Sunset of The Daleks?

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Things are looking dire for The Exterminator! who has less than 15 hours to avoid becoming the second elimination from The Great Travel Bug Knockout, whereupon he'll no doubt be recalled to...

Planet Skaro

...and have Davros ceremonially remove his sink plunger and break it over his knee (although that's more likely to break the old fella's knee!).

In other news, two separate cachers have reported Mat Smith's Hazards of Geocaching 2 (The Sheep) John's Knockout racer Travel Bug to be missing from the Portuguese cache that it is logged into. Still, with almost 900 miles under the woolly trackable's belt, there's plenty of time for it to turn up before it faces the prospect of elimination.

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Billy Bear emerges from his hibernation

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The weather must be improving, as Ve8's Billy Bear Racer Travel Bug has emerged from his bunker after a 7+ week hibernation, thanks to Bigspen, who is threatening to take Billy to Cheshire in the near future.

A second entry in The Great Travel Bug Knockout retrieved today is smart451's Smart Car 10 Knockout Racer, retrieved from a Swedish Event Cache by Stockholm-based cachers Pettssons.

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Is Love and Peace about to overcome the Knockout Leader?

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No change at the bottom of The Great Travel Bug Knockout's leaderboard, but Hediya's Love and Peace (Maan) TB is slowly creeping up on the current knockout leader, having been placed into this cache south of Aberdeen (that's Aberdeen, British Columbia, Canada!), adding 9.9 miles to it's distance travelled.

And apropos of nothing in particular, here's photographs of oceanblue07970's Half Hearted Travel Bug and cooper troopers' the noble traveller TB taken before being placed in their first cache in France;

It's good to see that Knockout entrants are spreading themselves around The World, currently there are entries in caches in the U.K., Canada, France, Portugal, Sweden and the U.S.A.!

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Who's on the bubble?

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It's the countdown to the second TB elimination from The Great Travel Bug Knockout on January 1st, and it's looking dire for my own The Exterminator!, which has been stuck in this North-Eastern cache for 6 long weeks. I can only presume that the container has a staircase leading out of it... However, I do have a secret weapon up my sleeve <evil cackle>...

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Life is just one party after another (if you're Smart!)

When the caching gets tough, the cachers go to Events. At least they do in Sweden, as smart451's Smart Car 10 Knockout Racer has been picked up at an event cache yesterday, by the explorist, who has posted photographs from the event on his blog (now, where have I seen that template before?!).

No sooner had the explorist retrieved SC10KR, than he logged it into another event, Mellandagcaching i Katrineholm, adding 177.31 miles to it's distance travelled. The name of the event refers not only to it's location, but also to the fact that it is being held on a day between Christmas and New Year's Day, known as a mellandag or in-between day.

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Smart Car 10 is walking backwards to Christmas!

Swedish cacher jsson has placed smart451's Smart Car 10 Knockout Racer in this Event cache in Gothenburg, to be held on December 20th. This is close to Haga, the first Swedish cache that SC10KR visited, meaning that it is doubling back on itself, adding 114.45 miles to it's distance travelled.

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A Hazard in Essex

EmCache stalwarts niknrich have placed lgxkls' Hazards of Geocaching 1 - Karon's Knockout Racer Travel Bug into this Essex cache in Thorndon Country Park, mooing, err.. moving it 107.28 miles further along, sufficient to enable it to jump up into 8th place overall in The Great Travel Bug Knockout.

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Caching still going on overseas

Not much caching activity to report in the U.K. (are we all fairweather cachers?), but a couple of entries in The Great Travel Bug Knockout have been retrieved from Continental caches.

Swedish cacher jsson has picked up smart451's Smart Car 10 Knockout Racer from Mitt i ingenstans and French cacher GetG has taken cooper troopers' the noble traveller from Grand quartier de cavalerie ou quartier Espagne. Interestingly, GetG did not retrieve oceanblue07970's Half Hearted Travel Bug from the same cache, giving tnt a chance to overtake ½H (or maybe fall further behind!)

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The lull before the storm?

Things have gone a little quiet at The Great Travel Bug Knockout this week, possibly due to the heavy snow in much of the U.K., however there has been a move in Canada for Hediya's Love and Peace (Maan) Travel Bug, which was placed into this cache last Saturday by moicy and retrieved the following day by fellow Canadian cacher Decz. Decz grabbed the TB before moicy had logged it in, so I've calculated the distance travelled myself at 34.47 miles (if this is found to be incorrect, I can adjust it later), giving LaP(Maan) an updated distance travelled of 4869.04 miles.

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HoG2 in Ovar, not out

Cacher slowfox has placed mat smith's Hazards of Geocaching 2 (The Sheep) John's Knockout Racer into this cache near the city of Ovar in Portugal, adding 891.63 miles to it's distance travelled, sufficient to enable it to jump up to 4th place overall in The Great Travel Bug Knockout.

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Another Smart move

Swedish cacher bollen victor has placed smart451's Smart Car 10 Knockout Racer into this cache in Southwestern Sweden. The cache name means Middle Of Nowhere, but in fact it's just north of Helsingborg, and you can almost see Denmark from Ground Zero (okay.. slight exaggeration!). This move has added 114.89 miles to SC10KR's distance travelled, consolidating it's 3rd place overall in The Great Travel Bug Knockout.

What are you, a sheep?! (no, that's Hazards of Geocaching 2!)

Yes, everywhere that oceanblue07970's Half Hearted Travel Bug goes, cooper troopers' the noble traveller is sure to follow, as the owner of the French cache that both entries in The Great Travel Bug Knockout were resting in, lomobarettes, have retrieved and moved the pair of them along to this grandly-named cache in the town of Angers, adding 7.04 miles to each of their total distances travelled.

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Smart Car 10 on the road again

Swedish cacher bollen victor has retrieved Smart451's Smart Car 10 Knockout Racer Travel Bug from the Swedish cache that it was resting in (almost immediately after it was placed there, in fact). Smart451 are taking their participation in The Great Travel Bug Knockout very seriously, as they have now posted mission information for their entry in Swedish on SC10KR's page!

Rag's hopes in tatters

It's elimination day in The Great Travel Bug Knockout, and it's a case of last-in-first-out as we say;
to Rag Zombie, which travelled a total of 0 miles.

Can a Dalek breathe a sigh of relief? ;-)