My geocaching year 2011

It is already the last week of the year and that is always a good oppertunity to take a look back at the past year. I am looking back at a fairly good geocaching year, here are some of my amazing experiences:

My first find in 2011 was a special one. It was my first found by ski and my first found in Austria: Dorfgasteiner Skiventure.

Later that January I joined some geocachers living nearby for my second ever nightcaching adventure and it was a big one! 20 kilometers in freezing cold but the marvelous waypoints were worth it. Unfortunately we found the cache the day after in daylight. I am talking about a Waardeloos! adventure, maybe the best cache in The Netherlands.

In March I went a few days geocaching in the 3 borders area, resulting in my first find in Germany and I awarded some favorite points. Read this blogpost to find out where to go when you are in the area.

Also in March I attended the Achterhoeks Cache Event (ACE), my second event and a nice experience meeting some other geocachers and finding 3 caches!

In May I improved my most finds in a day stat, by finding 5 caches in one day. However, none of them are really worth mentioning and I learned again that one good multi is better than 5 traditionals.

In June it was time for some holiday geocaching, resulting in my first finds in Slovakia and Hungary!

In August I failed terribly on FTF hunting, but a few days later I had an STF on another cache!

At the end of the year I had an amazing day in November, when I spend a day cave caching just across the border in Belgium. See this log and this log, both extraordinary good caches.

At last, the police was called when a muggler saw me logging a cache and thought the ammobox and the hole in the ground were suspicious. Read about it here and here.

In total I have found 60 geocaches in 2011, 2 less compared to 2010 but it´s not about the numbers as some other people say. Looking forward to some new adventures in 2012!

Cache page quality, also a reviewers task?

Last August, the Dutch reviewer Kruimeldief has waved goodbye. Since then the Belgium reviewers are helping out the other Dutch reviewer GeoGuy. What immediately was noticed, was that the quality of a cache page dropped significantly. With quality I mean things like attribute icons, useful hints and the overall information on the cache page.

Apparently, Kruimeldief was asking cache owners to take a second look at their cache page before publishing them. As opposite, the Belgium reviewers were only looking at the Groundspeak guidelines. Of course, this was immediately noticed by the community.

I think all reviewers should concern about cache page quality and, if needed, ask cache owners to improve their cache page before publishing the cache. Geocaching is so much more fun if you read a cache page with good information, the right attributes and a useful hint. Geocaching.com is the only Geocaching website with a reviewing process, so if it is already there, why not use it to improve the quality of a submitted cache page?

At first the Belgium reviewers responded that it is only their job to review a cache against Groundspeak guidelines. Now they understand that cache page quality makes Geocaching.com stand out from the other Geocaching websites and they are asking cache owners to take a second look!

What is your cache page like? Do you have the right attributes on the page? Is your hint 'Not needed'? Do you have more then 1 line of text on your page? It is time to change it now!

Holiday Geocaching

Do you go geocaching on your holiday? Or do you go on holiday and find some geocaches? What's the difference? Let me explain...

You can create a pocket query with all caches in your holiday region. When arrived, you can visit all the places described in the tour guide book and take a look at your GPSr every now and then to check if there is a cache on the left or right side of the road. If you spent your holiday like this, then you go on holiday and find some caches.

I have just returned form my multi city trip holiday to Munich, Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest. We went geocaching on our holiday. This is how we did it:

1. Put the tour guide book in your backpack and leave it there (you only need it to find a good restaurant).
2. Go to the geocaching.com website and click 'Hide and Seek a cache'.
3. Enter the address where you are going on holiday and a radius, eg. Budapest, 1 mile and click go.
4. Click on the blue favorites ribbon to get the cache with the most favorites points on top.
5. Now you see that 'Gellert Hill' is the place to go in Budapest. Also download at least the other first 9 caches to you GPSr. This is the to do list for your holiday. That is what I call geocaching on holiday.

If you do the same for Vienna you will see that the 'Old Wiener Spaziergang' city tours by Lachwurzn are quite popular. Why do we geocachers need a tour guide book? Have an even better holiday this summer!

10 reason why your cache could be better!

1. Stick to the theme. If you make a difficult to find cache, make every waypoint difficult to find. In all other situations, make sure the waypoints can easily be found and questions can be quickly answered so the cacher can focus on the theme (eg. navigating or hiking). Also hide your waypoints in the same style, this makes them easier to find. Good. Bad.

2. Don't use wordvalues. Because they do not make sense and take ages to calculate. Simply ask for the lettervalue of the 3th and 5th character. Bad.

3. Make your cache easy to find. Geocaching is all about finding a cache (and not about searching a cache). The cache should be hidden for mugglers but not for geocachers. Good. Bad.

4. Cache size to small. If I have survived the challenge of your cache I want a decent log book to write down my experiences. Not a piece of paper asking for a name and a date. Good. Bad.

5. Take criticism serious. If a remark about your cache keeps coming back in several logs, change the situation. Bad.

6. In a forest 'behind a tree' is never a good hint. Neither is 'see spoiler picture'. Always add a good hint. If I think a cache has been ripped, I want to be sure I have looked at the right spot. Bad.

7. Perform maintenance if geocachers write a 'need maintenance' log.

8. If a special tool is needed, mention it on the cache page. Also use attributes, especially the wheelchair icon. Good. Bad.

9. Give an estimation of the amount of kilometers or the time needed to find the cache. Good. Bad.

10. Think about what your cache adds to the already existing caches in your neighbourhood. If you can not come up with an answer within 2 minutes, archive your cache.

When geocaching in Rome...

... you can do all the traditionals at all the famous spots. But we did it diffently. When we visited Rome last November, we went for Angels and Demons and the four sisters, the challenging mystery caches of Nemrodek.

Angels & Demons is about the famous book and movie and will lead you along all the important places of the story. The four sisters is a nice puzzle cache which will lead you to 4 nice places in Rome where you have to answer 4 challenging questions. Do not forget to visit the coords on the cache page of the four sisters, for us that was the best view in Rome.

We failed on both caches, but we had tons of joy searching for them and nearly missed our plane! Next time in Rome I will give it another go. I recommend you do the same.

6 tips for blossom geocaching at the Betuwe

The Betuwe is a part of the Netherlands that is famous for its fruit orchards. At this moment all the fruit trees are flowering, which is very beautiful. That makes this weekend the best weekend to visit the Betuwe for a blossom cache! Find here 6 nice caches by car, bike or foot to experience the blossom:


By car or bike: Betuws fruit

By bike or Foot: Bloeiende Betuwe, Bingo or Zakdoekje leggen (also a recommendation if you do not like blossom).

By bike: Hoge dijken, Lage huisjes and the Slingerroute serie.

Enjoy!

7 Tips for geocaching around the 3 borders area (NL, GE, BE)

Last week, I spent a few days in the south of Limburg, the most southern province of The Netherlands. In my opinion this is the most beautiful part of The Netherlands because it is unique in the Netherlands. Most of The Netherlands is flat, but this part has hills which gives you beautiful views and an attractive geocaching area. Find in this article 7 tips for geocaching when visiting the eastern side of this area, both in The Netherlands and just across the border in Germany and Belgium.


The Dutch part:
When you want to explore the Dutch hills, I can be short. Just pick one of the multi caches of Pielewiele 22 and you will have a magnificent walk through the hills. Another recommendation is 'Ruprecht', a walk to a hermitage ('kluis' in Dutch), passing a source, religious statues, the track of the steam train and of course beautiful views. All of that in just 3 kilometers.


Germany:
Just across the border southeast of Aix-la-Chapelle (Aken, Aachen) is a very nice military lost place with a traditional cache showing you some old tanks. Also very nice is this wherigo with a dark ending (bring your flashlight). Not war themed but in the area and worth naming is also this cache, 'Erstens kommt es anders'.


Belgium:
When crossing the border to the Walloon part of Belgium, I can recommend 'La Mine de Plombiere', a nice tour around the former mines of Plombieres. Very nice is the artificial tunnel of the small river Geul through the rocks. Last but definitely not least is this must visit traditional: Klenkes 2010: Ich glaube ich muss...

To do list:
Urban caching in Aix-la-Chapelle: Special Agent
Night caching in Germany: Das Geschenkdepots des Weihnachtsmannes, Nachtcache Wurm-Loch and Jagd auf Al Capone.
Just another good cache: The 5 senses

Do you have something to add to my to do list? Please write a comment or tweet me!

Not my favorite...

…cache rating system. Late December the favorites functionality was introduced on the geocaching.com website. If you are a premium member, you earn a favorite point for every tenth found log. You can give these points to the caches you liked most. This way other geocachers can see what you liked and put more quality in their daytrip planning.

This new functionality gives other geocachers the opportunity to make a daytrip planning based on your recommendations rather then on the information in logs only. With the current density of geocaches to choose from, any qualified information in a rating system is better then no rating system at all. That is what makes the favorites functionality look like a great new feature. I think it is a great new feature, but it is not the best feature it could have been.

Why? Because I want to see what I might like, not what other people liked. With the current rating system, I can make a list of caches in a certain area and sort on favorite points (Hide & Seek a cache --> Seek a cache by address --> enter a radius --> Go --> click on the blue favorite icon in the header row to sort). For sure this will put a good cache on top of the list, but it is still based on what other people liked.

According to Groundspeak lackey Bryan Roth in a global caching chat, Groundspeak is working on an algorithm that presents you caches you might like based on awarded favorite points by you and by other people. For example, If you and someone else both awarded a favorite point to cache A and this other person also has awarded a favorite point to cache B, which you have not yet found, you will probably like cache B because you both liked cache A. The more favorited caches you share with another cacher, the more likely it is you will like the caches the other user has favorited and you have not yet found. This algorithm would make the result of the rating system more personalised and gives me a list of what I might like instead of what other people liked, which is exactly what I want.

However as I said, it is not the best system. It only takes into account the caches I have awarded a favorite point and not the other 9 out of 10 caches. Imagine you would have a rating system which gives you the possibility to rate every found cache on a scale from one to five with one being poor and five being excellent. These are some results entered by you and other cachers in this imaginary rating system:

	Cache A	Cache B	Cache C	Cache D
You	5 points	Not Found	2 points	Not found
Cacher 1	5 points	5 points	4 points	1 points
Cacher 2	5 points	4 points	1 points	5 points

If 5 points resembles a favorite point, the Groundspeak algorithm would present you cache B and cache D in random order because you all liked cache A. However my imaginary rating system would also take cache C into account and because your rating on this cache is closer to cacher 2 then cacher 1, your caching taste is more like cacher 2. So, although cacher 1 does not like cache D, this would be the cache you would most likely like because your geocaching taste resembles cacher 2. Imagine this scenario with a lot more data behind it (your amount of founds) and there will be a lot of difference in the accuracy of the results of the rating systems!

But, as I said before, any rating system is better then no rating system. So here, under lists, you will find my favorited caches. I have 5 favorite points in my pockets. I only give them to caches which really deserve them, as I do not want you to visit caches I favorited which are not really remarkable. Please also be critical as it influences the decision for my next hunt!

By the way, my imaginary rating system is called GcVote. It does not contain the described algorithm and also the usage by other cachers in my region is very low. Just like other cachers, I also prefer a Groundspead branded rating system as more people are aware of and using it. Unfortunately this makes GcVote useless. Nevertheless the best solution was right before Groundspeaks eyes but they did not take it. Shame, shame, shame.

How a frontyard cache kicked of a 9 hour nightadventure

As you might know, I am not a fan of frontyard caches. Nose around in other people’s frontyard while the neighbours are watching you from behind the windows is not particularly my cup of tea. Last autumn however, I got an invitation via Twitter from @adriaanfemke_a to visit their frontyard cache and have a nice autumn beer. This last offer was exactly what I needed to pay them a visit. Besides the beer offer, I was really curious who the team behind the very creative caches like ‘Van de kaart’ is.

After the first handshake, the topic quickly changed to quality caching. After exchanging some recommendations for quality caches, there it suddenly was: the offer I could not refuse. “In January we are going to do ‘Waardeloos!’, would you like to join?” Off course I would like to join! The cache is going to be archived end of March and according to many people this is currently the best cache in the Netherlands! I was already working on this cache myself but got stuck at the third exercise, which was pretty worthless. A friend of A&F had already cracked the challenges and got a start certificate for end of January. Yes, I was very happy to join them!


The weekend before our night adventure, we had a little preparation meeting, which ‘forced’ me again to find a frontyard cache but also gave me the opportunity to meet some other geocachers. Again, the meeting was a lot of fun and we all were excited for our night adventure. During the next week, there was some sad news, A&F could not join our adventure. So, a few days later, I found myself in the woods, temperature -4 degrees Celsius, only the light of 4 flashlights and with 3 people I just knew for a week… We walked 20 kilometers, taking 9 hours and a daylight trip the day after (we made some terrible mistakes) but we had worthlessly great fun! ‘Waardeloos!’ truly is one of the best caches in the Netherlands.

However, what most changed my mind is, is what a boring frontyard cache can start… So if you are planning to find a frontyard cache, make sure to announce your visit so you can meet the people behind the cache. Please keep in mind that I am not accountable for the fun you will have!

A&F have already found ‘Waardeloos!’ as well. The cache will be archived in March but cache creator Phoenix Night is already working on its successor ‘H!’. With great expectations my new geocaching friends and me are all looking forward…

How to spent a weekend around CacheDorado 's-Hertogenbosch

The city of 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands is an area with a high cache density. Mainly responsible for this high density in caches is Geopatra, who has named this area 'CacheDorado'. According to him, there is a cache for everybody. But which cache is for you? I have put some recommendable caches in four groups for you; 'Point hunters', 'City walks', 'War theme' and 'Nature up north'.

Point hunters
For point hunters there is a lot to do in the cachedorado. There are a few bike routes combing multiple low distance caches: Fietsroute 2 from 's-Hertogenbosch to Drunen, Fietsroute 5 from Hedel to Nederhemert and Fietsroute 6 Elshout to Drongelen. Expect a lot, but not very spectacular, caches nearby interesting and less interesting spots.

City Walks
's-Hertogenbosch has a very nice city center and multiple cachers have taken the oppertunity to guide you through the city. Very special about 's-Hertogenbosch is that city center and nature are very close. You can best experience this in Hopman Henks version, but if you are more interested in the city walk and less in nature I more recommend Le Comtes version in combination with Jurassic Park. Off course Geopatra also has a city tour but the puzzle took me too much time so I have not found this one yet. Another recommendation is Moerasdraak, which starts close to the city center at very busy junction but after an exciting walk you end in nature with a nice view on the city.

Nature up north
North of the city center, there are some caches in special areas. Diezemonding for example, an area without any paths, 2 meter high thorny plants and cows. Another recommendation is Bovenwaard with animal skeletons all over the place and a cache with a nice plot but mainly very nice handcrafted waypoints. Unfortunately this caches is offline for some time.

War theme
South of 's-Hertogenbosch there are some very interesting war themed caches. Vughtse Heide takes you to the place where prisoners of camp Vught were shot in world war II. At Tower of Evil you can visit the museum related to the camp. Probably the best cache in CacheDorado is 'Het geheim van Elzenburg'. A war themed cache about trust and betrayal with a very, very good plot. Not war themed, but close to the war themed caches is IJzeren Man, a challenging cache which deserves its place in this post.

So, CacheDorado has something for everybody, a lot of good caches. But what it does not have is a cache that everybody likes. A cache that you have to do, which makes you come to this area. Or, is it this one, just outside the CacheDorado?

Oh no! Not another micro!

Two weeks ago, I found the cache Pömp'n'Pöt, a beautifull 42 km tour through the hills of the South of Limburg, the Netherlands. It is most recommended by placer Orange Lion and also by myself to do this cache by bike. Because of the bad weather I did it by car, but if you do it by bike it is a though 42 kilometer with at least 3 significant climbs. The cache is located in a nice spot, but your reward after 42 kilometers hard work, is just another micro....

In my opinion, a micro after such a great tour is a real disappointment. There is no place to write down your experiences on the logroll, no travelbugs or coins to take as a reward for the work and a missed oppertunity by the cache placer to end the cache in the same high quality level as the rest of the cache. Finding a micro after such a tour simply is a big disappointment to me.

Is placing a larger cache such a difficulty? Last week I have found some caches of A&F, for example Lichtpunt and Big Brother which clearly show that it is quite easy to hide a small or medium cache in full sight. But because the cache fits in its surroundings so good, it will not be ripped. Want to see how it works? Just go out there and check out these caches! Then, observe the surroundings of your cache, be creative and put a smile on my face when I write my log.