Tag: Nosh & Natter

GCBAX9G 9 Usual Suspects – Nosh & Natter 81

GCBAX9G 9 Usual Suspects – Nosh & Natter 81 by 9 Usual Suspects
When: Thursday 28th August 2025
Where: Parc Snowdonia, Waunfawr, Caernarfon, Gwynedd LL55 4AQ
Time: 7pm to 9pm or when the last person leaves
Please note for this event we are back to normal, the last Thursday of the month.

News & New Caches 195

One new Earthcache, an event and the UK Mega have all been published since our last post:

GCBAVJW Pwllheli Stone Circle by MrMagnaDefender Earthcache D2/T1.5

Events

GCBAX9G 9 Usual Suspects – Nosh & Natter 81 by 9 Usual Suspects
When: Thursday 28th August 2025
Where: Parc Snowdonia, Waunfawr, Caernarfon, Gwynedd LL55 4AQ
Time: 7pm to 9pm or when the last person leaves
Please note for this event we are back to normal, the last Thursday of the month.

UK Mega 2026

Today at 10am the cache page for next years UK Mega went live:

GCB910M East Anglia UK Mega Event by EastAngliaMega26
When: Saturday 8th August 2026
Where: Norfolk Showground, Dereham Rd, New Costessey, Norwich NR5 0TT
Time: 10:00am to 4pm

The Norfolk Showground is located just outside Norwich, with easy access by car. The showground has ample space for camping and plenty of toilet blocks and showers.
Evening events will be held in the St Walstan Hall on site.
Camping will be available from Tuesday 4th to Monday 10th August. More details will be added when available.

For more information see their website: East Anglia UK Mega 2026

World Postcard Day Souvenir 2025

Did you know that Wednesday 1st October is World Postcard Day? To celebrate this day Geocaching HQ have announced a new souvenir. To qualify for the souvenir you need to attend an Event from September 28th to October 4th, 2025. All Events, including Community Celebration Events and Block parties, qualify for the souvenir.

CADW Open Doors 2025

This September, more than 200 of Wales’ historic sites, landmarks and hidden gems will offer visitors free entry, events or guided tours.

It’s all part of Open Doors — Wales’ annual contribution to the European Heritage Days initiative, which invites heritage organisations, private owners, local authorities and others to open their doors or offer activities to the public free of charge during September.

Funded and organised by Cadw, to encourage Welsh residents and visitors alike to explore some of the country’s lesser-known and smaller-scale sites ― several of which are usually closed to the public.

Harlech Castle open free weekend 26th/27th September

Last year we took advantage of the free entry to host an event at Harlech Castle. We can highly recommend the castle and the guide tour which is also free.

For further details visit CADW Open Doors

News & New Caches 173

We have 4 new events for your diaries:

GCB34NR 9 Usual Suspects – Nosh & Natter 75 by 9 Usual Suspects
When: Thursday 27th February, 2025
Where: Parc Snowdonia, Waunfawr, Caernarfon, Gwynedd LL55 4AQ
Time: 7pm to 9pm or when the last person leaves

GCB34PF CITO, A487 North, Another Quick Pick by 9 Usual Suspects CITO D1/T4.5
When: Wednesday 5th March 2025
Where: A487North Lay by
Time: 11am to 12pm

GCB34QK CITO 2025 Season 1 by 9 Usual Suspects CITO D1/T3
When: Saturday 8th March 2025
Where: The Old Bridge, Morfa Parc, Caernarfon
Time: 2pm – 3.30pm

GCB34RZ 9 Usual Suspects Cake and a Brew by 9 Usual Suspects Event D1/T1
When: Saturday 8th March 20254
Where: Old Bridge, Parc Dre, Caernarfon
Time: 3.30pm to 4pm

75th Nosh and Natter!

This months Nosh & Natter is our 75th! Our first N&N was on Monday 9th May, 2015, at the Antelope Inn, Bangor with 9 attendees. Who then would have dreamt that 10 years later we would still be meeting up once a month. Over the years we have had 66 different geocaching accounts log an attended from all corners of the world. We can’t find any photos of the first event but I have found one from our first Christmas Dinner:

CITO Season 1, 2025

CITO Season 1, 2025 souvenir will be available from Saturday 1st March through to Saturday 31st May, 2025. We have 2 CITO events published for the beginning of March that by attending will earn the souvenir. We are planning more CITO’s later in the season.

Treasure Collections Update

This new feature starts on Monday 17th March.
Collection 1: Geocaching origins
In this collection there are four Treasures inspired by the beginnings of geocaching. To find, simply find and log Traditional Caches.
We are still unsure if there will be a Treasure in every Traditional cache or only hidden in a selected few. Also will the Treasure be visible prior to finding the cache or only revealed on logging.

Collection 2: Celebrating 25 years
To unlock Collection 2, Collection 1 must be completed. This collection has five Treasures that can be found by logging any cache that has a difficulty rating of 1.5 or lower.

The Treasures feature will be available in the Geocaching® app and on Geocaching.com starting 17th March at 17:00 UTC. If you log caches using third-party or Geocaching API partner applications, you will still collect Treasure but it will not be visible in the app. and you will not receive in-app notifications when a Treasure is found. Progress can be viewed on the Geocaching® app and on Geocaching.com.

Event Review

GCB22FR 9US & Severn UK Mega Team present Ski Saturday by 9 Usual Suspects D1/T2

Firstly I must say very big Thank You to mutchie from the Severn UK Mega Team for visiting us, answering all our questions and concerns regarding this years Mega. Our Wii skiing event has become an annual fixture in the 9US calendar. This years event was the downhill, which I thought was one of the easier disciplines but the course proved to be a lot trickier than I remembered. As always the activity on the slopes was very competitive giving rise to lots of banter and laughter. Big thanks to Pete for being time keeper, making sure the technology behaved itself, printing the souvenirs and medals.

Highlights of our day:

News & New Caches 148

Just one new event published since our last post:

GCAX1YV 9 Usual Suspects Visit Harlech Castle by 9 Usual Suspects Event D1/T1.5
When: Sunday 29th September 2024
Where: Harlech Castle Car Park LL46 2YH.
Time: 12-12.30pm
A castle set in a beautiful location with a fascinating history. After the event we invite all attendees to join us on a free guided tour of the castle as part of CADW Open Door project.
Please note dogs are only allowed on the ground floor of the castle.

Event Reminder
This is tonight!
GCAWF8W 9 Usual Suspects – Nosh & Natter 70 by 9 Usual Suspects Event D1/T1
When: Thursday 29th August 2024
Where: Snowdonia Parc, Waunfawr, Caernarfon, Gwynedd LL55 4AQ
Time: 7pm to 9pm or when the last person leaves

Cosmic Quest Challenge Update

This challenge was original scheduled to run until Sunday 1st September but Geocaching HQ have announced that it has been extended a week to Sunday 8th September. Is this because the accumulative point total has not reached their target of 15,000,000? Currently the total is 2,300,000 short!

There is the possibility of three souvenirs available, two to be individually earned and one by the geocaching community reaching a target of 15 million fuel points.

See the table below for information about how many fuel points different geocaching actions generate:

Activated a trackable1
Attended an Event3
Received a Favorite point on an owned geocache2
Found an EarthCache5
Found it*1

*Logged a Found it on any other cache type, excluding Webcam Caches.

Players can earn the Super fuel cacher souvenir by generating 20 fuel points and players can earn the Ultra fuel cacher souvenir by generating 100 fuel points. If the accumulative fuel points total reaches 15 million the 3rd souvenir will be awarded to all those that have taken part in the challenge.

News & New Caches 98

First we must apologise for the lack of recent posts so this one maybe a bit longer than normal!

Lets start with the caches that have been published since our last post

GCABP1M watch out for the trolls! by CheesyPasta Traditional D1.5/T1.5
GCABQDY Brambles of Lon las by CheesyPasta Traditional D1.5/T1.5
GCABRND The Wright Box by Brynvj Traditional D1/T1.5
GCAC0DF Bay Books by escapefromwork Multi D3.5/T1
GCAC3VK Bryn Wylfa View by cacheB8S Traditional D1.5/T1.5
GCAC6DN Coastal Cache. The old Lifeboat Station by cacheB8S Traditional D1.5/T2.5
GCACB4E HHH – A Hunt on the Hindlea Headland by cacheB8S Traditional D2/T2
GCAC9PK Portable Magic by escapefromwork Traditional D2/T1

Event Reviews

GCAB60H CITO, A487 South, Quick Pick by 9 Usual Suspects D1/T4

Before………..
After……….

Thank you everyone for attending and for all your hard work in tiding up this lay-by. Again our weather god was on our side, it might have been grey but there was no rain until we had packed up. After the previous days rain we were very surprised on attendance numbers. With many hands making light work we saw the area quickly transformed, 11 bags of rubbish picked from this very small area. In an ideal world there would be no litter as everyone would dispose of their rubbish responsibly.

The hard working team

After a litter pick we always message Gwynedd Council with our results and reporting any concerns we might have, the following is taken from our latest report:

“We think part of the problem here is caused by lack of litter bins. The lay-by is a popular stop off point for visitors travelling to/through our area, a litter infested lay-by is not a good look. Please could the council consider placing a couple of bins in each lay-by.” 

We received the following reply from Norman Hughes:

“Thank you all for your work, clearly a great improvement. Thanks for highlighting this location I have passed on your comments regarding new bins at the location. I have also forwarded your message to our Street Scene Manager. I will update you once I receive an update.
Again many thanks to all volunteers.”

Let’s hope we won’t have to be back here for a long time……..

Nosh & Natter 59

GCAB6AZ 9 Usual Suspects – Nosh & Natter 59 by 9 Usual Suspect D1/T1

What an awful night? Not the weather you expect for the end of July! Again we were amazed at the turnout for an outside event, not just wet but very cold for July. A huge thank you to Cemlyn for coming to our aid and opening up his works canteen, giving us a dry and very comfortable venue for our event.

Wheel of Challenge, Iconic Cacher

What comes next in Wheel of Challenges? – Official Blog

The Wheel of Challenge, Streak Star!, ended on Sunday 6th August. The next challenge, Iconic Cacher, started on Monday 7th August and finishes on Sunday 3rd September. To qualify for the 2 souvenirs, easy and hard, find as many different icons that you can.

Earn the easy souvenir for this challenge by finding and logging these three different cache types:

  • Traditional Cache
  • Adventure Location
  • Event Cache

Earn the hard souvenir for this challenge by finding and logging these eight different cache types:

  • Traditional Cache
  • Adventure Location
  • Event Cache
  • Virtual Cache
  • EarthCache
  • Multi-Cache
  • Mystery Cache
  • Letterbox Hybrid

The next challenge will be announced on August 29th.

News & New Caches 89

Just one new traditional cache and couple of event reminders/updates.

GCA8Y30 Passing by the barrier by MagpieNorthWales Traditional D1/T1

Event Reminders

GCA5EAK 9 Usual Suspects Re-visit Ynys Enlli Event
When: Sunday 28th May 2023
Time: 12pm-4pm
Where: Café Tŷ Pellaf Farm, Ynys Enlli
I have just looked at the weather forecast, it looks perfect, so we are very confident there will be no problems with our ferry crossings. We will put an ‘announcement’ on the event page just to confirm our sailing. Don’t forget cameras, sunscreen and hats! See you Sunday.

GCA8D9R 9 Usual Suspects – Nosh & Natter 57 by 9 Usual Suspects
When: Wednesday 31st May
Where: Anglesey Arms, Harbour Front, Caernarfon LL55 1SG
Time: 7pm to 9pm or when the last person leaves
For this months N&N we are back at the Anglesey Arms, lets hope for a lovely sunset!

Postponed Event

We are postponing our visit to Coed y Brenin as several of the caches are missing and we are not sure when they are to be replaced. As soon as the series is back up and running we will reschedule.

Springwatch 2023 is Local

The BBC’s Springwatch returns to our screens on Monday 29th at 7.30pm and will continue at 8pm from Tuesday 30th May until Thursday 15th June. This year our local wildlife will be featured in two live broadcasts from Gwaith Powdwr Nature Reserve on the 30th and 31st May and Cemlyn Nature Reserve on the 13th June. Plus there will be daily features from wild places around North Wales. If you miss any episodes the series will be available on iPlayer after the live broadcasts.