Tempus Fugit

In February of 2005 we launched Kiwi into the wild of the Geocaching world. Since that time he has traveled over 66,000 kms, crossed the Atlantic several times and achieved his goal of spending Christmas on a beach in New Zealand. He’s currently hanging out in Germany, doing who knows what! But now it’s time for him to come home. So, if you find yourself in Germany or know some friends over there, perhaps they can look him up and offer him a ride back to Winnipeg. He’s really small and doesn’t take up much space, doesn’t eat much and rarely speaks, so you’ll hardly know he’s there.

Lawn mower guy
Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo

Today Shirley & I spent the afternoon in the boat cruising on LOTW. On the way over to the Vernon Nature Trails to do a little geocaching we spotted this guy, on his riding lawn mower. Nothing too unusual perhaps, but this was the first time I’ve seen anyone cutting the grass on their island cottage property! That’s right, this guy is on an island doing chores, well perhaps it’s not too much of a chore, or perhaps this is the maintenance guy not the owner. Either way the owner of this property is not hurting too much. There was a golf course hole with a very nice looking green and a couple of other buildings on the island, like the main house and a few other buildings.

The geocaching at the Vernon Trails was unsuccessful and we found out back at the cottage that the coordinates were posted incorrectly. Had we followed them it would have been several hundred feet off the edge of a cliff.

The ride back was marked with a stop at the DQ, again perhaps the only boat up DQ in the world, what a place we have to enjoy. A cruse through the Kenora harbour and back out Devil’s Gap and we’re on our way home. Lots of fun in the sun topped off with a swim and a little more tanning.

Our Travel Bug, Kiwi Kritter has make a historical move in one trip, from the UK to New Zealand! After leaving Winnipeg, Kiwi has traveled 17,848 miles as the crow flies so far. Next stop Australia!

New Zealanders Whakatu3 were on holiday in the UK and went to Morgans Multiply caching event where we were delighted to find there was a TB who wanted to go to NZ! Only too pleased to help him on his journey. However, shortly after returning to NZ from the UK, I had to go into hospital for a major op so recuperation took precedence over keeping up with geocaching. Sincere apologies for the delay logging find . . . we will release Kiwi Kritter in NZ very soon

I was just checking up on the four Travel Bugs that I’ve released into the wild since I started Geocaching. Regrettably, three of the four have been lost, or in Geocaching terms the cache has been muggled. Kiwi Kritter is the only survivor, but what a world traveler he’s become. After leaving Winnipeg, he criss crossed the US and Canada. Kiwi’s crossed the Atlantic three times. After touring Germany, he’s now spending time in England. Still a long way from his New Zealand destination, but definitely getting around in the world. If you’re a Google Earth user, you can fly by Kiwi’s travels.

(TBHD1G) Travel Bug Dog Tag – Kiwi Kritter

Travel Bug Dog TagOwner: Big Dadoo
Released: Sunday, November 28, 2004
Origin: Manitoba, Canada
Use TBHD1G to reference this item.

Technorati Tags: geocaching

Bench Shadow
Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

I was just playing around with the ability to send a photo from the cell phone to flickr and then have it post a blog entry. Well, it sort of works. The photo shows up just fine, but my phone doesn’t allow a subject while sending the photo as an email, and the description text doesn’t get picked up either. This is most likely caused by the phone uploading the photo to an MTS server and then sending you a link to the photo as opposed to sending email with an attachment.

Anyway, that shadow is me, a la Hitchcock, when I was geocaching in Vancouver a while back.

As you my know, I enjoy geocaching and I was just checking up on one of my travel bug, Kiwi Critter. This little guy has been transported by stranges over 17,407 miles since he hit the road in November of 2004. He’s been around the US, crossed the Atlantic (3 times!) to Germany and is currently touring England. If you have Google Earth you can check out his travels.

He still has a ways to go as fellow geocachers are supposed to help him get to Australia or New Zealand and spend Christmas on the beach.

Sioux Narrows Bridge Replacement
Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

Yesterday, we went by boat to Timber Island in Whitefish Bay on Lake of the Woods to track down the geocache called Kanchenjunga placed by my friend Adam. It was a sunny day with near calm winds, which made the 58.6 km boat trip quite enjoyable. You can read about more about that part of the adventure here.

The photo is the new bridge construction in downtown Sioux Narrows which is replacing a rather historic old wooden bridge which was the world’s longest single span wooden bridge. Click the photo for a few more details on my Flickr site.

After checking out the various gift shops in town and gassing up the boat for the return trip we headed out to find one more cache. Then it was up Long Bay to the main track for the trip back home. Our friends Ken & Linda retired to Sioux Narrows several years ago and we’d been to their place just once by car. So, as were heading up Long Bay I’m on the lookout for what I can remember about the front of their house. The main feature I remembered was the large double doors on the lower level that opened onto Ken’s enormous and well equipped workshop. As we boat by house that fits the description and notice two folks sitting on the dock we decide to turn around and check it out. Sure enough, this was the right place and we spent a little time catching up on what had been happening in each other’s lives.

After the visit, it was 6:30pm and a 2hr trip to get back home. The weather was still good and the trip back always seems longer that going out and our rear ends were a little sore from all the sitting. Probably why today we broke down and bought boat seats with back rests for the boat.

It was a great day on the lake as always and the tan is a little deeper after all the wind and sun.

Bird House
Originally uploaded by Big Dadoo.

My dad always told me that I couldn’t get married on a summer weekend because it would mess up going to the lake, so we got married in December. December is a great time of year and people generally don’t have better things to do. But that message didn’t get out to the extended family on Shirley’s side so we spend a good part of a lovely +25C sunny Saturday in a basement hall attending a wedding. A very nice wedding, and the bride and groom were lovely and it was all very nice. (I’ll finish this later, company has
arrived!)

So, I hope nobody missed us too much, but we bailed before the speeches began and we heard later that there was dancing and games and the party went on for most of the afternoon. With the great weather and the desire to be outside Shirley and I went off Geocaching. We’ve had lots of fun with this high-tech hide and seek game and as BigDadoo and Hot Mamma we’ve found several caches over the past couple of years. This afternoon we focused on some caches along the Red River. We found two in St. Vital Park, Frogtastically Green, You’re Invited and TikiHut. In fact, the picture is the “Tiki Hut”. This is where the cache is hidden, in the base of the birdhouse behind that latch and swing updoor. Some people are so clever and this is definitively one of the more creative caches we’ve found to date.

While we were in the area we also saw the power of the river and river bank erosion at work on this tree where the trunk has been split in two from the bottom up.