Geocaching

Lilla lilla Syrhåla

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About 1½ year ago me and my colleague Jonas was discussing geocaching since he’s been doing some with his children and I’m a bit of a casual cacher since I don’t do it every day and since I also took upon me this quest to find 100 non traditional in a row; things have slowed down. Anyhow, we started to look at caches around the area where we work and I found this mystery that seemed like a good challenge. After a bit of thinking and trial and error we found the solution for the mystery cache Lillalilla Syrhåla. I was not able to go check it the same day, but the day after I took a de-tour on my way home from work just to check out the area a bit and see if I could find it in the most obvious spots. I could not.

I waited for the weekend and went there again, much less traffic and prying eyes so I could look for it undisturbed. At least until a security guard pulled over and asked what I was doing. I quickexplanation and he was okay with that, he had friends who geocached also so he knew what I was doing. Well, I didn’t find it this time either. I made a couple more tries over the months but could not find it. Seasons came and seasons passed changing the landscape, I even tried looking in the field ofstining-nettles for it (during late fall when they had withered and died) but to no avail. 

I checked back on geocaching.com to see when it was last found it wasn’t found so often. Then someone found it early 2016 and I made a new try. Could not find it. I started to feel a bit frustrated with it. Months later I redid the solution, checked it in the geochecker and I got the same co-ordinates as I did the first time. I studied the logs, the photo logs and decided to give it a new try. I knew it was still there. But I could still not find it. Then on my way back home it suddenly struck me. There was something I had read in one of the logs. I decided to make a new try after work the following day.

Saturday 16/7

After some gruesome hours at work I was finally done and could finally go check for the cache. I parked my car and walked the 50 meters up to the search area. I made some quick searches on the south side of the co-ordinates but that didn’t yield any results, as I had expected. The place was not fit for the kind of cache I suspected it to be. I came to the point where the GPS would zero, no find there either. I continued north and started search for the cache there. I think I passed over the cache 2 times before I realised I had found it. Something just looked odd, and lo and behold, there it was. Finally! I felt victorious! 

To find this one it took me about 1½ year. Moral of the story, never give up!

 

Geocaching

A geocaching report

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Geocaching this season has been slow, really slow. There’s been a lot of other stuff going on the last months that have taken most of my time. But I have done some geocaching, not much, but some. The premiere was around easter, me, Sofia and her brother went to Karlsborg to try to take one or two of the multis in that area. The first one turned out to be a quite a walk around Karlsborg but eventually we managed to solve it. If my memory serves me right, the finale was quite nice on this one. The second one was a letterbox cache with a really good hiding place!

Karlsborg caches
geomulti– Triss i Karlsborg

geoletter– Kanalholmens Letterbox

Then we proceded to the small old mill community of Forsvik to log both a multi and a mystery in connection to the floodgate there.

Forsvik caches
geomulti– Forsvik

geomyst– Forsvik

And here are some pictures from Forsvik and signs that spring is coming.

And then there was no geocaching done for some time. Next time I picked up my GPS turned out to be in the beginning of July when we took a mini-vacation to Smögen Hafvsbad. On our way home we stopped in Lysekil to have lunch and since the weather was so nice we decided to go for a walk and ended up just right at an earth-cache and since the requirements was quite simple I decided to log it. While walking thich clouds drifted in over our heads and on our way back to the car some heavy rain drops started to fall. Right when we got into the car the rain was pouring down. Had we been just half a minute slower we would have been soaking wet, now we got away with some wet spots.

Lysekil cache
geoearth– Jättegryta i Lysekil

And here’s a nice picture of the giant kettle and an old boat.

DSC06858

Next time geocaching was yesterday. I was looking through my excel-file where I keep all the geocaches that needs some work to be done (mystery/earth/multi) and suddenly I realized that I had been approaching one of the mystery-caches totally wrong. A quick google search confirmed it and then it was just to insert the new co-ordinates into the GPS and go. Before I went to log the mystery I made a quick stop at Biltema to pick up a pool thermometer so I could log an earth cache that I had prepared like 2 years ago but never got around to log. Said and done, I went into town and to be honest I had forgotten how annoying it is to drive downtown. Anyhow, after 10 minutes in the water I was quit sure I had a correct reading on the thermomenter and I could finally log the earth-cache.

Then onwards to Kortedala (a place I have not visited in like 10-15 years) to find that mystery. I managed to find a parkinglot not far from the cache and walked there. It just took me a couple of minutes to find it and log it. On the way back to the car it started to rain. Rain seem to be the only weather we’ll see this summer.

geoearth– Gautelfr

geomyst– The Old Futhark

I took this picture while waiting for the thermometer to do it’s stuff!

2016-07-13 15.51.11

Roadtrip Sweden:

Roadtrip Sweden: Smögen/Lysekil

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After getting a small tax refund this year we decided to spend them on something nice and since we both needed some relaxation we thought that going to a spa somewhere in Sweden could be nice. So we called Sofias mother and asked her if she could cat-sit Astrid, our cat. She said yes. We packed our bags and went for Smögen Hafvsbad. A measly 1½ hour drive from Gothenburg is not to shabby, right? We’ll I might have taken a wrong turn in Munkedal so it might have taken some more time.

Anyhow, checking in on our room which must have been the hottest room ever, chaging into swimming trunks and heading down to the spa to discover that there was not so much of a spa really. One swimming pool and one bubble bath plus one normal sauna and one steam sauna. But you could order something to drink so that kind of makes up for it. And then of course there was the treatment room too. We had a body scrub treatment with sea salt, oil and some aromatic herbs.

Dinner at the hotel was really nice. Fish of course, I would not expect anything else from an old fishing village, and it was cooked into perfection. We staywed 2 nights so we had plenty of time to try out the breakfasts too.

On our way home from Smögen we stopped in Lysekil to eat some lunch. After lunch we took a small walk around town. Just as we got back to the car the rain started to fall. I guess that was a signal that it was time for us to get back home again!

Random posts

Under re-construction

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Finally started to work on the new looks for the site. The site may look a bit wonky for a while, but hopefully it will look good in the end.

I will also try to re-upload the old pictures in a higher resolution to make them bigger and more suited for the new site. That will however be a slow process since I will have to double check every picture. 🙁

Random posts

So the work has begun!

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Today I took the first trembling steps towards a new look on the site. I installed a new theme, some new plug-ins and so on. There is obviously a lot of tweaking to be done but at least I’ve begun something! I hope the final look will be as awesome as I imagine it to be.

Random posts

When nothing is happening…

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When nothing is happening it’s when you start making plans. We are in the middle of a move from one home to another so there’s no room for any travelling at the moment. But there are time to make plans, there are time to re-design the site a bit. I also found this page that collects all Swedish travelling blogs where I did register today. Check it out!

Svenska Resebloggar

Regarding re-design of the site, hopefully I can have the new version up and running really soon. I just hope the migration will work. It will also make it possible to have some bigger pictures in the future and a much more nice presentation in every post, given that I have a decent internet connection where I may be at the time!

Geocaching

My first letterbox was found today!

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Sofia went to a birthday brunch with for her friend and I went out geocaching. First I made a try to find a mystery that I solved some time ago but it was quite busy around the place where it was hidden so I decided to stop searching for it for now. I’ll come back later!

I decided to try to find another mystery that I had solved earlier this month with the help of a colleague. On my way there I took a wrong turn ended up in Biskopsgårdens Industriområde. I just happend to remember that there was a letterbox cache in the area and I had never found or logged one before so I thought to myself, why not. So I activated c:geo and found out that I was only about 50 meters from it. Pushing through the swampy terrain and a huge spider web and I was on the spot. Almost. Both my GPS and c:geo threw me off the target about 10 meters but I found it after a short while.

I don’t have a stamp or a book to put stamps in, I think I can do without that since I’m not that dedicated. Anyhow, after signing the book ad putting the stash back I continued towards the other solved mystery cache. Upon arriving to Wieselgrensplatsen and parking the car the hunt begun. It didn’t take long to find it, it was an easy rating on terrain and hiding. The mystery itself I got help with solving by my colleage who is a fan of the football team GAIS.

After logging a soggy logbook I noticed there was a dry one also. Bummer, but it’s okay. I’ll look for a dry one next time. Or not.

Then I went into town and stopped at Ekostore and bought some grousseries and then I went to pick up Sofia and surprised her with a trip to Gunnebo Slott. After having walked around there for a while we sat down and had a coffee in the sun at the cafeteria. Sometimes life is good. Links to the caches below.

 

Snart är det jul 2014 – 1:a advent

Atleter #1 Rekord

 

Geocaching

Slow progress on the challenge 100 non traditionals in a row

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I realise the progress on the Challenge #078 100 non Trad in a row is a bit slow. I don’t get around to go out and look for geocaches as much as I want. Lack of time and then bad weather seem to be the biggest reason. I don’t enjoy geocaching in the rain. Anyhow, I do find one every now and then. Like this weekend when I went on a trip with a couple of friends to Halland. We found this one along the road.
Alla hästar hemma I clicked the hint by accident so when we arrived at the spot I also saw the hiding place before we had even parked the car. But to be a good sport we solved the task before signing the log. Then when I got home I took my wife for a stroll in the area where I grew up. We walked towards the sea and found this multi:

Havsutsikt? / Seaview? Quickly solved, but a lovely walk it was. While at it I also used the time to log another kind of cache that I had’t tried before. A virtual cache.

Landskapsblommor, syd My entry was Lonicera periclymenum or honeysuckle which is the province flower of Bohuslän in Sweden. A nice kind of cache in my opionion even though it kind of felt like cheating since there is no physical location. But it was a good experience since I got to try out a new kind of cache which is also why I’m trying to do this challenge cache. To try new things. Not to shabby on a Sunday.

Rena Snurren This one I had tried to solve and log earlier but I was way to tired and didn’t think straight which means I failed to follow the instructions more or less. The day after I could quite easily solve it and get the correct coordinates, the last part was logging it and that would obviously take a while. Like 1½ week more or less but you need to have some business in the area, right? Logged in broad daylight with Sofia on a hectic Monday afternoon.

I have some mystery’s solved, I just need to get around to log them. That should increase my progress from the current 16 of 100. Also, I dunno what’s up with the bad formatting of this post, no matter what I try to do it doesn’t seem to fix it. That’s totally bull.

Geocaching

Webcam and 100 finds on your own cache

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So with my wift out of town and I have nothing to do I felt I should at least get some fresh air. I took the bus in to town to try to log the 3 caches in connection to the bridge.

  Götaälvbron – The Workout
  Gbg High 3
  Challenge #087 – 100 founds on one of my hides
 .
webcamcache1I started out at the starting location for Götaälvbron – The Workout and worked my way up the bridge but somewhere along the way I lost track and focus and messed the things up. For step number 2 I didn’t seem to get the right co-ordinates at all so I kind of abandoned the quest for this one. Instead I made an attempt at logging the GBG High 3 (a webcam cache), the first for me. I’ve made a try for a webcam cache earlier, in London like 4 years ago but that webcam was broken so no luck there.
Anyhow, the picture from the webcam is grainy and over all, quality is quite bad. But here it is. After that I went for the Challenge #87 since it was close. Started of by ending up in the wrong spot, which I had already suspected but I wanted to make sure. Then I had a little walk about and ended up in the right spot. I quickly found the cache and signed it. 2 out of 3 doesn’t feel so bad after all.
Geocaching

Geocaching summary

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Well, since I havn’t been very active with the geocaching the past year I think it’s time to break the ice. Over a year ago I found a challenge cache called GC39FKY Challenge #078 100 non Trad in a row which seemed like a lot of fun and it also really feel like a challenge. Also, when looking through my stats I found that most of my finds are traditional caches so I wanted to improve my multi/mystery/webcam/earth/event/letterbox stats a bit and also try out the other various types of caches.

So some time last year in the spring I started to look through the various mysterys/multis and so on in my area of the world and started do some research to be able to log them. I found out that I like doing the reasearch more than actually go out and log the caches. However, I’m trying to change that now. Starting about a week back or so.

So, let’s list my latest findings…

  1. GC56AHZ I sitt rätta element? (Mystery) I’ve had the solution for this one since a year back. I just never got around to look for it. Logged it one day after work. Was a nice little problem to solve.
  2. GC47DFX Andragradens rastställe (Mystery) This one I solved last Friday and logged last Sunday on our way home from a party in Karlsborg. I was never good at math and had to use my colleague for help. Finding t was the easy part!
  3. GC5Y7F5 Oljevägen (Multi) Solved today with my wife. Found within a minute.
  4. GC4VN3J Stenhård Kille (Mystery) I’ve had the solution for this one for over a year as well. Made a weak attempt to find it last week but it was raining and I didn’t feel like looking around to much then Came back today with Sofia and she found it within minutes. Quite easy problem to solve, but much harder to find. 

Wish I had take a picture somewhere along the way. But I didn’t. I have some other caches ready for logging, just need to have a reason to go to the area where they are. This reason might come sooner that I think!

2015 Barcelona

Final days of relaxation

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Thursday around noon we left Hotel Market in the Sant Antoni area, right next to Mercat de Sant Antoni. It’s time for some relaxation before finally going home. And we got it. I also managed to get sun burnt so now I’m kind of red-ish in my skin.

Tomorrow we will leave all tapas, all cava, Clara’s*, all sun, Guadi, Barcelona and Spain behind us and trade it for old Sweden again. We love travelling but it’s always something special with coming home! The final glimpse of this trip will be this sunset over  Montserrat seen from our hotel window.

DSC06570

* Clara = beer with lemonade in it.

PS: Gallery coming soon!

2015 Barcelona

Park Güell Part 2

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DSC06536Today we did everything right. We had pre-purchased tickets with entrence time at 13:00 (internet cost 7€ each), we took a taxi to get there in time and then we waited for about 20 minutes before we could enter. And then it was finally time to get into the park designed by Guadi himself. Park Güell. Well, we had access to the park before, but the park is devided into two parts. The Monumental Zone and the “open to the public zone”. To preserve the Monumental Zone they only allow a certain amount of people to enter at a time.

So there we were in the middle of the Monumental Zone and realized that it’s nothing more than a park with really funky architecture. Don’t get  me wrong, it’s a cool place and there is so many details to look at. And every time you think you’ve discovered everything there is to discover in a certain spot then you discover something new. He was strange in that way senor Gaudi.

So we spent some time in there walking around looking at stuff and were quite happy that for the first time in a week there was some clouds at the sky so it wasn’t that hot for the moment. After we left the park the clouds started to go away and things got extremely hot again. One hour later we sat at the same restaurant where we had tapas some days ago eating tapas again.

DSC06550After the food we went to the market and bought some bracelets for Sofia. A little reward for her bravery from the day before not panicing on the serpentine road to and from Montserrat. After dinner we went to Parlament Street and into a icecream bar called Sirvent and bought a milkshake, which was nice. The reason to this was because David said it was a good place. So far this was the only tip from others that we have followed.

2015 Barcelona

Weather update!

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Okay so I know I have mentioned the weather a lot the past days and it’s not so strange. Turns out it’s been like 40°C+ and the spanish government has issued a warning for wild fires in the area of Valencia, specially in the area around Montserrat (level 3 which is the highest). Barcelona is “only” a level 2 warning. And here you can read more about the heat in southern Europa. Over and out!

2015 Barcelona

Montserrat and Cava trial

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DSC06371I didn’t sleep much last night. Sofia didn’t either. We had to go up 07am this morning because for the first time in a while we had something planned early. After breakfast we took a taxi to Placa de Catalunya and then found our way to Explore Catalunyas office. At 08:30 am we found ourself in a minibus together with about 9 strangers and a tour guide called David. After about an hour on the road and the major part was on a serpentine road we were finally at our destination, Montserrat. But Montserrat is not only a mountain famous for it’s nice hiking and climbing, it’s also famous for Santa Maria de Montserrat Abbey and the Black Madonna.

DSC06395David showed us around for a while, then he informed the group that the hiking trails was closed because of the high temperatur and the fact that there was a level 3 warning for wildfires issued for the Montserrat area. So no hiking for us. Sofia who is scared of heights was really relieved by that. Instead of hiking we made a short visit to the basilica and saw the black madonna in a distance. You could pay to get close to it and touch it but we didn’t feel like staying in a queue in 40°C+. But looking around inside the church was nice. There was also a museum with some nice art in it’s collections. Picasso, Dali, Monet to mention a few.

Since all hiking trails were closed David asked if we wanted to leave earlier than planned and instead go to a very nice restaurant which all of the group agreed upon. The road to the restaurant was first down from Montserrat, then we had to go into some town somewhere and drive through a very dry landscape. Finally at the site for the restaurant we found the tables under some lush vines. The staff here was really friendly and funny and the food was fantastic. For some reason I got the feeling that the food here represented the catalunyan cuisine more than any restaurant in Barcelona. The name of the restaurant was Vinyanova. And the best part, it wasn’t expensive at all!

DSC06423After the food we continued towards the winery called Pares Balta where we first had a short introduction to ecological wine making and then a tour in their wine cellar and finally a fantastic wine tasting. We got to taste one Cava, two white wines, one rosé and one red. All nice in it’s own way. Five “small” glasses of wine managed to get both me and Sofia a bit tipsy. But what got to follow us home was a bottle of their own olive oil.

Then after another hot and sticky hour in the bus we finally arrived at Placa de Catalunya again. After thanking the guide David and saying goodbye to the other members of our nice little group we scurried away to find a cab to get back to the hotel. After a refreshing shower we went out for dinner at a place called Muer which serves pizzas for example. Sofia had a goat cheese pizza and mine was called breakfast because it was bacon and eggs on it!

And the day trip we booked was called Montserrat and Winery Tour with Explore Catalunya and cost us a measly €79 per person. Ask for David, he’s a great guide!

2015 Barcelona

Park Güell Part 1

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So we set off on a  mission today to visit Park Güell which is a part of Guadi’s creation. We did some research yesterday and found out that you could buy tickets in advance through the internet but we passed on that one since it seemed simple enough to just go there and queue. It’s not. Arriving there we was informed that the earliest time we could get in was 15:30 and clock was not even 13:00. And waiting in the heat was not an option so we decided to do something else but we didn’t really know what to do so we started walking back towards the city centre.

DSC06228Quite soon we found something called the Gaudi Experiencia. Like a 3D cinema with some air and water spray and moving chairs. Sofia sure did like it so I guess it was worth it. After that we just walked for like an eternity in the heat and sometime around that we also came to a smaller disagreement about most things for the moment. Getting a taxi and going to Zoo Barcelona seemed to solve that since we found  both shadow, some cold drinks and something to eat there.

Sadly enough neither of us did enjoy the visit to the zoo that much since we have both seen most of the animals in their normal habitat and not in ultra small protections. Besides, most of the animals was just laying still because of the heat so there was not much action at all. After the zoo we walked towards the Arc de Triumph to get a few pictures of that. When we were done with that we took a taxi back to the hotel, showered and then went out to eat somewhere. We ended up in some local place eating very good tapas.

2015 Barcelona

Sunstroke at Montjuic Castle

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I don’t know what made us wanna get to the top of Montjuic and explore the castle there on the hottest day ever but something did. But first we ran into a street market set up right outside the hotel. Mostly books and comic books but there was some other stuff as well. Nothing worth buying really but fun to walk around and look at stuff.

DSC06168Then we took a taxi to Montjuic. Halfway up the hill the taxi driver stoped and told us he could not go any further, he made some vague gestures in the general direction towards some traffic signs but I have my own suspicion about the quality of his car which sounded quite tormented in the slopes and turns toward the top. So we paid him and got out of the car and started to walk the last 500 meters or so. Those 500 meters took about 30 mins to finish. It was truly crazy hot today!

Finally at site we got our tickets to Montjuic Castle, 5€ each and then our first stop inside the castle was the cafeteria. Rested and feuled up we headed out to discover the castle that turned out to be a bit of a dissapointment. We had hoped for a bit more, but it was just a really small exhibition and then fantastic view over the sea and Barcelona and the defense walls around the fort.

DSC06209Since it was so crazy hot we decided to take the Cable Car down despite Sofias fear of hights. I’m proud of the fact that Sofia overcome her fear for the cable car. We had a good view of the gardens of Montjuic before we finally hit ground. Then we took a taxi back to the hotel, had some tapas and something cool to drink in the hotel bar before retreating to the room for a few hours.DSC06219

The plan was to find a restaurant to eat at but it turns out that on Sunday afternoons Barcelona is closed. There’s nothing open at all so we had to go back to the hotel and eat in the hotel restaurant. Now we’re watching Spanish Masterchef.. We have no clue on what they say but at least we know what they are doing!

2015 Barcelona

Barri Gotic

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DSC06041Yesterday we didn’t do much at all, mostly due to the heat. We chilled at the hotel mostly but took a small tour to the market and for dinner later on. Today on the other hand we defied the heat and took a taxi to L’Aquàrium de Barcelona. After about 1½ hour watching various fishes, sharks and other water dwellers plus a lot of kids fighting each other to get a better viewing positing we decided to leave.

DSC06111We spent some time walking about the area around Port Vell, had a coke in the shade from some trees. Then we browsed some market stalls and found a small piece of jewellry for Sofia there. Heading back to the city took us into Cituat Vella and Barri Gotic (the oldest part of Barcelona). We had some nice hours walking around in Barri Gotic popping into small boutiques and shops but finally we decided it was time for something to eat.

DSC06112Panchito became our choice. Mexican, not Spanish, but it’s almost the same, no? We had some nacho plats and I choose a little to big beer served in one of those funny glasses you can’t put down on the table, it requires a frame to put it in. But in the end I won over the beer. After some more walking around we suddenly stumbled upon La Rambla. This where we decide to head back to the hotel for some siesta.

Later in the evening we walked a block from our hotel to a restaurant we had seen the day before which turned out to be a good place. We had some very nice tapas and front row seats to watch the Barcelonians go about their lives.

2015 Barcelona

Baffelona by bus

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Today was our first real day in Baffelona. After breakfast we walked from the hotel to Placa d’Espania and located the place for the ‘Hop on hop off’-bus. So begun our journey through Baffelona by bus. We got to see a lot actually, we have some ideas for future day trips around the city. Except for riding the bus we didn’t actuallly do anything in particular.

Well, at first it was incredibly hot and we’re not used to that so we did complain a lot about the heat. Then it became cloudy and that made things a bit cooler. Then after the bus ride, all three lines took almost 5-6 hours with a break for lunch, we decided to take another way back to the hotel. Worst idea ever. We got lost after the first turn. Found the main street we used earlier today, didn’t remember where to make a turn so we had to walk a few blocks extra.

Except for that, Sofia has some insect bites that itches. Went to the Farmacia to get something for it. The lady behind the counter asked if we wanted repellant but when I said bites she made a funny face and frowned, then came with some creme that seem to help.

Next step for today is dinner and then relaxation and preparations for tomorrow…