Random Cache in Auckland (Auckland) Mystery Cache
Hidden : 4/29/2010
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size: not chosen (not chosen)

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Geocache Description:


Background


"Cache Rich" Auckland

You know, they say that Auckland is "Cache Rich" - thousands of caches of all sizes in just about every piece of suburban bush, park, and lamp post. You hear stories all the time of caches being found by accident or failing review due to insufficent separation.
If you look at the stats, the number of caches in Auckland has exploded since 2005 and still climbing. Assuming the trend continues, the numbers of caches in Auckland will double over the next 5 years - where are they all going to go?


Experiment


Take the published location of this cache for instance. We could just go and look for the cache at the location provided, but as I am sure you have determined, its in the middle of the harbour, so not that useful. Not all is lost though....it looks fairly central to Auckland, so we could make use of the degrees and minutes and work with that. We don't have to throw away all the decimal minutes either. Since we are trying to 'get back to somewhere on land', lets work with the latitude since most of the land around is either up or down (i.e Auckland CBD or North Shore). That means we dont really care too much about the longitude so lets keep it as it is.


We now focus on the minutes of the latitude. We will keep the 5 digit number there (50288) but we will add some random value to it. Now humans are known for their bias and not always being that random (which is a key argument here), so we will have to make sure we are being random which is probably more than just thinking of a number - but thats a good start !!!. Lets think of a number greater than '100' comprising of 3 different digits. Now to ensure it is random, we are going to mathematically 'shuffle the deck' by switching the order of the digits (highest to lowest) and subtracting from the same number ordered lowest to highest etc.



That will give you some random 3 (or possibly 4) digit number that we can just add to our original minutes of latitude (reinserting decimal point).


Lets just summarise what we did. We thought of our own number and we even mathematically shuffled it. All we have to do now is put it altogether and see if I am right...I am quietly confident...

Admin


  • Caution - Since I don't know where you will end up - and I can't setup a geochecker, I have played safe with the selection of attributes - please stick to your abilities
  • I also don't know the cache size - its very random
  • Since I don't know your cache location, I might not be able to confirm that you logged the cache. You might have to provide some photographic evidence etc
  • The cache and logic in it are intended to be fun only
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Additional Hints (Decrypt)

V qba'g xabj - ubj jbhyq V ? Lbh gubhtug hc gur pbbeqvangrf....V thrff va zl rkcrevrapr pnpurf znl or haqre be nggnpurq gb fbzrguvat boivbhf - ohg V unira'g qbar nal fgngf ba rknpgyl ubj bsgra gung bpphef .

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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