A Geocaching Milestone

While most geocachers are adamant that "it's not about the numbers", keeping track of the number of caches found and celebrating significant milestones is a very common habit!

A while back I had realised that I was fairly close to reaching 200 caches found, and that I could reach this in the USA by finding about three caches a week. I took advantage of the end of my formal commitments at UC Davis to go out on a country ride last week and managed to tick off quite a few, bringing me up to a total of 193. I then considered trying to reach the 200 mark while in Yosemite over the weekend, but that would have meant pushing the geocaching rather hard (and would not have been all that considerate to the others on that trip). Still, the caching on our hike in Yosemite did bring the total tantalisingly close: to 197!

With today as my last day in Davis I had to do something about this and went out for a quick ride to get three fairly close-by caches, deliberately aiming for a specific one for the milestone. My quest was successful and I hit the target, just hours before leaving Davis!

The ride was actually very pleasant, mostly on a bike path that follows the original Lincoln Highway route into Davis, parallel to the current highway. The highway is particularly spectacular at the moment with masses of blooming oleanders in all sorts of colours down the median.

The geocache that I found for the milestone is an interesting one. Called "Losing Yamar's Marbles" it was placed by a cacher called Yamar, and the cache container is full of marbles. The idea is to take a marble and then drop it off anywhere you care to, noting the location on a website he has set up (he describes it as a study in Brownian motion!). I had noticed this cache some time ago as it is quite close to where I was living in Davis (just a little difficult to get to, as it is on the other side of the railway tracks). More importantly, no marbles have been dropped in Africa yet — an omission that had to be rectified!

So, I reached my goal of 200 caches, on my last day in Davis, and will be able to drop the two marbles I took when I get back to South Africa.

All in all, a very satisfying day of geocaching!