Geocaching – The 7 Souvenirs of August
Geocachers seem to like stats, milestones and collecting things. I know “it’s not about the numbers” but geocachers do like to keep a record of these things. So in addition to tracking the number of chaches you have found, the types of caches you have found, your furthest cache, North, East South or West, your highest cache, your number of consectutive days caches, your highest numbr of caches found in a day and such like there are also travel bugs to find and record, geocoins to track and recently ‘souvenirs’ to collect.
I wasn’t really sure how these souvenirs worked, but we seemed to have three of them:
- A United Kingdon Souvenir
- A New Zealand Souvenir
- An Austria Souvenir
Clearly there were souvenirs for having found a cache in certain countries, so it was a shame that we didn’t get an Isle of Man souvenir, a Slovenia souvenir or a Turkey souvenir, or even one from England, Scotland and Wales for that matter, but at least we had some souvenirs.
Souvenirs
I then noticed the other day that we had gained a new ‘Explorer Souvenir’. This was gained “by finding a traditional geocache during the 7 Souvenirs of August promotion”. This obviously prompted me to look up the ‘7 souvenirs of August’, which turned out to be a challenge running during the month of August during which time you had to find certain types of geocache.
This August, your mission is to explore more of the geocaching universe. Find specific geocache types and earn six unique souvenirs for your geocaching profile. Not sure which geocache type to find first? Take the quiz and discover your geocaching personality. Once you earn all six, you’ll be among the super-cachers that unlock a special seventh souvenir
We didn’t plan to join in with this, but whilst caching on Bodmin and in South Gloucestershire during our post-JOGLE holiday we added to our souvenir haul with a ‘Sightseer Souvenir’ by finding a multi-cache, a ‘Puzzler Souvenir’ by finding a mystery cache. We then did an Earthcache at the Big Pit on the way home which earned us a ‘Nature Lover’ souvenir as well.
This meant that we had only one more type of cahe to find in order to find all 6 types of cache and gain the 7th bonus souvenir in the 7 souvenirs of August promotion. The final souvenir though was the ‘Socializer Souvenir’, gained by attending an Event Cache, Mega-Event or Giga-Event. Now geocaching events really aren’t our thing, however, Morgan was keen to get the last one so I looked up to see if there were any events nearby. I hadn’t expected there to be any and had half thought about creating our own event that we could attend just to get the final souvenir but as luck would have it, someone fairly local had already created an event specifically for those people looking to gain the Socializer Souvenir. The event was called ‘Sundays Sandcastle Souvenir’ and as events go it diodn’t sound too bad. Better still it was just up the road in Tywyn, less than 5 miles from here as the crow flies, but about an hours drive around the estuary. Still, it should make a nice day out.
The event description says:
Come and meet The Gummidges at 11 am on Tywyn Seafront for a sandcastle competition. The co-ords are for the beach opposite the sea defence, just beneath the new sign for the birds you can spot here. There is plenty of free parking on the seafront. Tywyn beaches are dog friendly, but the spot we have chosen for the competition is on the part that is dog free, just so they don’t trash your creations! We all love to build sandcastles, but sometimes feel embarrased when we as adults want to play, so what better excuse that a competition with a prize for the best castle. Please bring your own buckets, spades etc. Worzel has promised to judge at 11.45 am. We will then award a prize for the best castle and finish at 12 noon. Hope to see you there – please bring any TBs you wish to swop.
So, assuming the weather is nice we should have some fun buildng sand castles on the beach whilst gain the final souvenir for the 7 souvenirs of August challenge. Morgan is already looking forward to getting the final souvenir, and if we manage to find a geocache on each of the days between now and then as well, that will take us up to 12 consecutive days of geocaching, which will equal our previous record. We then only have to do one more cache on Monday to beat our record. Lets hope we can do it as Morgan seems quite keen to beat the record and it gives him a good excuse to get dressed in the mornings and get out of the house early so that we can find a cache on the way to work / holiday club.
