Author: Dartmoor Dave

I’m sure that everybody received the “February Only: Create a Free, Personalized Geocache” from Groundspeak and wondered what it was all about.  You may have ignored it, but Judy & I took a look.  What a strange idea this was and one which seemed to fly completely in the face of everything that Groundspeak stands for.  A cache that was temporary, a cache that could only be found once, a cache that wasn’t going to be reviewed, a cache that could only be found by one person, a cache that could be placed in your own house, etc!

So we read all about it and watched the video and Judy thought (rightly or wrongly) that this was a Valentine’s Day stunt!  All the video shots seemed to contain a happy couple and one even showed a ring being offered.  As we are not both premium members, we ignored it and thought no more of it.  That was until yesterday when I received an email saying that one of these caches was waiting for me to find!

No, not a secret lover but a caching buddy who wanted to try it out – and thought of me!  So not to disappoint we made straight for the cache this morning on our way to B&Q.  We had to divert because of closed roads around Burrator but eventually got to GZ and found the secret code which would allow me to log the cache.

On our return I entered the code and was congratulated on my find.  But that was it! There was no way to write a log, no way to add the photo that I had taken, no way to thank the cacher who had placed the cache – absolutely nothing.  It has been added to my count of finds and appears in my list of cache types as a Lab cache, but nothing in my statistics.  When I click on the Lab cache it just takes me to a page congratulating me on finding it.  When Judy (not a premium member) tries to look at it, all she gets is a page of Lab cache mega events – nothing else at all.

I’m not going to name the cache owner, but I am perfectly happy if they want to identify themselves, but I would like to thank them for placing the cache and thinking of me, so TFTC.   I couldn’t write a log or post a photo but I have posted a video below.

What do you think of Lab caches?  Have you placed or found a Lab cache?  Please let me know by commenting below and please look at my Lab cache on my profile and see what is written there, as I have no idea!

At the end of June 2012 I produced a list of all geocachers registered as members of this web site sorted by the number of their finds on the UK Rankings List.  I have now had the opportunity to update this list as of January 28th 2014.  Last time I limited this list to only those who had found 1,000 caches, but this time there is no limit, although there is no ranking list for those with fewer than 200 finds.

I have compared the position in the ranking list with the previous one and there are 20 who have moved up and 21 who have moved down.  Of those moving up there is one very clear winner: Dartmoor Deliverer who has moved up 1,140 places to 350, but special mention must be made of Yukonhuskies who is now ranked at 1,478 and wasn’t even geocaching when the first list was produced!

It’s tough towards the top though.  Broyleboxers have had to average over 220 finds per month to climb into the top 60 and wheelybarrow has had to find nearly 150 per month to maintain their position in the top 130.  Further down the list only 55 finds a month are required to maintain a top 1,000 ranking and at the bottom of the ranking list just 110 finds will take you up 4,000 places!  So, if you are at the bottom of the list just one good month will propel you almost one third of the way up the list.

I have only included in the list those members who I have been able to match with their geocaching.com Username.  There are others, who are clearly geocachers, but I have no idea who they are.  If you are registered on this site and are not on the list, please let me know who you are.

The full list may be found here: January 2014 UK Ranking List

After the initial enthusiasm and interest in the Dartmoor National Park 2014 geocoin it is not surprising that sales have rather dropped off.  We never produced the coin as a serious business venture, but just because we wanted to produce a quality geocoin for Dartmoor and to see what interest there would be and hopefully to get our investment back!  When we first saw the coin its quality well exceeded our expectations, and everybody else who has seen one has been equally impressed.

On Saturday evening I thought I would try to sell one on eBay.  I set the minimum bid at £9 and the Buy It Now price at £14 and went to bed.  When I got up on Sunday morning it had been bid up to £30! 

However, I would much prefer these coins be bought by local cachers or by cachers who come to visit Dartmoor.  I shall therefore continue to sell the coins at £12 (+p&p) to cachers in these categories, but I will only be selling one coin at £12, additional ones will be £16, which was our original stated price and which I think is very fair.  For anybody else finding this site the cost will be £16 (+p&p) – it obviously makes no sense for me to sell them at £12 just to see them resold on eBay.  Hopefully those who have already bought one will treasure it and will not be looking for a quick profit.

I will be at tomorrow night’s event at the Rock Inn and will bring a few coins with me.  If you would like one (or more) please let me know by replying to this post – it will save you the postage & packing!

When I published the list of 2011 caches a couple of years ago, what I really wanted to do was to produce a list of all caches within the park, but I did’t have the time to do it and I couldn’t find decent table software to publish them anyway.

New table software is now available which has great functionality so I thought I would give it a go.  The main problem is to determine which caches are within the park.  It is easy enough to determine the centre of the park and a circle of 12.7 miles radius includes every single cache. However, the park is far from round and caches as little as 6.8 miles from the centre may not be in the park!

The 12.7 mile circle takes in 1,751 caches and the only way to exclude those not in the park is to look at each of them individually.  As a result I identified 364 which are not in the park, leaving 1,387 which are!

Of course there are other complications like multi and puzzle caches where you are not certain where the cache is.  In this case I have mainly gone on the position stated, but have adjusted this for some caches where I know where they are – but this is not necessarily consistent.  Please let me know if you know better!

Do take a look at the list of caches which can be found here: DNP Caches

More tables of caches coming shortly!

And that was just New Year’s Day 

It would have been impossible to have picked a worse day for our first event – just an unbelievable day!  But amazing that so many made such an effort to get here and made the event a huge success.  A big thanks to everybody who turned out to support us 

Not only did you manage to get here, but once here your generousity in support of the Devon Air Ambulance Trust was even more amazing with a total raised on the day of £150. So huge thanks to Caroline (Ochico) for selling so many tickets.  But it didn’t finish there, I have subsequently received additional donations for the trust, which of course will also get passed on.

In total we think we served about 55 cream teas and it really was pandemonium but nobody seemed to care – you were all so happy to be meeting up with friends for a really good chat – there really wasn’t much else to do on such a day.  Or was there?

Well yes there was, but given the weather I expected nobody to take up the Five Tor Challenge – except of course The Legends (as Phil of LympstoneBogtrotters calls them).  Just after 4:30 in walked Kevin & Sue of the dartmoor striders who had spent the whole day in the most atrocious weather collecting enough points to claim the prize!  Evidently they drove 50 miles to get from Dartmeet to The Cherrybrook as the road was closed!  For great entertainment do read Phil’s log.

A few outstanding items:

• If you missed out on donating to the Devon Air Ambulance and would still like to, please contact me as I won’t send off the additional amount until the end of January.  The trust was really grateful to everybody who donated and I would be very happy to see our final total reach £200!
• I will leave out the additional caches on the Five Tor Challenge until the end of January, so please do feel free to complete it.  If you do manage to, then please call in to say hello.
• The new 2014 Dartmoor Geocoin was very well received with many lovely comments recorded in the Event logs.  If you would like one, or another one, please contact me and I will still let all visitors to this web site have them for just £12.

As promised we have organised an extra activity to coincide with our New Year Cream Tea Event.

At 9am on 1st January 5 new traditional caches will be published on Dartmoor, which will be loggable as normal on geocaching.com.  Each of these caches will contain the coordinates of a string of 2 further caches (not loggable) which will contain a bonus letter and number.

The bonus cache (also not loggable) can be found at:
N 50° 33.(B+C)(D-F)(E+H) W 003° 56.(D-A)(I-G)(B+J) which is close to The Cherrybrook.

There will be a FTF prize in the bonus cache of our new 2014 Dartmoor Geocoin and other prizes will be added depending on the number of participants.

Yes, this IS a race!  The race will finish at 5pm and all participants must return to The Cherrybrook by this time.  If nobody has found all 16 caches then the prize will be awarded to the cacher with the most number of points:

• 1 point will be awarded for each of the 5 traditional caches
• 1 point will be awarded for each of the 10 offset caches, except the 2 caches associated with the Mel Tor View cache which will be awarded 2 points each
• 3 points will be awarded for the bonus cache
• Total of 20 points, but the winner must have at least 12 points.

To help with planning, the shortest route between all the caches and returning to The Cherrybrook is about 33 miles, in total there is less than 6 miles to walk.  An approximate time estimate would be about 1.5 hours driving, 3 hours walking and 1 hour planning & searching; total 5.5 hours plus the time to reach the first cache.

There is not a long list of rules, but please use ONLY ONE CAR for each team and do not swap bonus numbers with other teams.

So, how many are up for our Five Tor challenge?  Please reply to this post to let us know if you will be taking part or to ask any questions.

There is, of course, no charge to take part in this activity, but we would hope that participants would consider a small donation to the Devon Air Ambulance Trust when they have finished.

Please note that you can participate in this activity without attending our New Year Cream Tea event and can attend the event without participating in this activity.

www.dartmoorgeocaching.co.uk proudly announces its first Dartmoor geocoin.

This is a high quality geocoin produced by Landsharkz and trackable at geocaching.com. Being our first attempt at a geocoin we were not too certain of the process and what to expect, but the resulting quality of the coin has exceeded all our expectations.

The coin measures  38mm by 3.5mm and weighs 30gm.  It is made in antique bronze colour with a 3D effect on the front and raised and recessed metal on the back.  The total mint run was 250 and there will not be any additional runs.  We hope to be able to sell between 150 and 200 and keep the rest for gifts, FTF and raffle prizes, etc.

We anticipate the normal selling price will be £16, but those ordering through this site by the end of January, will receive a discount of 25% – so a price of only £12.  The coins are available now, by collection only, but hopefully we can organise mailing for a small additional charge, but probably not before Christmas.

If you wish to reserve one of these geocoins please reply to this post below.  You will need to be registered with the web site to reply, and if you have not previously posted on the web site there will be a short delay until your reply is authorised.

Initially we will be limiting the number of coins to 3 per order, to ensure that all those wanting a coin will be able to get one.

Coins may be collected, BY ARRANGEMENT ONLY, from The Cherrybrook (between Two Bridges and Postbridge), but please do not just turn up as we may not be here.

Well, certainly not as we have lived it for the last 4 weeks!

This series first saw the light of day at the end of September when Remote 01 was published, followed by another 5 in the series at the beginning of October.  But it wasn’t until November 10th when most of the other caches were published that we realised the enormity and complexity of it all.  Suddenly this was a real challenge!

To complete this series I had expected to walk a long way and it worked out at just over 130 miles on 29 different walks.  But what has really surprised me is that I have driven  just under 600 miles to get to and from the start of the walks – an adventure of epic proportions indeed.

Although some of the caches have not been particularly remote, for the most part they have been placed in the most remote parts of Dartmoor, with difficult access across typical Dartmoor grass tussocks, not to mention the bogs!  Fortunately we have had the most benign November weather for many years, which has made the moor drier and the series easier than probably intended.  Had it been last year we would be struggling to be halfway.

This series has been well planned and has included the excellent concept of needing to find travel bugs to learn the location of caches – they do say “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery!”  In addition caches contain two different sorts of bonus information, both needed for the latter stages of the series.  Throughout the series the quality of the caches has been impressive; with only one exception the coordinates have been spot on and there has been a range of difficulties, but most hides have been fairly easy, a relief after you have walked 3 miles to get there!

All in all this has been a series of the highest quality and I would like to express my sincere thanks to Steve (Plymbridge Runner) for the time and energy which he has put into creating this compelling series and for leading me back to most of the more remote parts of the moor – sometimes more than once!

So, is there life after “Remote” – yes, but somehow there wasn’t the same urgency to get out of bed this morning!

Please post any comments to the topic: Remote Dartmoor

Ruby Red Ramble?  Well, if I were the CO, that’s what I would call it!

We left our beloved Dartmoor and came north today to have a crack at 3 different series, but this was the pick of the bunch.  There are 9 traditional caches (plus a puzzle cache that was disabled at the time) placed by digbysue to the west of Hatherleigh which form a delightful series.  There is also a 10th cache by Station Master along the same route.

I was a little confused when planning this route as I read the description for the first cache (On the Lew!) and jumped to the wrong conclusion that this was a 4 mile walk taking in all of the caches.  It is not it’s 6.25 miles!  However, this is a very enjoyable walk in “Ruby Country” named after the Devon Red or Ruby Red cattle.  Not that we saw any, except on the lovely mural painted on the underpass, but we did see lots of red Devon mud!

We parked right opposite the post office in Hatherleigh and followed a series of footpaths, a couple of shortish minor road sections and also a disused railway section in a circular-ish route (see map above) to take us back to Hatherleigh.  In total we counted about 20 stiles, the early ones being very dog-friendly, but the last 5 definitely not.  If you have a large dog (not as agile as our Tigger hound) then  ensure that you follow the road back from the last cache and not the obvious footpath.

Not only a delightful walk, but also a delightful series of caches.  As I said in my Found log on the last cache “The caches and hides were interesting and varied and it was obvious that the COs had given preparation and execution a great deal of thought.”  An added bonus to the day was that whilst we were searching for one particularly difficult cache a car stopped and it was Digby who was keeping a very close eye on his caches and gave me a nice push in the right direction!

So we had a great morning, a lovely walk and a very nice series of caches which we would highly recommend.  If they were mine I would add another cache in the centre of Hatherleigh to indicate the starting place and then number them from 1 to 10 to make it clearer that all the caches belonged to one series, but I think that Digby has his own ideas on how it should be developed.  We may have to come back and find some additional caches quite soon!  Thank you digbysue for a very enjoyable morning.

Please read digbysue’s reply to this post by clicking on Comment below.

Well you know what I mean!  And yesterday I thought it time I took a look at some of the more remote of my 160+ caches that are “Somewhere on Dartmoor”, even though I suspected that only a couple possibly had a problem.

A couple of our guests had arranged for Simon Dell, one of the Dartmoor guides, to take them to Fur Tor and they were happy for me to tag along.  I was keen to do this as I had never visited Fur Tor from the west, only from The Cherrybrook.  So we set out from Baggator on a lovely cold February morning with the moor almost frozen solid.  The arrangement was for me to walk with them to Fur Tor and then I would walk back to The Cherrybrook visiting my caches on the way.

I won’t bore you with the details but I visited 14 caches, 4 of which I replaced – they were either missing or moved – but either way I couldn’t find them.  The majority were in pretty good condition, but a few I had to chip the ice out of!  I was very pleased that my trademark “Rainbow Snack Bags” had kept every logbook dry!  Considering that I had visited none of these caches in about 2 years, I was fairly happy.

The walk was wonderful.  If you want to complete either the Walk on the Wild Side or Heads of the Rivers Trek series, now is the time to do it.  Because the moor is frozen, you can walk just about anywhere, and because we’ve had no rain for a week, the rivers are all fairly low. Eventually I arrived back at The Cherrybrook in total darkness having walked 11.5 miles in 9 hours, but having maintained 14 very remote caches.