London and FarmtagZ 2015 Trackable UPDATE - Geocache

Wobbly Bridge

With some time to spare and trackable to move on, we located a cache we hadn't yet done in London that was big enough. It lays right outside the Tate Modern by the side of the Millennium bridge; on a Saturday it was extremely busy. Upon approaching the cache there was a street performer playing a saw like a violin. It was impressive but I was more concerned he was sitting about 5 meters in front of the cache.. At the same time he was drawing attention he was always creating a crowd that could easily look behind and see me reaching into a hedge!

I used much ninja stealth and hopefully no one really noticed, I retrieved the cache and placed the trackable inside! We have now completed one of the trackables missions in reaching London! Little fact that the cache doesn't tell you about, the bridge is in Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows. At the other end of the bridge is the City of London School which is actually the school Daniel Radcliffe attended. So it's basically a Harry Potter Easter egg!

Squeezed in at the Tate

 Now this cache requires far more stealth, the coordinates are pretty spot on. The cache itself is open access from all angles, you only get coverage from the bin itself. Otherwise anyone walking from either side can see what you're doing. Lewis stood one side while I quickly leaned over to retrieved the cache!

We are slowly adding more London caches to our collection as we travel up there for day travels. Hopefully we'll be able to add a few more soon, we've been unsuccessful with quite a few caches in London previously but luckily we finally got our Italian trackable moved on!

Lucca and Toscana, Italy - Geocache

Me and Lewis went on another holiday to Italy with his parents in Tuscany. We were in a villa that was practically in the middle of nowhere so our hopes for local caching was ruined! We ended up having a day trip to Lucca with intentions to drop off the latest trackable we had. All of the caches were just a bit too small to fit the trackable inside so sadly that has come back home with us. 

Lucca is known for its Renaissance walls which still stand in great condition as well as it's historic city center. It has history dating back from the Roman age as well as Medieval and Renaissance architecture. 

Il Labirinto

The first cache we found was located near St Martin's Cathedral, it was founded in the 6th century and build up over the years with the final renovations happening in the 14th and 15th centuries. After seeing some impressive Renaissance architecture in Florence I was surprised at how this building had small tier pillars with such fine details and not noting seeing anything like that before in Florence. The outside was very beautiful and decorated in the usual Renaissance marble. 

The cache hint was "You'll see a mouth" and along the floor was a small lion with an open mouth, although the cache was actually inside it was just slightly to the left in a gap on the wall. It was nice and small but the log was very full with old receipts and scraps of paper being used. 

 La vecchia Manifattura

This cache was hard to spot if you're not the size of a basketball player. I had to use my camera to take a picture on top of the pillar to see if anything was up there.

We found one trackable inside and have taken with us! The trackable is called FarmtagZ (wasn't named anything) and it's mission is to Pass by Washington DC, Hawaii, Paris and London by taking a photo at least every time. Easy for us to actually achieve on of these!  

 You have to try out this Gelato ice cream shop, Gelatarium. You build your own ice cream and pay by weight (kind of expensive..) there are several ice creams to choose from and lots of toppings! I went for chocolate and strawberry with milk and white chocolate sauce; topped with cookie pieces. Lewis went for strawberry, milk and melon. Mine came out at 4 euros and Lewis' at 3ish. It works out a lot but it's super fun and yummy!

Sotto l'antica porta della città

This cache was located near a water fountain and we only found the cache with the help of a spoiler picture. The cache container is actually really easy to spot so I'm not sure how it hasn't been spotted! Lewis filled up our bottle at the fountain too!

There were several other caches in Lucca we attempted but had no luck in finding. One particular cache seemed interested but we think we may have been sabotaged but someone claimed to have found it after us. If you're ever around Lucca try out Torre Guinigi and let me know if you find it! It is a premium cache.

Villa Conti

The last cache found was located is Toscany, it's hidden in a hole along a wall. You just have to stick your hand in and hope for the best! 

So we have a new trackable under our belt in which we need to move on towards London. As well as moving on the older trackable we still have. Lucca is definitely a place worth visiting and it's fun to find the caches along the way!

Trackables UPDATE

A few trackables that we placed have since moved and I thought I'd do a quick blog to show the updated travels. 

Firstly you may remember the Croatia travel bug that was one of our first trackables, we dropped this off alongside the Travelling Troll which were then both picked up by the same people. The Bunculuka trackable has yet to be placed by the couple but they did place the Travelling Troll. 

Sadly and quite annoyingly they bought both trackables back to the UK, not only that but they bought it back to a series we literally just dropped the Ladybird trackable off into. So although we added on some miles and the owner can say it's been to Italy; their actions have probably stopped the trackables travelling to another country for some time as it's difficult to get trackables moving in the UK. 

Sorry for the slight rant but it was an accomplishment helping a trackable travel only to have it literally come all the way back again!

On the other hand the Ladybird (Tallinn GeoToken) we mostly recently dropped off in Bournemouth has traveled to Stretford near Manchester. It travelled 187.96 miles to one cache and was then picked up again and traveled another 25.76 miles to where it now resides in Yorkshire inside the cache Nutclough City Limits! 

The Glenturret 05 - besucht alle Deutschen Bundesländer trackable hasn't moved as far (can't say the exact miles as the owner kept writing every cache he visited before dropping it off making 2 pages full of miles) It's ended up in Ford so roughly traveled 15 miles. 

Geocoinfest 2015 has traveled to lots of different caches since dropping it off! It's been a busy trackable. It was taken from Sopley > London > South Wales > Sailsbury, this cache is a perfect example of what happens to caches in the UK, they bounce from one end to the other! 445.12 miles is the average distance it's traveled, for some reason the person who took it to South Wales didn't drop it off up there but instead bought it back down to Sailsbury which is a bit suspious but also a shame; would have made more sense to drop it off up there! I don't think I had started the blog when we collected this cache but it's still nice to give you an added extra!

Sorry some of these turned into a rant like state (I'm a passionate trackable collector!) Even Lewis got some angry texts from at my utter disappointment and frustration (Sorry Lew)! As of yet our own trackable hasn't been picked up but I shall update as soon as that happens! In the mean time we did do some other caches but they weren't really blog worthy as we did them in passing travels :)

Florence and Pisa - Geocaching

Florence

While sight seeing the many Renaissance buildings around Florence we decided to find a few caches along the way. Firstly we attempted a cache which is located at the top of Piazzale Michelangelo. The location of the cache was quite muggle free as it's actually located on the "less cool" view side of the Plaza. There is also another co-ordinates cache near by but it does involve walking down the hill looking for clues and then back up! Perhaps a more better cache in a cool evening when you haven't done much walking during the day. We were unable to find the cache but were aware that there was a spoiler picture in the gallery. 

No signal up the Plaza so we decided to come back at night and were successful with the cache. The cache had been ruined and unfortunately was literally just a small bag with a log that was full and people were using recipients to write on. I didn't get a picture of the log purely because I just forgot but I took some photos of the view!

Forte Belvedere

The next cache we did was, as mentioned in the Travelling Troll and Bunculuka updates, a hard walk up a steep hill. I got quite fed up of the continuous climb especially after having just climbed the steps to the Plaza. It was a small cache but luckily we squeezed in two trackables. We also picked up a trackable Glenturret 05 - besucht alle Deutschen Bundesländer which had come from Germany and we have bought it back to the UK with us. 

MOZART E L' AQUILA NERA

A much more central cache, it's very close to the Cathedral but just off a side street with hardly any muggles. Although it is quite close to a restaurant/cafe that people were outside. I don't think anyone paid much attention to us but hopefully we weren't too suspicious. 

I notice with Florence caches is that they aren't rain protected at all, the Mozart cache was just literally sitting on the post, they clearly don't have any concerns for rain or wind unlike our caches in the UK that are wrapped in bags, tight boxes and hidden in holes!

Torre di Santa Maria

On our last day we traveled to Pisa for some sight seeing as the airport we were traveling to was in Pisa.  We went to the location of the cache but after actually reading the description we realised it wasn't in the central tourist area inside the walls. It was actually located externally which required us walking around the whole wall because the footpath was locked for some reason. 

The hole in the wall is pretty obviously hand stacked to hide something but I think it's far away enough from the path that passers by wouldn't ever even look. It was a simple small cache literally placed behind the stacked rocks.  

We only managed a few caches around Florence and one in Pisa but we can safely say we have some Italian caches under our belt! 

Travelling Troll - Trackable UPDATE

We found this Travelling Troll back in the Highleigh Speedy Hike, he'd currently only traveled around England a little and a visit to Scotland. I contacted the owner whether it would be alright to keep him just over 2 weeks so that we could move him over to Italy. She was fine with idea and so his story began!

Firstly I thought this little man was slightly cold and perhaps needed an outfit to wear on his travels. I made him a dress that buttons on the back so that he can be slightly warmer during winter months! Also adds my own personal touch to the trackable, although he isn't mine his clothes shall travel the world with him!

The troll ended up in Forte Belvedere in Florence, Italy. We added 742.95 miles to his journey and a new country! The troll was placed with Bunculuka but was picked up the same day that we dropped him off. Can't wait to see where this little guy goes next, fingers crossed he doesn't come back to England..

As quoted in the Bunculuka post, "The walk to the cache however was hard work, the terrain only got 2 stars out of 5 but it was a very steep walk. If it had been any hotter, like during the summer, we probably would have been very fed up and exhausted by the time we reached the top. So word of warning to anyone thinking of cache, be prepared for a long steep slope!"

For Bunculuka's journey click here

Travel Bug - Bunculuka UPDATE

We finally shift on this little travel bug, Bunculuka, we kept it for over a month and a half which was not our intention at all. The cache had traveled to so many places yet it hadn't been to Italy so we felt we really should take it on our holiday. I did contact the owner as to whether we could keep it but no reply, so I just kept it! I picked Bunculuka up from the Chichester Lipchis Canal walk which was at the time only recorded on our YouTube channel (video here).

The cache we went to was Forte Belvedere in Florence, Italy. We added on another 743.48 miles for this trackable as well as a new visited country. The cache itself is hidden well, I don't think you'd see it with just a glance. The walk to the cache however was hard work, the terrain only got 2 stars out of 5 but it was a very steep walk. If it had been any hotter, like during the summer, we probably would have been very fed up and exhausted by the time we reached the top. So word of warning to anyone thinking of cache, be prepared for a long steep slope! 

The Bunculuka has been taken from the cache, it was removed the same day. We also took along another travelling companion that we found in the Highleigh Speedy Hike. For the Travelling Troll blog, click here.