However, having discovered Geocaching 12 of 12, the 12th being a Saturday and the dogs needing a walk, I remembered and took part.

For those that don’t know, 12 of 12 is Chad Darnell’s project to take 12 photos on the 12th of the month and post them online for all to see.

Geocaching is a global treasure hunt using GPS technology to hunt for boxes (caches) hidden by other players. Today was cache find numbers 159 and 160 for me. We decided to walk the dogs in the Forest Of Bere (AKA Hundred Acres) (Google Map link) where two caches, The Cache of Bere (GCN8P1) and Across Land First (GC193AD). So, the photos (with a little more text for each):

First job of the day, before heading out, was to replace the vehicle travel bug sticker in the car. The old one, I realised a couple of weeks ago didn’t match the unique identifier allocated on the geocaching website. This one arrived during the week so, replacement was due.

And there it is, sitting proudly on the left hand side of the car window. The Travel bug is called “Shelby Clubman Mini II“.

With every Travel Bug the owner gets a dog tag (well, a pair actually) with the tracking number on it. Once I had the sticker in the car I made this keyring (a simple lanyard knot and Portugeuse Sinnet) and attached it to the car keys. I am thinking about using these keyrings as a signature item to drop in caches. They are cheap and easy to make and I think they might go down fairly well.

Any dog owner will recognise this look. It’s the one that says “take us out for a walk or I will bite your head off”. Well, who am I to argue?! A little fussing on the geocaching website to figure out where to go, a spot of lunch and we were off.

Wandering up the trail towards the first cache – The Cache of Bere. This is what (for non cachers!) is called a multi cache. This means that you have to do something to find the coordinates for the final cache. In this case the coordinates were hidden in a waterproof tube not far past where this photo was taken. It took me well over 25 minutes to find the tube as people kept walking past. How rude of them when I was trying not to look suspicious, in the woods on a sunny Saturday afternoon! We found it eventually, plugged the coordinates into the GPS and we were off again towards the final location.

Unfortunately, on the way to the final location, the dogs found this pond. Now, it has barriers all the way round to stop people getting to the pond, danger signs posted around it and chicken type wire really close to the water. As you can probably guess the dogs ran up (they were off the lead) ignored me completely and jumped straight in for a swim. A paddle. A clamber over the wood at the edge.

I had to climb the barriers to rescue them and from there on for the rest of the walk they went on the leads.

The cache. Generally, certainly in this area, the caches are this type of plastic box with locking tabs. Occasionally we get to find an ammo box (without the ammo!) but generally tupperware is the order.

A quick grab shot of the state of the dogs after their little swim. Also available in white. Off to the next cache. At this point I was a little angry with the dogs and forgot to get any photos of the hunt or the cache itself. The only thing I got was

This fella. He’s called a Geocoin and like the Travel Bug above has a unique tracking number. These travellers are moved by cachers from geocache to geocache and the movement is logged on the website.

Back at home there were three jobs left to do. Shower the dogs and then bathe me. This is Cooper, just out of the shower looking more than a little pissed.

People say that dogs cannot make expressions. I don’t believe them. This shot of Harley, mid shower, really does say “I hate you”. I hated him too at this point but he was desperate for the shower!

You’ll be pleased to know that there’s no image of me in the bath, it would have broken the camera and the lens doesn’t have a wide enough angle anyway!

Even if I was hating on the dogs, they were really good in the shower and certainly deserved a treat afterwards. Thankfully they have now (5 hours later) calmed down from their day’s activity and are currently sleeping in their favourite spots in the living room.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the adventure, perhaps I will remember and play again next month!

Well, as an added incentive to take part, there’s now a project that I really wish I had thought of.

The Geocaching 12 of 12.

Mark your calendars — Saturday, September 12, 2009 is the first Geocaching 12 of 12. We’re looking for Geocachers worldwide to capture their Geocaching day in photographs. All it takes is a camera (even a camera phone can work), a place to upload your 12 photos (i.e. a free account from Flickr or a public set on Facebook), then post the link for that one page with all 12 of your photos for the world to see (please make sure to post them to Chad Darnell’s site, Podcacher’s Forum, and here).

So, do as they say, mark the date in your calendar and away we go. It’s a Saturday so no excuses thanks!

I will be interested to see other peoples’ Geocaching 12 of 12s and hopefully I can keep Pete happy by actually taking part next month!

This was 1am. Yes, technically I know it’s cheating but when we finished playing in the garage it was 12 January! We have a Mini in the garage at the moment on which we’re doing “a few repairs”. This means, complete new front end, scuttle, sills, driver’s floor, rear valance and a complete respray. This was what I found when I took the old sill off the driver’s side.

While I was fiddling with removing the sill my house guest Scott was putting the finishing touches to his new sub-woofer. This includes a strip of blue LEDs round the sub. These have now been connected so that they “flash” in time with the sub beats. Sad but cool! I went to bed at about 1.30 am. Scott told me this morning he get to bed at about half six. He spent all night in the garage playing with the sub install. Muppet!

For future reference, when you’re playing with sharp metal, wear gloves. This is the result of me cutting the sill off last night. It was bloody sore this morning!

As per usual, we let the dogs out this morning. This is my wife following the dog (on the left) up the garden in an attempt to get him inside. They love barking at the neighbours when they are in the garden and it’s almost impossible to stop them. Little bastards!

Six hours sleep is enough right? That’s what I thought. This was what greeted me as I stood at the bottom of the stairs at 12.30. I would have left him longer but his girlie was coming down from Banbury for the afternoon.

Nick and his kids popped round to drop off an engine crane. It’s for a friend who will collect it stupid early tomorrow to enable him to remove the engine from his Mini. He needs to split the engine and gearbox to get the ‘box rebuilt.

This was a christmas gift from my brother-in-law (and his wife of course!). It’s uber nerdy but I don’t care. I pulled it out of the box and just had to play there and then. It’s so cool that I took video of it too!

The first row on the first three levels of Fareham’s multi storey car park is given over to disabled spaces. That’s enough room for 50 cars. On any given day I can guarantee that level two (above) will be devoid of parked transport. My wife told me as I was taking this that it was the same on Wednesday and yesterday too. I have no problem with disabled spaces but when I have to park on level five and level two is empty like this I think that Fareham Council may have gone a little too PC. Wankers.

The inside of Fareham shopping centre. It’s just a shopping centre just like all the others in the world. With all the same shitty women’s clothes shops and mobile phone sales centres. We can’t even say that we have a decent music store in town. Fareham really does suck.

Almost forgot to mention, while we were in town we bumped into our friends Paul and Helen who we haven’t seen for just over a year. Good to see you guys, nice to know you’re both keeping well, even if Paul has given up the weed and the football!

The obligatory dog shot. Staring at god alone knows what. Probably the rain.

Some evening visitors. Kaz (on the right) owns the Mini (photo number 1) that we’re doing a little work on. They came round to see the car (called Monty) and borrow an angle grinder to cut a Mini up.

This arrived yesterday. I walked past it at least 10 times today and every time I thought “must unpack the freezer and fire it up”. Guess what. It’s still there. Job number one for tomorrow!