Pickering Airport - April Fool 2004 Mystery Cache
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Pickering Airport - April Fool 2004
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(other)
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A mystery with a couple of April Fool's twists that will take you
round the Pickering Airport lands
Difficulty 4 (because it will take you a while to cover all the
necessary territory), Terrain 2 (only because it's likely to be
muddy at the beginning of April. Otherwise Terrain is all pretty
flat and easy)
In 1972 the Government of Canada started their long running "joke"
at the expense of the residents in and around what are known as the
Pickering Airport Lands. In that year they announced plans and
started the process of spending $120 million to expropriate 7,350
hectares (18,600 acres) of land from Pickering and several other
communities in order to build a new international full service
airport for Toronto. A couple of years later development was halted
on the project. The government has at two separate times since,
proposed to sell the land back to the tenants and, with a strange
sense of humour, subsequently reversed their decision on each
occasion. In fairness, the "good news" is that 3,051 hectares
(7,562 acres) of this land is now protected as part of the
federally owned portion of the Oak Ridges Moraine and area around
the Rouge Park "green space". (You can find out more by googling
"Pickering Airport")
In honour of this "joke" we felt it would be appropriate to hold an
April Fool's mystery cache that would take cachers around the land
that they, as taxpayers, have now owned for the last 32 years. To
avoid any contention, however, we have designed this so that it is
never necessary to stray onto land that is occupied by farmers or
other tenants. Much of the land is still actively farmed, in some
cases by the very farmers from whom the Government expropriated the
land and who now have to rent it back so they can continue to live
and farm where their ancestors did for decades. Please respect
their privacy when participating in this cache.
Many of the tracks that are public "rights of way" and that you
might need to traverse in order to complete this cache were once
proper concession roads but have now deteriorated to the extent
that you certainly wouldn't want to take your shiny new car down
them. Even 4x4s might often have difficulty, especially during the
spring thaw and after a lot of rain, so getting a bit of exercise
by parking and walking to some of the caches along the way is
advised. None of them need a long walk to get to.
So as to lull you into a false sense of security the starting cache
will be very easy to locate and will be placed in easy view but,
nevertheless, unlikely to be spotted by Geomuggles (because
Geomuggles never go there!!). No scrabbling around roots of trees
or under bushes will be necessary in order to find it. Things get
harder from there in as you move from cache to cache, picking up
clues as you go along. In case anyone is telepathic and figures out
the location of the final cache on the way round you will need to
gather a set of "Magic Numbers" which you will need to e-mail to us
through the geocaching.com website so that you can log a find. Some
of the intermediate points will be traditional caches, some will be
micros and some will be virtuals that require observation of
certain things that are located along the way.
There are 10 copies of the clues in each cache for the first 10
finders to take away with them - there is also an 11th, laminated,
copy in each cache that must be left in the cache for any
later finders please.
For the really keen FTFers it should be possible to complete this
before we wake up on the Thursday morning and for you still to have
time to get a couple of hours sleep before work!!
You will need to take at least the following things with you in
order to complete this:
- A copy of this page
- A calculator (unless you are good at mental arithmetic)
- Rubber boots (and a spare pair of socks might not be a bad
idea)
- A Topo map might help you to avoid dead ends but is not
essential
- Spare batteries
- Pen or pencil (to make notes and to sign the logs in the micro
caches since there is no room for a pencil in them)
- Notepad
- Flashlight (if you are a real keener and want to be FTF before
we wake up on Thursday morning)
- Quality stuff to trade
- A garbage bag (there is quite a bit of opportunity to do some
CITO around a couple of the caches)
- The phone number of a 24 hour towing service (unless you follow
our advice to park and walk)
oh yes, and
- A GPSr
We do plan on keeping this mystery cache around for a
good long time after April 1st so if you can't make it on the day
itself you can have just as much fun imagining it IS April 1st on
some later date and doing the hunt then
Good luck and have fun - see you on April 1st!!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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