Just two new caches to report both went live for Lon & Gwyn’s Event:
GC9PPDB Dinas Dinlle, the Disappearing Coastline by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D1.5/T1.5 GC9PPEA Dinas Dinlle, The Middle by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D3/T3.5
GC8MAT4 Community Celebration Event – Final Daily Grid
Lon & Gwyn with their 3D printed souvenir
Congratulations Lon and Gwyn from all your Geocaching friends on finally completing your ‘Daily Grid’, a challenge made even greater by Covid 19 lockdowns. To celebrate this momentous occasion they hosted a Community Celebration Event at Dinas Dinlle sea front, unlike previous events along this stretch of coast line the weather was perfect, blue skies and sunshine! Plenty of geochat, cakes and drinks plus 2 new caches going live made for a very enjoyable evening.
This CITO (Cache in Trash Out) was our first post-covid lockdown official geocaching event since 14 March 2020 and a chance to restore some normality. The weather forecast was iffy so kudos to all who defied the Met Office forecasts and turned out, as on the day, we had only the occasional light shower to contend with. This location was selected because: we have picked here before and know the location, it is fairly child friendly, and above all there was some litter to be picked. It was great to catch up with friends some of whom came from as far as Macklesfield and Oldham. It was also great to see some new faces and junior cachers who made a great contribution. In all 23 assisted with the litter pick including Diapason16 who happened to be in the area looking for a cache, he rolled up his sleeves and mucked in, unlike his daughter, who like a stereotypical teenager rolled her eyes and sat on the wall with her mobile phone :-). We cleared from Penygroes to Groeslon and collected about 12 bags of rubbish from the cycle path. The litter was sorted and taken to Rhwngddwyryd, Garndolbenmaen Recycling Center for disposal.
Many thanks to Inigo Jones Slate Works for letting us use their car park as a base for the CITO
Pete and I are probably the only people in the world that are pleased to see this event has been pushed back to May 2022 as this means we will be able to attend after all. We hope to put into place our original plans and are hoping others can join us.
“GC7WWWW 20 Years of Geocaching Prague 2020 – Edition 2022 Although we were hoping for better news, the situation is unfortunately not such that it will be possible to carry out a gigaevent in 4 months. This event will not take place in September 2021 because of health and safety concerns related to COVID-19. It will be rescheduled to 13-15 May 2022. Hopefully, the situation will be stabilized next year. We believe that it will be possible to organize a grand celebration in a joyful and relaxed spirit, so that both participants and organizers can enjoy it. Once it is rescheduled, we will post an Announcement and update this page.”
GC4WEDK 147 Snooker Challenge D5/T4 Challenge Cache UK I like a good challenge and this is certainly one. For this cache all you have to do is find 36 caches in a day, simple, well it’s not quite that easy. Basically, you are playing geocaching snooker, different types of cache count as the different coloured balls as in snooker and you have to score a maximum break of 147! See the cache page for the rules. The idea for this cache is “borrowed” from Just-Us-Two, the original cache being GC4NYHP. Disappointedly we failed this challenge on our first attempt, too many DNF’s and too long spent looking for parking spots resulted in us running out of time. Having learnt from our mistakes we planned our next attempt like a military operation – even having a dry run to check parking spots. We had a great sense of achievement in signing the logbook of the well-hidden nano.
GC1TG4P Intertidal Footprints D5/T3.5 Earthcache UK I am not a big fan of earthcaches but this one is very special. Coastal erosion at Formby has revealed the sub-fossil footprints of humans, animals and birds preserved in laminated silt exposures. Due to constant erosion and shifting sand, the coordinates are for the general area. We had tried twice unsuccessfully to find this earthcache so signed up for The National Trust Guided walk. Our guide was excellent, answered all our questions and took us to an area about 500m away from the published coordinates where we immediately found human footprints. At the first location, we found Human, Oyster Catcher and what was probably Aurochs footprints. The best discovery of the day was a trail of footprints left by an adult with a child’s set of prints running alongside. They looked so perfect that they could have been made that morning. At the second location a bit further south, we found Crane and Red Deer, here the laminated deposit was a completely different colour. The guided walk is highly recommended for this one, cost about £5.00 – worth every penny!
A Red Deer hoof print from approx 4,000 years ago.
GCKCJV Ghost Village (Wiltshire) D5/T1.5 Virtual UK This is one of those places I would never have known about, let alone visited if it had not been for geocaching. The virtual cache is found in Imber, Salisbury Plain, a village taken over by the army in 1943 as a training ground. Originally the residents were told that they would be allowed to return after the war but this was never permitted. As the village finds itself in the centre of a military range danger area it is only open to the public at certain times of the year and with very strict access rules. The whole experience is very surreal, the drive across Salisbury Plain with its abandoned tanks to the perfectly preserved church and graveyard.
A house converted into a training room Imber
GC6K8BF Ogof Clogwyn D5/T5 Letterbox UK I have not found many letterbox caches mainly because there are very few in our local area. While planning a trip to find the oldest cache in Wales this letterbox caught my attention initially because of its type but also it being a D5/T5. I’m not that good with confined spaces but after studying the cache page and a bit of general research on the internet there didn’t appear to be any tight squeezes or anything too difficult. Ogof Clogwyn is rated as a beginners cave therefore it has plenty of space and head room. This cave really has the WOW factor. The walls are lined with amazing rock formed shelves, so, as with any cave/mine, hard hats are a must. I’m surprised there is not an Earthcache here. The hardest bit was getting into the cave as there was a lot of water tumbling out of the entrance which is quite high. Once in, armed with a laminated copy of the excellent instructions it was easy to find the route to the cache. To be honest it would be very hard to get lost. Be prepared to get wet! Oh and the water is very, very cold. This is one of those caches that you wish you could give more than one favourite point too. As the cache pages says ‘its simply a pretty cave in a pretty spot”.
Ogof Clogwyn Cave – Photo published by kind permission of cache owner Stuart (Funk to Funky)
GCM7R6 Northside Pub Crawl D2.5/T1.5 Virtual GCJJVZ Southside Pub Crawl D3.5/T1 Virtual Ireland If you are in Dublin and love pubs these two caches are a must. All answers to the clues are on the outside of the buildings but the inside of the pubs are worth a look and you really should sample the quality of their Guinness. These two caches are great to do in a group, we had a fantastic weekend of drinking and caching around the City, only realising a little too much Guinness had been consumed when it came to working out the final calculations! Also after visiting the 20th pub the terrain rating maybe a little on the light side……..
A pint of the black stuff always tastes better in a Dublin Pub
GC3D4F9 Arte de Portas Abertas D2.5/T1 Multi Portugal Madeira I usually avoid Multi Caches especially if they have lots of stages, they always seem a lot of work for very little. This cache guides you through an area that is best described as an outdoor art gallery. A near derelict street of Funchal was brought back to life by The Art of Open Doors project. Local artists were commissioned, each artist being allocated a space/door to express themselves, with their imagination and a few low-cost resources, the street was transformed. As the tourists began to visit they were quickly followed by shops, cafes and bars. The area is now thriving with very little evidence of its past. The final cache is not great but the artwork makes up for this.
Back in 2014 events were few and far between in North Wales, with most being hosted by visiting geocachers and usually consisting of a quick meet at a well-known tourist spot. Around this time Geocaching HQ started issuing souvenirs that could only be obtained by attending events. After driving 120 miles on a very wet, cold, horrible Sunday afternoon to spend 15 minutes standing around a trig point getting soaked we decided things needed to change. So naturesbyte and I began to host souvenir events. With the same faces regularly attending these events we all decided to form a group to share ideas and the responsibility of organising events. What were we going to call ourselves? The 9 comes from the number of regular attendees and the Usual Suspects comes from Ecobake’s logs. Occasionally he wasn’t the First to Find on a new cache and if one of us had won the race he would put in his logs that he had been beaten by one of the usual suspects.
Results of our 1st CITO
With our group name sorted, 9 Usual Suspects geocaching account was opened on the 4.8.2015 with our first event at Witches Brew Tea Rooms, Pwllheli on 22.8.2015. 2015 also saw us host the GIFF (Geocaching International Film Festival) for the first time, it has since become a regular event in our calender. With 2016 being a Leap Year someone had the bright idea of having an event and maybe setting a few caches…….. Leap Day was celebrated with 2 events, breakfast and evening, with the publishing of the 29 series during the breakfast event.
In April 2016, with the support and loan of equipment from Gwynedd Councils Tidy Town Scheme, we organised our first and very successful Cache In Trash Out (CITO) at Lon Cob Bach, Pwllheli. We have since hosted at least 2 CITOs a year at 7 different locations every time filling the trailer.
As we all enjoy each other’s company and geocaching together it was decided to meet up once a month for an evening event, this has been a great help in planning events, caching trips and our general adventures. The first Nosh & Natter was held at the Antelope Inn, Bangor on 9.5.2016. March 2020 would have seen Nosh & Natter 40 but sadly was canceled due to Covid 19 lockdown. There are now far more than 9 suspects attending our events and involved in the planning of our activities. Our trips to date have taken us to Wales’s oldest cache, Europe’s First, Dublin, Edinburgh, Paris, Prague and of course Piratemania, Geolympics and UK Mega’s.
Our Caches
The Original 29 Series
As mentioned above the 29 series went live for Leap Day 2016 during our breakfast event in Pwllheli. What better way to celebrate Leap Day than to have a new series of 29 caches over a distance of 29.2 miles? The series starts in Pwllheli and finishes in Bangor but can be done in any order. It was decided that all caches were to be drive-bys or very short walks to enable the series to be easily completed in a day. As there is a lack of Church Micros in North Wales we tried to include as many as possible. This was our first attempt at placing caches and naively we thought we were allowing ourselves plenty of time to hide the caches and get the paperwork complete……. 6 weeks ample time! Soon it became very apparent that it was not going to be quite as easy as we had thought. As we started putting caches in for review the rejection rate was far higher than expected, mainly due to some obscure SSSI’s and lack of correct permissions. With the 29th February getting forever closer the pressure increased to find cache sites that would pass the Reviewer. Our well thought out direct route began to get more and more slight diversions and we had to drop the standard of some locations/hides. With 2 days to go we had 30 caches reviewed, which one to drop? Only one answer, start the numbering from 0 – 29 and include them all.
A list of all 30 caches:
GC6AMBB 0 of 29, TB Hotel (Traditional) GC6A5M7 1 of 29, Lon Cob Bach (Traditional) Archived GC6A5NV 2of 29, Lon cob Bach, Gwylfan Viewpoint (Traditional) Archived GC6A7W9 3 of 29, The Layby (Traditional) Archived GC6A7ZN 4 of 29, Yr Eifl Quarry View (Traditional) Archived GC6A81X 5 of 29, Trefor Beach (Traditional) Archived GC6A94Q 6 of 29, Field Puzzle (Traditional) Archived GC6A95N 7 of 29, Formerly Known as Trefor Pier View (Traditional) Archived GC6A96M 8 of 29, Just before St. Beuno’s Well (Traditional) Archived GC6A9KX Church Micro 8975… Clynnog Fawr (Multi) GC6A9EW 10 of 29, Cycle Path (Traditional) Archived GC6A9NK 11 of 29, Aberdesach Beach (Traditional) Archived GC6A9PE 12 of 29, Pontllyfni (Traditional) Archived GC6A9RB 13 of 29, 1984 (Traditional) Archived GC6ANZ7 14 of 29, The High Wall Glynllifon (Traditional) GC6BZ8F 15 of 29, On the Way to Glynllifon (Traditional) GC6AJ1N 16 of 29, Take a Break at Llanwnda (Traditional) Archived GC6AJ24 Church Micro 9068…Llanwnda (Traditional) GC6AFN7 18 of 29 In view of three bridges Caernarfon Morfa (Traditional) Archived GC6AFPK 19 of 29, The Old Workhouse (Traditional) Archived GC6AGT1 20 of 29, Cibyn (Traditional) Archived GC6AGTC 21of 29, The Old Ferodo Factory (Traditional) Archived GC6AGTJ 22 of 29, Derelict Building (Traditional) Archived GC6AGTV 23 of 29, The Griffiths Crossing (Traditional) Archived GC6AH85 24 of 29, Felinheli (Traditional) Archived GC6AH8A 25 of 29, Come and Feed the Ducks (Traditional) Archived GC6BWY0 26 of 29, Parc Menai (Traditional) Archived GC6AH8M Church Micro9069…Bangor – Our Lady (Traditional) GC6AJ2W 28 of 29, Cerrig yr Orsedd (Traditional) GC6AH90 29 of 29, Sit down and Admire the Bridge (Traditional) Adopted by RichieBlod
For everyone that has completed the series Lon designed a profile badge.
Copy and paste the following text to your profile page:
This series was placed as part of a project to encourage people to get outside to improve their health and wellbeing. We worked with Menter Môn, Llangoed Community Council and Wales Co-operative Centre to host an afternoon of geocaching activities which included a CITO and this series going live. The series was originally 7 caches designed as an introduction to geocaching, showing a variety of cache types, containers and hides guiding you around the castle grounds. We have since added another cache to the trail to replace GC63XZD Abberlleiniog Castle by Duncan Feegles which has been archived.
GC7R8HF Aberlleiniog Castle Trail, The Beginning (Traditional) GC7R9KV Aberlleiniog Castle Trail, Up and Behind the Tree (Traditional) GC7R9FE Aberlleiniog Castle Trail, Hazel Tree (Traditional) GC7R9JR Aberlleiniog Castle Trail, Metal Gate (Traditional) GC9CZA6 Aberlleiniog Castle Trail, Boardwalk (Traditional) GC9JWGW Aberlleiniog Castle Trail, The Castle (Traditional) GC7C5VW Aberlleiniog Castle Trail, on the Way to the Beach (Traditional) GC7R9K8 Aberlleiniog Castle Trail, The Bonus Cache (Mystery)
Lon Eifion Cycle Path
Lon Eifion cycle path runs from Caernarfon to Bryncir following a disused railway line though some beautiful North Wales countryside. A regular 9US litter picking site.
GC73WMR Lon Eifion, Remains of another Day (Traditional) Archived GC73VXB Lon Eifion, TB Hotel (Traditional) GC73WKK Lon Eifion, Lon Eifion 8! (Traditional) GC90J0V Lon Eifion, Mynydd Graig Goch View (Traditional) GC90HVH Lon Eifion, The End (Puzzle) GCA4DX7 Bats, Bats, Bats Traditional
Traeth Lafan Nature Reserve
Traeth Lafan is an internationally important ecological area consisting of 2500 hectares of intertidal mud and sand – a bird watchers paradise! Another 9US CITO site.
GC7C4Z2 Traeth Lafan Nature Reserve (Traditional) GC7C5VW Traeth Lafan and North Wales Coastal Path (Traditional) GC7C4Y9 Traeth Lafan Wherigo (Wherigo)
Dorothea Slate Quarry
Dorothea Quarry
Dorothea Quarry is a fascinating place full of industrial history which as the buildings and structures decay is slowly being reclaimed by nature. A great place to explore but please be aware that the buildings are all structurally unsafe. The caches were all published as part of our ‘Magic Makers’ weekend. We have not given any hints on these caches but have increased the difficulty rating by a point.
GCA9NZC Bright Eyes Revived (Traditional) GCA9RBX Fly Over (Traditional) GCA9WT2 The Gateway to Talysarn Hall (Traditional) GCAADDX Out for Zero (Traditional) Archived GCAADZA Cornish Beam Engine House (Multi)
The above cache should have been part of the 29 series but the area is shown as being a SSSI on the magic map. Anyone who has found this cache will know it is far from being an area of scientific interest. It currently holds the 9US record for getting published, original put in for review on the 30.1.2016 and finally being published on 23.9.2016!
GC7ZC3Q Sionyn68: Tu hwnt i… /The Wrong Side Of… (Traditional) GC8HB9N The Old School (Traditional) Archived GC8HBC5 End of the Road (Traditional) Archived GC8HBDM Rhos y Pawl (Traditional) GC8YYEK War Memorial #1221 ~ Pwllheli (Multi) GC8DH3W Church Micro 12800…Llanfaglan (Multi) GC76QEW Spoiler (Puzzle) GC76QD8 Not a Karsahian (Puzzle) Archived GC9NJ42 Caernarfon Town Walls, Porth y Aur (Traditional) GC9PPEA Dinas Dinlle, The Middle (Traditional) Archived GC9PPD8 Dinas Dinlle, the Disappearing Coastline (Traditional) GCA0C7V Under Bess’s Friends Nose (Traditional) GCAAC90 Take a Break, Look at that View!
Leap Year 2024
A new series of 29 caches went live on the 29th February 2024 to replace the original 29 series which was getting increasingly difficult to maintain. All caches were placed along Lon Eifion Cycle path between Inigo Jones Slate Works and Caernarfon.
GCAJNTY Lon Eifion, Another Tree by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2/T1.5 GCAJNTZ Lon Eifion, Araneae by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2.5/T1.5 GCAJNV0 Lon Eifion, Afon Seiont by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D4.5/T1.5 GCAJNV2 Lon Eifion, BOT by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2/T1.5 GCAJNVC Lon Eifion, Posted by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2/T1.5 GCAJNVE Lon Eifion, The Crossing by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D4/T1.5 GCAJNVJ Lon Eifion, Rail Bridge by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D3/T1.5 GCAJNVP Lon Eifion, Fron Goch View by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2/T1.5 GCAJNVQ Lon Eifion, Gated by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2/T1.5 GCAJNVW Lon Eifion, Meet Ivy by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2/T1.5 GCAJNWJ Lon Eifion, Meet the Bison by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2/T1.5 GCAJNW6 REALLY SideTracked – Bontnewydd by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D5/T1.5 GCAK6FF Lon Eifion, Afon Gwyrfai Bridge by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2.5/T1.5 GCAK7VY Lon Eifion, Fence by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2/T1.5 GCAK6FZ Lon Eifion, Meet Nagini by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2.5/T1.5 GCAK6GC Lon Eifion, Gate Crossing by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2/T1.5 GCAK6MK REALLY SideTracked – Dinas by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D1.5/T1.5 GCAK6MY Lon Eifion, Meet Kermit by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2.5/T1.5 GCAK6N1 Lon Eifion, Hole in One! by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2/T1.5 GCAK6N4 Lon Eifion, Meet Hazel by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D3/T1.5 GCAK6N6 Lon Eifion, Rotcelfer by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2.5/T1 GCAK6NC Lon Eifion, Deathly Hollows by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2/T1.5 GCAK6NE Lon Eifion, Meet Roland by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2/T1.5 GCAK6NJ Lon Eifion, Gates by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2/T1.5 GCAK6NP Lon Eifion, Oak Tree by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D4/T1.5 GCAK6NW Lon Eifion, Sycamore Gap by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2/T2 GCAK6P3 Lon Eifion, Design by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D2.5/T1.5 GCAK69C Lon Eifion, Tafarn Pennionyn by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D3.5/T1.5 GCAK6PA Lon Eifion, Inigo Jones by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D3/T1.5
