I
didn’t sleep that well last night. Just before I went to kip I’d had an email
from Geocaching HQ. Yesterday someone had been looking for one of the caches
I’d hidden on a public footpath near Challock and had upset the dogs in a
nearby house. The chap who owned the house came out to find out what was going
on, and the person looking for the cache told him what they were doing. They
went on to tell them all about geocaching, and the web address of Geo-HQ.
Consequently the chap contacted Geo-HQ and asked for the thing to be removed as
he didn’t want geocachers (or anyone)
using the public right of way which runs near his house. Without doing any
checking the people at Geo-HQ immediately archived my offending cache.
I’m
a bit miffed by this. The thing wasn’t on private land; it was the other side
of a rather wide track on public land. Will the council now re-route the
footpath for these people purely because they want to be alone?
And
I’m doubly miffed that Geo-HQ didn’t think to discuss the matter with me first.
I’m sorry I went out of my way and spent my own time and money to hide the
thing to help them in what is fundamentally their get-rich-quick scheme.
Geocaching
HQ are a load of crap really. What on Earth do they do? Caches are hidden by
volunteer members of the public (like me).
Their suitability is judged by unpaid volunteers. The caches are found (in the large part) by the use of
third-party software as their own proprietary product isn’t fit for purpose. Despite
the whole thing clearly being funded by quite a bit of advertising, having paid
out money to Geocaching HQ every year I then had to buy at least two apps which
*are* fit for purpose. I also pay
money to Project GC because the website provided by Geocaching HQ doesn’t
actually allow you to do the hobby.
I
shall continue to take advantage of the hobby to go out finding the caches.
However I shall take this episode to be formal notification that my efforts as
a hider of caches are not appreciated, and shall not bother contributing to the
hobby any more.
This
morning I was rather tempted to take my “Kent
Geocacher of the Year 2015” award over to Seattle and shove it up the arse
of Geocaching’s chief executive.
Over
brekkie I watched an episode of “Uncle”,
then got my stuff together and met up with Dick. We completely ignored my
sat-nav’s instructions and made good time to Polegate where we met up with
Aleta. Together we drove up to Hellingly.
Last
week we walked the northern half of the Cuckoo
Trail, collecting geocaches as we did. Despite my sulk we went out hunting
caches along the southern half today. It was pretty enough (as you can see by clicking here), but the route
followed an old train line which now either has trees on either side or goes
through housing estates. Scenic views were somewhat lacking.
We
broke up the walk with a little wander round Heathfield where we had lunch.
Geocache
wise… When we walked the northern stretch I wrote about the caches ”most were rather difficult finds. Many were
lacking any kind of hint, and I must admit I thought the given
difficulty/terrain ratings were something of an underestimate”, so we knew
today would be hard. Today we set off for forty caches; we found thirty. Of
that thirty, some of them were ridiculously deep in the undergrowth, and some
required herculean efforts of tree-climbing. Several were only found from hints
from previous logs.
We logged “Did
Not Find” on six of them. Were they really missing? I’d offered to replace
any missing caches and was told that none were missing a week or so ago. I saw
a couple of the ones we found had notes from the chap who’d hidden them in the
last week or so implying that he’d been along. Had he checked the lot? “Owner Maintenance” logs might have given
us a bit more enthusiasm to persevere. I’ve mentioned before that some people
want their caches found, and some don’t. These ones are definitely in the
latter category.
There
were three caches which fell into a rather odd category. We found them. But the
rules say you have to sign the paper log. We couldn’t get to the paper log as
they were too high in trees. There are those who like the tree climbs, but
there were a few too many for my liking.
Perhaps
I’ve just got the sulks with the whole hunting Tupperware thing. I had an
excellent day out with good friends, but geocaching-wise today was perhaps my
worst day ever.
Once
home I walked my dogs round the park. It was as well that I’d not taken them to
Sussex; they wouldn’t have liked the bushwhacking, and would have barked incessantly
as I climbed trees. But they needed a walk.
The
walk passed off relatively uneventfully (compared
to yesterday’s fiasco), but there was a rather painful two minutes when the
puppy got hold of a KFC chicken bone. I managed to get my fingers down her
throat to retrieve it, but I got a rather chewed hand for my troubles.
For
all that I had a rather good time with friends today, I’m hoping for a better
tomorrow… Imight have stopped sulking by then.
No comments:
Post a Comment