Aladar123 plays geocaching

This time I'm sharing another cool matrix you can try to fill, but before that let me show you one of the cool geocaches I came across just recently, while working on this matrix. The frog on the branch It is early spring here in the Netherlands and the trees and bushes are not covered with leaves, that was helping a lot. The hint for this hide was clear we need to find a frog on a tree, of course all it said was the latin name of the frog... Honestly it is hard to find time to go geocaching on busy days when those days are also short like in winter and early spring and this brings us to the next matrix I want to share. Finds by found date This matrix is showing you on which day of which month you found and how many geocaches you found; the year does not count. As you can see after a few years geocaching it is still kind of empty on the darker months starting from October till March. January and February was in a worse condition, then I decided to fill as many gaps as I...

When it comes to urban caches they are mostly tricky but there are a few hides that are typical; this is one of them. Hiding under the drain cover As we were walking towards the coordinates we spot it really fast. We were reading the logs and the last was a DNF which always makes me worry, and then we still go for these cases, I know it helps me with my own geocaches when someone logs a DNF and a few days later someone reports it is stil there. I always encourage everyone to log the DNFs so the geocachers travelling through and trying to log as many as they can or have a short time and time for a single geocache can immediately know not to bother it could be missing. So what does it have to do with the trees? This geocache is part of a serie which are placed to mark different mostly huge trees in a closeby town. Really a nice serie, we found a few of them already and slowly we'll try to find all of them. Take a look at the tree this one was placed next to. The big tree ...

Now this one is a very common hiding technic. I should have showed a few of these previously, but somehow I just found one yesterday and immediately I decided to share. Mostly I share finds a lot later to make it harder to trace back which hide it could be. Or wait a second... this blog is actually a blog with spoiler images... So here we go... See it? It is hiding under those branches If the hint already contains the fact that you need to search under some branches you should not have hard time finding the cache. So the thing is most geocachers I have met so far are humans and also lazy to some level, so when it is under something like small branches it will be covered with branches, but only to the point that it is barely visible. Humans do that with placing the object above in such a way that it is the least effort to put them there. Just look above, most are paralel, have you ever seen fallen branches just all around the place? Were they paralell? or placed close to each othe...

It is always fun to search for a geocache at locations where the view is just amazing. This time I was in Singapore for business. I had some time before I could start working and lucky for me there was a geocache at the beach walking distance from the warehouse. Hiding in the tree I walked to the location and as you can see above it was not much search to find the geocache, just in the tree really visible. I was more surprised that it was still there. The only people I saw at that time of the day at the beach were the people cleaning the beach, collecting the rubbish from all over. I was also wondering why didn't they remove this as it is really just lays there. The geocache container A tiny container but lots of fun to find it... or not? I do not mind to find geocaches easy, I also do not mind to put extra effort in finding a geocache. From country to country there are typical ways of hiding geocaches and of course each geocacher has his/her preferred way of hiding. I...

After the first year of acive geocaching you start learning about the typical hiding technics. This is one of them, but with a small twist. The geocache and its logbook The geocache itself is some reflective object that could be used on a bicycle, a pole, a postbox or anywhere to make sure passing by cars would spot the object and avoid hitting it. Now the twist with this one was the place the CO put it. It was under a bridge. Using two magnets it was stuck to the steel part of the bridge. Hiding under the bridge While we were searching for this geocache an elderly couple passed by, they were muggles for sure, had no clue what we were up to. So as I was expecting here and there the lady stopped and started to talk about how big shame on the townhall that these bridges are not well maintained. Then I looked a bit closer at the bridge and had to realize she is so right, this bridge had already four different colors painted on it and all visible at many spots as the paint was ...

A really busy day at work and around the house. A bit tired, but let's finish the day with some geocaches. This one was the first I picked to go after, not far from home, so a short drive and we can start searching. Ducks don't sit in trees and bushes As in many cases we take the longer more fun way to go close to the geocaches, this is exactly how we did it with this one. There was some footprints going one way and I followed it. It was full with nettle and guess what I was wearing, of course shorts, it was good weather. Good weather in the Netherlands in general doesn't mean some would not wear layers, many of them. The duck in the bush Of course the way I was coming was on the other side of this bush, so I could not see the duck from that side. I once, and only once saw these ducks on sale in a cheap store in Germany and since then I regret not buying them. I since got some crows which are in progress, I need to find some perfect location for them to hide, bu...

Now this is one of those geocaches that I heard of but never saw one personally till the day we were in Belgium on the road back to the Netherlands. It all started with let's stop at a geocache to avoid highway and then came look there is another one just a few meters down the road, and this was the one. Guess what we kept on going on with that serie as there were many cool hides out there. The film is ready to be caught ... When we turned on that dirt road and I spotted the geocache from the car I got so excited that I did not really pull down thinking who else would come this way. We jumped out and went for the geocache with a huge smile on our face, finally we meet one of these. The geocache is not too much hidden A pipe with many holes attached to a tree. How complicated could that be? Well at first we thought we'll need to find some tools in our geocaching bag, but then we saw the two metal stick hanging there and we knew the tools are also provided. Pushin...

So far the coolest bird house, high up in the tree and a magnet is what you needed on the end of a stick, a long stick. The birdhouse with the magnet attached to the geocche As it might look simple it is if you have all the tools you need. The hint was clear you need a long enough stick with a magnet at the end. Of course we have one of those telescopic ones, but that is less than a meter long, so it is time to improvise. The geocache from below, hiding in the birdhouse We also have a magnet on a rope, where the rope is at least a few meters long, so that will do, but how do you get it up to the bird house? It is in the woods, and many broken branches are all around on the ground, so I just picked a longer one and attached my magnet with its rope to it and we had the tool we needed. A closer picture of the bird house As you can see it is a small bison capsule in the bottom of the bird house what needs to be pulled down. See the container? When we found this geoc...

Some low difficulty geocaches still can be challenging. My daughter needed something from the closeby outlet center, it was a sunny day and also a public holiday so what could go wrong? We drove to the outlet which was close to full and I mean it, seriously full. We got what she needed and then I picked this geocache to find on the way home. The difficulty level was low so I planned a park and grab. We arrived to the location and the park part was not a problem at all. There was this big old tree... must be the hiding place. I started to dig in then stepped away and I had lots of ants all over my arms... so started to feed on me or at least bite me. The geocache hiding in a hole. Usually this is the point when I dig more into the logs for further hints. One log suggested it could be a bit higher stating not all might reach easily. I geared up with a flashlight and tried to climb the tree. My daughter on the ground laughing, then worrying, then taking a few pics sending them t...