This cache is NOT at the above co-ordinates, but this is a good location to park to go searching for the cache.
I love puzzles...no I REALLY LOVE puzzles! (Just ask my family they'll tell you with much muttering and shaking of heads). So in celebration of finding my 100th cache, I wanted to create a mystery cache, that combines my love of puzzles and geocaching. There are some puzzles out there that use ditloids to provide the numbers for cache coordinates, so I thought this could be a good place for a beginner mystery cache designer to start. I have included some obvious hints so that you can have a go at using some common problem solving strategies that can be applied not only to this puzzle, but to other mystery caches you might like to have a go at.
A ditloid is a word puzzle, also known as an alpha-numeric, that consists of a combination of numbers and letters. These numbers and letters can be used to work out a phrase, quote or fact, with the letters always representing the first initial of each word in the phrase. For example a ditloid for '7 Days in a Week' is 7DIAW; likewise 52CIAD can be used to represent '52 cards in a deck'. The name 'ditloid' actually comes from an acronym of the novel 'One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich' which the Daily Express newspaper in London used to produce this type of puzzle clue for the first time, with 1 = D I T L O I D.
If you are faced with a puzzle cache that contains numbers and letters reminiscent of ditloids, the first thing you will need to do is figure out what the letters stand for. Sometimes the puzzle may have a theme such as Time (24HIAD - 24 Hours in a Day), Maths (6FOAC - 6 Faces on a Cube) or Sports (6BIAO - 6 Balls in an Over) and sometimes you are just on your own with Doctor Google for help.
The name of the cache may be a clue as to what theme the ditloids might follow.
Likewise pictures on the cache page may also provide clues for working out the cache coordinates.
If you are lucky, the ditloid may also not be fully abbreviated, so that 7 Colours in a Rainbow, becomes 7 C in a R rather than 7CIAR. It is common for words such as 'the', 'in', 'an', 'or', 'to', 'of' etc. not to be shortened, which makes it easier to solve the puzzle.
In geocaching, many COs don't include numbers with ditloids, so that solving each ditloid will allow you to work out numbers in the cache coordinates. For example if you see 'A = T on an O' in a puzzle, you might figure out that the ditloid is referring to the number of Tentacles on an Octopus, so that the number given as 'A' in the cache coordinates would be 8.
You will need to solve the following ditloids to reveal the cache coordinates in the format:
S 27° 23.ABC E 153° 02.DEF
A = (ES on a D) + 3
B = (D on a S H) - 2
C = (D on the T) + 2
D = A on A C
E = (W on B) - 3
F = Y T B was D W
Checksum = A + B + C + D + E + F = 23
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you solved the puzzle before the cache was disabled on 13 June 2015 and the cache moved to new coordinates, apply the offset of S +0.006 and E - 0.027 to the coordinates you have calculated and it should get you to the right spot.
The theme for this puzzle is all in the name and it is also dedicated to barbbowman, who has provided me with many enjoyable hours searching for caches that have centred around a topic close to both my hearts.
There are small muggles about at certain times of the day near GZ so use stealth and please don't search for this one at night out of respect for the neighbours. Good luck with solving the ditloids and finding the cache. The container is only small, so no swaps please and BYOP.
There is a Geocaching Australia First to Find pathtag for the cacher who gets to sign the blank log.
Congratulations barbbowman - FTF, 19.03.15 at 8.15 pm, YAY!!!.