Saturday 28 May 2011

Conistone FTF 28th May

Lovely comments from Turkey Nuggets, the FTF at Coniston, who emailed in photos of their grid and text from the log book, thankyou
- great to hear you enjoyed it, really makes the work setting everything up worthwhile :)

I've taken the liberty of translating this first crayon grid into an iphone grid and sending it on to the creature and the gallery.... don't forget the cache key opens up parts of the website, too!
And if you check back later in the summer the creature may just sing back in response to the grids and text you've sent!






Saturday 14 May 2011

First Cache Live

Today sees the Hunter Gatherer Birthplace, Ingleton  cache go live!
The gatherer3 website's not quite live yet, so anyone finding the cache will have to wait a little longer before unlocking the secrets of their cache key. However the main role of this cache is to introduce the story and gather responses from the cache hunters, which is all live, up and running, just waiting for the first geoartcachers to respond....

And there's room to respond to the project on the geoartcache site too.

Tuesday 3 May 2011

Day Trip to the Dales

The mayblossom is in flower! The magical creature is out of hibernation!

I've been working round the clock to get everything in place to deliver the cache boxes this week.. another trip to the Dales, this time a day trip, with a dawn start and midnight return.
The drive went well - through Leeds before the morning rush hour. And it was wonderful to pause for a late breakfast with my flask of coffee still steaming beside the bridge at Burnsall.

Then on to meet various landowners and agree locations for the caches to reside over the summer. Chrysalis have asked us to work with National Trust sites as far as possible, so we don't have access issues as the Trust supports the project, and guidelines for cache locations are already in place through the geocaching community and the National Park.


However some sites just call, regardless of boundaries or deeds!
Three of myne fall outside the Trust lands, so I've got a busy day ahead.. plus some extra filming to make sure I have a good variety of material to work with over the summer as the creature calls and the hunters respond.

Beautiful light today, friendly, welcoming people so generous with their time and interest.




In planning for this visit I was struck with the different paces of communication in the world today. Yesterday I called one site by phone, had a long chat with someone working there, a really helpful conversation with the owner who called me back soon after, and today I meet them and am shown around, suggested the best places for caching, and given a cream egg with my coffee: very welcome after the long drive!

Phone-calls, face to face meeting and the time to sit and wait whilst jobs are done to benefit from the generosity of another's time are all too rare at times. In some areas of my current work-life it would probably take 3 weeks and a lot of email disjunction to set up a meeting with the right person at the right time in the right place..  or more!

It's a refreshing day all round.

Colour Grid 1000021

I made this colour grid at http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=54.217873,-2.201696 using http://twitter.com/gathererapp

Screen-grab with q&a's for grid here at Burnsall

Colour Grid 1000019

I made this colour grid at http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=54.046345,-1.95264 using http://twitter.com/gatthererapp

Something about the bridges of the Dales...

Driving up alongside the Wharfe, after a dawn start this morning. This has to be one of my favourite parts of England, from Bolton up to Conistone. This is the bridge at Burnsall and even with a chill wind and grey skies the valley just fills with light and live richness.

Monday 2 May 2011

Images and Uploads

My artwork for the app Splash screen and for use on various artefacts within the cache boxes. 
This will also feature with cache listings at http://www.geocaching.com

I've just been uploading the text, gps position and information for the caches, as that needs approval from geocache.com and I want to check for any missing info when I'm on location later today/tomorrow. We have the art caches from all three commissions listed under the geoartcache membership - but can still identify individual 'hiders' within that. I'm really looking forward to watching the logs and getting feedback from geocachers trying the three different projects.

The first 'birthplace' Hunter Gatherer cache will go public very shortly. The others will go public from the launch of the geoartcache project on 28th May 2011. Who will be FTF ... first to find???