10,000 page views!!!

So just recently I noticed my blog page had hit 10,000 page views. It was weird that the day I looked at it, it was exactly 10,000. A great big thanx to all my followers and to all who read my blog on a monthly basis.

Tree caches

I have recently grabbed some more tree caches, just for a bit of a challenge. They are always fun and I get a bit of exercise.

Up I go!!!

Yup, it's up there

Hanging out in a tree!

New west whereigo

Cool bench

Did another whereigo cache with angelcheeks and close up Matt in the New Westminster Quay. It was their first wherigo, and we saw a lot of interesting things while there.

A recent FTF, can you see it??

Magic Convention and caching

Went to Chilliwack for a magic convention this month, and was able to get out in the mornings for a few caches with my good friend and fellow magician Close Up Matt. We even took a newbie with us, and I think he may start caching. Not only did I find a few caches while here for the convention but I also found this:

 This is an "Anything is Possible" Bottle.

A fellow magician, Jamie D. Grant, makes these and places them out somewhere at Magic conventions and elsewhere for his twitter followers to find. He will tweet a pic like the one shown here and wait for someone to come find it. I got the tweet and noticed the pic with the Christmas tree in the background and knew it was in the lobby of the convention hotel. I missed out on about 3 or 4 of these bottles in Vegas at Magic Live, but I did not miss this one. It is now proudly displayed on my Magic bookshelf at home!!!

Caching in December

Headed to Vernon and Kamloops to do some shows and was able to grab several caches on route as well as while there. Had a chance to get some challenge caches as well.

A Cool Earthcache in Kamloops

Look out for Turtles. This was the entrance to the resort I stayed at in Kamloops where I would perform for a bunch of realtors.

This was a challenge cache that was in the parking lot of my hotel room in Vernon, and it was actually a bit challenging for me to find. I kept looking in the tree and a nearby shrub, but was not having any success. It was only when I stepped back and just looked when I realized where it was. Can you see it??

Hmmmm, could it be

Spoiler alert!!!

finally got to sign it. Now to see if I qualify for the challenge, so I can log it. lol

 Some cool caches along the way

Google hangout interview

Some time back I was interviewed by "Ultimate Caching Quests", a group of dedicated cachers that chat about all that is caching on a live internet broadcast every week. I had fun doing it and they even asked me back at some time to guest host the show. They asked me a wide range of questions from my position as VP on the B.C.G.A. As well as my beginning into caching and my magical capabilities as well. Check them out live every Sunday at 10am. It was aired on Google hangout, if you wish to check it out on youtube  "Click here"


Some comments on the show:

Hello MagicMan65! Great interview! Very good show with lots of interesting stories, tips and advice. I really like the group-geocaching hike notice idea. I'm going to message a few local cachers to see if they'd also be interested. Thanks for the great show!

Too funny on your laughing doves in the back ground, anytime I try to vlog in the house my parrot does the same thing. Sometimes she competes with me. LOL

-In my opinion this is the best UCQ Hangout show yet! -Creating new notifications is a must when traveling to new areas. -Thanks for the shout out to globaltreckers(myself) and quadsinthemudd as we had a hoot completing the "blindfolded cacher" challenge.

Well that's it for this month

Keep on caching

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

 

 

Kelowna bound and EarthCache Day!!!

Gold Country caching

Headed off to Kelowna for a show with another magician friend. I decided to grab some caches on the way there and on the way back. I was able to grab some Gold Country caches as well. If you collect the stickers from within each Gold Country cache and get 24 different ones, you can send them in and you get a gold bar geocoin. I received one some time back for getting 24 of the caches(See pic)
Now I am starting to collect more towards another prize. If you can read the number on it, please feel free to discover it....

 

Gold bar Geocoin

   I love the gold country caches as they are all either ammo cans or large blocks of cement and they are easy to find, as you can see by the pics.

 

 

Can you see it??

 

I think I can see it!!!

Kelowna whereigo's

I finally got to do a wherigo cache while I was in Kelowna(actually got 2 of them)

 

Wherigo™ Cache

Wherigo is a toolset for creating and playing GPS-enabled adventures in the real world. By integrating a Wherigo experience, called a cartridge, with finding a geocache, the geocaching hunt can be an even richer experience. Among other uses, Wherigo allows geocachers to interact with physical and virtual elements such as objects or characters while still finding a physical geocache container. A Wherigo-enabled GPS device is required to play a cartridge. Learn more at Wherigo.com.

Cool art around Kelowna

Also did a couple of challenge caches while there. One, I know I completed the challenge as I did another one that was similar in Vancouver near UBC. The other one I was not sure if I completed the challenge until a quick look thru my caches found on G.S.A.K.(Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) told me I had easily completed it.

Total caches on the Kelowna trip:

5 Traditional Gold Country caches

2 other Traditional caches

                                               2 Challenge caches

2 Whereigo Caches

The second Whereigo I did took me to this statue of a Bear, and one of the last times I was here years ago, I got an FTF at this location.

Yup its a sickness. lol

Art Studio

Ogopogo

 

 

The trip home was fairly quick, as we did not stop for any caches, as I was up early grabbing some caches and checking out some of the cool art, in Kelowna before leaving.

 

 

International Earthcache day 2015

 

Went caching for a few hours today(October 11th/15) with Close up Matt to grab an earthcache as well as 5 other caches along the trail in Burns Bog

 

Got a souvenir for completing this task, as today was International Earthcache day.

 

 

It was a pretty cool walk along a boardwalk thru the forested Peat Bog. I also had my little guy Oliver with us and he was a trooper as we walked at least 3km's round trip



History of Burns Bog

 

 

"Big Horn Sheep Burl" and Close Up Matt

Look at me dadda!!

It was a nice walk while chatting about magic and caching, and just enjoying the weather and the scenery. Thanx again Matt for coming along.




 

 

Well that's it for this month

Keep on caching

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

 



Whistler trip, and Seattle trip

Caching with friends

Went out for a day of caching with my friend and fellow magician and new cacher Close Up Matt.
We did a bit of a powertrail, but the main cache I was interested in getting was "fort to fort"
It was my 100th Multi cache(pretty low number considering I have found 3644 caches) but the main reason I wanted to get it was because it was published in October 2003 and I wanted to fill a spot on my Jasmer chart. (See previous blog) We had a fun day caching and chatting about caching and Magic.

Whistler trip

I found several caches while on the way to Whistler for a show. Three of them were Earthcaches. I find earthcaches fascinating as they usually take you to such an awesome spot or view, and these three were no exception.

Flutes



Shannon Falls Earthcache

Mount Tantalus

 

 

Washington Trip

Headed down to Stanwood, Washington again this year for the annual Meyers Magic picnic at their house on Crabapple lake. This is an annual event that about 50-100 magicians get together at for food, fun, and frivolity.

 

Squires Lake Park

We stopped at a hiking trail on our way down, and did a nice walk around Squire lake that was up in the hills. We found 5 caches and we also accidently found an old letterbox. It is not listed on geocaching site, and I even looked for it on a letterboxing site, but could not find it listed anywhere. From the info on the box It looks as if the owners had a geocaching account but are inactive now. Pretty funny to find something like that.

 

Walking the lake loop trail

 

 

While we were at the picnic, Close up Matt and I went down the road for a nearby cache, it was a pretty cool one as you can see by the picture. It was also Matt's first U.S. cache.

Sign the LOG by the Lake

On the way back home, we stopped at a rest area for a quick multi that was pretty cool called Who's your Buddy? To get the co-ords to the final you had to get the serial number off the hand dryers in the washroom. Both the men's and women's washroom!!! Luckily we had both of us there to do this. lol

 

At the beginning of this blog, I mentioned that we did a bit of a Power trail some time back. I am not a fan of power trails at all, even though I have done some. My question to you is, "do you like power trail caches?"

 

 

 

 

Well that's it for this month

Keep on caching

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

 



Numbers, Numbers, Numbers and more Numbers

Geocaching Stats

Geocaching stats are all about Numbers, not only how many caches you've found, how many caches there are in the world, or how many cachers are out there hunting for caches. Its also about many other numbers and statistics. This months blog, I look at some of my numbers.
So far to date I have found over 3600 Caches since starting in Sept/2008

Magicman65 Profile

NOTE: The highlighted words in my blog can be clicked on as they are links to other cool stuff!!
Also if you click on any of the pictures they become bigger!!!
PS: On the right hand side of this webpage is where you can find my YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Google Plus links. Please feel free to check them out and follow or subscribe!!!

Are you an avid geocacher? Do you have a favourite cache type? According to the Groundspeak website, there are 20 geocache types to find – that’s right, TWENTY!! Although some are much more rare than others, of course, and some are not even listed on the geocaching website (such as waymarks) This is a list of my current finds of the different cache types.

 

The overwhelming majority of caches I have found are traditional: 88%, in fact. This comes as no surprise, as traditional caches remain the most common type of cache.
I still have a few kinds to find:

• Wherigo (I had planned on doing one of these on my trip to Alberta, but did not get the time)
• Giga-Event (These are fairly new and very rare)
• Locationless(Not available anymore)
• Lab Caches
• 10 Years! Event (Too late for that one now) I was on tour at the time, but I did get some 10years! caches including a couple FTF's. The only event near me that day was in the same town(Castlegar, BC) I was in but I was performing elsewhere at the time of the event.
• Lost and Found Event
• *Waymarks (not available for logging on geocaching.com, but on waymarking.com – Groundspeak describes waymarks as the ‘new locationless caches’)

I have found caches on every day of the year, including February 29th on a leap year.

As well as I've found caches that have been placed(published) on every day of the year.
(Just a few weeks ago I searched out a cache to finish this chart so I could log a challenge cache while I was in Alberta)

My best caching day was with Jenna (Angelcheeks) on May 21st, 2011 when we found 200 in one day. Our previous best was 71.

My longest geocaching streak was 400 days in a row finding at least one cache per day, but in that time I found a total of 1105 caches. So as you can see I was doing more than one a day most of the time.

 



I've found caches from as close as 220 metres away from my home to as far as 6013 Km away from home, while we were in Panama to get Married. These stats changed a bit when we moved from Courtenay to Victoria and then to Port Moody, BC where we live now.

 

 

As you can see in the picture above, I have traveled a total distance of 161,431km between caches(in a straight line) which would be farther when you factor in roads and such. WOW, that's a lot of walking!!! LOL
The chart below looks at distances away from home and shows how many caches I have found in distance, and what percentage each group is. This chart is not very accurate as it has changed because of our move from Vancouver Island, Most of my caches to date have probably been found in and around the Courtenay, BC area, where I got started caching, but now show that they are 100km to 250km away because I now live in Port Moody, BC

 

I have found many different Terrain/Difficulty combinations(Difficulty and Terrain levels go from 1-5) I still have some combinations to find to fill in this chart!!! There are several geocaching challenge caches that you need this chart filled in, so I may need to set another goal, cause as you know from a previous blog I love doing challenge caches. lol

 

 NOTE: After writing this I went out and found 4 caches that has reduced this chart to only needing 14 more from the 18 it shows in the pic, although one was a liars cache, so I will still want to get that combination for real.

Note: A liars cache is where the story or write up of the cache says its almost impossible to get at the cache, and the D/T is made up and exaggerated. And the cache owner wants you to write up a story in your log to reflect the story of the cache. Usually these are easy to get, and not as difficult as it shows in the write up. Not a big fan of these, although I have found a couple.



 

I have also found some very old caches as well as a few firsts. I have found the First cache ever placed in Alberta(Strathcona Wilderness 1) which is also the second placed cache in Canada. The first in Canada is in Nova Scotia. I also have found the first in British Columbia(Tree Hugger) and I have visited the location of the very first ever cache, down in Beavercreek, Oregon. One day I wish to go to Nova Scotia to find Canada's first ever cache!!!

 

 

 

Speaking of first's I have found many FTF's(First to find)
This is something that is not governed by Groundspeak(Geocaching HeadQuarters)
A FTF is when you are the first to find a newly published cache. Sometimes there is a prize in the cache from anything such as a loonie, townie, lotto ticket to something with more value. But usually finding it first for the bragging rights is just reward enough. As of writing this blog I have accumulated 340 FTF's(Ya, I like being first. lol)

I have 77 souvenirs(Souvenirs are virtual pieces of art that can be discovered and displayed on your profile)



Six of my 77 souvenirs
 

My most Icons in a day was 7 different cache types and we(Jenna and I) also found a challenge cache for this on the same day!!! We were the first cachers to do all 7 icons and the challenge cache on the same day!! (The requirements were to find 7 icons in one day but you did not have to find the challenge cache the same day, anytime after was fine) We traveled from Victoria to Duncan to Cowichan Lake to do this.

 

 

My most well rounded container type day, I found 6 different types of containers in one day:

These were found while caching on a Magic shows tour, did not even try to accomplish this, it just happened, as I was caching on route from one show to another. lol


I have found caches placed in 169 out of the 183 months since geocaching began in May/2000

Apparently there are only 3 caches remaining in the world that were placed in May of 2000. I have set a goal to find a cache that was placed in October of 2003 to fill that blank spot in the middle of nowhere. After that I will have to start searching for some of the others, I will keep you posted. lol

 

 

 NOTE: Shortly after writing this I went and did a multi cache called Fort to Fort with caching friend Close Up Matt, which was published in October of 2003 to fill in that space!!

 

Although there are a lot of different numbers, I think the best number of all is the number of friends I have made through Geocaching!!! 

 

Well that's it for this month

Keep on caching

Chris Yuill

Magicman65