Two Goth Geeks Geocaching

The Two Goth Geeks are proud to announce our first Geocaching Travel Bug.  This is a moving Travel Bug you can find and log once spotted.

The Travel Bug is a sticker on my silver Honda Jazz.  I bought it from Sphere Innovative Technologies.

I was excited when it arrived as this is my first Travel Bug.  I also purchased a dogtag Travel Bug.  I had forgotten to purchase it as the same time as I got my sticker, but Sphere Innovative Technologies were nice enough to refund me the delivery price for the dogtags since I had already ordered the sticker.  What a great business!

Below is a photo of what to expect when looking for the Travel Bug:

WauloK's Cachemobile

See that sticker with of a white bug? That’s a Travel Bug!  There is a code written underneath it, but I cut it out of this photo because the idea is you have to spot my Travel Bug in the wild to record it. I don’t want people living in Tennessee or something logging it if they haven’t even seen the car!

I called the Travel Bug WauloK’s Cachemobile. If you see me driving around town, don’t hesitate to say HI!

I’m trying to figure out what I want to do with the dogtag. I may just use the code on a TShirt I can create using my CafePress account and wear that around or I may attach it to something (maybe a plush toy) and release it for a trip around the world.  We shall see.

This morning I was taking it easy just watching How I Met Your Mother and The Simpsons on TV while looking around some websites.  I clicked on the Geocaching.com site and had a look at geocaches around.  I was hoping to find an abandoned train station to hide a cache, but the one I found to hide a geocache at already has a geocache there so I thought I’d wait until Striker can come with me as I’m sure he’d love to see one of those. It doesn’t look all that exciting but might be nice to check out.  I saw one down near Helensburgh once and the abandoned train station was hidden away so nobody would come around. There was even a tunnel nearby which, if I remember correctly, had glow worms in them.

Anyway, I noted the abandoned station geocache to do later and looked at a few others which didn’t seem likely spots to hide a geocache.  In the end, I decided to have a quick look around the area near home and clicked on a cache called “Tiny Planes“. It turned out this cache was just approved yesterday and nobody had logged a find against it yet.  Well, as I mentioned before, everyone loves to be a FTF (First To Find) the geocache and so I quickly ran upstairs, had a shower and shave, got dressed and drove out to GZ (Ground Zero).

I soon got there and parked the car next to another one.  A lady and her daughter walked their dog back to the car next to me and drove off. I wondered if they were geocachers, but it appears not as no logs have been made. They must have just been out for a walk with the dog.

I followed my GPSr’s compass along the trails looking for the ever ellusive geocache.  Soon enough I reached an area where model airplanes are flown.  “Tiny planes”! This must be it!  I started my search and after a short time had the geocache in my hands.  Unfortunately, Team Webguy had already discovered this one 1.5hrs before I arrived, so I was not FTF. Oh well. I logged my visit with one of our new copyrighted (!) geocache log stickers and tried to stick a Ken Done badge in there, but the geocache would not close so I removed it, closed the geocache and rehid it.  I wandered back to where my car was parked and decided to take a few photos of myself next to a tall signpost pointing directions along the tracks.  I took about 8 photos and a van arrived.  I thought it may be another geocacher, but after parking next to my car he reversed and drove back out of the carpark again… strange.  Anyway I hopped back in my car and was about to head towards the Blacktown Shopping centre as I needed to buy some new work pants. I got to the exit of the car park, on a main road when two cars pulled in one behind the other into this car park.  Now, this car park is in the middle of nowhere and the only reason to park there is to walk along the walking trails or take a remote controlled airplane for a fly.  I wondered again if they were geocaching people as they often travel in groups, but didn’t have time to wait around and ask so drove off to the shopping centre.

I did my shopping and was heading back home when I drove past the location where the Blacktown Olympic Park (B.O.P) No 1 and Blacktown Olympic Park (B.O.P) No 2 geocaches are hidden.  I couldn’t help myself so pulled into the car park and started my hunt. Striker and I had been past this area several times but there were always other people too close to GZ to go searching. Today there wasn’t many people around and certainly none near GZ so I got out of the car, pocketed my Ken Done badge and headed for No 1.  I soon arrived at the area I needed to look around and after about 7 minutes had the geocache in my hands.  I opened it up and what should be inside but a big black SPIDER!!! Luckily for me it was only a plastic one hehe.  I dropped in my badge and put a “Two Goth Geeks and a GPS” sticker in the logbook then hid the geocache again and walked back to the car.

The No 2 geocache nearby was about 500m from the No 1 cache so I drove to the other end of the car park and got out.  I had more badges in the car so grabbed one, totally forgetting the cache was marked as a NANO geocache.  This means the geocache is very, very small indeed.  Actually, I think it’d be a micro but whom is to split hairs?   I followed by compass to the area and when I reached about 100m from the geocache my iPhone rebooted!! Strange! It had never done that before while running the Geosphere application.  Anyway, I had an idea where the geocache should be near and kept heading in that direction.

Soon my iPhone was up and running again and I loaded the Geosphere application again.  There were three likely candidates for places to hide the geocache but I settled on the one in the middle, being the most likely candidate.  I walked round and round and round and round it, not seeing what could pass as a geocache.  I have read many geocaching stories about how tricky some geocaches can be and after reading the logs of other people and the hint regarding this one I had a fair idea of what I should be looking for, yet I could not discover the hiding place of the geocache.

Several times I turned my iPhone on again and started Geosphere to make sure I was in the correct area and sure enough, I was, but still could not locate the geocache.  After some more time wracking my brain and even searching the ground as it may have fallen off it’s hidey hole, I had an idea and looked in a slightly different area.  THERE IT WAS! The damn thing was hiding right in front of my eyes.  The clue was fully correct and the geocache turned out to be exactly what I was looking for.  I retrieved it and fished out the tiny log file, which is getting quite full.  I whacked in one of our funky stickers and rolled the tiny log back up tightly and jammed it back into the tiny geocache.  I placed the geocache back where it had been and walked back to the car, happily satisified I had managed to find all geocaches I looked for today.

Team Webguy had also discovered my “Jay and Silent Bob” geocache.  They took the Travel Bug to a new home and signed the log, plus uploaded their log to the website. They mentioned the crack in the lid of the geocache and while I was at the shops had picked up more plastic containers.  I dropped my shopping off at home and headed back to GZ of the J&SB geocache, but someone was sitting near it while watching their kids taking turns riding a mini bike up and down the park.  I waited about 20 minutes while I updated logs of my geocache finds for the day, but they weren’t going anywhere so I decided to head home.  There’ll be plenty of time to replace the container in the future.

Yesterday, after going out to find the Rooty Hill Rocks geocache, I decided I’d finally hide our cache which I’d prepared a week or two before.

It’s been very hot here and I’ve had a lot of things on so haven’t had time to go hide it, but yesterday I was out anyway so figured I should get it done.

During the week while at work, I’d looked around the suburbs near home using Google Maps with Satellite View.  It allows you to see photos of the actual terrain as viewed from satellites.  Using this you can pinpoint areas of interest and possible geocache hiding holes.

I found a street a couple of Km from home which looked likely and so set out to hide the cache.  A week or so ago Striker and I went looking around another area which looked like a possibility, but we walked for about an hour and a half and found nowhere suitable.  Yesterday, after about 20 minutes walking in the blazing heat, I found a nice spot.  Luckily I had taken a bottle of cold water with me because I was baking in the heat!!

I placed the cache and sprinkled some spiny fir leaves over the cache and a few sticks to make it blend in with the trees and grass.  Unfortunately, while pushing it into place, I pressed on the lid a little too hard and it put a small crack in the lid.  Most of the stuff inside won’t be affected by water. The logbook is sealed in a Ziplok bag and so is The J-Team Travel Bug I dropped in there as an incentive to find the geocache.

One popular thing with new geocaches is to be the “FTF” – First To Find.  Everyone loves to be the first to find a new geocache, so often they race each other, excitedly hunting it down.

Near the GZ — Ground Zero — (the geocache’s actual location) is a long-jump.  There’s some astroturf on it and lines, along with a sand pit in the end to land in.  I thought it’d be neat if people brought a measuring tape along and measured how far they can jump, then post photos to the geocache blog.  It’d be extra fun if they brought their kids along, which people often do for a family day out of fun and exercise.

I might take Striker there one day with a measuring tape and we can do some jumps and upload the photos, too.

Anyway, I took about a dozen readings from my iPhone’s Geosphere application to make sure I had the right location to mark on the website.  If you click on the Jay and Silent Bob link in this webpage’s sidebar you can see everything about the geocache.  You don’t want your coordinates to be too far out because it can be a headache for people trying to find it.  A few numbers out can put you far from GZ.

I had looked for my dedicated Garmin eTrex GPSr a week or so ago but it’s trapped somewhere in my pile of stuff in my storage bay at Kennards Storage. It would have given better readings, but this look sufficient enough.  I also turned off the GPSr funcationality in the application a few times to make it re-lock onto satellites and turned the whole phone off and on to make sure as well.

After I was satisfied I’d got enough readings I headed back to the car, only stopping a couple of times to take photos. First, of the Long-Jump then of the cycleway nearby to show people they can ride around there if they so wish.

I picked up a carton of Pure Blonde beer on the way home as it was sooo hot I wanted to drink some to cool myself down… and sometimes water just doesn’t cut it.

A great, hot, sweaty, fun day out anyway and am glad out first Geocache is ready to find.  I’d hide another today but I want to print out our logo and branding to stick in the logbook and I’d like Striker to go on the next hide anyway since he misses out on Geocaching due to working weekends.

Awesome!!!

I went out in the damn hot 40C+ heat and think I got a tan or something. I’m sure I am not at danger of Vitamin D deficiency hehe

I drove the car down to the location I’ve searched twice before and wandered around the bush for about 40 minutes in the heat. Several times contemplating giving up but never wanting to.  I’d start walking out of the bush and turn around and came back in for another go.

I walked into a few spider webs but backed out without getting the spider or web stuck on me.. whew!

I finally wrote a log saying “Couldn’t find it. Giving up. Workers here setting up things for Aus day” or something similar.

Yet, I still could not quite give up on the hunt.

I walked around a few more times but then had a look at the place where Lord Striker thought the cache might be. Lo and behold, there was the damn thing. Sitting there, laughing at me… the bastard!

I picked up the cache and looked inside it to make 100% sure it was the geocache. Sure enough, it was.  I didn’t have my pen with me so didn’t sign the log.

I later phoned Striker and he reminded me we had stickers made with our team name on it to stick in the log books.  Then I remembered I had put some of the stickers in my wallet to take on this Geocache search.  Unfortunately, by the time he’d reminded me I had already driven several kilometres away from the cache.  We will pop back again some time soon and stick our sticker in the log.  We live around the corner from the cache anyway so it’s not hard to get to.

I was soooo damn happy to find the Geocache.

I also went out and hid the first Geocache which is going to be listed under the new Two Goth Geeks username on the Geocaching.com website. I will blog about that soon.

The U.S. Air Force Global Positioning Systems Wing and the 50th Space Wing have announced a reconfiguration: the 24+3 GPS constellation plan or “Expandable 24,” with timeline as follows:

“The [24+3] initiative will take up to 24 months to fully implement as satellites are repositioned within the constellation based on constellation health. The beneficial impact to all GPS users, including civilian users, will be slowly realized during that time period. Over the next two years, the number of GPS satellites in view from any point on earth will increase, potentially increasing accuracy of GPS receivers.”

The plan will significantly alter the current configuration, which consists of indeed 30 GPS satellites in MEO or medium earth orbit that are used globally. However, many of the additional satellites are currently flown in tandem, side by side, with considerably older satellites and effectively limit the constellation geometry to that of 24 satellites.

Sourced from GPSWorld.com

Today, I’ve added the Odiogo Text-To-Speech plugin to this blog.

You can now use the link in the Sidebar to subscribe to an audio podcast of all of my blog posts now.  Just copy the link from the icon and add it to your Podcasting application. There’s also links to iTunes and the MP3 file embedded in the LISTEN NOW link on every post.  Try it out and see what you think!

Unfortunately, since Striker’s blog posts here are syndicated from his other website, they aren’t available as a Podcast nor to listen to the audio.

Out for a stroll over the Pyrmont Bridge during lunch to head towards the city and find a Geocache, I turned on my Geosphere application and noticed the lastest GPX downloads I had installed showed a new Geocache not far away, but in the opposite direction.

I did a U-Turn and headed back the other way towards the Fish Markets.

The Midway Geocache is relatively new, but has already been found by about a half-dozen Geocache teams.  I walked to the park mentioned in the description and just as I was arriving there two female muggles walked into the park in front of me.  I wandered around the perimeter following my compass which eventually pointed to a spot very close to the muggles.  They had sat down on a park bench almost right next to the Geocache location.  I had a quick look and actually spotted the Geocache, but could not retrieve nor sign it due to the closeness of the public.  I decided to go for a walk down the road and hopefully the time taken would be enough for them to have left by the time I got back.

After walking for about 10 minutes, I turned on the Geosphere again and saw I was only about 200m away from the Stairway to Deafen Geocache.  I have previously had a quick look for this one but was on the wrong side of the Motorway and could not get across.  This time I was on the right side and followed the arrow on my compass to it’s location.  The compass got me close enough to the stairway I guessed must have been housing the Geocache, however the compass kept pointing in different directions with different distances.  I decided to trust my luck and just look around the stairs.  After a quick snoop I found the Geocache and walked up the stairs to retrieve it, but some muggles came by.  I didn’t have a lot of time left in my lunch break so made sure I saw the Geocache to log and headed back past the Midway Geocache.

The two female muggles were still chatting away on the park bench so I headed back to the office.  Still, it adds another two Geocaches to the Two Goth Geeks found cache list.

First, a quick note.

On Friday while on a lunch break, I headed to Chinatown in Sydney to have a look for the Dragon Tales Geocache.  It had not been found by anyone recently and since I needed the exercise I headed off to check for myself.  Well, when I got there and looked at the exact spot given in the hint, sure enough there was no cache there.  It was a micro, but it looks like someone has removed it.  No big loss to me since nobody else had found it either, so I’m sure it’s definitely not there.

Yesterday I picked up a friend I work with — Andrew — and his girlfriend — Anna — and introduced them to a day of Geocaching.  Before I got them, I drove to my storage unit at Kennards Storage to find my Garmin eTrex Basic GPSr, but after a half hour search had not found it.  I know it’s in there somewhere but there’s soooo much stuff it’s lucky I can ever find anything at all!

We were looking for Geocaches around where they live, near Rhodes.

The first one we checked out was the Meadowbank Park Geocache.  I had picked this as it’s a regular, traditional Geocache and therefore more likely to find.  I checked the street address using my iPhone and Geosphere software, then typed that into my Navman street map GPS and headed off.  It looks like my Navman maps are very old or just plain wrong as we had a few places we had to turn around and find another way.  One, we were supposed to go to the end of the street and turn right.  Well, there was no right turn at the end of the street, in fact it was a dead end and looked like there had never been a right turn there. At least not in the last 3 years I’ve had those maps.  The maps in the Navman are from 2007 but this road looks like it had never been there, so I don’t really know.  We turned around and found an alternate route to the park.  We jumped out and I handed the iPhone to Andrew and he followed the compass direction to where the cache should be.  Since there was a crumbly stone wall within 5m of where Geosphere said the cache should be (the iPhone GPS is not terribly accurate. Usually within +/- 17m or so) I figured that’s where we should look.  I looked along the wall and noticed a large-ish lizard and he saw me.  He quickly ducked under the rocks and as I put my head closer for a better look, saw the Geocache.  I told my friends “I’ve found it!” and they said “What? Already?”. So, I let them have a look and they fished out the Geocache.  I signed the logbook and dropped off the Cap Mountain (CO) Green Jeep Travel Bug into the cache and picked up the Beetle # 3 Travel Bug.  The Jeep Travel Bug was purchased from the Jeep company and was part of a competition.  The Beetle # 3 Travel Bug is an actual bug!  It has a pretty, green beetle encased in plastic with the Travel Bug dogtags attached.  My friends re-hid the Geocache and we went for a walk along the riverbank.

Not far from the Meadowbank Park Geocache was the Shepherds Bay Geocache.  Since it was along the riverbank walk we decided to give that one a go.  We had to jump through some spiky grass plants to get to it and it was nicely hidden, but we nabbed it quickly and I signed the logbook, had a quick look inside — as did my muggle friends — and rehid the Geocache for the next lot to find.  I didn’t drop off the Beetle # 3 Travel Bug as it seemed no point since it had only moved about 300m.

We went for a walk to some nearby shops which are part of a complex of apartments and picked up a bottle of beer each to cool us down since it was a very hot day.  We went back down near the ferry and swigged down our beers while watching the ferry come and go.  A P-plater drove by in a very old style car.  I told my friend his grandpa probably loaned it to him and said he could ‘take it down to the river and back’ hehe.

I don’t really like Micro caches much as they can be a real bother to find, but we wanted to check one more Geocache in that area, so I did a quick look on my Geosphere application and found a Micro not far away.  We strolled along to where it would be at the Helene Park Geocache location.  We scouted around this one for about a half hour before giving up.  It’s well hidden and from the logs on the webpage, it’s very unusual and extremely well hidden.  We gave up on that one and walked back to the car for a quick drive to the Haslams Geocache.

The Haslams Geocache is near the Sydney Olympic Park.  We stopped the car near where the cache was and walked down to it, only to find a fence in the way.  I read the Geocache description which said “If you find a fence in the way, you have come the wrong way and need to go to the Avenue of Oceanic and park near there”.  So, we bundled back into the car.  Well, Anna and I did while Andrew went for a quick slash in the bushes.  When Anna got in the car, I said “Oh! You finally ditched him! Let’s go!” and started the car and drove down the hill.  Andrew came running out of the bushes, trying to zip his pants back up as he thought I was leaving him behind.   I stopped the car to let him in and we all laughed.  I drove the car to the location mentioned in the description, but it was over 500m away from the Geocache.  We had previously parked about 200m from the Geocache, so that was annoying, but the day was now somewhat cooler so it wasn’t a problem and it was all downhill anyway.  We took a shortcut through some pine trees and Anna was being bitten by some mosquitos.  Andrew slapped them off her and then he was being attacked.  I heard one buzz by my ear but none were attacking me.  We quickly got out of the pine trees and found a track to the Geocache.  We got halfway down the track when I noticed the road split off into two separate directions.  I checked the Google Maps and they showed both tracks, which looked like decent tracks, but the one I needed to go down was merely a small goat-track type.  It looked as if it hadn’t actually been planned but some people walking it from time to time had worn down a small track, still filled with lots of weeds and grass.  My friends headed back to the road and I pushed on.  I got down the track to near the cache and the compass pointed towards the road so I headed that way.  I turned around and saw a small pile of rocks and was sure this would be where the Geocache was.  Sure enough, it was!  I signed the logbook and dropped off the Beetle # 3 Travel Bug and picked up The J-Team Travel Bug.  I headed back to my friends whom were sitting on a seat nearby, swatting mozzies off each other.  I mentioned I think I heard one mozzie fly by my ear once, but they were being attacked and not too pleased about it hehe.  We headed back to the car and Anna swatted a mozzie off my back and I hit one on my chest before it got through my shirt.

We soon arrived back at the car and by now it was nearly 4pm so I drove my friends home as Andrew’s sister was on her way over to visit them.  I headed back home again and had some dinner and rested while I watched some TV.  A really nice day out, all in all.  Since my Navman has been sending me the wrong way and needs an update I’m very tempted to just purchase a brand new Tomtom Navigator and give the Navman to my cousin Michael as I promised.  The Tomtoms are so cheap now and have better features than my Navman and will have new maps anyway.

So, on the way home from work I decided to have another quick look for Dodge This! (M4). I had been looking in the right area, after all and from reading the logs I knew where to look. I had a quick glance around and quickly spotted the cache. It’s a Nano all right, but since it was knock-off time at work there was no way I was going to be able to retrieve it. I found it, though, and that’s the main thing.

Tonight, Striker and I went searching for a place to hide our first Geocache under our new Username “Two Goth Geeks”. Earlier in the day I had printed out some Satellite photos of areas I thought we might be able to hide the cache, due to the cover of trees along a creek. We drove to a nearby street, parked and got out and went for a walk. We must have walked 1.5km-2km and had not found a suitable place to hide the cache. We walked back to the car and drove along a bit further, but still nothing. In the end, we decided to try and find another cache not far from our home, called “Rooty Hill Rocks!”.. the cache… not the name of the home.

We followed our GPS-equipped iPhones using Geosphere and parked the car near a reserve. We got out and went for a walk. It was only about 20 minutes before dark, so we were not that optimistic, but went along anyway.
We quickly found the correct area, but after searching for about 20 minutes it was too dark for Striker to see. I kept going for another 10 minutes, determined and sure I would find it. Well, by now it was getting close to 9pm and was rather dark. We decided to call it a day… er.. night.. and head on home. We grabbed some petrol on the way home as I was almost running on empty and got back home again. Not a productive afternoon, but still fun and some good exercise all the same.

Because it’s been sitting around for a while, I decided to take mum’s car out today. It’s running like a bucket of shit, it shudders under load. I think the timing must be out.

I drove it round to the place that WauloK is house-sitting, and we then jumped in to his car, and drove to a place to hide our cache.

After walking for hours, trying to find a suitable location to hide our first cache under the Two Goth Geeks name, we came up with nothing.

River crossings, clambering under road bridges, checking out tree stumps, there was no place at all that we found to hide the cache.

With little daylight left, we thought it best to try and pick up a cache to have something to show for the day, and headed for ‘Rooty Hill Rocks’, and while there were no muggles around, we had very little daylight left.

20 minutes of searching, and it was too dark for me. WauloK tried to stick out another ten minutes or so by the light of his iPhone, but then gave up also.
The comments on this cache suggest that it is really easy to find, and we did find the tyre referenced as “nearby”.
No sign of much in the way of rocks, though, and certainly no cache found.

I’ll get you Gadget..