8 Bells Traditional Geocache
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Size: 
(regular)
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this geocache was placed during our Gilf kebir and owainat mountain trip held 2-10 march 2012 where we drove 1450 km off-road and 2100 kms on paved road.
The word "Eight Bells" and an arrow pointing north are spelled out in empty cans of aviation fuel at the south of the Gilf Kebir. The cans mark an aircraft landing site, which was used during the Second World War by the RAF in Egypt. The need for a landing area in this remote part of the world was due to the importance of the Libyan oasis of Kufra. It had been agreed that intermediate landing grounds would be required which would store petrol, and two of these were established by the Long Range Desert Group. The other was at Bir Terfawi, 200km to the east. Eight Bells is named for a topographical feature in the desert - outliers of the Gilf Kebir plateau itself, isolated from the main plateau by the actions of ancient drainage systems. Today nearly all of the cans, which themselves represent wartime archaeology, have been pierced with dots that spell out messages and signatures from visitors who want to be part of the story.
Our route:
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we hid this geocache on the 7th day of our great trip. we started by driving from cairo to dakhla oasis passing by bahareya and farafra oases. then we took east owainat road 60 kms south where we went off-road passing by abou ballas and mud pans.
we then started climbing the gilf plateau up to 1005 meter elevation where the famous renault sign 21 lies. next we went down aqaba pass then extreme west into wadi soura passing by the sugar loaf to reach the prehistoric caves area 18 kms from lybian borders. we visited swimmers' cave and mestekawi-foggini cave.
after that we passed by clayton's crater on our way south till the Egyptian-Sudanese border latitude line 22. we had a full day exploring he mysterious karkur talh valley in sudan full of trees and pre-historic drawings overlooking owainat mountain.
we passed by another crater on our way to 8 bells, where we hid our geocache, then we continued our journey back to dakhla oasis then to Cairo.
the container is a plastic transparent Tupperware box with lime green cover
items inside the geocache:
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1-logbook, pen and 1/2 swiss franc by khallda elzanfally
2-business card and an old used bullet by ahmed allam
3- one egyptian pound coin by ihab el husseiny
4- 25 egyptian piasters coin by bassem el bayadi
5-an old ten egyptian pounds bill by moustafa mounir
6- five egyptian pounds bill by marwa el sheikh
7- hair clip and plastic shisha filter by sherin youssef
8- wrist band by iysal
9- elastic hair band by mona el hagin
10- off-road traxx sticker by khaled sobhi
11- led lamp key chain by laila omar
12- a stone from the crater by monir el shazly
13- match box by mohamed karawia
14- durex condom by omar hosni
we all hope you have a GREAT time reaching this geocache and LOADS of fun finding it :)
greetings from the trip team:
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*Mitsubishi Pajero: Ahmed Allam - Laila Omar
*Toyota lexus: Omar hosni - Iysal - Haythem sabry -Mostafa mounir
*toyota Landcruisers:
Moh. karawia - hala - jean paul - sherin youssef
Ihab el husseiny - monir el shazly - Moh. khalifa - May
bassem el bayadi - khallda el zanfally- reem dawoud - mona el hagin
khaled sobhi - ismail nawwar - marwa el sheikh
amin sharky -emad hamdi - men3em
Tarek - Faisal - Taher
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
200 zrgref jrfg bs gur neebj-8 oryyf pnaf va gur fpnggrerq ebpxf