"In your hands, the birth of a new day... " (Limahl)

17 July 2007

Croeso!

UPDATE: VOTE TORTOISESHELL HERE!!!

Mae Tortoiseshell yn croesawi cynrychiolwyr o'r gwobrau blogio Cymreig 2007. Mae'r blog yma wedi ei enwebu ar gyfer "blog arbenigol gorau", sydd wedi eu threfnu gan Ordovicius. Gweler isod am grynodeb o'm hobi a'r terminoleg.


Tortoiseshell welcomes delegates from the Welsh blog awards 2007, organised by Ordovicius. This blog has been nominated for "best specialist blog". See below for a summary of my hobby and the terminology.



GEOCACHING is "the best fun you can have with $12bn of military hardware". The game involves looking for tupperware containers with the help of a hand-held global positioning system (GPS), which provides location info by logging onto space satellites. I use the very basic Garmin Gecko GPS.

The sport is organised entirely on the website geocaching.com, which also provides a FAQ for newcomers to the sport. In the meantime, here are some explanations to various icons which will help you decypher the site.

Traditional cache: your bog-standard geocache which is simply hidden with a set of accompanying co-ordinates. I have hidden one.

Travelbugs: an item of bric-a-brac which is attached to a coded tag, travelling from cache to cache. A good example is found here. I own several. One of them is involved in a "travelbug race" with other geocachers from Aberystwyth. See sidebar for a full list of my travelbugs.


Geocoins: elaborate, collectable tokens which travel from cache to cache in the same way as travelbugs. Each comes with their own unique icon - which you accumulate in your profile when you find one. I had several good ones in one go back in April. See my sidebar for a list of my favourite geocoin finds!


Multi-cache: a geocache that involves some sort of numerical clues in order to reach the cache.



Event cache; a gathering of geocachers, who will meet up of a weekend to go geocaching, and to exchange travelbugs and geocoins. I've only been to one - and that's how it's likely to stay!

Abercachers: a group of enthusiasts from Aberystwyth, to which I'm vaguely affiliated. Click the icon to visit their site.