A continuation of my Shan Dong chronicles. You can catch up on Part I - Qing Dao. Part II documents some of the sights on the way to 濟南.
嶗山 - Mt. Lau
Mt. Lau is a mountain range around 青島 area, also known as "海上名山第一" and "東方阿爾卑斯山" (Alpes in the East). Recognized throughout China and around the world as one of the best sources of mineral water. Thirty years ago, this mountain range was the main source of the water for the citizens of nearby Qing Dao. Nowadays, the rights to the mineral water are owned by QingDao Brewery and Coca Cola. The water is known for its slightly metallic taste and its unrivalled "pureness". Of course, I cannot tell the difference, though having watched 酒是故鄉醇 many years ago and sampled different fine wines, I can certainly appreciate the importance of water. As an aside, Qing Dao's water nowadays comes from filtered Yellow River water.
Mt. Lau was one of the sights I was looking forward to the most on the trip. The saying goes "泰山雖雲高，不如東海嶗", in reference to the strong waves of the Pacific sweeping upon the rocks of Lau. The beauty of the range has been described by many famous scholars and poets over the years. On this trip, I only got to visit a small section of the scenic park - a 3km trail along a river known as "九水十八潭" (Nine waters, eighteen pools). The trail winds along a river through a narrow valley with soaring cliffs on either side. Each "water" and "pool" consisted of impressive rock formations along the river. Most of the locations were worthy of a visit by themselves and I found myself always looking forward to the next location. At most of them, you can easily make your way carefully down to the water's edge.
My favourite part of the hike was around near 四水, where there was a little pavilion on the opposite side of the river. While most of the group decided to hike on, I made the detour by skipping along some rocks to visit the pavilion. I wanted to see what the interior decorations of the structure was like, but it didn't turn out too be that impressive. However, the view was quite spectacular from that side overlooking the river downstream.
Unfortunately, moving as one big group, I did not get a chance to walk the entire trail and visit all nine waters. Only got up to 5 waters and 11 pools. I would have loved to go on, but oh well... :(
On a side note, Mt. Lau is one of the holiest sites for Taoists back in their heydays. The only thing I know about Taoists is 王重陽 and his 全真教 and their "獨門陣法" - 北斗七星陣! The little section of Mt Lau I visited only had one Taoist temple along the way, and it was under repairs at the time, so I didn't get to visit. It would have been quite cool to visit and learn more about their culture and history. Maybe next time.
臨淄中國古車博物館 - Ancient Wheeled Transport Museum
Went to an interesting museum on the way to 濟南. During the construction of the highway connecting 青島 and 濟南 (濟青高速公路), construction workers uncovered fossils of horses and horse carriages dating back to more than 2000 years ago, before the time of the Terracotta warriors. One of the top 10 archaeological finds in China. You literally stop on the side of the freeway, walk down a set of stairs to go under the highway, and you'll see the ancient fossils. A little freaky considering that these horses were drugged then killed for the burial of some rich guy over 2000 years ago.
They built a little museum detailing the history of carriages in China. Interestingly enough, wooden carriages and many advancements such as shock absorbers were developed before the era of palanquins (轎). Palanquins were more comfortable, so emperors and rich people eventually favoured them more, leading to the decline of carriages. As always, military needs really drove technological development. Pretty impressive seeing how far advanced China was compared to the rest of the world in those times.
濰坊 楊家風箏博物館 - Wei Fang Kite Museum
濰坊 - Wei Fang plays the host of a famous international kite festival every year. Scores of kite lovers from around the world invade this small town to showcase the latest and greatest in the art of kite flying. Paper making and its close ties with kite making have been part of the roots of Wei Fang for many centuries.
We took a tour of Yang's family kite museum. We first visited some of the facilities where workers were busy creating ... you guess it... kites. All the kites made by Yang's family kite factory (they been in this trade for many many generations) are hand made. Each kite is tested multiple times to ensure their flight worthiness. If it fails to take off, then the worker who made the kite is responsible for fixing it, or else it comes out of his/her salary. I was really impressed by the level of detail on these kites - the individual layers of colour, the perfection in the bindings, the fragility of the paper. Overall, I came away with a much greater appreciation on the art of kites.
They had this giant courtyard where we saw some workers flying kites. It is quite cool seeing some oddly shaped kites in the air that you'll never expect can fly. The most impressive kite in the museum was this one of the dragon - apparently winner from a past international competition. I bet it would have been quite a sight to see this take to the air.
After kites, we visited this master who has been creating these multi-layer paintings (埠木版年畫) for over 60 years. He was once featured on Discovery Channel too. You start off with these stencils onto which a single colour of paint is applied. Using a brush, the paint is transferred to a sheet of paper specifically at certain locations, as defined by the stencil mask. Each colour has a different stencil. Extreme skill is required to ensure the paper is correctly aligned for each stencil and that the paint is evenly transferred. A typical painting requires at least a dozen paint layers. This master just breezed through the process. I was just thinking, if you hesitate for a split second and misalign your paper by 1mm, your painting would be screwed. I was tempted to buy one of the paintings, but all the good ones were quite pricey.
Saw many more Chinese art, including detailed etchings, cool origamis and paper cutouts, little trinkets and toys. I imagine foreigners would swipe these goods up really quickly.
As we left 濰坊, we passed by the following statue. We were like, "What was that?!?! Brokeback action!?!"
Apparently, the statue commemorates the bonds between the soldier and farmer during the rebellion.
To be continued....
I was installing some software on a linux image over the weekend. During the installation, I ran out of space in my root mount, so I decided to move some stuff to another mount.
I had meant to type:
mv ./lib /opt/lib
instead, I typed:
mv /lib /opt/lib
Since the software I was installing required root access, the latter command actually succeeded. After that, I could only run 'cd' and 'whence'. Most of the other commands didn't work, like 'ls', 'mv', 'ln', 'mkdir', 'rm'. It was so sad, the files were RIGHT THERE in /opt/lib, but I couldn't move it back to /lib.
Anyway, it took three different system programmers two shifts to fix up my boo-boo. Thank goodness for backup images. I felt so horrible.
Everyone else had a good laugh at my expense though...
GCZZZ2. Bruce Trail Hike Event - Caledon Hills Section Part I.
The Bruce Trail is a scenic nature trail stretching over 800km along the Niagara Escarpment from Niagara Falls to Tobermory. This past Saturday, I attempted the first part of Caledon Hills section, which stretches 37.1km.
Day started off with a couple quick caches in the dark. In a moment of carelessness, I got this 2 inch long shallow cut starting half-a-cm from the corner of my eye towards my ear. Eek. Close to losing my eye!
The GPSr routing was kind of useless, as it led me down some side roads that were not winter maintained. Given the snow storm we had this past Thursday, the roads were covered with snow and ice. One section in particular featured a downhill S-curve. I couldn't see the downward slope in the dark, so I approached the first turn a little faster than I should have. I didn't get a chance to equip my car with winter tires yet, so I knew I was in trouble when I saw the second bend. My car slid on the ice. Fortunately, I knew to pump my brakes and was careful not to over-steer. TochiMobile regained control and came out of the turn safely. Afterwards, I realized how close I was to going off the side of the road. The years of winter driving experience do make a difference, and I was lucky to not have panicked during that turn.
Well, that wasn't the last episode for TochiMobile. Met up with Fababoo later at the Trans-Canada trail. Fababoo and I were going to leave our cars at the end of the hike, so we could shuttle people back afterwards. As he got to the trailhead, he slowed down his car. I was behind him going 15km/h. I applied the brakes and TochiMobile skidded again. This time though, Fababoo was in front of me!! In a split second, I decided that bailing out was better than rear-ending someone. Spotted a nice big snow bank on the side and calculated that I was going slow enough to not take any damage. I guided TochiMobile towards the bank. Poof. TochiMobile stopped. Reverse. Vooooom. Vooooom. TochiMobile was stuck in the bank! Good thing Rover3 and Goju were there to help push. TochiMobile was back on the road in no time. Three close calls to start the day.
Team Goju took us to the start of the hike. Met up with the 10 other fellow hikers/cachers and a bunch of paparazzi and fans. Took photos with the official banner and we're off! The hike started off at a nice pace. NorthernPenguin led the way and we passed through some forested regions. Caught a quick glimpse of the hilly badlands. The trail was covered with maybe an inch or two of snow. Didn't really notice the impact of the snow yet.
At one point, we came out onto Grange Sideroad. We looked around and couldn't spot any of the Bruce Trail blazers. Backed tracked a bit to find the trail leaving the driveway we had walked down. Must stay on the trail! Fizbot came by to check up on us. On the downhill slope, his car had a tough time coming to a complete stop. First time I saw car curling!
Passed by some large properties and saw some a couple equestrians coming down the road. Who needs horses when you have your own pair of feet? Pfft. The next point of interest was Devil's Pulpit. A sharp drop of about 100m about 9.5km into the hike. The main descent consisted of a couple switchbacks of steep slopes with cable guardrails and a length of very narrow steps. Pretty glad that I was only hiking down this drop, instead of coming up.
Coming out of the pulpit, we decided to take a side trip to the ruins of some old lime kiln for a cache. I had read that this was a beautiful, little explored area. It is now more accessible since the Bruce Trail Conservatory built a side trail to the ruins. We opted to follow the railway tracks, as it was a few hundred meters shorter than the trail. Branched off the tracks and into the forest. As we emerged from the trees, we came upon the entrance of this trench.
Wow. What an unique area. Stone walls on both sides, with little furnace holes embedded into the wall. A tall square tower rose on the left hand side, which was apparently the chimney for some of the furnaces. I always enjoyed visiting ruins, like Mayan ruins or some of the remains by Austrian countryside. However, these kiln ruins were quite special, as they almost blending in with nature - doesn't have that touristy polished feel to it.
Came back out along the tracks, and crossed the bridge over Credit River. Many tiny islands of ice interspersed the river, making for an amazing sight. I wish NorthernPenguin had his "good" camera and tripod. Would have loved to see what he could have done with an HDR shot.
Moved along into Forks of the Credit Provincial Park. Saw some spectacular trails and scenery, capped off by views of the Cataract Falls. The icicles on the far side of the valley was amazing.
At this point our party of eight hikers had split into two groups of four. I was in the first group. The next section of the trails consisted of some intense uphill climbs, though nothing compared to McGregor [:P]. We were probably about 13km into the hike. The distance was starting to take its toll on my left leg. We crossed along the top of some very spectacular ridges. Reminded me of the days of Ridge Running, though I was in no shape to do any running at this point.
We continued on for another couple kilometers and finally met up again with HikerT, who had left us earlier. She had her car parked about halfway into the hike, as a bail out vehicle. We chatted for a bit and continued down the road. After a few hundred meters, we were stopped by another car, with the familiar license plate NAWTY. "Where are you guys going?" "Err. We're hiking on the Bruce Trail?" "This is not the Bruce Trail." "WHAT?" We had missed the proper trail entrance by HikerT's car. Good thing Nawty arrived just in time!
The terrain changed quite a bit now. Smaller vegetation and open fields became more dominant in this section of the hike. The snow was also getting much deeper, probably averaging about 2-3 inches. Compounded with our increasingly tired legs, our pace slowed down quite dramatically. At first, we were a bit concerned that the second half of the hike had large sections of road. On any other day, we would have definitely preferred the trails over roads. However, today the roads were cleared of snow and were definitely a welcomed relief for our aches and pains.
At one point, the trail map told us we were suppose to following the Escarpment Side Road. However, the blazers led us into a forest off the road. What is this? A new reroute of the trail? Being Bruce Trail purists, my fellow hikers and I did not even complain about the new challenge. The trail went through a pine forest followed by a road section for a kilometer north. At this point, the sun was starting to set, so I decided to put TochiCam away. The blazers led to east across the edge of this farm field. I took one step onto the field and plunged. The snow drifts were up past my knees. I let out a true "Oh My God". A combination of "JEEZ!" and "You've Got to be Kidding Me!" Things weren't getting any easier. The eastward portion lasted for 600m before turning back south. At this point, I said, "If this leads us a kilometer back to the Escarpment Side Road, I'm going to be pissed". Indeed, that was the case. This southward portion was very hard to walk on. The terrain was uneven and my legs shock absorbers (a.k.a. knees) were both shot already. Getting increasingly painful.
Despite the aches, we pressed forward with each of us taking turns leading. The leader would effectively clear a trail making it easier for the fellow hikers behind him. After coming through the next section of hills and valleys, I had commented that "It's so tough seeing those hills and valleys up ahead of you, and knowing how much they are going to hurt." To which Fababoo replied, "I know, but that DETOUR through the farm was so uncalled for!!" No one could disagree.
We followed the road a bit more. Some quick stops for caches. First time I was ever caught searching for a cache. Fababoo and I were scouring around a tree off the road when this van pulled up beside us. "What are you doing? Do you guys need any help?" "We're okay! We're just searching for something we lost on the side of the road!"
After a couple kilometers of roads, we finally hit the final 2.5 km section of trails. At this point, I had no idea the hardest hike of my life was up ahead. The entire section was an uphill battle all the way. My thighs and knees were already screaming in pain and refusing to bend. As the distance slowly dropped, the steps were becoming harder and harder. At one point, I had 700m to go. Normally, I could easily run 700m, but I was just concentrating on one step at a time now. Head down. Left foot forward. Right foot forward. It was quite a relief as we came over the last hilltop and spotted our cars parked on the road below. In Rover3's words, "A special hats off to Fababoo and Tochi for finishing in good spirits as they seemed to really be in great pain for a good part of the way."
We were the first group to finish. Gave a call to the second group and found out they had just entered the last 2.5 km of the hike. We sat in rover3's car to warm up. I had discovered a present that TOMTEC and Telly left for me. TochiMobile now sported a new rear tire cover! I had no idea what that was doing there or what I'd do with it. When I first saw it, I thought someone had stolen my spare tire!
An hour later, we saw two lights slowly come down the road. It was the multicolour1 duo, who we had been separated from in the first couple kilometers of the hike! They were always on the back of our minds and we were glad to see them make it safely, albeit walking on the roads instead of the trails. Another half hour later, the second group arrived. We stayed for a group photo, chatted before parting.
To sum up. My GPSr clocked the overall hike at just 41km. 11 started, 10 finished. Total time spent hiking: 11 hours 36 minutes. Half way towards my BT Caledon Hills badge.
Fababoo summed up the hike the best: "Congratulations to all that made the attempt and to all that made it to the end. You've accomplished something that not many would even dare trying." A definite challenge for both the mind and body. So easy to give up; so great to have persevered.
ETA:
Miscellaneous Charts of interest.
GPSr Track Record:
Elevation Chart:
Back in June, I posted about this geocaching hobby I had picked up. Since then, I've been continuing the sport on and off. I slowed down during the summer months, but with the beautiful fall weather, I've been out in full force after work and on weekend mornings hunting down these caches. This past Saturday was a major milestone for me, as I managed to make my 100th find.
Some of the highlights from these past few months, in no particular order:
- A.P.E. Night Cache - APE cache in Washington @ 2am.
- Groundspeak HQ Visit - Giant Google Earth TV, Treasure chest, lackey geocoin.
- Stehekin - River Trail - Most remote cache.
- Bavarian Village - First Webcam with TheDragonFruitS support.
- ToGPSr - Thanks to MrMonk and Kungfucius for the discount and courier service. Makes life so much easier.
- German Mills - My first attempt at caching was this set of caches in a park close to home - took me 4 months to clear the caches in there.
- 5km - Cleared all caches within 5km of home.
- Bouncy Bunny Calls - Telephone in forest!
- Puzzles, Puzzles, Puzzles - Solved many individually, and Team MM, BO, TH (+ kung) solved a bunch together.
- DHARMA caches - Provided satellite coverage to field agent MrMonk
- 7-7-7 Pub Night + Determination - How much do you want it?
Of course, the best part of geocaching is still all the cool places around town that I would not have visited otherwise - got to learn about its history, its architecture, its people and most importantly, its parks.
I had reached 99 cache finds the previous weekend. Given the bad weather last week and with the sun setting at 5pm, I decided to save my 100th find for this weekend and mark it with a special cache. Coincidentally, Saturday was a big geocaching day in Ontario, with two high-profile events planned close together - World Wide Flash Mob and BFL II:Boot Camp. I decided to attempt my 100th find early in the morning, then travel an hour west of Toronto to attend these two events for the rest of the day. Made preparations the previous night and packed lunch, water, hiking gear, TochiCam and tripod.
My 100th cache is a special milestone, so I wanted a challenge. I settled on Birds Eye View. The cache is about 20-25 ft up in a tree. One has to scale the tree to sign the log.
I got up at 6 am, ate breakfast and headed out at 7am. This particular tree lies in the middle of a forested area with really nice mountain biking trails. I've been on these trails before, so I know the general layout. Riding a bike with all the gear on the hilly terrain would be difficult, so I decided to hike the 700m to ground zero.
I was a little worried about this cache, since tree climbing isn't my thing. I cannot even remember the last time I climbed a tree. The tree didn't look too tough, the hardest part being that the first branch is about 8 to 10 ft off the ground. Someone had previous set up a little teepee of tree trunks, so you would be able to jump and cling onto the first branch. From then, it's a big heave to get yourself onto that branch. The rest of the climb is pretty straight forward, with sturdy branches every 2-3 feet or so until the cache. Got up, signed the log, and came back down slowly and carefully. The jump down from the first branch is quite unnerving for the unskilled like me. Check this out if you want to know what could have happened: Swifteroo's log.
That was it. Mission accomplished. The sun just peaked above the tree line in the hills. The sight was very pretty. Took a few celebratory photos with Signal. Headed back to TochiMobile. Kudos to KL for waking up early to make sure I didn't break my foot, ankle, back, face, etc.
With 100 caches under my belt, I started heading out west. Stopped in Maple for a couple simple finds. Got into Georgetown at 11:45am for the first event.
Worldwide Flash Mob is a 15 minute event planned for 12:00pm EST. The gist of the activity is everyone gathers at noon, socialize for 15 minutes, then disperses. A true "flash mob". The interesting thing is that the same event is being held at about 80 other locations around the world concurrently. MrMonk attended the one under the Space Needle. About 100 people gathered at this location to sign the log, eat girl scout cookies and take a group photo. The highlight of the event was that I picked up my very own GC10000 Version B Geocoin from res2100. I just love the front design of the coin.
Afterwards, met up with Homer to attempt The Light at the End of the Tunnel. Along the way, we found this letterbox cache, inside was a card giving the coordinates to Bouncy Bunny's Secret Stash. For those of you who don't know, Bouncy Bunny is a series of caches in Ontario, all revolving around a rabbit and her adventures. These are all pretty tough puzzle caches, and have become quite famous in the area.
It's funny if you read the cache description:
This is another unique Bouncy Bunny cache.
Cache is not at the posted coordinates but within 4km.
There is no reason to even go to the posted coordinates as there is nothing there.
It's up to you to figure out what you need in order to find and log this cache.
You'll know where the cache is when you have the coordinates in hand.
All instructions must be followed.
Luck and timing are the key.
Now stop sitting in front of the computer and go out and find some caches.HINT: Did I ever say you had to solve a puzzle to find this cache?
To actually get the coordinates, you had to find these cards in other caches in the area, take the card, sign it, and drop it off at the final coordinates provided. I could have totally imagined myself scratching my head at the puzzle, without realizing it's unsolvable.
Back to the Light at the End of the Tunnel, it's actually a mini cave in the rock outcrop just off the Bruce Trail. How res2100 found this cave I'll never know. The entrance of the cave is down a 1m depression into the rocks. There are two rocks sticking out near the waist. I could barely squeeze through, given my small Asian build. My partner was a bigger man, and somehow managed to squeeze in too. On the way out, he couldn't get past the waist-high rocks. Ended up crawling out on his belly. His log entry reads: "AS for my exit, I had visions of Winnie the Pooh eating too much honey and getting stuck in Rabbit's entrance. Eventually tried a less glamorous exit and made it out."
Merged up with the Central Ontario Geocachers (COG) mob there, as Homer and I got to BB's Secret Stash final location. A small peanut butter jar in a tree stump. Headed off to do a multi-cache (a multi-location cache, where one location gives u clues to the next location or the final). This particular one, we had to look for metal tags in cedar trees. Everyone was looking for silver metal tags tacked onto tree trunks until I spotted some black wire with a small tag hanging right in front of me. My first COG find. All in all, we had to find three tags and I found two of them. :)
Our mob continued on to do many caches in the area before the second event of the day at 7pm - BFL Boot Camp II: Extra Classes. Since there were twelve of us + 2 dogs in the mob, we decided that whoever finds the cache is required to log all our names. At one location, I found the 35mm film canister and was forced to learn all the secret aliases of everyone in the mob. >_<
At 7pm, our mob convoy descended upon the restaurant of the BFL Boot Camp II. The first "BFL" event from last year was called "Back to Night Caching". Everyone referred to that event as BFL for the "big flashlights" required, so this year, they officially renamed the event to BFL II. In short, this event is a dinner / pub gathering, followed by a series of specially designed night time caches.
Dinner was really great. People were showing off their big flashlights, some of which were pretty impressive. I never knew people actually mod their flashlights to improve their power. Hardcore.
After the dinner, the night caches packages were handed out. There were ten caches in total, with all the teams starting off at a different cache. You were required to find 5 of the 9 initial caches to determine the location of the final cache.
Soon afterwards, the COG mob loaded into two mini-vans and made our way to the first location. I was part of the second minivan. We did not get the GPS coordinates of our first cache, so we radio'd the lead car. "Hey guys, give us the coordinates of the first cache!" The reply came back as: "Is this a secure channel?" ARGH. They were worried people might "spy" on us. After that, we tried to scan the other channels to see if we could catch any other group's conversations... so wrong... so wrong.
This was the first time I've done a true night cache. Night cache typically involves reflector plates or fire tacks, which are barely visible during the day. However, these reflectors really stand out at night when you shine light on them (think bicycle light).
Our first night cache was titled Nevermore. We got to our given coordinates and followed a trail of tacks until we came upon a tree with a mirror hanging inside. We used the mirror to look up into the trunk and found the numbers we needed. Moved onto the second location and spotted a stationary "Nevermore" raven at the top of the tree. At first, we thought we needed to climb up to the raven. However, shining our BFL at the raven, we saw that we could make out the coordinates etched onto it. With the required data in hand, we made our way to the final location, which was an ammunition canister hidden under some roots. My first ever FIRST TO FIND to a cache - even though it was a group find. :)
As we headed back to parking, we ran into another group of cachers. We saw their headlamps first and noticed that they were moving rather quickly. We thought they were on bikes. As they got closer, we saw that they were in a light jog/speed walking. I knew immediately which group this was.... Tequila. The hardcore group who wanted the FTF on the final. Tequila had his fireman Search and Rescue suit on too, so he was like a light beacon as the light from our headlamps reflected off him.
Moving along to our next cache, which we determined was 3km away. We spent probably 30-40 minutes searching for reflectors at the location, but couldn't find any. Decided to call mission control to get confirmation on our coordinates. We found out we had done the math wrong for our coordinates, and was searching in the wrong neck of the woods! After the correction, we finally moved onto the second cache.
This second cache is called Teamwork. Two birdhouses were set up in trees about 20m apart. Each birdhouse had a fishing line attached to the base. As you pulled down on it, the birdhouse would open up. The other team shining their lights to the birdhouse would be able to make out a certain colour code from inside the birdhouse. This is the "teamwork" aspect. What a cool concept.
Now, Murphy's law was in full force for this cache. I was responsible for pulling on the fishing wire at one of the birdhouses. I was pulling very gently on the line and the birdhouse slowly opened up. "A little more! A little more!" So I continued pulling, then all of a sudden, SNAP!!!! The fishing line broke!!! Poor Telly had to climb the tree to retrieve the fishing line and fix the cache.
After we determined the colour codes, we used them to calculate the location of the final. We were led to this rocky section of the forest. We searched for 10 minutes and couldn't come up with the cache. We revisited our math and came up with an alternate set of coordinates. It was 200m away and we decided to check there too. We came to this slightly swampy area and immediately knew the cache wasn't hidden here. As we went back to the first site, we ran into another group of cachers who were just going to the birdhouses! We hurried back to the rocks. After another 5 minutes of searching, I dug my hand into a pile of leaves and felt something flat and solid. Lo and behold, as I removed the leaves, there was the ammo can! The freaking cache was hidden under a foot of leaves. Tequila's group was the previous finders... damn them for hiding it so well. Our entire group was quite relieved with the find. We immediately extinguished our headlamps, to prevent the next group of cachers from spotting us. We used only a red light, so I could sign the log. :)
Our third cache was Interstellar Navigation. The organizers set up tiny reflectors in various constellations patterns. From the cache description, you had to find a certain set of constellations in order, to get to the final location. The first constellation was Lepus, in honour of Bouncy Bunny. These reflectors were so cool - little white stars formations twinkling in the trees. After following the star path, we arrived at the ground zero site. The description said the cache was sucked into a "black hole". We had quite a bit of trouble finding the actual cache. HF Reign was actually using the Phone a Friend option when Team Woods made the find.
We easily found the fourth cache in our BFL series, which was at a tree decorated with red reflectors. Aside from being only mere meters away from base camp, it stood out like a Christmas tree. The cache was called "Lamer than the Last One", just because it was so obvious and lame!
The fifth cache was found early on by the other half of my group, while the rest of us were searching for the constellations. With secret codes from all 5 caches, we were able to decode the location of the BFL II Final cache. By now, it was 2 AM. Good thing the final cache was straightforward. The large ammo box was secured at the top of a tree by this elaborate pulley system. You had to find the other end of the rope and release it to lower the cache. At 2:12AM, we were the 6th group to log the final cache. Wow. Finally. Done.
We made a stop at Tim Horton's at 3AM for some late night drinks and food. I drove back home at 4AM. All in all, 35 caches in the past 24 hours. Love the outdoors. Love the caching. Love the people. An awesome night.
A couple weeks ago, we had a night of really dense fog in Toronto. I was persuaded to attempt a STF at 10:30pm, so I headed out into the field. After seeing the fog, I couldn't resist setting up my camera and tripod (part of the standard gear in the field nowadays) to snap a few photos (ended up being a lot).
A short while later, I noticed a challenge on the Nikon Cafe forums titled "Slow Shutter Speed". Since all my pictures were taken in the dark, I had to use slow shutter speeds to get the proper exposure anyway. For the heck of it, I decided to submit my favourite photo - entitled Illuminati.
There weren't too many submissions to the challenge, but a few of them were really great photos. As the votes starting rolling in, lo and behold, my photo was getting votes. I would have been happy with just one vote. The results were released today, and Illuminati came in third!!! :):):)