Water, Vuur en Eieren

In Eindhoven a city nearby where we live the five star mystery cache, (GCJQ1A-Water, Vuur en Eieren) is hidden.
We had to visit 9 points to gather some information, but we didn't know upfront what we were looking for. At one point we had to gather extra hints on a piece of paper.

This extra info should help us at the stash location to figure out the exact spot with this next found egg.

But our coordinates were accurate enough to find the cache-box without this information at 15:10.

Nekrav's Mysteries

In an area that we cached before a couple of caches of a cacher Nekrav, most of then are difficult mystery-caches but also the cache (GC1RDJC-Latijn Dilemma 50 v.chr.), we tried to find this one some while ago, but we didn't realize at that moment that it was a multi-cache. We tried to find the cache at the start-coordinates with the use of the hint and that wasn't successful of course. Today we walked the short route and were able to find the cache at 15:50.
Then we discovered another cache at a distance of less than 1 Km. But is was on the other side of a canal. There were constructions going on so we had to drive for almost 20 Km to arrive at the start location.

But nevertheless we wanted to find the cache (GC1KZKA-Dead Tree). When walking towards the stash location I ran into a bird of prey that was sitting on a pole drying its wings, because it just rained a little.

Next I had to jump across a not completely dried out riverbed aka a mud pool.

But finally found the container and logged at 16:40.

And the last one for today was the cache (GC1F15B-Gwynvyd), another mystery cache.
The entrance of the path was completely overgrown with thistles and other thorny plants, so the bears needed to stay outside because otherwise they get stuck with their long coats. But behind this overgrown area a very nice and a little bit spooky forest arose.

The container was closed with a lock, for which we didn't bring the code, but with a little patience I figure out the code and logged at 17:45.

d3z

This Saturday was a special caching day, at the end of last year a book was published in the Netherlands with Geocaching as theme.
In this book a couple of cachers disappear while doing the cache called (GCDAFD-Het mysterie van de drie zusjes), this cache exists for a couple of years and is one of the most visited cached in the Netherlands with a lot of Geo d'ors (rewards by cachers).

What a cache, fantastic what a way-points. Here some examples, I'm trying not to give away too much, but it will spoil for those not yet visited the cache.
The farm house were the 3 sisters lived with their parents.

The hang place of the father of the girls.

And the grave where the 3 sisters are buried at the end.

We logged this one as our number 350 at 14:10.
Inside we found a whistle with the name of the cache painted on it, and although we normally do not trade goodies, we couldn't leave this whistle behind.
The many rewards that this cache gathered are well deserved. What a fantastic way points that perfectly fit the story.

The mentioned book itself contains hidden information about another cache GC1M564-d3Z - de hemel of de hel.
When this information is discovered the cacher can get in contact with a certain character called gioman. And Gioman informs the cacher about the cache. The cache consist of three parts. First the home part, where the cacher has to figure out a couple of things with the information inside the book. If this is finished successful the second part can be done, which is a walk through Wageningen, the village that the book is about.

The walk brings the cacher to a couple of the locations that are mentioned in the book and information has to be gathered here. With this information the point-of-no-return can be figured out and here starts the last part of the cache the part in the woods.

This last part we did today. It brought us to a nice forest, and we had cloudy weather with a little bit of rain now and then. This made the forest look a little spooky and this was the right atmosphere for this cache.

We even met Gioman on the road, or at least a sculpture.

And almost at the end of the cache we are gathering the last needed information to see whether we could escape from Gioman.

At the end he almost got us..

But we managed and could log at 17:10.
What a fun adventure we had with this cache, for which we earned the next banner, that we will carry with pride.

Roundabout

For my work I had to travel across the country, and in that part of the country the cache GCNRGQ-Rotonde) is hidden. I was pointed towards this cache by another cacher a while ago and I became very curious about it. This was the opportunity to take a look at it.

First I had to find four mini-caches that contained tiles with letters that needed to be combined into a word. Fortunately the letters were also given for the German and the English word, so it was not too hard to figure out the word needed.

With this word I could figure out the position of the cache-box. What a great way to hide a cache container. Never seen that before!

I could add our name to the logbook at 16:10.

In this part of the country also the mystery cache (GCQCG2-Theyeti 7 : Heptagram) is hidden, one that I solved a while ago. The start coordinates on the geocaching.com site are located in an area that we visit once in a while, but the calculated coordinates are in a totally different part of the country. In the period this cache is hidden it was probably allowed to do this.

It brought me to a very nice wetland area, where I needed to walk over a wooden path.
I found and logged this one at 16:45

And then driving home, I made a little de-tour to try to find the cache (GC1M62H-Rashonden ter Wereld).
It is hidden in a nice area that was lovely to walk in.

When searching for the cache I slipped into a hole with one of my legs, and almost couldn't get out. That was a little adventure, being alone out there, far from home. But I managed to free myself and could continue with the search.

Found the box and logged our name at 19:00, time to drive home.

Treasure Hunting

We had sleepovers this weekend, our niece and nephew. They wanted to go treasure hunting so we picked a cache with a treasure map (GCNZPP-De Schat van de Freule in de Heerlijkheid Heeze).

We walked around a castle.

And first had to find the treasure map.

That we found, and this map brought us to some more way-points.

With beautiful old trees.

And finally the cache box that we found at 16:00. Where the kids enjoyed investigating the content of the box.

The next day we visited the cache (GCGAP2-Idefix).
A walk in a forest area, today it was raining a little bit, but we didn't get to wet.

The bears did get wet, but this was caused by the lake that they visited.

And again we were successful in finding the stash at 14:45.

Then our nephew still had some energy left, we went for (GC1V6ZG-'Beeldig Waalre') a cache were we had to visit different sculptures and had to link them to the pictures we brought with us.

So while half of the team enjoyed a drink in a bar the other half of the team discovered the cache at 16:30.

Scoffie Caches

Today a Scoffie Mystery Solve Cache Tour.
The first four are of a series of picture caches with the right website very easy to solve. The caches are laying in the same piece of forest, so we made a small round and found the four of them. The first one, (GC1P5GE-Cache Revolution - (1) - Women) at 16:50.
The second, (GC1P5GG-Cache Revolution - (3) - Books) at 17:05.
The third, (GC1P5GH-Cache Revolution - (4) - Random) at 17:15.
And the fourth, (GC1P5GF-Cache Revolution - (2) - Men) at 17:25.
Then up to two caches of the Sudoku Series. The first, (GCPQ4D-Sudoku3 (hard)) found at 18:20, the second, (GCPQ2Q-Sudoku1 (easy)) logged at 18:45.
And then the last of today, the first of a series of browsing puzzles, from which this one the only one I could solve, (GC1AND3-Browsing Puzzle 1), found this one at 19:15.

Akis Agis Part II en III

Last week we found the first of the series, tonight it was time to go and find the second (night)cache, (GC1Q0N4-Adventures of Akis Agis part 2:Milenko's nightwalk), we started on Friday evening at 23:00 o'clock and wanted to go for a couple of hours to continue on Saturday evening.

But it was so much fun and we got eager to find the stash this night that we continued.

We finally found the cache-box at 04:25, and we drove home with a very good feeling.

The third part we tried to find that one as well in the dark, but we failed. On Saturday afternoon we went back to this area to find that one and another solved mystery cache, (GC1TEEB-Sciagram).

We found this cache box at 15:25.

Then it was time to visit the third and last of the Akis Agis series, (GC1QFG0-Adventures of Akis Agis part 3:The Jeckyll Riddle). We had to search at a reflector in the shape of a hand. We found the next reflector, but it turned out to be the wrong one.

This one was the correct hand.

Once that was discovered the cache box was discovered as well at 16:50.

Then it was time to head back home to relax a bit, because we didn't get much sleep this night.
We earned the next banner: