This Park in the Harfield village area of Claremont is pretty unobtrusive and unspectacular. When I looked for anything to write about the park I couldn't find anything unique about it in the archives. The park is quite small, an awkward shape, a road goes into the middle of it and there are houses on the Northside as if somebody in the city planning department forgot that it was supposed to be a park and approved house plans on the park reserve area. A real orphan of a park.
However, this park is obviously loved by the locals as they are always around walking their dogs in it. They tend to do this by rendezvousing in the middle of the park to have a chat while their dogs run around the park. They seem to be quite proud of it as they religiously pick up their dog's droppings and reprimand visitors when they don't do likewise. On the South Western side of the park, somebody has taken it upon him/her self to create a nice little garden with chairs and a bath of water for the dogs to quench their thirst. The park regularly gets watered, unlike some of the other parks in Cape Town that have been neglected and have fallen into disrepair. The locals have obviously adopted this park as their own. I thought it was a good idea for me to place a geocache in this park.
This is a cache in 4 parts designed to make you walk around the park collecting information in order to calculate the final co-ordinate. From start to finish shouldn't take you longer than 20-30 minutes. The initial co-ordinates take you to the middle of the park.
Questions that you need to answer:
1) How many lamps are situated in the park? Note!! Only lamps in the confines of the park qualify. Don't count the street lamps. Count carefully. There are a few obscure lamps that are well hidden. Add 1 to this number to calculate A.
2) B = 6.
3) What number must a person phone from a Landline in case of emergencies? Subtract 105 from this number to calculate C.
4) How many kites are painted on the tabletop of "Ping Out"? This will be the value for D.
These questions will help you to calculate the following co-ordinate S-- --.--- E018 2A.BCD.
Once you've calculated the final Longitude co-ordinate you have one more obstacle to surmount before you can find my precious cache. You have to display your understanding of Latitude/Longitude co-ordinates and then demonstrate your GPS skills.
No mindless downloading numbers directly to your GPSr from the website, launching the Geocache icon, looking up the cache name and then following the little red arrow to GZ. You need a little bit more GPS savvy for this particular cache.
You'll see that there is no Latitude co-ordinate given. That's intentional. To find the cache location you need to use your GPSr to intersect the Line of Longitude that you've just calculated. Once you've intercepted the required line, walk that line until you can't walk any more.
If you've walked that line as per procedure, can't walk any more and you still don't have any clue as to the location of the cache, step back and take a deep breath. The cache is very near.
Muggle activity is high so stealth is vital as the cache is quite exposed and while it doesn't attract attention by itself, any activity around the cache by strange people with GPSr's will certainly attract unwanted attention by that dreaded muggle with curious eyes. The cache is somewhere in the park so if your ramblings take you out of the park, review your calculations.
Some considerations
1) If you are about to walk out of the park and still have over 900 metres to go you've made a mistake with the calculation of A. 1 minute of longitude equates to 1.5 Kms in distance on the ground.
2) If you are on the outskirts of the park you've probably made a mistake with B. The first decimal minute of longitude equates to 150 metres in distance on the ground.
3) If you are still in the park but the cache is not in your immediate proximity then you need to review your calculation for C. The second decimal minutes equates to 15 metres in distance on the ground.
4) The third decimal equates to only 1.5 metres in distance on the ground so it probably won't matter if you make a calculation error with D.
Finally. You have one more hurdle to surmount before you can fill your pockets with treasures from my precious cache. These numbers are a clue that'll help you conquer this particular challenge. 3, 6, 7 and 8. Use them wisely or you shall be ejected from the winning circle.
Good luck.