your geocaching fails

I think I have three that I can think back on particularly, nothing spectacular.

First was when I located the cache down to a corner of a metal railing, so I assumed the cache would be a magnetic one. I ran my hand over the sides and back of the fence, found something solid and went "Aha!" - pulled it out, it was a particularly big snail. Turned out the cache was not magnetic but placed below the railing.

Second time I "failed" I did also find the cache. I was in Pelsall in the West Midlands in England. I was staying with friends but took time out alone to go geocaching. They had warned me about the red mud beside the canal, but would I listen? I did see a well followed path, but I decided to follow my compass the direct line to the cache. By the time I realised the red mud was not a local legend, I was too far in and committed to turn back. I kept going, and going, up to my ankles in red mud by now, and retrieved the cache. It said in it's description that it contained trade items and a log. The only thing in it was an earthworm. I didn't trade and take him with me, I released him. Then I also burrowed my way back out of the red mud. Rather shameful coming back to a friend's rented home (leaving a red trail behind) with such muddy feet.

My biggest fail involved my own cache. It has been found by four people in the last twelve months, each of them logged it as needing maintenance. I've been there four times to replace it, but.... I can't find it! Not for searching high or low. It's obviously not that hard to find, I never get DNFs, but can I sniff it out? Of course not. That's almost too tragic to be comical!

Insect Overlord

I went out to the woods with one of the lads back when he was very new to geoaching. He'd only found maybe one or two beforehand.

We spent ages and ages searching in a particular location but there was no cache to be found. We repeatedly checked the GPS, looked under every big rock and boulder, peeled back old plastic shopping bags, but found nothing. A few days later we saw a message that the cache had been missing for a while and was due to be replaced. It wasn't much consolation. :P

The first time we ever found a nano-cache came shortly after that. There used to be one near Thomond Park in Limerick (it could very well still be there) which we found very quickly. The size of it was a novelty, but it wasn't hidden anywhere too difficult. So we went looking for another nano on a pedestrian bridge over the canal (between Corbally/Shannon Banks and UL) and couldn't find it at all. We cycled halfway back into town and then decided to check one last time. Turned out it was right at the centre of the bridge, precariously connected to the rusty underside of the hand-rail. Not exactly a "fail", but very annoying at the time!

I remember now that I once had my hand inside a rat trap beside a church, and another time put my hand down a drain. I did some stupid stuff in the early days.

I was up Howth Head geocaching with a friend some time ago, a lovely summers day, he was wearing shorts. Thankfully, I wasn't, because I scratch easily. We battered our way through a half mile of thick heather and gorse, climbing over rocks and steep uphill, to retrieve the cache, scraped and scratched to bits, signed the log, and turned around to see the well beaten, well worn path leading us down a gentle slope back to the main path.