6 Icon Challenge - 4 Days Ulster, Ireland
By sgtzara on 06-Feb-15. Waypoint GC5MCKQ

Qualifying days:

2015-08-16 --- 8 types:
02 Cliff Walk - Bray Head Rocks (Earthcache)
75 A Walk in the Garden - Bray Head (Wherigo Cache)
Remake (Unknown Cache)
Church Micro IE 50 - Holy Spirit, Greenhills (Traditional Cache)
Gardiner's Treat (Webcam Cache)
Stiffy By The Liffey (Virtual Cache)

2015-10-02 --- 6 types:
4 The Fairy Realm (Wherigo Cache)
5 The Fairy Realm (Unknown Cache)
Tullow Church (Traditional Cache)
6 The Fairy Realm - Ogham Stones (Earthcache)
3 The Fairy Realm (Letterbox Hybrid)
Fauna Forest Trail - Road to Nowhere (Multi-cache)

2015-12-06 --- 6 types:
72 A Walk in the Garden - Spinans (Wherigo Cache)
3 A Walk in the Garden-Lead Works (Unknown Cache)
Avoca forest (Traditional Cache)
West Side Story #2.1 Hollywood (Letterbox Hybrid)
Glendasan is for Galena - DP/EC71 (Earthcache)
Derrybawn Rolls (Multi-cache)

2016-01-10 --- 6 types:
The Black Rose (Virtual Cache)
DART (Unknown Cache)
Baldoyle Racecourse (Traditional Cache)
It don't mean a thing... (Letterbox Hybrid)
Hidden Treasure (Earthcache)
Church Micro#60 - St.Fintan's Church (Multi-cache)

now just to get there & sign the log シ

Today was Loop-5 & Loop-6 DT hunting day with a range of targets in the collective cross-hairs of myself and GoldCircle.

Our second target was this mighty 6 Icons x 4 days challenge... a genuinely difficult thing to achieve if you have already cleared out your immediate area of those "quirkier" cache-types.

Needed a small "step-up" in order to reach the desired height to retrieve the box.

QUALIFICATION

16.05.2015 --- 14 Types

01. GIGA - Mainz Gutenberg 2015
02. GPS ADVENTURES EXHIBIT - GPS Maze Europe Germany
03. LAB CACHE - Giga Mainz
04. WAYMARK - City View of Mainz
05. VIRTUAL - Eisenbahnfreund
06. LETTERBOX - Geo Post Office Mainz
07. WEBCAM - RheinCam
08. WHERIGO - CityView of Mainz [Reverse Cache]
09. EARTH - Garden of Stones
10. EVENT - Fly Fly Away Vol 3
11. PUZZLE - Watching the Planes
12. TRADITIONAL - Merrion Gates
13. MULTI - Cloghran
14. CITO - Under darkness


28.02.2015 --- 9 Types

1. WEBCAM - Slaaf van Kantoor
2. EARTH - De Waterspiegel
3. WHERIGO - 2VAN5
4. PUZZLE - Haven
5. TRADITIONAL - Kiiroo
6. VIRTUAL - Poppetje
7. EVENT - Bierjes & Banter & Irish Style
8. LETTERBOX - Aardzee
9. MULTI - De Fantasie


16.07.2015 --- 6 Types

1. VIRTUAL - The Palace of Westminster
2. TRADITIONAL - Jeremy Bentham
3. WEBCAM - London Beatles Abbey Road
4. MULTI - Church Micro 8006 Lambeth St Mary
5. WHERIGO - Ye Olde Coffee Houses
6. EARTH - SideTracked EarthCache St James's Park Fossils


20.11.2015 --- 6 Types

1. EARTH - The Fossil Hotel
2. MULTI - Merrion Multi
3. PUZZLE - Deadly! The reincarnation
4. TRADITIONAL - Timberrrrrr
5. VIRTUAL - Southside Pub Crawl
6. EVENT - GoldCircle's Dublin Millennium

TFTC

Qualifying Days

2013-10-03 [Red]7 types[/Red]: NORTH.... TO ALASKA!!! (Virtual Cache) HQGT: Within Reach (Unknown Cache) HQGT: Beneath Aurora (Traditional Cache) High Five over Eye Five (Webcam Cache) Geocaching Headquarters (Groundspeak HQ) HQGT: Fremont Library (Multi-cache)

2015-02-28 [Red]9 types[/Red]: (FPE2008) De Waterspiegel (Earthcache) De Fantasie (Multi-cache) (FPE2013) 2VAN5 - DLCCW - THE BIG FIVE (Wherigo Cache) Haven (Unknown Cache) Ongeland "Paal 1" (Traditional Cache) poppetje (Virtual Cache)

2015-05-16 [Red]12 types[/Red]: GPS MAZE EUROPE - Germany (GPS Adventures Exhibit) Mainz Gutenberg 2015 (Giga-Event Cache) CITO under darkness (Cache In Trash Out Event) Eisenbahnfreund (Virtual Cache) RheinCam (Webcam Cache) CityView of Mainz [Reverse Cache] (Wherigo Cache)

2015-06-02 [Red]6 types[/Red]: Blarney Cache (Virtual Cache) 5 The Fairy Realm (Unknown Cache) 01 The Fairy Realm (Traditional Cache) 6 The Fairy Realm - Ogham Stones (Earthcache) 4 The Fairy Realm (Wherigo Cache) 3 The Fairy Realm (Letterbox Hybrid)

Cache No.2059 Found @ 11:55:00 AM

I spent the morning with Doug.G on Wednesday assaulting a bunch of trees in search of an FTF on a new 5/5 in Dublin; in the aftermath, we conspired to take another trip up to Ulster to pick off several caches that we both needed for one reason or another - a number of high complexity challenges, some '?s' with high D or T ratings and even one that dated back to 2002! And with day-passes sorted out with our significant others, we disappeared in to the grey rainy Dublin morning, safe in the knowledge that blistering sunshine would await us two hours north.

Or something like that.

To be fair we, we managed to dodge the worst of it, finding the rain mostly already lying on the ground, so this meant wellies were used rather than hiking boots in many places - and when mucking about in trees this didn't help much.

Track Day Toys 5/5 Challenge was first up; it was easily found in a nice hiding place. Since I posted my qualifying list with 28 x D5s in June I have managed to up that number to 42 - which is now too big to screenshot...

We then popped up the road to the Six Icon Challenge - 4 Days cache - which I failed to find on my last trip despite a thorough search... but today not only was it easily spotted (no leaves on the tree in January) it was also easily retrieved in a matter of seconds - and with the help of just the first rung on our extendible ladder!

We then made our way to the Old Coach Trail #13; being the proud possessor of a 366 day consecutive streak, I was contact by the CO when he first published this cache and it had been on my radar ever since. I passed by in the summer - and had no hope of retrieving it then as we were ill-equipped. Today, it was a much more straightforward matter with a ladder and my first grab came up trumps.

We then moved on to the Puzzle/Unknown Setters Mini Alphabet Challenge - a cache that evaded me in the summer. Probably because it was wet and I had no rope to secure myself (I don't have a death wish) - and there's an outside possibility I am also a wuss. After I scouted the area and designed a solid technical approach (aka - 'nah, you do this one...' ) Doug.G went up... and after some meditation he levitated to the correct spot and grabbed the cache.

Next up was the mother lode. Why it was only a T4.5, rather than 5.5 is beyond me... I'm naturally talking about the Challenge Variety Pack... wow that was some ascent... After the first two 'natural hollows' came up empty, what we didn't say about the CO. [:(!] If anyone is looking at fulfilling this challenge, I suggest you look at the tree first. It is in that fork.

Yeah THAT fork.

Up there. 'nuff said. Epic assault - fully 45 mins with harnesses, two sets of ropes - and a ladder to boot. Awesome stuff!

With the heavy work done we headed back to the car which was conveniently parked 6m from The Project.

We then headed to Crawfordsburn - Doug.G fancied a look at seaview - an awesome 2002 cache that is clearly very well maintained. Alas, the only view was of mist... On the way back we also logged The Archway - which had more magnets than CERN.

As the light was fading, and the weather closing in, it was time to head. We stopped briefly at Minnowburn Bridge, but here was severe flooding and fast water, so we gave up and kept heading for home. Next stop was the Travelling cacher 3-in-3 Challenge - it has been over two years since I posted my qualification, but only managed to get here today.

The last stop was the Super Chef Challenge - an unnerving drive in the pitch dark! I only spotted this challenge during the summer and it was fun going through all my finds looking for tasty morsels - so again, the qualifying list was posted on 17 June '15.

Today a very productive and very satisfying day. A big thanks to Doug.G for the company and derring-doo and to sgtzara for this cache!

TFTC

London, Paris, Paris, Platja D'Aro. Back was this was published we only had one six icon day, the one we needed for our own challenge cache. With working taking me to Paris I was able to do some tramping round the French capital to add another two but then it got tricky, fast forward to our late summer holiday and we were within striking distance of a former Mega event location so there were icons up for grabs, making a short detour to a webcam as well left us with seven icons on the day, a new record for us! Phew, maybe now we need to do it somewhere else and then wait for challenges to open up again. 6 Icon Challenge - 4 Days, 4 Countries...? TFTC

Qualifying days below:

2013-11-11 6 types: The London Rainbow Cache 4 - Green (Virtual Cache) TFL (Unknown Cache) At Your Call (Traditional Cache) Walk around the Park (Multi-cache) Stonicles (Earthcache) London - West End Webcam (oxford Circus) (Webcam Cache)
2015-03-21 6 types: Cluedo? (Wherigo Cache) Le challenge des icones (Unknown Cache) WILD PARIS #5 - Les Boeufs & Les Moutons (Traditional Cache) Liberty's Flame (Virtual Cache) GeoTube à Paris (Letterbox Hybrid) Eau de l'Albien (Earthcache)
2015-03-22 6 types: I ♥ Paris (Wherigo Cache) LE PALAIS DE JUSTICE (Unknown Cache) Bonjour de Paris (Webcam Cache) Cimetière du Montparnasse (Multi-cache) lettre de cachet (Virtual Cache) Hotel de Clisson (Traditional Cache)
2015-09-17 7 types: The Challenge (Wherigo Cache) Challenge - 5 Different type cache x 5 Countries (Unknown Cache) Port Bó Webcam (Webcam Cache) Parcs Infantils - Plaça Trueta (Multi-cache) Pre-Mega 24 (Traditional Cache) Mega Stamp 2014 (Letterbox Hybrid) CAVALL BERNAT (Earthcache)