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!

Will fuzziebear3's TB have to hop it?

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

Castlegrice can kick back and chill out; Their entrant in The Great Travel Bug Knockout has moved off of the elimination bubble thanks to Scottish cacher Claraloon, who yesterday retrieved George's Fun Bus 2 from the cache that it was resting in, and this morning placed it into this one, adding a vital 80.49 miles to it's distance travelled. This has moved GFB2 ahead of fuzziebear3's Happy Hoppy TB, which I suspect went missing from the cache that it is logged into many months ago...

Meanwhile, Wemnog's The Skylark TB continues to steadily rack up the distance, having added another 10.1 miles after being dropped into this cache, one of the controversial Timberland-sponsored TRAIL OF HEROES series.

In other Knockout news, Oceanblue07970's Half Hearted Travel Bug has finally been left in a cache, rather than just dipped, by French cacher christian35. This interesting looking one, to be precise.

As one cacher finally lets go of an entry in The Knockout, it seems another takes up the dipper's baton, as Slovenian cachers Kassiopeia82 have taken lgxkls' Hazards of Geocaching 1 - Karon's Knockout Racer to this cache, and have retained possession of the cud-chewing little trackable.

Scroll to bottom of this page for current Knockout placings

Cancel that visit to the Slovenian china shop...

...there's a bull on the loose, as cacher perhan has dropped lgxkls' Hazards of Geocaching 1 - Karon's Knockout Racer in this cache in the medieval town of Višnja Gora, adding 203.59 miles to it's distance travelled.

In other Knockout news, French cacher christian35 has reminded us that he is still holding oceanblue07970's HalfHearted TB by dipping it into this cache, 6.71 miles away from the last cache that he dipped the shiny broken-hearted Bug into.

Scroll to bottom of this page for current official Knockout placings