Showing posts with label Half Hearted. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Half Hearted. Show all posts

Monday, 3 October 2011

No News is Bad News for Half Hearted

It's (a slightly delayed) Elimination Day at The Great Travel Bug Knockout, and unfortunately for Oceanblue07970's Half Hearted Travel Bug it's a case of No News is Bad News as the shiny little TB has been left stranded in a Belgian cache. I wonder what will become of it...



We may have bidden bye-bye to ½H, but it's still business as usual for the remaining 7 entries, with cooper troopers' the noble traveller closing to within 30 miles of the top 3 after TeamSanSeba dipped it into this Turkish cache, adding 1592.33 miles to it's distance travelled. TeamSanSeba then took tnt all the way back to Germany and placed the silver TARDIS into this popular German TB Hotel. No milage was added on the return journey due to it being the second cache visited by the same cacher. However, Good News for cooper troopers as their trackable was promptly retrieved by local cachers TeamRR207.

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

Tuesday, 27 September 2011

It's a bit of a ding-dong

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

As the bell is about to ring time on oceanblue07970's Half Hearted Travel Bug, a cowbell is ringing in panic as smart451's Smart Car 10 Knockout Racer TB retakes 5th place overall in The Great Travel Bug Knockout from lgxkls' Hazards of Geocaching 1 trackable. SC10KR is now 50 miles ahead of HoG1 after German cacher Der-Steiger placed the tiny 2-seater into this rural German traditional, adding a respectable 87.77 miles to it's distance travelled.

Relief for mat smith, owner of HoG1's cross-species sibling Hazards of Geocaching 2 (The Sheep) which has been retrieved from the Dutch cache that it was penned in, before the bicycle ferry was moored up for the winter, by local Dutch cacher citylady.

Finally, Hediya's Love and Peace (Maan) shows us that it's not always which cacher retrieves a traveller that can make a difference, but rather which cacher doesn't retrieve! LaP(Maan) has been picked up by Quebecois cacher navy30000 who is planning to take the love-inspiring little TB back to Canada's east coast with him, which should add a considerable distance to it's distance travelled. However, only four days before being picked up, Hediya's entry was ignored by cacher spuchtfink, on holiday in the area from Bremen, Germany!

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

Friday, 23 September 2011

...and the cow jumped over the car!

lgxkls' Hazards of Geocaching 1 - Karon's Knockout Racer Travel Bug has been playing leapfrog, passing over smart451's entry in The Great Travel Bug Knockout into 5th place overall after cachers JohnPower & Mopxi placed the little bovine into this popular German cache, adding 104.09 miles to it's distance travelled. It was retrieved the very same day by fellow German cacher henerc.

Also making a move this time is oceanblue07970's Half Hearted TB which has been placed into this Belgian multicache, adding 6.37 miles to it's distance travelled. It'll have to do better than that in the next week or so, as the shiny little TB is 1000 miles behind it's nearest competitor at the moment and looking most likely to be Eliminated from the Knockout on October 1st.

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

Sunday, 18 September 2011

Don't look now, but there's a cow creeping up behind you...

Yes, despite Smart451's Smart Car 10 Knockout Racer TB being retrieved by enthusiast German newbie cacher Der-Steiger, lgxkls' Hazards Of Geocaching 1 - Karon's Knockout Racer Travel Bug has gained on the little two-tone car by the distance of 7.99 miles after cacher Helle22 dropped it into this recently-placed German cache. It was picked up the very next day by JohnPower & Mopxi.

Biggest move of this update goes to Hediya's Love and Peace (Maan) TB, which added 159.53 miles to it's total travelled after cachers Bull&Tink placed it into this fascinating cache, one of a series placed on an artificial spit built above a waste pipe discharging more than two miles into the recently named Salish Sea close to Vancouver International Airport.

This may be for naught though, as New Zealand cachers sww have revealed that they picked up current Knockout leader, Team Blid435's BraveHeart, last month and are planning to take it to Australia shortly...

Scroll 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!

Sunday, 31 July 2011

There I was slacking off...

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

...when I realised that it's Elimination Day tomorrow at The Great Travel Bug Knockout, so I'd best get the blog up-to-date!

The big question is: Is the sheep a sitting duck? Mat Smith's Hazards Of Geocaching 2 (The Sheep) Travel Bug went missing months ago, but it's distance travelled of 899.2 miles has kept it out of danger. However, castlegrice's George's Fun Bus 2 TB, which survived by the skin of it's teeth (the chrome of it's bumper?) last month, has been retrieved from the Scottish cache that it was resting in by Spanish cacher urriellu. If urriellu dips GFB2 into a cache back home before the deadline of noon tomorrow it will surely add sufficient milage to pass wemnog's The Skylark TB, which was picked up by cacher a1nnie, who then placed it into this Mega Event, adding 184.57 miles to it's distance travelled, but if it's quickly collected and placed by another cacher... Yes, it's all "ifs" at the moment. More worrying for wemnog must be that Travel Bugs sometimes disappear at busy events...

In other news, Canadian cachers Volkswag took Hediya's Love and Peace (Maan) TB to this cache, then this one, and finally this one where they passed it on to fellow Canadians MaliBooBoo.

Another entry to indulge in some pointless dipping is lgxkls' Hazards of Geocaching 1 - Karon's Knockout Racer, which was retrieved by Slovenian cacher lynx.attentus, who dipped the little bovine into this cache, adding 1.84 miles to it's distance travelled, and then proceeded to dip it into this cache, this one, this one and this one, and has retained possession of the Travel Bug.

Finally, oceanlue07970's Half Hearted TB has been picked up from the French cache that it was resting in by Belgian cacher SOSATO, who has logged an intention to take the shiny little bug back to Tintin's homeland with him.

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

Monday, 11 July 2011

Which entry has more than doubled it's distance travelled?

...the answer is oceanblue07970's Half Hearted Travel Bug, which was picked up from the French cache that it was resting in by French cacher ptittomtom, who then placed it into this cache in the Catalan speaking area of the French PyreneĂ©s close to the border with Spain. This move added 453.57 miles to HH's distance travelled, more than doubling it's milage and moving the shiny little TB up 2 places in The Great Travel Bug Knockout's rankings.

This is bad news for castlegrice's George's Fun Bus 2 TB, which only just squeaked through last month's Elimination Day and now has to travel more than 300 miles to exceed the distance travelled by wemnog's The Skylark Travel Bug, which is made even more difficult by the tiny dinghy tendency to continually make little moves, which of course all add up; The Skylark's latest move added 27.35 miles to it's total distance when cacher Oofy placed it into this Essex cache.

Another entry making a move this week, albeit a much smaller one, was current 2nd-placed entry, Hediya's Love and Peace (Maan) TB which was retrieved by cachers Volkswag, who dipped it into this cache adding 0.56 of a mile to it's distance travelled. They subsequently dipped Love and Peace (Maan) into 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 more caches (the last one is a Virtual!), none of which add any official distance to LaP(Maan)'s record due to The Great Travel Bug Knockout's only-the-first-dip-by-a-cacher-counts rule.

Finally, two more entries have been retrieved recently, although neither has yet been placed into a cache; Smart451's Smart Car 10 Knockout Racer may finally be waving goodbye to Sweden after being picked up by Bavarian cacher SuRosis who is planning to take the little white car back to Germany with them, and cooper troopers' the noble traveller TB, which has been snaffled-up by Dutch cacher Schaduw1, who posted the following snap of the tiny TARDIS:


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

Monday, 27 June 2011

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

Sunday, 19 June 2011

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

Monday, 6 June 2011

A tale of two cities

With apologies to the great Mr. Dickens, this is indeed a tale of two cities, London and not Paris, but Stockholm.

Camogirl-2007 has placed wemnog's The Skylark Travel Bug into this (Greater) London cache, adding 95.42 miles to it's distance covered, whilst Swedish cacher Stigge took Smart451's Smart Car 10 Knockout Racer TB from Stockholm and placed it into his own cache in the wilds of Värmland. This appeared at first to be an unfortunate move, despite the 132.33 miles added to SC10KR's milage, due to the cache not being a regularly visited one, but what do you know, later that very same day the little Smart Car was retrieved by cacher pensionist!

Oh, and French cacher christian35 has dipped oceanblue07970's HalfHearted TB into this cache, adding nothing at all to it's official Knockout distance, this being the 27th cache that c35 has dipped it into.

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

Sunday, 1 May 2011

Wave bye-bye to Billy Bear Racer

It's Elimination Day at The Great Travel Bug Knockout and time to wave bye-bye to our energetic friend, Ve8's Billy Bear Racer who hasn't been seen for several months. Ve8 himself chose this clip to remember his ill-fated Travel Bug by;



I hope that everyone joined in a commemorative Billy walk.

In other Knockout news, while French cacher christian35 has been dipping oceanblue07970's Half Hearted TB into the following dozen caches in central France, adding no official Knockout distance travelled whatsoever, wemnog's The Skylark Travel Bug has leapfrogged both Half Hearted  and fuzziebear3's Happy Hoppy TB into 8th place in The Great Travel Bug Knockout. The Skylark was retrieved on April 14th from the Nottinghamshire cache that it was resting in by Dorset cachers Mattaharry, who, despite my email enquiries, have not yet logged the little dinghy into their possession. They then subsequently placed it into this cache, adding 171.23 miles to The Skylark's distance travelled. This, of course, assumes that it was not dipped into any other caches along the way; the official milage can be adjusted later if other information is received. The Skylark was then retrieved on April 28th by experienced Oxfordshire-based cacher Queen of Maps.

Scroll to bottom of this page for current official Knockout placings

Sunday, 24 April 2011

Catching up on an active Easter

Lots of moves in the second half of this week for entries in The Great Travel Bug Knockout; Current leader, Blid435's BraveHeart TB has been retrieved from the cache that it was resting in by New Zealand cacher Mel74.

Current 3rd place entry, Hediya's Love and Peace (Maan) trackable was placed into this cache by the Canadian cacher that was holding it, adding 21.62 miles to it's distance travelled. It was retrieved the very same day by fellow Canadian gottagonow, who subsequently dipped it into this nearby cache, adding 0.81 of a mile to it's Knockout milage. Gottagonow has retained possession of LaP(Maan), therefore any subsequent dips or placement will not add any official Knockout milage to it's record. LaP(Maan) keeps moving, but appears to be stuck in a sort of "Bermuda diamond" east of Vancouver at the moment. Will Hediya's entry eventually be swallowed up or break out?

Fourth placed entry, cooper troopers' the noble traveller TB, was retrieved from the German cache that it was residing in by cacher tapescript (whom I believe is Swiss, but does much of his caching in Germany). Two days later he dropped tnt into this interesting cache in Germany, sited at the epicentre of a Richter 4.5 earthquake which occured on May 5th 2009. This placement added 8.65 miles to tnt's distance travelled.

Cooper troopers' friendly local rivals, smart451, have had their Smart Car 10 Knockout Racer Travel Bug retrieved from the Swedish cache in which it had passed the last 16 days by Swedish newbies SjöqvistRockers.

16 days is nothing compared to the 73 days that oceanblue07970's Half Hearted Travel Bug spent in a cache in France before being retrieved by experienced French cacher christian35, who the very same day dipped it into this nearby cache, adding 1.14 miles to ½H's distance travelled. Christian35 has since dipped the shiny little trackable into no less than thirteen more caches, none of which add official Knockout milage, and has retained possession.

Finally, as more than one cacher has noted the disappearance of G-X's Voodoo Whodo What You Don't Dare Do People (Racer Bug) TB, I've marked it as whereabouts unknown, hopefully only temporarily!

Scroll to bottom of this page for current official Knockout placings

Wednesday, 9 February 2011

Half Hearted still halfway up the leaderboard

Oceanblue07970's Half Hearted Travel Bug has been placed into this cache in the Forest of Longuenée in France, adding 12.99 miles to it's distance travelled, keeping the shiny little bug solidly in the middle of the leaderboard of The Great Travel Bug Knockout.

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

Sunday, 23 January 2011

Two more retrievals

Le Mans based cacher amadeusmozart has collected oceanblue07970's Half Hearted Travel Bug from the French cache that it has been resting in for the last 8 weeks, whilst here in the U.K. castlegrice's George's Fun Bus 2 TB has been picked up after an even longer stay in a South Yorkshire cache by Doncaster cacher VideoX, who is intending to move it on to his TB hotel cache near Sunny Donnie's Robin Hood Airport.

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

Tuesday, 28 December 2010

Is Love and Peace about to overcome the Knockout Leader?

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

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.!

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

Wednesday, 1 December 2010

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.

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

Tuesday, 30 November 2010

Two Bugs snug in a French cache

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

Cachers rallisalli & hawkeye have placed both cooper troopers' the noble traveller Travel Bug and oceanblue07970's Half Hearted TB into the same French cache near the commune of MozĂ© sur Louet in the department of Maine-et-Loire. This adds 412.01 miles to the noble traveller's distance travelled and 412.51 miles to Half Hearted's journey.

It's good to see so many entries in The Great Travel Bug Knockout travelling overseas and racking up the miles so early on in the event!

Scroll down to the bottom of this page for latest Knockout placings

Will The Exterminator! be saved by the weather?

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

The first elimination from The Great Travel Bug Knockout will take place at noon (GMT) tomorrow (or as near to as I can make it!). With my own BPJC: M1 Junction 29: The Cache of the Living Dead buried under a foot of snow, making a move for Rag Zombie highly unlikely, it looks like my The Exterminator! Travel Bug may be saved by the snow; although to paraphrase Commander Sam Shore, "Anything can happen in the next 18½ hours!!"

And here's a picture of oceanblue07970's Half Hearted, for no other reason than it's nice to put a picture up on this blog now and then...

Tuesday, 23 November 2010

A bit of everything; placements, retrievals, grabbing, missing and disallowed milage!

Relative newbies to caching, rallisalli & hawkeye, who claim that their occupation is having fun (my kind of job!) have retrieved cooper troopers' the noble traveller from Round The Bend From Yonder Man! They also took possession of oceanblue07970's Half Hearted Travel Bug by grabbing it from this Derbyshire cache near the famous village of Eyam. Half Hearted had been placed into this cache by newbie cacher the-scout, who may or may not be related to the TBs owner ;-)

After a little argy-bargy with Half Hearted being grabbed back and logged in and out and so-forth, the end result is an opening distance of 13.84 miles being recorded for the broken-hearted trackable, almost enough to jump it into the Top Ten entries in The Great Travel Bug Knockout.

There's been a second instance of disallowed milage, as cacher Baira has transferred Happy Humphrey's Scary Halloween Monster TB from her temporarily disabled In Search Of The Golden Cache #4 to Keep Crossing Clear. As Baira has already moved this entry, the resulting 29 hundredths of a mile will not count. You may scoff, but that could be sufficient distance to keep a Bug from elimination...

Finally, a cacher has reported that Smart451's Smart Car 10 Knockout Racer has gone missing from Edinburgh's Crag & Tail cache. I'm currently in the process of attempting to track down this TB's whereabouts, and hopefully will have soon heard back from whoever has taken it.