A Letterbox geocache is a specialized type of cache that harks back to adventure games that pre-date Geocaching by a couple of hundred years.
A letterbox contains a waterproof box containing a notebook and a rubber stamp. Finders make an imprint of the letterbox stamp in their personal notebook, and leave an impression of their personal signature stamp on the letterbox 'visitors book / logbook' as proof of having found the box, and letting other letterboxed know who has visited.
Please leave the original self-inking stamp behind in the bird box. you may write your geocaching name and date if you do not have a geocaching letterbox stamp.
A bird box geocache is a specialized type of geocache that looks like a bird nesting box.
"Please be carefull, I love you!" called Tannie Mieta to her old sea dog husband. They had been childhood sweetharts, and she knew his deepest secrets.
She watched her husband and their grandson close the front gate, and walk down the street like he always does. She sighed. This year had been a very difficult year, now with their grandson staying with them, another mouth to feed, but she did not mind. In his eyes she always saw her late daughter. Many years ago, her beautiful daughter had run away from home with some good-for-nothing boyfriend away up country. Then she had the little baby.
Tannie Mieta knew the daily routine, Oom Jurie (who always smelt of stale fish oil), would go down the road to his first mate, and then pick up one of the deck hands. They knew which days of the month, and times of the day, they knew which areas were productive for fishing, but mostly they would motor off to Ryebanks, where just the three of them would catch those strings of fresh fish you love so much.
Now -a- days the hope was that Oom Jurie would get to teach their grandson Michael, the trade. Maybe in their old age, they could still get a strong family man to support them? Everybody called him Mikey, everybody but oom Jurie, who always did everything by the book.
Years ago, as a little boy, they would regale the cute precocious little boy of tales about the sea, Oom Jurie's exciting memories of shoales of big glistening fish, and you would also feel the adrenalin pumping through your own blood with each of his re-telling, but his favorite stories was always about the mermaid.
The young man, Mikey had a tough life, single mother, with abusive boyfriends, never having much, bad friends, and worse decisions. Then there was the 'TIC', (illegal methamphetamineas), and then dropping out of school. His mother always tried to make a life for them, even though she was often sickly. One night his mothers thin petite body just had too much. 'My ma, my ma...!' he's wreched cries pierced through the air, in that old hospital ward, when he had clutched her cold pale boney hands, that dark rainy night, but those lifeless squinting eyes would never see again.
Today, the three older men worked getting the boat onto the water. You would not have known that Oom Jurie, and his first mate was over seventy years old, their heavily calloused hands, and sinewy limbs betrayed a life of hard honest work, and the younger deck hand was only fifty years old. Now they approached the Ryebanks, and Oom Jurie motioned to wake up his grandson. He knew his grandson had again made some excuses the day before, gone out that afternoon, and only got home late that morning.
Now, with a start, his grandson looked around him, wild eyed, and started shouting repeatedly, "Mermaid, mermaid....", he stumbled over and upset the buckets of fish bits and lines, and with a horror the men in the little boat saw him step over the gunwale. In a moment he was there, then he was gone.
'Mikey!' screamed Oom Jurie, as he leaped forward and tried to get over the side of the boat, but two pairs of strong arms held him back.
S 34 02 778 E 025 38 031 Not Transferable. They knew enough that the old man, even with a life at sea, didn't know how to swim. The only way that they got back, was with the old man tied up, He would have willingly and without hesitation have given his life, for that faint vain hope of bringing their wayward grandson, home, and not having to tell his wife, Tannie Mieta that they would never ever see their lovely daughters son, Mikey alive again.
Difficulty rating increased due to all finders being unable to find the stamp inside the regulat {shoebox size} cache.