A bit of a look at the innards of some of the waypoints of the "Go for The Groynes!" cache competition, 20MAR04
by Papa Bear_Left
There were seven waypoints, including the final cache, with three of them being relatively straight-forward containers and the others being more... manufactured for the job at hand. One of the joys of this sort of event is that the waypoints only need to last a few hours, and so can be more fragile or subject to Muggling than a standard cache or waypoint.
Another part of the day was the presentation of the Bear_Left Beta Testing Award, presented to BaldEd for his sterling service in discovering at least three mistakes in Bear_Left cache coordinates while trying to become first finder of them.
The award will a) remind him of how much time he wasted on them and b) point the correct direction to the cache at least one per minute!
(Clicking on any of these photos will take you to a larger image. Which is why it took so long to load!)
The relatively tame containers were:
This camouflaged pouch, on top of a small pump building. Clue: "This one is easy to understand"
and The Sallies' 3.5" diskette case in the grass near a gatepost. Clue: "MS-BASIC" (Bill Gates, base of post)
A fairly simple one had this small icecream container
stuck into the open end of a beam on a suspension bridge. Clue: "Smile hugely when you find this" Smile hugely=beam
One of the two tricky manufactured ones was a fake bullrush, placed in amongst lots of reeds and rushes. You may want to click this image to see the larger version!
and here's Moneydork finding it in a matter of moments, as captured by rediguana, who'd been searching for awhile...
The clue: "Hurry" Not a command, just a synonym!
Here's some shots of the way it was put together. Version 1 used papier mache, but looked too bumpy. Final version was made with DAS modelling clay and painted with velvet-finish spray paint. I couldn't find a cork to join the two Berocca tins together, so I whittled one out of a cork sanding block. The stem is just 6mm dowelling, epoxied into a hole in one tin.
The other tricky Bear-made waypoint was this fake, hollow post
that was installed beside a walway, looking rather like the other support posts... Clue: "A false clue will sidetrack you"
The most psychological waypoint was the combined brainchild of Rodney (Sallies) and Papa Bear_Left, and was the spot that caused the most evil cackling during our planning walk-around, and where Iris (Sallies) accused us both of being evil. We smiled and cackled again...
There are these posts out in the water, and I waded out and attached a housebrick to one of them with cable ties. Here's Kiwilegend looking under it:
The brick was, of course, a decoy. The real wayoint was a small plastic container half filled with lead sinkers, under the water suspended on a string from a ring set into the bank. No wading required! Clue: "Think wet. Think sneaky"
(This isn't the waypoint container, just a rock to show what the string looked like. Rodney hid the real container under a branch in the water, just in case it wasn't already sneaky enough!)
Bernadette is reported to've muttered while looking at the brick "If it's under there, I'll kill him!", before wading across and getting in deeper than her trousers would roll up and amending it to "If it's NOT under there, I'll kill him!" I happened to be watching when Moneydork came to this point, and he never even paused to take off his shoes before plunging into the water and wading across. What a straight-line kinda guy! BigNick knows me better, and assumed that the brick was too obvious...
The last waypoint I won't show you here, as it remains in place as a standalone cache.
This sort of thing takes a fair bit of time to set up, both making the waypoints and the organisation of the clue sheets and such, and I'd like to thank The Sallies for their assistance and Mama Bear_Left for being overseas for a few weeks, leaving me with the free time to spend on it!
The reward is the warm, fuzzy glow one gets when tired but triumphant cachers come staggering back to the base and say " You are EVIL!" in an accusing but grudgingly admiring way.
