Our A-Z of 2019 Caching Tales

It’s that time of year when we all look back on the good and bad of the past year. Following the popularity of last year’s A-Z of Caching Tales we decided to do it again.  

So here’s our geocaching highs and lows of 2019, plus some of our most amusing and memorable caching moments of the past year.

A is for A&E & Appendicitis. We may as well get the health problems out the way first. Yes just hours after a long caching walk on RYO62’s ‘Bourne Boogaloo’ and ‘Caxton Circumnavigation’, the blue lights came calling. One ambulance ride and an emergency op later, and I was soon out caching again.

B is for Bognor Regis. An 80s weekender at Butlins gave us the opportunity to go caching in and around the south coast resort, including ‘The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy’ series at Binsted Woods.

C is for Coton. On a warm bank holiday Friday we completed Steve & Geosprog 4789’s brand new series ‘Coton Trapise’ and grabbed a record number of FTFs for us - 15 in total.

D is for Dublin. A five day trip to Ireland, to see A-Ha perform the first gig of their marathon Hunting High & Low tour, gave us the opportunity to pick up about 50 caches in the city and nearby coastal towns. 

E is for Europe. ‘Europe’s First Cache’ near Dublin, which topped our list of best and most memorable caches for 2019. 

F is for Flight Recorder. We did our first chirp cache this year - ‘The Chirp is not enough’ - and it was very good fun. The final cache was also brilliant, an ammo box made to look like a flight recorder. 

G is for GeocoinFest. This year we attended our first mega event GeocoinFest Europe 2019. Held in Manchester it was great fun and we thoroughly enjoyed purchasing a few Geocoins and doing the associated lab caches, plus a few more. 

H is for Hillier. At the start of the year I went to find the cache ‘In Memory of Tony Hillier’. It was a fantastic cache, located in Tony’s former garden, which is filled by some of the stunning metal sculptures he created. I highly recommend a visit.

I is for International Earthcache Day. This year we headed into Thetford Forest and found the huge doline ‘The Devil’s Punchbowl’.

J is for Jigsaw. We have done an awful lot of them this year to get the co-ordinates for various mystery and letterbox caches. Some were for one off caches, but others were for some great series’ including Mickey's Mystery Tour, Floral Dance and Heidi Rose’s Bunny Hop.

K is for Keys. And we found a lot of them at a field puzzle on the ‘Lawshall Walk’ series. Fortunately, we eventually found the correct one to open the log container. The whole series was brilliant, one of the best we’ve done this year. Other clever custom caches on the trail included an egg in a bird’s nest and a unique bird box field puzzle.

L is for Lab caches. Another first for us this year was completing a number of lab caches. We did 30 in Manchester at the Mega, 10 of which were truly inventive. We did 9 around Dublin’s huge museums and almost got lost. And we finished the year with five at haunted landmarks in Bury St Edmunds.

M is for Mexico. We took our first ever trip to Latin America and picked up a large number of earthcaches and virtuals at ancient monuments like Chichen Itza and Tulum and naturals wonders including Cenotes and Nichupte Lagoon.

N is for Nieces. I managed to get my nieces and sister out caching on the ecopuffinparents‘ walk ‘Flossies Dozen’, near Soham. We had a lovely time discovering some inventive caches.

O is for One Hundred. Yes, this year I finally achieved another personal challenge of finding 100 caches in a day. Thanks to a very hot nine hour walk on the August Bank Holiday Saturday, doing the Letchworth Greenway Gallivant, I finally did it! & I got to see my first black squirrel.

P is for pigsty. In the summer we did the fantastic Cambs / Suffolk stroll series. So many fun custom caches and a cube field puzzle that took me three attempts to get into. But the most memorable moment was the very eerie pigsty, which was pitch black and had a door that just wouldn’t stay open! Needless to say that particular cache was never found. 

Q is for Quest. And the Ecopuffinparents have certainly had us on a few of those this year, in a bid to complete their challenge caches. The most hard fought were ‘All Round Cacher’ - which we finally achieved by attending a mega event - and ‘Oh to be in Britain’ - achieved following visits to Yorkshire & West Sussex.

R is for RYO62. Once again Ross and his family’s huge efforts in setting and maintaining countless caches and series helped make 2019 another great caching year for us. I’ve mentioned some elsewhere, but other memorable series included ‘Halloween Haunt’, ‘Melbourn Mooch’ and his mystery caches around Royston. We particularly loved the final cache for ‘Logging in Bristol’!  

S is for ‘Secret Call’. The multi in Dublin and a very similar mystery cache in Cambridge - ‘The Ghost of the Corpus Clock’ - were brilliant fun. Waiting in phone boxes for secret calls all felt a bit like we’d stepped into the world of James Bond!

T is for Thurston CITO. Another first for the year was attending my first ever Cache in Trash Out event organised by The Geotourers. It was great fun, and lovely to see the communal pond and surrounding park looking so much cleaner afterwards.

U is for ‘Unraveling the mystery’. FolkFen have been busy setting more fiendish FF puzzles. This puzzle near Isleham, took us a little while to unravel, but we got there in the end, and discovered a great on theme cache at GZ.

V is for Vampire. Bram Stoker, famous for writing Dracula, lived in Whitby and incorporated many of its landmarks into the novel including the Abbey. It was great to collect a virtual cache at a bench dedicated to him, which overlooked the town.

W is for Wherigo. My favourite cache type and I did a number this year including the brilliant ‘Ghostly Peterborough’ by beach_hut & ‘The Lost Geocoins’ by GCF EU19 Crew. 

X is for Xtraspecial day. For my birthday in 2019 we went to Fellbrigg Hall and Cromer in Norfolk. We picked up some inventive and clever caches, many with a lot of favourite points, which helped us to complete the Cache Carnival souvenir challenge. 

Y is for Yorkshire. Whilst on a week’s holiday we did some great caches including virtual ‘Film set 10-Harry Potter’; Flamborough Head Earthcache; and the ‘SLDW’ and ‘The Rocket’ traditional series’.

Z is for Zero - ground zero. Yes once again we dedicate the final letter to all the GZs of all the geocaches we found this year and want to say a very big thank you to every CO for all the time, work and effort that went into setting them. Each and every cache we found helped make 2019 a fun and hugely memorable caching year for us. Thank you to you all.

Happy new year, and here's to a great 2020 caching year and the 20th anniversary of geocaching.