Number 8 (Upper Hutt) Traditional Cache

Why 8?             

1. 8 is a lucky number in Chinese culture. Because eight (Ba in Chinese) has similar pronunciation with Fa, meaning wealth or fortune, this number is considered a good omen by Chinese people. The popularity of 8 was used in relation to the Beijing Olympic Games which commenced at exactly 8:08 on 8 August 2008. Apparently when Chinese people choose telephone numbers, mobile numbers, house numbers, car identification numbers and important dates, 8 is usually the first choice. Our current street address has an 8 in the number, our house phone number has two 8’s in it and we were married in the 8^th month, though we didn't get to choose the phone number. And for many years previously we lived at a house that was number 8 in its street: we still refer to that house as just ‘Number 8’ when talking about our past.
2. Closer to home, in Kiwi culture the use of 'number 8 wire' for farm fencing for the best part of 100 years meant farmers had a lot of rolls of this wire to hand and would use it to fashion or repair all sorts of things that had nothing to do with fencing. Accordingly, the term "number 8 wire" came to represent the ingenuity and resourcefulness of New Zealanders and the phrase "a number 8 wire mentality" evolved to denote an ability to create or repair machinery using whatever scrap materials were available on hand. Local hardware and DIY store franchise, Mitre10, has adopted "Number 8" as its in-house brand for generic hardware supplies and tools as a result of this.
3. At time of placement there were 8 small trade items inside the cache: 3 plastic farm animals, 3 plastic dinosaurs and 2 Spiderman hand stamps.
4. Although this isn’t the eighth cache I’ve hidden, it IS being hidden during my eighth year of Geocaching. And for good measure the cache is being published by our kind volunteer reviewer at 8:00 a.m. on the 8^th August (i.e. at 08:00 on 08/08). In addition the cache holder was put in place on 15/07/2020 and the cache was placed in the holder on 24/07/2020. On both dates the sum of the digits is 17 and 1+7=8.
5. There is an 8 in the co-ordinates for both the cache location and the designated parking space. In fact the sum of ALL the digits in the cache co-ordinates is 44, and 4+4=8.
6. It gets better: the cache number that has been automatically assigned to this cache after the 'GC' identifier is 8VY9Z. It has an 8 in it, which is great, but if you treat the code as being a number in base 36, '8VY9Z' is '14927687' when converted to our familiar base 10 and the sum of those digits is 44 and 4+4=8! How lucky was that?
7. There are a couple more 8s associated with the physical cache too, but I'll leave you to find them out for yourself when you find it .

The cache

The cache is a plastic screw-top container and should be pretty easy to find as it is in clear view in a holder that is attached to a fence post under a brace (so that it cannot be dislodged by cows leaning over to nibble what is on the other side from their paddock). There is room in the cache for TBs or Geocoins. It contains a log book and a pencil. Of course the log book contains 8 pages for signatures...

You should note that every strand in this fence that you walk along to get to GZ is made from number 8 wire as well. Nowadays it is rare in New Zealand to have a 100% number 8 wire fence. Fences have to be pretty old for this to be the case: most fences have for a few decades used high tensile wire, which is a lot thinner, lighter and stronger.

Logging your find

As always, finders must sign and date the paper log and any online logs that do not have a matching entry in the paper log will be deleted. Please make sure you bring your own pen, although I have placed a pencil and pencil sharpener in the cache at time of placement.

As this cache is celebrating the number 8 in a big way, the most kudos (and certainly the most luck) for finding this one will go to the person who is eighth to find, not first to find , and if it ever gets that far, 88^th to find will get even more luck. Eighth to find was lifestylea, visiting from Nelson and finding the cache whilst doing a bike ride from Maymorn to Cross Creek and back. I wonder who will be 88th?.

Logging Etiquette

Geocache hiders often go through a great deal of planning, building and sometimes expense to place their caches. The Geocaching Help Center section on Geocaching Etiquette says "Sign both the logbook and log your find online to get your smiley. Geocache owners love reading about your experience." We like to hear your feedback on whether or not you enjoyed the cache, or if you feel that some cache maintenance is required. Single word, acronym, or emoticon logs may be easier when you have a lot of caches to log, but it doesn't tell us or other finders anything about your adventure in finding the cache.