Besides the fact that this geocache is located on an abandoned ship that’s amazing, slightly creepy and made of concrete? This geocache will test your bravery and boating skills, as well as teach you a lesson about history. During World War II, when steel was at a premium, engineers and ship builders moved to the next logical material: concrete. More than 50 ships were made in this fashion and served as transports and freighters. This particular ship ran aground at some point and has been sitting alone on a sandbar in the Bay of Wismar ever since. Now, geocachers keep the empty hull company while earning their smileys.
# of Finds:
676
# of Favorite Points:
410
What geocachers are saying:
(all translated from German)
“What can I say?? Beautiful surroundings, cool location, cool cache, just great!” – Kinnekulli
“We have had a very nice, hard, wet, dirty, hungry and exciting day on the concrete ship . Thank you so much for this!” – Kewiku
“This cache will always be in my memory along with this great team, the awesome views, and wonderful weather. This beautiful experience tops any other cache. Thanks to the owner for this possibility the whole thing.” – Meer♥Liebe
View from the deck. I don’t think it’s sea-worthy anymore. Photo by geocacher rendl.Choreographed happy dances on top of the bridge. Photo by geocacher HeideParkSoltauClassic. “I’m king of the wooooooorld!” Photo by geocacher S-Man42
What has been your favorite geocache in a historical place? Tell us in the comments.
Continue to explore some of the most engaging geocaches around the globe. Check out all the Geocaches of the Week on the Geocaching blog.
If you would like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, leave a comment below with the name of the geocache, the GC code, and why you think we should feature it.
Uhhh, did you see the photos? This location is amazing! And if you’re in the United States and celebrating Thanksgiving, the hike to this geocache is a great way to work up a hunger or burn off some of the food you just ate. Geocaching often takes us to amazing places that we never would have known about otherwise. In fact, I had no idea these caves existed until a fellow Geocaching HQ staffer visited them. In addition to taking you to such a beautiful place, this Earthcache will teach you about the unique weather and geology that comes together to form these caves.
[WARNING: If you venture out to find this Earthcache and see the ice caves, be EXTREMELY careful. Watch for avalanches, falling rock and ice, and collapsing caves.]
# of Finds:
173
# of Favorite Points:
32
What geocachers are saying:
“AH! Words cannot express how AMAZING this location is. Honestly, it felt like we stumbled onto the set of the Lord of the Rings…or the moon…or another fake world.” – Bethany_B
“Wow, what an amazing place. We couldn’t believe the cold air that was blowing from the cave, it was like someone had the air conditioner on full blast. We had a beautiful hike here and really enjoyed our visit. TFTC” – G.O. John and Carol
“Thanks for bring me here. I haven’t seen the ice caves in probably 25 years. Back then we went in. Now I am older and wiser.” – Smiley Cacher
Ice caves from a distance. Photo from the official Geocaching Instagram.Unique geology and weather come together to create these caves. Photo from the official Geocaching Instagram.
So cool. Literally. It’s really cold there. Photo by Bethany_B
[ANOTHER WARNING: Please use extreme caution and think twice before entering the caves.]
Which Earthcache is your favorite and why? Tell us in the comments.
Continue to explore some of the most engaging geocaches around the globe. Check out all the Geocaches of the Week on the Geocaching blog.
If you would like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, leave a comment below with the name of the geocache, the GC code, and why you think we should feature it.
*Wampas are creatures that live on the planet Hoth in the Star Wars universe. Luke is attacked by one in The Empire Strikes Back.
The full crew from the Going Caching 2013 Mega-Event.Geocaching HQ’er Sean with a couple of happy geocachers.
This past August I had the pleasure of meeting Andi Beyer and Jim Williamson, founders of the “Going Caching” Mega, for the first time. They had just flown to Seattle to attend this year’s Geocaching Block Party and were introduced to me because Geocaching HQ had chosen to send me to this year’s version of their event in Warm Springs, Georgia. We hit it off immediately. They made some bold promises about how much fun I would have at their event and I became super-excited to trek across the country for their Mega-Event.
Often when one travels to mega events as a Groundspeak Lackey it is difficult to find the time to participate in the various events and activities because one gets caught up at the main event meeting and greeting with cachers from around the area. To avoid this, Andi and Jim insisted that I add another day to my trip so that I would have enough time to participate in all the events. When I arrived in Warm Springs, they immediately hooked me up with an amazing family, the Villanuevas, who adopted me for the day with orders to make sure I would partake in all the various events. Agent Hop, his wife HopsGeneral and their two awesome daughters were gracious hosts and went out of their way to make my trip a great one.
“Look at the cache. Now back to me. Now back to the cache. I’m on a horse.”
The first event planned for me was a series of geocaches to be found on horseback. My hosts drove me to Roosevelt Riding Stables, a cute little outpost in the FDR State Park, where Andi and company had set up a special geocaching course for those who wanted a brand new caching experience. Caches were placed at a perfect height on trees along the path, so that it wasn’t necessary to dismount in order to find them. There were multi-caches, traditional caches, puzzle caches, and letterboxes, all accessible only by horse. We spent the morning trotting around the park collecting these caches and then headed back to the main park to jump head first into the main puzzle. Great fun!
When we returned to the main event site, it became clear to me how amazing the organization and logistics for this event actually were. Andi and Jim had designed a giant, super-complex puzzle cache based on a hybrid of the television series “Lost” and the Indiana Jones trilogy to be the centerpiece of the event. They had printed, minted and crafted all kinds of cool swag for participants such as path tags, collectable coins, gold-painted plaster scarabs, collectable caching cards featuring photos of attendees, and laminated map cards. All of these things were brilliantly incorporated into the puzzle so that participants would be required to collaborate with one another but in such a way that made it actually possible for everyone to complete the challenge. They repurposed staff members as actors, who were dressed up as druids with scary contact lenses in order to defend an elaborate map room from the unauthorized. Those who made it past the druids were required to hook up their collectable geocoin to a staff of the correct size, and a laser would then shoot out of the wall pointing to the final cache location on the giant map. This location ultimately turned out to be a faked aircraft crash site in the middle of the woods with a huge cache box where participants could enter the evening raffle by dropping off their validated map pieces. So cool!
The geocachers who earned smileys on horseback.
Overall, there were 10 different mini-events associated with this awesome Mega including a Civilian Conservation Corps CITO event, a tasty brunch on Sunday morning and even a Fireside chat with FDR himself! Also, the event hosted a series of Groundspeak’s new Lab Caches featuring a historical tour of FDR state park and another fun caching challenge called the ACE challenge which had participants run around the park gathering a series of stamps with the ultimate goal of cashing them in for a specially-designed Magellan coin. Finally, 100 newly published caches were released throughout the region and were provided to participants the morning of the event on a special thumb drive provided in the welcome pack.
Truly the Going Caching Mega events are a special treat for those who are fortunate enough to attend. Next year’s theme is already set, Going Caching 2014 – “When in Rome…” to be held in Andi’s and Jim’s hometown of Rome, GA! If you are able, you should definitely find a way to attend. You won’t be disappointed!
A location of one of the experimental geocaches from Geocaching Labs.
We’ve seen geocaching combined with quite a few things: movies, tv shows, urban legends, etc… And now, thanks to some ingenious geocache creators, a classic arcade game. This geocache surfaced thanks to Reddit user malken, who posted a video of the geocache in the geocaching section of the site. Once geocachers figure out the first stage and make it to the second stage, the real fun begins. For those of us who grew up in the 80s, it will most likely be a breeze, but others may have trouble, hence the level 4 difficulty. Geocachers must play a round of the classic arcade game Asteroids and get at least 5000 points to be able to access the logbook. And if you stick around and play a few more rounds, I don’t think anyone will blame you.
“Our inspiration came from the youth of one of the CO´s (Master_Dummy) he grew up with these games and wanted to implement it in a cache, we wanted to do something different and as the quality of caches in Sundsvall already where at such a high standard (Thanks mostly to Team Cache Us If You Can) we knew we had to do something special.
We would like thank all the geocachers out there for providing us with inspiration, there are such a vast amount of good caches out there and good people as well, it´s been a constant joy ever since we started caching and we hope that this cache will continue to entertain and encourage people to push the boundaries of caching. Thank you all and TFTC!”
# of Finds:
15 (It’s not all about the numbers, okay?)
# of Favorite Points:
13
What geocachers are saying:
(all have been translated from Swedish)
“Definitely worth a favorite point! Thank you for making geocaching in Sundsvall even better! TFTC” – simmarn96
“…we could not help but be impressed by the construction. With some teamwork at the controls, we got enough points to sign the logbook. After this trip down memory lane, we started talking about that it was almost 25 years since the last time we played anything like it. And how high tech it was then. Feel like you’re getting old… Top score is given for the ingenuity, the technical design and time travel!” – Pebi*
“Wow! One of the best and coolest caches I’ve visited!” – JonasGulle
Svarta-Baskern (one of the COs) and the geocache.These are the controls: your tools to achieving victory!
What other amazing geocaching combinations have you seen? Tell us in the comments.
Continue to explore some of the most engaging geocaches around the globe. Check out all the Geocaches of the Week on the Geocaching blog.
If you would like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, leave a comment below with the name of the geocache, the GC code, and why you think we should feature it.
One of the best ways to see Amsterdam is by boat. You can take in the sights on the many canals that flow throughout the beautiful city. Of course, if you can pick up a geocache (or two or three) along the way, that’s a bonus! This geocache is one of the oldest in the Netherlands and a favorite of locals and tourists. At one point it was also a favorite of local pigeons, but thanks to a clever anti-pigeon system, that’s no longer an issue. Earlier this year, Geocaching HQ’s videographer, Reid (reidsomething), and a Geocaching HQ Volunteer Coordinator, Kerb (KerbL), teamed up with two locals to find this geocache. If you don’t think you’ll be able to make it to Amsterdam soon, just kick back, watch the video (spoiler alert!) and enjoy the ride.
# of Finds:
909
# of Favorite Points:
239
What geocachers are saying:
“Thanks for an amazing cache – definitely a Fave cache for the fun we had finding it. TFTC” – scrap happy annie
“Best cache in Amsterdam! We had so much fun to go trough the canals and search this cache!” – Team eeH
“Very pleased to find this cache! We’ve used it to start the journey of our first trackable. Very good cache and well hidden.” – Triage76
Geocaching is an awesome way to explore new places. What has been your greatest discovery while geocaching? Tell us in the comments.
Continue to explore some of the most engaging geocaches around the globe. Check out all the Geocaches of the Week on the Geocaching blog.
If you would like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, leave a comment below with the name of the geocache, the GC code, and why you think we should feature it.
