Tag: Souvenirs

News & New Caches 208

A couple of new caches and an event have been published since our last post:

GCBFP48 Lon Eifion, No Sign by 9 Usual Suspects Traditional D1/T2
GCBFTRA Lon Las Ogwen – a cache by a tree by ShadowTheNinjaWolf Traditional D1.5/T1.5

Events

GCBFR57 Piratemania On Tour #1 by Piratemania Crew Event D1/T1.5
When: Saturday 31st January 2026
Where: Parc Snowdonia, Waunfawr, Caernarfon, Gwynedd LL55 4AQ
Time: 2.30pm to 5pm

A chance to meet and support the Piratemania Crew as they promote Piratemania 18 [2026]. Never been to Piratemania? Come along and find out what you have been missing. There will be a raffle and other merchandise on sale with all proceeds going to fund Piratemania 18 Mega event.

When: Friday 24th July to Wednesday 29th July
Where: Kelmarsh Hall & Gardens, Main Road, Kelmarsh, Northampton NN6 9LY

GIFF Results

The votes have been counted, and we are excited to present this year’s film festival awards: the Signal Award (chosen by community volunteers) and the People’s Choice Award (voted for by geocachers). This year, an interesting phenomenon occurred, volunteers and geocachers chose the same winner.

HARD WORK by Harogs Team
(harogs, geocachingclown, and commge)

This clever Swiss made film took a unique look at the workings of a gadget cache, but only came 2nd in the vote held at our GIFF event. If you missed the films or would like to watch them again: find them here: GIFF 2025 finalist films.

  • There were 61 filmmakers from 21 countries who submitted a film for consideration this year.
  • 20 films from 10 countries were selected as finalists.
  • The final films were viewed at 634 Events across 92 countries, territories, and regions.
  • Just under 10,000 geocachers voted for the People’s Choice Award
  • Event attendees earned 16,335 GIFF 2025 souvenirs.

The Geocaching International Film Festival will return in 2027.

December Souvenir

The December Solstice Souvenir is available from Friday 19th to Monday 22nd December, to earn find and log any geocache, Event, or Adventure Lab® Location.

Event Reviews

GCBDKZD Christmas Dinner – Nosh & Natter 84 by 9 Usual Suspects
Our Christmas Dinner event is always a popular event and a great way to start the festive season. This year was no exception, an evening full of fun and laughter. Big Thank You’s to Mike & Gail for the quiz and prizes, Gra for the lovely dragon magnets, the Secret Santa and of course the staff of The Goat for the lovely food and looking after us.

GCBERY8 9 Usual Suspects: Escape Room. by 9 Usual Suspects
Bess’s Friends, Julie, assisted by Ray crafted a fantastic geocache event in the form of an escape room set in a pub. It was a radical shift from our normal events and required teams to solve a series of cleverly designed clues to ‘break out’ of the pub before closing time. The pressure was on as our local PanIQ escape room owner and their partner attended joining one of the teams. Solving the clues required a combination of teamwork, observation, deduction and lateral thinking only when these were combined, escape was possible. A great afternoon which everyone enjoyed and appreciated the work involved by Julie & Ray to make this event possible. We are hoping that there will be a repeat event… 

And finally….

It’s nearly Christmas, the season of bad jokes…
What never eats Christmas dinner?
The turkey, it’s stuffed!

News & New Caches

It is forecast to be a lovely weekend with new caches being placed all over our area there is no excuse not to get out, find a cache or two and enjoy the sunshine.

GC9Q66Y Minesweeper by Clueless_Goose Mystery/Puzzle D3/T1.5
GC9Q5KM You Are Here by Somot Traditional D1.5/T1.5
GC9Q3JG ❤️Dating Trees❤️ by StrawberryFinch Traditional D1.5/D2.5

Premium Member Only
GC9Q89N Pass the Parcel by Squaddie101 Traditional D2/T1.5
GC9Q59G Tilly’s View by Bess’s Friends Traditional D1/T1/5

Event Reminder

GC9PMX9 9 Usual Suspects – Nosh & Natter 44 by 9 Usual Suspects Event
When: Tuesday 29th March
Where: Anglesey Arms, Harbour Front, Caernarfon LL55 1SG
Time: 7pm to 9pm or when the last person leaves

If you are planning to attend please could you log a ‘will attend’ as we need to let the pub know numbers.

New Challenge, Signal’s Labyrinth

Geocaching have announced their latest challenge, Signal’s Labyrinth, which starts on April 4th 2022 lasting 12 months. By collecting points on geocache finds, Adventures labs, and mysterious bonus items you help Signal to escape from the labyrinths and return to Geocaching HQ. There are 6 different labyrinths with 2 months to complete each maze and 2 souvenirs for each stage plus a bonus for collecting all 12.

News & New Caches

GC9N17R 9 Usual Suspects Go Peering Around the Pier By 9 Usual Suspects Event D1/T1

We have an event on 27th February at Garth Pier, Bangor published this week. After the event we hope to find GC9MJNM Friends and Piers by Clueless_Goose Mystery D3.5/T1.5.

February Reach the Peak Souvenir Challenge

The final stage in Reach the Peak Souvenir Challenge is the worlds tallest mountain Everest.

Everest and the Welsh Connections
Did you know that Everest is named after a Welshman? The mountain was named after Colonel Sir George Everest, who was born in Crickhowell, Powys in 1790. Sir George was a surveyor and geographer who worked as the Surveyor General of India between 1830 and 1843.

In 1802 the Great Trigonometric Survey of India was established to identify the world’s highest mountains. Over many years British surveyors used giant theodolites to measure the heights, and in 1852 analysing of the raw data led to “Peak XV” being officially verified as the world’s highest peak.

Although the surveyors attempted to preserve local terms wherever possible, there was no unified name for Peak XV. In November 1847, Andrew Waugh, the then surveyor general of India, proposed that the mountain be named after his predecessor, Sir George Everest.

Although Sir George opposed the suggestion, in 1865 the Royal Geographical Society officially adopted Mount Everest as the name of the world’s highest point.

Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing trained for their famous 1953 expedition to conquer Everest here in Snowdonia staying at the Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel. Here today many items are displayed connected with their training and the expedition.

Souvenir Challenge

The February challenge starts Monday February 7th, 2022 at noon UTC and finishes Monday March 7th at noon UTC. Geocachers must collect 425 points to earn the Everest Basecamp souvenir and 8,849 points to earn the Everest Summit souvenir. Geocachers who earn all fourteen Basecamp and Summit souvenirs in the Reach the Peak Challenge will also earn the Peak Performer souvenir.

Here are the point values for our climb up Everest:

Completed an Adventure975
Found a Mystery Cache900
Found a Multi-Cache850
Found a cache with 15+ Favorite points700
Found a Letterbox Hybrid550
Found an EarthCache650
Found it*425
Found an Adventure Location125

*Log a Found it on any other non-Event cache type, excluding Webcam Caches.

The maximum number of points you can earn for any cache log is 975 points.

About Us

9 Usual Suspects – The History

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:

<a href=”https://imgflip.com/gif/148sl8″><img src=”https://i.imgflip.com/148sl8.gif“/></a>

Aberlleiniog Castle Trail

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 Rest of Our Caches

Does this really look like a SSSI site?

GC6AJ2K Bangor Pier Viewpoint (Traditional)

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