Monday 29 August 2011

Germany, the Travel Bug magnet!

5...4...3...2...1...

Still no sign of rescue for wemnog's floundering The Skylark TB.

Meanwhile, Germany is proving an irresistable attraction to entries in The Great Travel Bug Knockout, as Dutch cachers Team Nessa have retrieved cooper troopers' the noble traveller Travel Bug and dropped it into this frequently-visited driveby cache alongside the A3 Autobahn, adding 72.6 miles to it's distance travelled. tnt previously spent much of March, April, May and June in Germany and joins 2 other entries currently resting in caches in the same country.

Scroll to the bottom of this page for current official Knockout placings.

Saturday 27 August 2011

Is The Skylark's hopes sunk?

5...4...3...2...1...

With only 5 days until the next Elimination Day, it appears that wemnog's hopes for a Knockout win for his Travel Bug The Skylark may have run aground, as although Stompy&Stampy dropped the little sailing boat into this cache (after dipping it into 26 other caches first, of course!). After a week's rest it was retrieved by cacher scott_ie89, who dipped it into this cache, adding a scant 0.54 of a mile to it's distance travelled. He has since dipped the tiny dinghy into 33 more caches, then re-visited 4,  and has retained possession. The Skylark has now been logged into 225 caches (including 6 repeat visits)!

Despite all this activity, that teeny .54 of a mile has proven insufficient to hold back mat smith's Hazards of Geocaching 2 (The Sheep) John's Knockout Racer TB, which was retrieved from this Portuguese cache by Dutch cacher bachjes, who is threatening to take it back to The Netherlands with him. Assuming that the previous holder of HoG2, Wild_Lion, placed the woolly trackable directly into the cache, the distance added is 78.09 miles. What is it about Portuguese cachers and their reluctance to log TBs into and/or out of caches?

Another place change this time too, as although cacher Taubacher finally dropped off lgxkls' Hazards of Geocaching 1 - Karon's Knockout Racer TB into this German cache (after a couple of abortive dips), no actual official Knockout milage has been added due to the Only The First Dip By A Cacher Counts rule. Therefore, after cacher Svenimateur placed Smart451's Smart Car 10 Knockout Racer Travel Bug into this German cache adding 161.21 miles and fellow German cacher Fo0dy moved the little car along to this cache, adding another 7.02 miles, SC10KR has moved into 5th place overall in The Great Travel Bug Knockout. Interestingly, affter visiting Spain, Slovenia, Italy, Austria and Norway, these two entries are now in caches less than 60 miles apart. Small World eh?

Finally for this update, cacher Radijs placed cooper troopers' the noble traveller TB into this cache, adding another 3.02 miles to it's total distance travelled.

Scroll down to the bottom of this page for current official Knockout placings.

Thursday 11 August 2011

A rare change in The Knockout rankings

...as wemnog's The Skylark Travel Bug moves ahead of mat smith's Hazards of Geocaching 2 (The Sheep) John's Knockout Racer TB. The Skylark was retrieved from the Cornish cache that it was moored in by local cachers Stompy&Stampy who then proceeded to take the little dinghy on a busy caching trip, managing to visit 141 caches in the next 5 days! Unfortunately for wemnog, almost all of this effort by Stompy&Stampy was wasted as Rule no.3 of The Great Travel Bug Knockout states:

3. Only the first move by a cacher will count.  Reason: This will not stop "dippers" from doing their thing, but it does mean that only their first dip counts.

The first cache that The Skylark visited whilst in the hands of S&S was this one in Warwickshire, which added 191.99 miles to it's distance travelled, sufficient to enable it to leapfrog mat smith's recently returned-to-action HoG2 Bug into 8th place overall in The Knockout.

I'm not going to link to all of the remaining 140 caches that The Skylark has been dipped into, you can find that here if you're the obsessive type, just mention that as well as Warwickshire it also visited caches in South Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Oxfordshire, Herefordshire and Wiltshire, including both this cache and this one which it has visited previously.

Current 2nd-placed Knockout entry, Hediya's  Love and Peace (Maan) TB was placed into this brand-new Canadian cache by MaliBooBoo, adding 25.9 miles to it's distance travelled. It was retrieved 3 days later by fellow British Columbians Bull&Tink.

Cooper troopers' the noble traveller TB has also been keeping on the move, Dutch cacher slottys placing it into this puzzle cache (the Dutch love their puzzle caches and their multis!) adding 83.97 miles to it's odometer. It didn't hang around however, as it was retrieved 2 days later by local cacher Radijs.

Not too far to the south in Belgium, current playground of oceanblue07970's Half Hearted Travel Bug, which cachers leffe&duvel placed into this multicache, 29.68 miles away from the cache that they retrieved it from. It was almost immediately picked up by local cacher Verborgen Boswitje.

Meanwhile, to the east, lgxkls' Hazards of Geocaching 1 - Karon's Knockout Racer TB was retrieved by German cacher Taubacher from the Italian cache that it had been left in. He has logged an intention to take HoG1 to Germany, but in the meantime stopped off in Austria (which the little bovine briefly visited in April) to dip it into this cache (adding 38.3 miles to it's total distance), this one (adding nothing) and this one (ditto!).

Finally, commiserations to castlegrice, whose George's Fun Bus 2 Bug has been placed into this Spanish cache, which would have added sufficient milage to save the little camper van from the scrapyard, but it came just 9 days too late!

STOP THE BLOG!! Just received word that German geocacher CryptoBLN retrieved current Knockout leader, Team Blid435's BraveHeart TB from the New Zealand cache that it has been languishing in for the last 2 months and dropped it into this more regularly visited one 1.35 miles along the coast. Well, at least he didn't take it back to Germany with him! (Team Blid435 - that's new!).

Scroll down to the bottom of this page for current official Knockout placings.

...and I haven't forgotten about the promised mid-race round-up. I'll post it as soon as I have time!

Wednesday 3 August 2011

Bye-bye to George's Fun Bus ...and just where has that sheep been?!

I think that castlegrice's George's Fun Bus 2 TB is the first entry in The Great Travel Bug Knockout to be eliminated from the competition whilst in the hands of a cacher, but obviously urriellu hasn't had time to place the little camper van in Spain...
...or has he, as this looks familiar...


In other Knockout news, mat smith's Hazards of Geocaching 2 (The Sheep) John's Knockout Racer TB has made a surprise reappearance after more than 7 months on the missing ovines list when Portuguese cacher Wild_Lion found the woolly bug in this cache, 219.62 miles from where it was last reported as being. Assuming that it hasn't visited any other caches in between, that makes HoG2's current distance travelled as 1118.82 miles, giving it a more than 150 mile advantage over wemnog's The Skylark TB, which was safely retrieved from Mega Wales by cacher Shiggaddi, who then placed the little dinghy into this Cornish cache (crossing the Bristol Channel on the way, of course!), adding 86.81 miles to it's distance travelled.



                                     The Skylark at Mega Wales 2011

Mention of Hazards of Geocaching 2 brings to mind it's sister entry, lgxkls' Hazard of Geocaching 1, which has been deposited into this Italian multi-cache, just over the border from Slovenia, scene of it's recent dipping mini-frenzy.

Another entry to visit another country is oceanblue07970's Half Hearted Travel Bug which was placed into this Belgian cache, 602.5 miles from the French cache that cacher SOSATO retrieved it from. It was promptly picked up by local Belgian cachers leffe&duvel.

Finally for today, cooper troopers' the noble traveller TB was placed into this Dutch puzzle cache, adding 57.94 miles to it's distance travelled. It was retrieved by Cache Owner verdi, who placed it into another Dutch puzzle cache, adding another 68.84 miles, and from where it was retrieved the very same day by local cachers slottys.

Scroll to the bottom of this page for current Knockout placings.

...and look out later this week for very special ½-distance round-up, including the first look at The Winner's Trophy!