Doctor Livingstone: This cache has been permanently removed.
The Doc is retiring from Geocaching this summer of 2005. That's right, all of Doc's 68 caches will be removed shortly. Why you ask? Well, sadly, there are many reasons and they have added up over time. Here they are:
1) 150km hiding rule imposed by Geocaching.com - this is a good rule for maintenance purposes but for a quality hider like myself its way to limiting when you run out of local "neat" places to hide caches. 2) Quantity vs. Quality - the Doc has always been about hiding in interesting places. Geocaching never was and absolutely isn't today about quality. This is a real shame. I was hoping more would catch onto this trend but sadly it didn't happen for most. I say this not to offend anyone - it's just there are two camps in geocaching and I have always belonged to the "interesting location first and container find second" camp.
3) Restrictions imposed on virtual caching - I would have been revealing more interesting spots for cachers but the rules at geocaching switched midstream and severely limited "creative" virtual caches.
4) Leaking containers - unless you use ammo boxes at $5 a pop you get leaking containers which can drive a hider to drink. Many thanks to those who helped dry out and repair my caches over the years.
5) Muggles - for the life of me I don't understand why people must take something fun and ruin it for others. I know some muggles are hungry animals which can be excused but for the human kind - get a life. Which leads me to
6) Ursa Major's unfortunate removal of his caches - I'm not aware of the details of what UM has had to go thru but the mere fact that one of the most respected cachers had to go thru this crap and that he has had to take his amazing cache locations offline ...well... this was the final straw for me. Similar to Ursa Major, I hide caches to show people where the wonders of NB are. If some sick person plans on using caches to hurt people then like UM I'm removing all of my caches. Period. I can put up with reasons 1-5 but I have no patience for this kind of crap.
So, is this the end of Doc's love for showing the wonders of NB. Not a chance. Yes, I'm removing all of the caches but I'm moving all of the location and hiking information to a site I'm building called GeoHikes at www.geohikes.com (it may take me all summer to build it but it will exist and I hope those looking for neat spots in NB will enjoy it.)
One final note. The Doc is going permanently archive each site once the cache has been removed. However, I plan on temporarily disabling all remaining caches until the cache has been retrieved by myself or an adopter. A what? Yes, an adopting cacher who would like to remove the cache, take the container and all of it's contents with them. You can chuck the logbook and use the cache to plant elsewhere if you wish. Just log your find and tell me you took the container so I can permanently archive it.
That's all folks. Best of luck to those remaining in the sport. I have met some neat folks over the years and I wish them well. I hope geocaching changes for the better.
Doc L.
www.geohikes.com