October and November Adventures

Day Trip to Blaine and Semiahmoo Park 

Susan and I went across the border one day to spend the day grabbing some caches. I got 31 caches that day including one FTF as we left the house, before heading south across the border.

This large piece of driftwood looked like a dragon. And yes there was a cache hidden within. (Spoiler)

A large water tower stands on the spit to this day. It is not being used anymore, but was used back when the fisheries and Salmon cannery was running.

The huge one that is the iconic Semiahmoo Water Tower landmark of the Semiahmoo spit. Most people look at it without a thought to how it came to be, but this one was probably built between 1900-1920

It stands tall and not used, amid the scenic backdrop of mountains and ocean.

This was my 6666th cache. I got this one on the spit, and just like when I got my 5555th cache, thought it was worth mentioning.

NOTE: The highlighted or underlined 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!!!

Be BEAR Aware!!!

We live in Bear country here, so you always have to be Bear aware when out caching, but you also have to be aware of them crossing the street. lolThis is a normal site near where I live. This is about the fourth time I have watched a bear cross the road in front of my car, just down the street from where I live. I almost hit one once as he came running out of the bush and across in front of me. I have even had bears come into my yard and knock over the compost and garbage bins. Please be Careful out there.

PS: On the right hand side of this webpage is where you can find my YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, links. Please feel free to check them out and follow or subscribe!!!

International Geocaching Day

This year International Geocaching Day was held on October 8th and 9th. That's right, 2 days to find an earthcache and receive a souvenir. 

We decided to got to grab "Maplewood Mudflats Earthcache"

There was several other caches and 2 Adventure Labs as well. The house on stilts you see in the picture is not a full size house. It is a miniature version of the houses that used to be here. By the 1940's, an informal but cohesive community of squatters was living in the ramshackle cabins that lined the area's intertidal zone.

Maplewood Flats in North Vancouver is a 311-acre conservation area managed by the Wild Bird Trust of B.C. Maplewood Flats contains over 3 km of trails lining a beautiful and peaceful tidal marsh. It is a serene birding, nature observation, and walking area.

Merritt trip

I had a show in Merritt, so of course on route I grabbed a few caches. I had to wait for this guy to cross the road to go further down the road for a cache. lol

This is one of the bridges that was washed out last year during the storms.

Stopped at this very old cemetery to grab a cache

Found this Library cache also.I actually got this one purely accidentally. I was doing another local puzzle cache called "Murals of Merritt." It has 7 small pictures from a part of different murals and you have to go to them. The description said if you are having troubles finding all the murals to ask the locals or go to the library for help. I assumed they had a book with all the murals listed and where in town they are.

I stopped by the library to ask as there were a couple I could just not find. The librarian said there is actually a cache in the library. Wow, I assumed this was the final to the puzzle I was working on. I said could I have it for a few minutes and she led me back to the bookshelves and passed me this book. When I opened it, I realized it had a different name on it, then the cache I was doing. So I was able to log it without completing the puzzle. lol

"I AM GROOT"

Well that's it for this month,

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

Reach the summit

 "Reach the Summit" Souvenirs 

Kilimanjaro Summit is 5895 Meters tall.

Elbrus Summit is 5642 Meters tall

Vinson Summit is 4892 Meters tall

Puncak Jaya is 4884 Meters tall.

The newest "Reach the Peak" which started on December 6th will also get you entered into the Geocaching Vloggers "Geochallenge of the Month" if you get enough points to get the souvenir.  You need 6190 points to receive the souvenir. The biggest one yet!! More on this next month. 

I have already won the geochallenge of the month twice in the past, getting me two different colored geocoins. (I got 1st place and 3rd place)

Trans Canada Highway Adventure Lab Series

So in my last blog, I said I would write more about this, as I was planning to journey over toward Golden to do some research on the locations of my AL. But since last months blog, British Columbia was hit with some nasty rain storms and a large chunk of road infrastructure has been destroyed. Bridges have been knocked down, roads washed out, mudslides across the roads. Many travelers stranded for days. 311 people had to be rescued off the Coquihalla Hwy by helicopter. Several lives were lost, many properties and vehicles were destroyed. Lots of animals and Livestock were lost. The damage is devastating and may take months to repair. The lower mainland has been literally cut off from the rest of BC. Gas sales are being restricted, and travel is being restricted to essential only.

Here are some pics from just days after the flooding.

Huge sections of Hwy 5 were washed away, and travel is impossible on this route.

Bridges were knocked down, cutting off highway travel.

NOTE: The highlighted or underlined 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!!!

This is Hwy 1 at a spot called snake hill

As you can see from the few pics of many that are out there, the damage was massive and they are saying it will take months to repair.

Kamloops caching

I had a show in Kamloops, which when I booked it back in August the plan was to drive there and grab several caches along the way. NOPE....Had to fly there!!

This cool sparkly building caught my eye as I was out caching.

A cool pedestrian bridge to cross when the trains are coming thru town.

Here is that same building from the pedestrian bridge.

Is it a huge log?, Is it a building? or is it part of an Adventure Lab??

Some of the back alley murals around the town.

So hopefully in the next couple of months I will be able to travel towards the Alberta border, to work on my Trans Canada Highway Adventure Lab. Would love to get it published soon. But more about that in the next month or two. 

Until then, Stay Safe, Get Vaccinated, Wear your Mask, and Wash your Hands!!

Well that's it for this month,

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

Earthcache Day and Adventure labs

 International Earthcache day

So today, October 9th was International Earthcache Day. Most of the Earthcaches around me, I have already found. But today I had a show over in Surrey, so it worked out that I was able to do one over that way on the way to my show.
This one was about Drumlin's. I found one about Drumlin's a few years back on a trip to Logan Lake. 

NOTE: The highlighted or underlined 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!!!

Got a virtual souvenir for finding an earthcache. 

Adventure Labs 

I had planned to go caching at the Vancouver Wireless Station in Delta with Sansue on the weekend, but the weather decided to say no. lol. Rain all weekend, so we ended up doing 3 Adventure Labs instead. We picked 3 easier ones and most of the spots we barely had to get out of the car. 

These mosaic tiles are all over New Westminster, and part of one of the AL's we did.

  

We also visited "Friendship Gardens in the Royal City" to do another AL.

Cool bridge

PS: On the right hand side of this webpage is where you can find my YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, links. Please feel free to check them out and follow or subscribe!!!

Looked at "Feedspot", which is a blog listing of the top 45 Geocaching Blogs, and I see I have moved up to the 13th spot.

How exciting is this???

Cemetery caching (6000th cache find)

Needed a spooky cache for the October Geochallenge of the Month. Couldn't find a spooky type cache, so I went to a cemetery instead.

Had to search out a specific tombstone to get info for location of the cache. Took some time to find the right one.

Vancouver Wireless Station

This past weekend we (Susan and I) went to the old site of the Vancouver Wireless Station to do some caches. It was a bit confusing because we were trying to do an Adventure Lab, a Multi that we had to work out each stage location(so we did not know where we had to go) a Wherigo, a Puzzle, and a letterbox cache all at the same time as well as grabbing the occasional Traditional cache. There is such a cool history at this park that was once a small community. You can still see remnants of buildings and gateways to the houses and structures that were here.

This site was Re-established as the Vancouver Wireless Station call sign WVS in 1949, the site operated radio equipment for communication and gathering signals intelligence. The Vancouver Wireless Station had facilities much like other post-war bases, including singles quarters, 150 permanent married quarters, dining halls and messes, a Medical Inspection Room, administration building, gymnasium with a sport field with 2 ball diamonds and tennis courts, a chapel, woodworking and automotive shops, a grocery store (later CANEX), engineering and transport sections and a fire hall. Most of these facilities were located on a property directly north of the airfield.
When the Canadian Forces were unified in 1968, the site was renamed Canadian Forces Station Ladner. The downsizing associated with unification would soon hit CFS Ladner, and in 1971 it was permanently closed. The municipality of Delta maintains the area north of the airport as North 40 Park Reserve, features interpretive historical signs throughout what was formerly the residential quarters area of the base. The station, which at one point housed approximately 500 residents, has long since been torn down, with some buildings being relocated. The location is now a reserve with lots of wildlife including many bald eagles.  It is also an off-leash dog park, and a popular location for film sets. 

 

This walkway entrance to a house or property still remains, as do some other structures. (Spoiler) this is one of the locations to gather info for the Multi cache.

An old foundation from a structure.

Trans Canada Highway Adventure Lab Series

I am still doing some work on my TCHAL. I was contacted by another cacher from Alberta and they wanted to know if they could do the section from Revelstoke to Golden. Originally I was only planning to do from Golden to the BC/Alberta, but when no one else said they would do from Salmon Arm to Golden area, I said I would extend my lab to Revelstoke. I have looked at online maps and I think I should be able to easily do 10 locations from Golden to the Border. I am going to try to get out that way soon.

I will write more about this in my next blog. Until then, Stay Safe, Get Vaccinated, Wear your Mask, and Wash your Hands!!

Well that's it for this month,

Keep on caching!!

Chris Yuill

Magicman65

World Cache and Earthcaches

Caching the WORLD!!!

So back in May/16 I started on a multi cache that would take me all across the world....Well, OK maybe not literally but it would sorta feel like it. It is a cache called "World Cache" and it is technically a 25 stage multi. 5 Stages I would have to find, while 4 other cachers from other countries would have to find 5 each also. The idea of this cache is to unite with 4 other cachers that you contact or they contact you. There are links to each others starting coordinates.
At these posted coordinates you will find a set of coordinates for one of the other countries. You will have to e-mail these coordinates to the team member in that country. They can then go to that waypoint and find the next set of coordinates which will be for another country, then e-mail it to the team member for that country, and so on till the caches are completed.
For example, the team member in Australia finds Stage 1 of World Cache (Australia), and e-mails the coordinates they find to their teammate in Germany, who can then find Stage 2 of Cache (Germany). At their local Stage 2, the Germany team will find the coordinates for Stage 3 of World Cache (United Kingdom), which they will e-mail to their UK teammate.
Back in May, I set out to find a team member from the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and The United States of America. Once the team was formed, you announce it on your countries cache page. Then the hunt begins. In the chart below is how the cache stages worked. As you can see, so far our progress as the RED stages of coordinates have been found. Hopefully soon I will have the
co-ords for my fifth and final stage here in The Vancouver, BC area and I will finally get a smiley for it.

Country	Stage 1	Stage 2	Stage 3	Stage 4
Australia	Germany 2	USA 3	UK 4	Canada Final
Canada	Australia 2	Germany 3	USA 4	UK Final
Germany	USA 2	UK 3	Canada 4	Australia Final
United Kingdom	Canada 2	Australia 3	Germany 4	USA Final
United States of America	UK 2	Canada 3	Australia 4	Germany Final

This chart shows it a bit better:

Country	Stage1	Stage2	Stage3	Stage4	Final
Australia	GER W/P2	USA W/P3	UK W/P4	CAN W/P5	Cache
Germany	USA W/P2	UK W/P3	CAN W/P4	AUS W/P5	Cache
USA	UK W/P2	CAN W/P3	AUS W/P4	GER W/P5	Cache
UK	CAN W/P2	AUS W/P3	GER W/P4	USA W/P5	Cache
Canada	AUS W/P2	GER W/P3	USA W/P4	UK W/P5	Cache

Challenge caches

I have done quite a few challenge caches over the past years, and most were quite challenging and some were easy as I had already found the necessary caches to complete the challenge. I have been working on one now for awhile and just recently needed 4 more ( A total of 60 specific caches are needed to complete this challenge)

I was going on a fishing trip a couple of weekends ago and was gonna be in the area where I would be able to get the 4 caches needed (Specific Location) I could not find one of the ones needed as it was missing, I found out afterwards. 

So now I only need one more cache for "West 122 Degrees Longitude Challenge"
Hopefully I can get out that way again soon, so I can cross this challenge off my list.

Earthcache Day

If you remember from my last months blog, I talked about the last few souvenirs that I achieved. On October 9th, it was International Earthcache day, and another souvenir was available.
EarthCaches provide an opportunity to learn a geological lesson and visit awe-inspiring geological locations. Visitors can see how our planet has been shaped by geological processes, how we manage its resources and how scientists gather evidence. Typically, to log an EarthCache, you will have to provide answers to questions by observing the geological location.
I looked around my area and there are not that many Earthcaches around. I decided to go pick up my friend and fellow cacher Close Up Matt, and head to Fort Langley to go to "A Lesson on Volcanoes"
We made the find, and grabbed a few more while in Fort Langley and then headed home.

NOTE: The highlighted or underlined 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!!!

Caching in my area

As you can see in my area, there are still a multitude of caches to be found by me. I was looking at my stats the other day and it seems as if I do more caching when on a trip somewhere. I think that's why even after living in the area for 3 years, I still have many caches that I have not gone after yet.

Last month I was talking about Blogs, and some that I like to read and follow. There is a blog called "Awesome Geocaching" that I go to from time to time, and I suggest if you are interested in blogs and caching that you do the same. It's got some really cool links to puzzle's, test's, and information.

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