Sinterklaas (see also earlier blog) has been visiting both our place and the grand parent’s (my in-laws) home. That’s a busy WE for the kids. We went yesterday to granny and grandfather yesterday and I picked up WIP cache 2: Klaverblad Lummen GC1J8D1, a work in progress cache. As such it isn’t a difficult one – I stopped the car coincidentally within 5 meters of the cache – but it’s certainly interesting for its value. Each logger takes a picture of the long term infrastructure works in progress and at the end one gets a nice overview. Read more…
I must admit I didn’t hear about the term ‘muggle’ before I started geocaching. I’m not into Harry Potter and similar stories. Some people don’t like the term and like to refer to a non geoaching person. It doesn’t sound that good, but I don’t mind using both terms. It’s the same thing with the term stash. Read more…
I’m disappointed, very disappointed. I had – in my eyes – a good idea for a cache and I was in the middle of gathering information for the story/background info when I was suddenly aware that it can’t be realised. At least not in the form I intended to be. Since the place is historical and the possible high amount of muggles, a physical cache wasn’t possible. So why not a virtual cache where people must take a picture of themselves with a GPSr in their hand and e-mail an answer on a question about the location. A good example of this is the earth cache I visited, as mentioned in earlier blog. Read more…
It’s official. I have my own travel bugs. I found them yesterday evening in my post box. I told you in an earlier blog that it stroke me that the price at EU resellers is way higher than the US prices and they ship on top via expensive courier services. Read more…
geocaching.BE, the site of the Belgian geocaching community, has been shortlisted/nominated for the site of the year election. This election is organized by Clickx, a Belgian internet and computer magazine. Read more…
Today was Wodanza day. In preperation to the WWFM IV Leuven (Flashing the Bug) event GC1HJ24, I decided to tackle a few caches authored by him in order to learn more about him. You know a geocacher by his stashes. If that saying doesn’t exist yet, it must be invented 
Read more…
Youtube is a great place when you’re looking for videos on geocaching. The quality – technical and content wise – isn’t always as it should be. Read more…
The Poezie GC18FF9 is somewhat the worst nightmare in my young geocaching career. It was a string of blunders from my side. All went well until half way (WP5) were one could doubt the amount one was looking for. Then the misery continued, I took the wrong numbers at WP6, couldn’t find WP7 due to the miscalculations based on the wrong numbers in WP5 and WP6 and ended in the middle of fields and anding roads. Read more…
It seems that the geocaching initiation during the team event exceeded my expectations so much that I got the ‘stash virus’. I told my family about it and under the excuse that it would finally help the kids to like strolling, I bought a GPS unit although this wasn’t without a struggle.
First thing I always do is search on internet for experiences, although I always take these experiences with a (large) grain of salt. It’s not the first time that these customer testimonials are fake or are biased. I had already bad experiences with car GPS units. That’s way I’m not so found on Garmin. Sometimes they don’t seem to understand in which country Belgium is located and don’t understand that Belgian roads aren’t divided in blocks.
Anyway, after some reading I thought I had found my ideal GPS unit in the form of a Garmin eTrex Venture® HC, which occured not to be too expensive and suitable for a beginner like me. Just when I was at the point to purchase it, I read somewhere that the proclaimed high-sensitivity isn’t like it should be since it hasn’t a classic SiRFstar III chipset. On top, the internal memory isn’t extensible and thus not a lot of topopgraphical maps – not even Belgium as a whole – can be installed on this device. Back to square one. Luckily I could rely on Pieter from GPS center, who gives some good advise averse from any sales pitch and sales figures goals and prefers happy customers instead. On top he’s has even better prices than most of the chain/internet stores with a lifetime warranty on top. Even despite the fact that his shop isn’t nearby home, it is worth while to consider this shop.
Btw I bought the Garmin GPSMAP® 60Cx. It doesn’t come cheap but it seems to be somewhat the de facto standard for geocaching. I also considered the Garmin GPSMAP® 60CSx, but I found the extra money for a electronic compass a bit overkill.
