Well Rounded cachers

Craig · Post by **Craig** » 03 December 08 9:29 pm

It's been a month since the competition started, how's everyone finding it?

I'm grateful that fuel has dropped in price, as chasing the elusive difficulty/terrain combinations seems to require a lot of driving!

tronador wrote:BTW- just out of curiosity, to cachers in other states...... has anyone actually found a cache in all 81 categories in their state? Because in NSW some don't exist????

Don't think that any state is 'well-rounded', unfortunately

Post by **caughtatwork** » 04 December 08 9:48 am

From a players perspective I'm finding it real tough. Not enough time and poor physical shape are my excuses

Still quite a few gaps in the expected places. I might not have to scrounge so many prizes now

Craig · Post by **Craig** » 04 December 08 11:07 pm

Yes it is tough, though I really enjoy the logistical challenges involved. It's also been great to find some caches that I normally wouldn't have bothered with. For example, it's because of this competition that I found my first nano!

I still have many, many puzzle caches to solve though, including a number of particularly difficult ones belonging to a certain 'XoE' series

Derringer · Post by **Derringer** » 01 February 09 7:09 pm

Congratulations to all those who participated in the "Well Rounded Cacher" game.

The time, effort, planning, and costs must have been immense,
but we believe so must be the satisaction of finding so many high quality caches.

We would like to hear some stories from those that participated- there must be some beauties.

Kevin

The Spindoctors · Post by **The Spindoctors** » 01 February 09 8:24 pm

Big congrats to Marcus Vitruvius and Craig - 80/81 is truly amazing. I thought one of you may have flown up to the Gold Coast to get your final one.

Having fallen agonising short of 3/3 (even though I was playing 5/5), I can attest to the effort and planning needed to complete this challenge.

I would love to see it (or a form of it) again in the near future.

BTW - Would love to play any stories on Geotalk. Feel free to drop me an email or leave a voicemail on my Geotalk phone number 02 800 50 436.

Post by **caughtatwork** » 01 February 09 9:20 pm

Spindoc Bob wrote:I would love to see it (or a form of it) again in the near future.

There is another game concept underway which has similar requirements, but may or may not be easier. I'll let the cat out the bag in due course.

But to echo the other sentiments, it was excellent to see so many people so enthusiastic about the game. 80 of 81 is indeed an immense challenge to have achieved and both Marcus Vitruvius and Craig D. will be rewarded for their efforts, even thought they fell tragically short by 1.

All in all there were 10 3/3 rounded cachers, 1 4/4 rounded cacher and apart from the missing one requirement, 2 5/5 rounded cachers. (The missing d5/t4.5 of which there is only one is Australia in Queensland).

I will be contacting the winners shortly to offer a token prize for taking out the challenges.

Bewilderbeest · Post by **Bewilderbeest** » 02 February 09 7:29 am

I couldnt claim my finds over Christmas/New Year, as I didnt get home to log them until > week later

. I kind of didnt bother after that...

mtrax · Post by **mtrax** » 02 February 09 10:44 am

just another idea for caching games, I know there a teams out there, but alot of solo cachers, it would be good to have a "mini" game that would encourage "new teams" or caching with people you don't normally cache.
I've seen this as a req for some other caching games, but perhaps on a wider scale.

SamCarter · Post by **SamCarter** » 02 February 09 11:05 am

Well done to Marcus Vitruvius and Craig D ... and gd___ ... and anyone who went for the less wussy versions. I'd gone down to Tassie for my Christmas/New Year break with a vague idea of maybe doing something silly like trying for all 25 of the 3/3 version in one day. When I tried to turn the vague idea into a plan, I realised that it was a totally mad idea, if not impossible, and so eased that plan back to getting all 25 in Tassie. In the end I didn't achieve that either, although I found 60% of them there, including some very enjoyable ones in places I've liked in the past or places that I never knew about and was very glad to be introduced to. I finished the collection on my return to Victoria, with an ill-planned day in Geelong, and a better-planned trip out the back of Ballan/Blackwood/Trentham. The goals provided a slightly different focus for my caching, and helped me learn stuff about gca queries (excellent stuff), and the MacCaching program (not-quite-GSAK for Macs).

Unfortunately it didn't do anything for the yawning gaps up in the high D/T combinations of my D/T graph! Maybe I need a simple challenge like "find 5 caches that fill in 5 gaps in your D/T graph" (poor old Marcus Vitruvius and Craig D wouldn't be able to enter this though!)

Thanks for organising it; I look forward to the next challenge. I like mtrax's idea for a more team-y game (I enjoyed this aspect of the GeosportZ game).

Post by **caughtatwork** » 02 February 09 1:07 pm

Bewilderbeest wrote:I couldnt claim my finds over Christmas/New Year, as I didnt get home to log them until > week later . I kind of didnt bother after that...

Why didn't you email me? We could have worked something out and let you make your logs.

tronador · Post by **tronador** » 02 February 09 1:23 pm

I too would like to congratulate Marcus Vitruvius and Craig D on a marathon effort to get 80/81 caches.
I fully understand the enormous effort it took to achieve this and the incredible distances travelled to try and find some of these categories.

Congratulations again, you are well and truly worthy winners of the Well Rounded Cacher game.

GhostGums · Post by **GhostGums** » 02 February 09 1:50 pm

I did the 3/3 cacher, and having only been caching for about 9 months it did give me a good appreciation of the differences between the various D and T ratings. Before I started I think I had 13 D/T combinations, and now I have 27.

It probalby took me out of my comfort zone as well, otherwise I wouldn't have been trying to balance walk along a tree trunk across a muddy swamp to grab a cache.

Well done to Marcus and Craig as 80/81 was a superb effort.

gd___ · Post by **gd___** » 02 February 09 3:07 pm

For such a simple concept, this was a very challenging game and I had it easy with only 70 odd caches found before the game started, I had plenty of caches to choose from, or so you would think.

When I first looked at joining in I looked at the available caches for the 5/5 challenge and quickly ruled that one out for me. So turning my attention to the 4/4 challenge, I selected the likely caches to complete this level and decided it was doable, but to add to the challenge I decided that I would complete the 3/3 level first then do the higher Difficulty/Terrain caches.

Getting the 3/3 level was hard enough and only involved finding 10 of the planned 25 caches and a couple of DNF's and trips to Sydney changing the plans.

With the first smiley in the bag by mid December it was time to start the next level and the plan starteed with a number of caches in various parts of Sydney being the closest to home for their ratings, but a couple of DNF's, an archived cache and DNF's by someone else on a difficult to get to cache and the realisation the of of my planned caches required finding 15 other caches first (all 130km's from home) resulted in replanning and trips to Wollongong, Canberra and the Blue Mountains as well as a couple to Sydney, something I would not have done in this time frame except for the motivation of the game.

So with another 10 of the original 49 caches found and the Smiley back I was not tempted to start on the next level, but I do admire those that had a go at the 5/5 no matter how many they found, congratulations to all.

And a big thank you to Caught@Work and the crew for running the game, I now look forward to the next one.

pwags · Post by **pwags** » 02 February 09 11:41 pm

I echo others' comments - congratulations to Marcus Vitruvius and Craig D for an amazing effort, and also to gd___ for his 4/4... very impressive work.
<p>
As a relative newbie to caching, I really enjoyed this game (my first). After scoping out the potential caches, and deciding that the 3/3 looked too easy, I set myself the target of the 4/4. I managed to reach 40 of the 49, and unfortunately ran out of time to get those last few, particularly with the shocking weather over the last week of the competition.
<p>
The best thing about this comp was the way that it forced me to change my approach to geocaching. Rather than focusing on picking up lots of easy caches, instead I was very selective, and often went out just to get one or two "special" caches. I have discovered that caching can be a lot more than just numbers, and the special places and caches that I found were incredibly rewarding.
<p>
I acknowledge that this comp was so much easier for a newbie, as the list of available (unfound) caches is much larger - but I guess that this natural "handicapping" is great encouragement for those with less experience.
<p>
Many thanks to caughtatwork for the work that went into this comp... I look forward to the next one now!

Craig · Post by **Craig** » 03 February 09 7:27 pm

Wow, thanks for the kind words everyone. It sure was a crazy three months, with nearly every weekend spent finding caches somewhere within the SE corner of Australia.

I first started planning for this competition a couple of days after it was announced, and started 'blacklisting' caches that I would avoid until the competition began. Initially I'd hoped to grab as many in Victoria as possible, but the interstate options proved to be more convenient in some cases.

The distances involved with this competition were quite large. A quick check of the odometer reveals that I've travelled just over 12,000km during the competition period, which is quite a lot for someone who walks to work and doesn't use a car during the week

There were two great aspects to this competition that I enjoyed; the first was the great variety of caches that were out there to find. Prior to the competition started I avoided caching in urban areas, had never found a nano and very rarely solved puzzles. This competition changed all that, and enabled me to visit a whole bunch of area that I'd never been before. The competition also gave me some great excuses to return to my favourite places, namely our beautiful Australian Alps.

The other fantastic aspect of this competition was making contact with so many cachers, whether it be via email, meeting up somewhere or going on a caching expedition. Off the top of my head, I'd like to thank the following cachers who I've met or been helped out by along the way: Winglen, McPhan, Derringer, BigON, Zsazsa7, Spindoc Bob, mtbikeroz, RexTrex, Team Rubik, cdmark & Team Crackers. Sorry if I've missed out on anyone, it has been a crazy couple of months!

Congratulations to all the competitors for giving the competition a go. I'd particularly like to thank and congratulate the following teams; Altaire, for giving me someone to chase; tronador, for finding so many caches within your home state; the Gigglygecko Clan for completing the 3/3 challenge in such a short time period, and lastly gd___ for achieving the 4/4 cacher; I didn't achieve this until Australia Day!

However, my biggest shoutout has to go to Marcus Vitruvius and D J GeoDog Rascal. Without your support I would never have come this close to becoming a Well Rounded Cacher. Thanks so much guys