boardwalk
Dutchies Dolphin Walk
Gardens and Views

We're off to Port Macquarie this weekend with another bookmark list ready to go. Hopefully we'll be able to find eight caches and reach our 100 finds milestone!

A significant day

2008-03-08T17:46:00.005+11:00

Last Sunday (2nd March) was a significant day for us for two reasons.

Firstly, we claimed our first ever first to find. The cache was Ted's Sports Box (GC19R86). Mr S was checking our email, and found that there were several new caches available. Ted's Sports Box was so close to home we could have almost walked there. However, we wanted to get there ASAP to try and snare that elusive FTF! So even though Ms S hadn't yet finished her morning beauty routine, we jumped in the car and headed off. We managed to get past the cricket-playing muggles and a couple of walkers to find the cache. When we opened it we were very pleased to see a blank logbook. After signing the log and taking photos, the other significant event occurred.

Mr S dropped to one knee and asked Ms S if she would like to become Mrs S (but in slightly more romantic terms than that). Luckily she said yes, because we'd bought the engagement ring the day before. She knew a proposal was coming, but not when or where. I guess we can be added to the list of geocaching wedding proposals.

We went shopping today for an engagement watch for Mr S, and came home with a nice Tissot piece. Very posh!

podcacher.com bulk download

2008-03-06T10:52:00.002+11:00

We've been listening to Sonny and Sandy over the past couple months. When Mr S first found the Podcacher and Geotalk podcasts - I couldn't believe it when he said they went for 30-60 minutes. What on earth could they talk about?? But now I'm hooked, and have started listening to Podcacher's archive from their first show in 2005. I've been spending 2-3 hours a day in the car to/from work lately, so they've been great to help pass the time.

I have been manually downloading each show from the blog, getting a few at a time .... but almost always end up with half a trip with no shows left to listen to, and nothing else at hand either. I just discovered a big bonus - how to bulk download all the all old shows - see here. We've now got all of 2005 and 2006, and I'll save 2007 for our off-peak download times. When they're done, I'll catch up with Geotalk too.

Hungry

2008-02-23T20:23:00.004+11:00

Tacos for dinner, hard and soft, plenty of meat and salad. Still not satisfied. "Do you wanna...?" There was that look in his eye. He knew we shouldn't do it. So many other things we should be doing .... but I could tell at once what he had in mind. And I wanted it tooo....

Yep - a quick dash out for a cache - Ted's Toybox.

Ahhhhhh, that's better. Time for bed.

Our Brisbane caching experience

2008-02-19T20:30:00.003+11:00

Earlier this month we flew to Brisbane for a conference, and of course we managed to fit in some caching while we were there. It didn't take us long, with Queen's Place being found within a couple of hours of arriving.

The next two days were taken up with the conference, but then we got to our free day on Sunday. We had a list of 12 caches on our bookmark list, and the rain wasn't going to stop us trying to find them all. We managed to visit 11 of them, and log eight finds. Most of them made Mr S a bit uncomfortable, being urban caches, but it was a productive visit.

Our two favourite caches were On the Horns of a Dilemna and Lover's Expo. Trying to put The Ringleader back in place posed a challenge for Mr S, and he was starting to panic that it wouldn't go back.

We've put the photos on our Flickr page, so you can see what we got up to.

What a day!

2008-02-08T21:30:00.000+11:00

We prepared for our geocache-a-thon by compiling a list of 14 caches to find on the day. They were:

The day didn't get off to a good start when we couldn't find El Guarda. We'd given ourselves a time limit of 30 minutes per cache, and our time ran out. It does seem to be a tricky one to find on your first attempt, so we'll come back to this one.

Our second stop was the multi-cache Pemulwuy. We well and truly blew our time limit on this one, taking about 90 minutes. We were making progress for all of this time and didn't feel like we were wasting our time. The first waypoint was hidden very cleverly and we had to try approaching it from a couple of different angles before we got it. Once we found GZ we spent a lot of time on the wrong side of the rock, but it was a quick find once we changed sides. After this success we rewarded ourselves with breakfast.

The next cache we visited, Dead Wood, had one of the craftiest containers we've come across yet. With a muggle in a nearby backyard cleaning his pool, Mr S was a little reluctant to keep searching. Once the muggle went inside, Mr S was happy to continue searching and was finally successful.

It was hidden in a false branch at the base of the tree stump - very clever!

Cache number four was Plugs Leads & Thingymejigs. We didn't log this one, as we used up our 30 minutes trying to find the best way to walk in to the cache. Our TomTom in-car GPS put us close, but in a spot with no walking track. We drove to a spot on the other side of the creek, but again, no trackto be found. Seeing as though we didn't get to GZ we felt justified in not calling it a DNF.

Road Less Trodden was fairly straightforward, with a nice walk in and a quick scramble up the hill to the hiding spot. Previous finders had mentioned the amount of damage that was being done to the vegetation surrounding the cache location, but it didn't look too bad to us.

We were all set to do AO#2 - Ubatuba before lunch, but the track leading to the cache has been closed for 12 weeks while maintenance is being done.

The next cache we visited was Point in the Park, which was pretty easy. The nearby plaques of historic sites gave us an idea for a series of caches we could place.

Hidden Oasis tested our balance skills. Mr S was a bit unsure about this one due to the fence that had to be walked around. The green slimy patch on the weir had Ms S worried, but she conquered her fears and was brave enough to replace the cache.

Ms S did a quick grab of Newline, then we moved on to Wirrabara Waste. This was a special cache for us, as it was the first cache that our travel bug Danny & Delinda visited after we set them free.

We came across another brilliant hide at Thirteen Sixteenth's. Ms S did a good job grabbing this one. The cache was hidden behind one of the round red reflectors that was attached to one of the logs.

Sally's Way and The Park were found in quick time, then it was on to our last cache for the day.

Granny's Scramble was another example of the TomTom putting us close, but in a spot where we couldn't get to the cache. We consulted the old-fashioned street directory, and where ab;e to find a more appropriate place to park. Like most of the previous finders, we missed the easy track in and spent a lot of time trying to find a track that took us in the right direction. Ms S had to overcome her fear of green slippery rocks twice, but got through in the end. We saw two dragonflies near the cache, so we named them Danny and Delinda, after our travel bug. The walk back to the car was much easier, as we found the easy track back. We could see how easy it was to not find it on the way in (unless you were a local with a knowledge of the park).

So that was our first cache-a-thon. We broke our previous record of five finds in one day by finding 11 today. We're on our way to our goal of making 200 finds by the end of the year.

Now that we've found a few caches in the local area, we might need to look further afield for our next cache-a-thon. There are more photos from today and our other geocaching adventures on our Flickr page.

Our cache-a-thon!

2008-01-28T22:22:00.000+11:00

Today we did our first "cache-a-thon". We prepared a list of 14 caches that we wanted to find, and set out before 7am to start the hunt. A quick summary of how things went (who said geocaching isn't about the numbers?):

Number of caches found - 11
Number of travel bugs/geocoins moved - 6
Number of dorks who got sunburnt - 2
Number of spider webs avoided - 72
Number of spider webs not avoided - 3
Number of green slimy patches safely negotiated - 2
Number of sausage sandwiches consumed - 2
Number of times Ms S told Mr S to"Be Careful!!!" - 27
Number of things we'd rather have done today - 0

A more detailed description of our adventures, with photos, will follow soon.

geocaching 2.0

2008-01-12T14:34:00.000+11:00

Geotales - believe it or not
I love this - what a fab idea for a puzzle cache!!

See the youtube video
See the cache page (premium members only)

Gabrielle the Gadget Queen REALLY speaks to me
... so does Marta Skewer and Sharulia

Handheld GPS devices - CHOICE article

2008-01-12T12:38:00.000+11:00

When we went shopping for a GPSr last year, I went to CHOICE looking for info to inform a confident shopping trip ... but at that stage could only find tests on car GPS units. However, the current issue of CHOICE (Dec 07/Jan 08 ) has just published an article roadtesting 1o units between AUD299-729 - "Where the hell am I? A handheld GPS uses satellites to guide you through the bush - but don't rely on them alone!" (pp.52-55, Dec 07/Jan 08). Geocaching was not mentioned at all.

The one we bought (Garmin 60) was not in the test - it does not have the map facility ... just vague knowledge of suburbs, but not street level detail. All the models tested came with a basic world map, and included LOWRANCE, GARMIN , and MAGELLAN units. The overall score was made up of "ease of use" (50%), "battery life" (15%), "accuracy" (15%), "acquisition" (10%), and "waterproofing: (10%). Funny that accuracy only attracted 15% ... I guess it's the geocachers more so than the hikers that are more interested in that!!

Garmin eTrex Vista Cx score best overall (83%, $599), closely followed by Garmin eTrex Legend Cx (81%, $499) and Magellan eXplorist 500LE (78%, $650).

The test article is here (subscribers only get the full article, but you can pay per view). Otherwise, trot down to your local library and read the full article for free.

A 50/50 day

2008-01-11T17:54:00.000+11:00

Well, our most recent geocaching trip last weekend wasn't as successful as we hoped it would be. As the title of this post suggests, we found half of the caches that we were looking for. It was a trip to some of our local caches which we hadn't yet visited. We managed to cross Bella Vista (GC101TP) off our to-do list (Serenity Now (GC170DZ) has also been taken care of, having been found the day before), as well as find Run Rabbit Run (GCHK41) (which wasn't actually on our list). Our unsuccessful attempts were on the multi-caches Daniel's Decoy Duck (GC16ZKE) and Stumped ...(GC130KD), both hidden by sspack.

The day started off well with a quick find at Run Rabbit Run, thanks to Ms S spotting a likely hiding place which turned out to be spot on. 11am on a sunny Sydney summer day was not prime rabbit-spotting time.

Our next stop was Daniel's Decoy Duck. We had read the clue for this one, so we found a likely spot where the first waypoint would be and started searching. Now, Mr S isn't too fond of urban caches which require loitering and poking around in places that make you look a bit suspicious. He hasn't yet mastered the sneaky search. The location we were looking in didn't have many muggles around, but it was an area that was overlooked by offices and restaurants. Needless to say, Mr S was not comfortable. Our ploy of buying coffees so we at least had an excuse to be hanging around failed when the cafe we went to didn't do take-away coffee. We weren't really in the right frame of mind to be tackling this one, so we moved on.

The next cache we went to was Bella Vista, and it felt good to finally cross this one of our to-do list. The location of this micro had been changed, and we had looked in the original location twice (once after it had moved and we hadn't read the updated logs) with no success. It took us longer to find that it probably should have. Despite the clue changing to reflect its new location, we were perhaps subconsciously influenced by the original location, and assumed that it would be hidden in a similar way. But just as we were about to give up, Mr S did what the clue said and found it. The GPSr was also a bit all over the place, despite the tree cover at GZ being minimal and also being on the top of a hill.

Our final stop for the day was the multi-cache Stumped..., and we certainly were. Mr S was a bit put off by the council worker who was spraying weeds nearby, so waited for him to go before joining the search. Despite having a clue, which we weren't sure was for the first waypoint or the cache itself, and finding an area which matched the clue we weren't able to come up with the goods. Our search was also shortened by the fact that Mr S was getting hungry and wasn't too keen to do any more searching once a muggle family set up their picnic right near where we were looking. Another one to keep on our to-do list.

We're hoping to go for a walk tomorrow morning and cross High Adventure and Lip Lapper off the to-do list.

A good start to 2008

2008-01-01T17:36:00.000+11:00

After hosting a successfu New Year's Eve barbeque, we didn't waste any time in starting geocaching in 2008. This afternoon we set off to find Excelsior (GC186C4), a newly published mystery cache located close to home. It hadn't been found, despite being published a couple of days ago. We set off with much excitement at the prospect of our first find in 2008 being a First To Find (FTF).

The start of the walking track leading to the cache was quickly found, and we set off for a very pleasant walk through Bidjigal Reserve. At GZ, we had an option of two places to look. We started with the easier of the two, but didn't have any luck. After having a look at the second possible location for the cache, Ms S declared that it wasn't safe, and that Mr S should "step away from the edge". Despite this, Mr S stood his ground (literally), and after he pointed out a safe route to the likely hiding spot, Ms S relented and the search proceeded. It was a short search, and the ammo can was quickly found. This isn't the first time that a cache has been found after Ms S changed her mind about the danger that Mr S was in and allowed him to keep searching. It's nice to know that she cares.

Upon opening the logbook, our suspicions were confirmed. On our way to the cache, we had passed a couple who were coming the other way. We discussed amongst ourselves whether they were fellow geocachers, or just bushwalkers out enjoying the warm Sydney weather. It turns out that they were The Wandering Wilkos, and they beat us to the FTF by about 20 minutes. We signed the log, and took the Water travel bug (which The Wandering Wilkos had collected from one of the caches that we own - Sshhhh! (GC16VHK)). What a small world!

As we were walking back to the car, we passed a young lady who was carrying a GPSr. We'll keep checking the logs to see who she was. It looks like Excelsior will have a few visits today.

We'd brought the details of another cache with us just in case we couldn't find Excelsior, so we headed off to Quarry Creek #4 (GC12P5Y). After initially looking on the wrong side of the creek, we found it fairly quickly once we crossed over. When we checked the log, it turned out that the last people to find it were - The Wandering Wilkos!

We'd now found three out of the four caches placed along Quarry Creek by sspack. The one that we were missing was No Trolls Here (GC12NE7), which we'd looked for in July but couldn't find it. Back then we didn't have our GPSr and were using a PDA with built-in GPS. We thought that we would have a better chance of finding the cache with a GPSr. A short drive brought us to GZ and we started looking. The GPSr was pointing us to the same spot that we were looking in before, but we didn't have any luck, despite there being fewer muggles than the last time we looked. Now that we've read the logs again (the most recent of which was by The Wandering Wilkos), we think we might have an idea of where it is, so we'll be trying again soon.

The Water TB that we collected from Excelsior needs to be moved on within 48 hours, so we'll be looking for more caches in the next couple of days. We'll probably try and find the other three element TBs, and then find The Fifth Element.

Because of the time difference between Sydney and Seattle, we haven't been able to log any of these finds yet. The list of years on the "Log your visit" page doesn't include 2008 yet!

Our golden geocaching tally!

2007-12-30T20:21:00.000+11:00

Tonight, at 7:50pm, we found our 50th geocache! It was a nano called The Lone Pine (GC181Z4).

2007 was our first year of geocaching, and we've had a ball. So far we've made finds in NSW, ACT, and Victoria. Early next year we should be able to add Queensland to the list as well. We still have a couple of DNFs that we need to revisit and hopefully find! Our geocaching New Year's resolution is to aim to have at least 200 finds by the end of the year. Now that we've added a proper GPSr, and have a bit of know-how under our belts, hopefully this won't be too unrealistic.

Our geocaching career began on 20th May, when we found Little Beach (GCTZ15). Since then, we've found caches in trees, under rocks, in lightposts, fire hydrants, artillery pieces, PVC pipes, and fenceposts. Although adding to our tally of finds is nice, we have really enjoyed seeing places that we wouldn't have gone to if it wasn't for geocaching. These include places close to home, and also further afield that we've visited while on holidays.

Our geocaching hitlist for 2008 includes our DNFs for this year, the Royal National Park, and a walking tour of our local caches. We've also got a cache stocked and ready to hide, as well as a number of empty micro containers. Ms S will also search with Cupcake for one which is hidden in the graveyard at their workplace.

We're looking to open our account for 2008 with a find on 1st January. There are a couple of candidates located nearby. Hopefully we'll start 2008 on a successful note!

Finally, some time to go geocaching!

2007-12-16T21:00:00.000+11:00

We went out on our first geocaching trip for six weeks this morning. We had a list of four caches that we wanted to find, all close to home. We needed three more finds to get to 50 finds on geocaching.com.

The first cache we headed for was Sydney Cache Relocated! (GC1F11). The idea of finding a nice big container appealed to us, as we've found quite a few large items during the house move that are suitable to be left in caches. As we got out of the car the rain started to come down, but we decided to push on. It was a nice walk down the track towards GZ. We made our first mistake by turning right instead of left. This put us close to a wire mesh fence, which we followed as per the instructions. However it turned out to be the wrong fence.

We then headed down into the valley, and this was where Mrs Sensible came to the fore. She'd read all the logs for this cache and had a look at the gallery, so when we got to the bottom and saw the tunnel, she knew where we had to go. After emerging from the other side, we scrambled around for a bit, then spotted a fence and some likely-looking twin saplings. Shortly after, we located the cache.

The contents were a bit of a disappointment. We'd expected a fairly well stocked cache, but there wasn't as much in there as we hoped, considering the size of the cache. With the rain still falling lightly, we signed the log, made our swaps, and headed back to the car.

With the weather staying wet, we decided to call a halt to our geocaching adventures for the day, and headed off to Bunnings to do some shopping (and have a sausage sandwich for lunch). The other three caches we'd planned to do will have to wait for another day. At least we're now one find closer to 50!

All quiet on the geocaching front

2007-12-16T20:51:00.000+11:00

It's been a while since we went out geocaching, as we've been preoccupied with moving house. Our spare time has been taken up with packing, unpacking, cleaning, buying furniture and appliances and tools, rearranging furniture, and generally settling in.

We will log a "did not find" for the No Time, No Cache! virtual cache on Geocaching Australia soon.

Geocaching and birthday presents

2007-11-25T19:30:00.000+11:00

Mr Sensible found out recently that geocaching can provide inspiration for birthday presents. He received the following geocaching-related presents from Mrs Sensible:

several containers for micro and nano caches
small magnets
a headlamp
premium membership of geocaching.com

I think the micro and nano containers will be put to good use soon - once we finish settling in to our new house.

Danny and Delinda

2007-11-14T20:29:00.000+11:00

Danny and Delinda is the name we gave to the first travel bug that we released. They were handmade by Mrs Sensible. Their mission is to travel to Las Vegas, and then return safely to Sydney with lots of photos of their travels.

They were set free in Sshhh!, the first cache that we hid. So far they've travelled 34km, so there's a long trip ahead of them to get to Vegas. If you come across them, please help them on their way.

It was a dark and stormy night ...

2007-11-04T19:17:00.000+11:00

... and two "sensible" geocachers were on top of The Skillion, Terrigal, in search of Ski Lion. When we got to the top the lightning was lighting up the fishing boats out at sea. Luckily we had decrypted the clue, so we could make a quick find, sign, and swap. The rain was coming down, and the walk down the hill was a bit slippery.

The find was made at 10:30pm, on our way home from a family dinner (which included the first of four celebrations for Mr Sensible's upcoming birthday). It was dark, it was wet, and it was wild, but those birthday drinks certainly helped convince us it was a good idea to go caching in such conditions. This is certainly the latest in the day that we've gone caching, but it was fun. We might come back in the daytime and to enjoy the view that we missed.

Aladdin's cave

2007-11-03T11:55:00.000+11:00

A couple of our photos taken on a geocaching mission in St Kilda, while we were on holiday earlier this year, have been included (with permission) in the online travel guide, Schmap!! Ours are the two for the St Kilda Advenure Playground & came from Aladdin's Cave (GCV9MN).

Our rules for geocaching

2007-11-02T20:47:00.000+11:00

Rule #1
A good geocacher always gets their hands dirty and has a good poke around. Never just stand and look for the cache.

Rule #2
Always carry a toolkit with you. You never know when you might need a tool to help open the cache e.g. Shock the Monkey.

Welcome to A Sensible Life!

2007-10-31T15:55:00.000+11:00

Welcome to our blog. This is where we, Sensible Shoes (a much better geocaching name than our first one - Fairy Spice), will describe our geocaching adventures. We began geocaching in May 2007, when we came into possession of a PDA which came with a GPS receiver and software built in. Now we're hooked. We've upgraded from the PDA (which is still useful for navigating us to the nearest parking spot for a cache) to a Garmin GPS60 (nicknamed The Inspector).

As yet, geocaching doesn't rule our lives, but we do look out for an opportunity to go geocaching whenever we can. We've found (and not found) caches in Sydney, the Central Coast, Canberra, Melbourne, Port Stephens, and the Hunter Valley. Upcoming trips to Brisbane, Port Macquarie, Kiama and the US will undoubtedly provide abundant caching opportunities.