Resident near the Manuel Antonio National Park Geocache
Geocachers in search of the “Manuel Antonio National Park Geocache” (GCJ7WN) will find more than a just a geocache. Their journey will bring them face-to-face with local natural wildlife including monkeys, sloths and iguanas. Nature is on display in all its forms.
According to the cache page, “Along the way you will be thrilled by the display of flora and fauna in this park where the forest comes right down to the ocean.” 46rkl placed the difficulty 2.5, terrain 3 geocache in 2004. More than 200 geocachers have logged smileys on the cache.
Sloth lounging near the cache site
“Manuel Antonio National Park Geocache” has earned 11 Favorite Points so far. The cache brings adventures to a beautiful vantage point on Punta Catedral Point where they can look over the Pacific Ocean.
One cacher logged, “Our tour group visited this beautiful park today and I made the nice walk to find this cache. Great views from the cache site. Enjoyed swimming at the beach after finding the cache. TNLNSL TFTC.”
Continue your exploration of some of the most engaging geocaches from around the world. Explore all the Geocaches of the Week on our blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com.
Geocachers are forming a team to track down missing knights in the United Kingdom. The Langley Knights Competition puts a cash award of up to £11,000, social media clout and worldwide prestige for the geocaching community on the line. The game plays a form of hide-and-seek that geocachers know well. Just imagine this as a quest to be on the team with the most “first to finds.” Hundreds of teams are expected to compete to find the most knights.
Will you answer the call to be part of the geocaching team? Click here to join the geocaching team and recruit your friends and family to help increase the odds of winning the competition. Team members must be recruited by July 1.
Here are the details. Five knights are being hidden around the U.K. beginning on July 2. Three knights will be real physical knights. They’ll be found in full armor in actual parks with their winning code number. Two of the knights will be virtual knights. Geocachers anywhere in the world can search for photos of the knights on Google Maps or Google Earth to find their winning codes. The “cyber knights” will appear as a photo in or near parks in the U.K.
Photos of all five knights will be released on July 2 at 9 am British Summer Time. If all the knights are not found in the first day clues will be provided several times a day, each subsequent day. If you are the first to find a knight, you receive a £1000 reward. The person who recruited you gets £500, and the person who recruited them receives £250. Any winnings directed to Groundspeak will be donated to charity. We are open to suggestions as to which charity this should be.
More information about the Langley Knights Competition can be found here. Join the Geocaching team and recruit friends using this URL: http://bitly.com/cachersuknight
This isn’t the first time geocachers competed in a timed social media challenge. Groundspeak Geocachers came in fifth out of more than 50 teams in the DARPA Network Challenge in 2009. The Langley Knight Competition was inspired by the DARPA Challenge.
Follow this blog post for the latest on the Langley Knight Competition and the success of the geocaching team. Good luck!
Jon Hudson (Dakar4x4) will always remember an afternoon phone conversation on May 26th. The quick call marked the finale after weeks of questioning and anticipation.
His daughter Charlie (FluffyDog) called Jon at work to say the postman finally delivered a small package. The box arrived at their United Kingdom home from Seattle, Washington in the United States. He says, “Her excitement was unforgettable.”
The package contained a glossy eyed battery-powered hamster. The toy hamster had starring role in a Geocaching.com video. The segment aired in a continuous loop while the website received a major update in early May. The “Geocaching.com Hamster Power” video played on an old joke – that Geocaching.com is actually powered by hamsters. (It’s not.)
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Inside the package Charlie also found the hamster’s purple wheel and a note. Jon says, “She had the cutest hamster (the exact same one she had taken a liking to in the video) and an adoption certificate from everyone at Groundspeak, even Signal.”
But Jon says he never intended to adopt a toy hamster and Charlie has a cautious interest in any real pets, “She adores animals, but is equally scared out of her wits by them. It takes a long time for her to trust whatever geo-pet we meet on our adventures together, and of course, caching outdoors and going to caching events, we meet a lot!”
Charlie, Hammy and Dad
However, the hamster video struck a chord with Charlie. Jon says,”When Groundspeak announced the retirement of their aging Hamsters with the really cute video, I just had to show Charlie! She watched it again and again and again, still does in fact! As soon as the site was upgraded though, the video disappeared from the main screen and she asked where all the hamsters had gone. I explained that as per the story, they had been retired and the new ones were now running the geocaching site behind the scenes. Her immediate reaction was to ask where the retired ones had gone now that they were retired. That of course left me somewhat stumped, and so after being asked many times, I agreed to email.”
Soon a Groundspeak Lackey emailed a response. Jon quickly showed Charlie, “When she came home from school I watched her read it, she could not contain her excitement! One of the retiring Hamsters was going to be adopted over to Charlie! Now it wouldn’t be me getting the questions about checking the emails every hour for a response, but our poor post man, who was watched like a hawk for anything Hamster shaped being delivered from Seattle!”
Two Groundspeak hamsters still need homes!
The retired hamster, “Hammy” is happy in its new home. Jon says, “Hammy is still surprisingly spirited in his retirement years and has quickly adjusted to his new life with Charlie, who of course, is very proud of her very own, and incredibly famous geo-pet, thanks to everyone at Groundspeak! You folks really are the best!”
Almost all of the retired hamsters from the video found homes on Lackeys desks at Groundspeak Headquarters. The hamsters unblinking eyes and T5 cuteness remind Lackeys to diligently keep the website running at peak performance and to focus on the fun of an activity that allows people get outside and be active.
Here’s your chance to adopt some of that cuteness. Two retired Geocaching.com hamsters from the video still need homes. If you’d like to offer one of the hamsters a “forever home” post a comment on this blog. Explain why you’re the type of geocacher or geocaching family that would provide a good home for a retired Geocaching.com hamster. Please include your Geocaching.com username. The two winning geocachers will be announced by July 1.
The 2010 Lost & Found Celebration was so much fun that we decided to turn it into an annual event: the Geocaching Block Party. The 2011 Block Party will be on August 20th from 11 am to 3 pm. This is the third Saturday of August, which will be the first International Geocaching Day! The event will be in the plaza next to our soon-to-be new HQ office building, so make sure to check the cache page for coordinates, since they are slightly different than last year’s celebration.
Activities at the 2011 Block Party will include Pin the Antenna on Signal; beginner, intermediate and advanced geocaching courses; a Lackey dunk tank; and something that we will code name “Signal Seek.” We’re not ready to tell you about “Signal Seek” quite yet (hence the code name), but you’ll see it soon on Geocaching.com. Here is a hint: this activity will require a sense of adventure, a sense of direction and a sense of humor!
Block Party attendees will earn a special icon for the event. The icon is not currently on the cache page, but it will be added soon.
Groundspeak Lackeys voted the 2010 Lost & Found Celebration as one of the best things to happen at Groundspeak all year. Meeting the thousands of geocachers who came to the event and hearing their touching, hilarious and sometimes frightening geocaching stories was an invaluable experience for all of us here at Groundspeak HQ.
We hope to see you in Seattle on August 20th! If you can’t make it to this year’s Block Party, we encourage you to celebrate International Geocaching Day by hosting or attending an event in your area.
“Petrified Canyon” (GCME8A) takes geocachers into the Martian landscape of the badlands in North Dakota. It’s placed in a petrified forest where ancient trees have turned to stone.
Adventurers discover the traditional cache, placed in late 2004, a few miles from the interstate. The difficulty 1.5, terrain 1.5 cache placed by Snowman and son receives praise from geocachers.
One log reads, “This is really a beautiful place. Thanks for bringing us here.” The cache has earned a dozen Geocaching.com Favorite Points and more than a 160 people have logged a smiley on the cache so far.
Petrified stump near the site of the geocache
But cachers discover more than a small geocache. The cache owner says they may also spot wildlife. Rabbits, mule deer, big horn sheep and even a mountain lion have been seen in the area.
Continue your exploration of some of the most engaging geocaches from around the world. Explore all the Geocaches of the Week on our blog or view the Bookmark List on Geocaching.com.
