Manitoba Geocaching Association

ThreeTs · Joined: 29 Sep 2005 Posts: 191 Location: Winnipeg

For all you competitive cachers out there, Manitoba Tourism is sponsoring a "Find the Cache" contest for the month of May with some fabulous prizes to be won! The contest will take you to all the regions of our province to find caches...as well as other things! Check out the link below!! Have fun and good luck!

Find the Cache

Kabuthunk · Joined: 19 Aug 2006 Posts: 257 Location: Winnipeg

Wow, that's a lot of caches. Anyone know if those are regular caches on geocaching.com as well, or exist only on that sheet?

I just hope they keep a close eye on all of them. If one or two go missing, it could kinda put a damper on things.

prokhor · Joined: 27 Nov 2006 Posts: 47 Location: Manitoba-Interlake

The Celebrate MB caches will not be listed on GC.com until after the promotion is over. You should also note that not all of the points listed for Celebrate MB have a cache associated with them, although many do. The contest runs until the first week of June.

As to the missing caches, every waypoint is marked with a plate that reads the coordinates. These plates have all been bolted/screwed/glued/etc in place and shouldn't be going anywhere. These plates are the important part of the contest as you'll need an etching of it to enter a find.

MHz · Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 268 Location: Morris

I've been to 3 of the waypoints so far, 2 inside the city and 1 outside, and have found no plates to make rubbings of. Sad

I did easily find the answer to the associated questions though.

Also at the first waypoint I tried, which ends up at Mint, I was told by security that no pictures are permitted there without prior authorization and they knew nothing of the contest. Not a great start. It deterred me enough to not bother looking for the plate if there was one at all. Shocked

If anyone out there does find one of these elusive plates, could you please post at least which waypoint you did find a plate at? Please?

prokhor · Joined: 27 Nov 2006 Posts: 47 Location: Manitoba-Interlake

I'll check into the Winnipeg points for you. I can guarantee that the Interlake caches north of Oak Hammock have plates and caches there. I should be able to find out on Monday whats going on.

TurdleEggs · Joined: 31 Jul 2005 Posts: 685 Location: Ste Genevieve

Oak Hammock has a plate – I rubbed it! Also, a nice sized cache.

MuStash · Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 92 Location: Winnipeg

I searched at the Fort Whyte location today and could not find a plaque. The answer to the question was easy to determine. I spoke to the employees at the welcome desk and nobody knew anything about the contest.

It is all a bit confusing.

This contest is the "Celebrate Manitoba Geocaching Contest" presented by the Manitoba Regional Tourism Network.

If you go to the Travel Manitoba website, it is promoting a contest called "Celebrate Manitoba - Win a Trip a Day!" which will be run by CJOB.

ertyu · Joined: 25 Apr 2005 Posts: 547 Location: Winnipeg

To save time for anyone looking, here's a GPX file, I don't guarantee it's accurate or perfect, but I think it's good.

http://www2.ertyu.org/~ertyu/mrtn.gpx

prokhor · Joined: 27 Nov 2006 Posts: 47 Location: Manitoba-Interlake

As to the Travel MB/MB Regional Tourism differences they should be resolved on Monday. The Celebrate MB is the same promotion across the province and contains several components.

MuStash · Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 92 Location: Winnipeg

We do have lots to celebrate!

melimeln · Joined: 26 Jun 2007 Posts: 1

There are a few out in Eastman as well. Hope everyone can find them!!

MuStash · Joined: 07 Sep 2006 Posts: 92 Location: Winnipeg

I spent the day yesterday (Tues. May 6) as a tourist on the Celebrate Manitoba Geocaching Contest trail and it was a very enjoyable day. All of the caches took me to very nice places which is high on my list for cache rating. Some of those places were ones I'd never been to or known about before. Again, something I like.

Here's a bit of my experience. I completed making the rounds of all the Winnipeg region caches. I did not find plaques at any of them. The coordinates seemed loose in that they got you to the area where you could answer the questions but not with the precision we're used to. After searching fairly diligently for plaques at the first few with no luck, I didn't try very hard at the last few. I think it's probably safe to say the Winnipeg region caches don't have any plaques. But, I've been wrong before. On completion of the multi cache I was given a "Congratulations on Finding the Cache" certificate. There was no physical cache there as of yesterday.

After that I headed for the Interlake. I searched for and found 6 of the Interlake caches. They all had physical caches and plaques. The 6 that I did were: "All washed up" (FTF), "Grand Opening", "No Drawbridge Here" (FTF), "Erin's View of the Past" (FTF), "Stand on Guard" (FTF), and "Down by the Old Mill" (FTF). They were all very nice caches in their own right. I enjoyed a generous lunch at the Teulon Golf Course clubhouse and a fine dinner at the new Hecla Oasis Resort along the way.

And, dang it, don't you know I get home and the price of gas is up another nickle!

I know there's no way I'll get to all of the caches in the contest. But it was an enjoyable day of caching yesterday. The plaques added an interesting twist to the game. (They are plastic name plates with the cache's coordinates on them) Have fun.

Thank you to everyone involved with putting these caches out!

MHz · Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 268 Location: Morris

I've been told that the first waypoint under Winnipeg does have a plaque. The coords are off for it though. That may have been my trouble at the one I tried south east of the city as well.

Guess we're all just too use to geocaching with highly accurate coordinates. We've got to expand our search a bit and I'm sure we'll find them. Hard to find a small plaque with inaccurate coords but maybe that is the challenge!

I'm not giving up...only on the Winnipeg wapypoints for the Multi. With info in hand and plaques or no plaques, the final will be done today! Very Happy

MHz · Joined: 20 Apr 2005 Posts: 268 Location: Morris

Yeah I got 3 rubbings so far although much like MuStash, only one from inside the city.

I went back to the one I had tried outside and this time the plaque was there in the spot I had checked 3 times when I was there last. Guess everything was not quite ready to go yet!

Can I ask the obvious question?

No where could I find in the rules as to how many you need to find to enter the contest? Surely it's not all of them or perhaps the first prize should be a few tanks of gas! Wink

Is it one entry per rubbing or just one rubbing and entry form required?

JayPeg · Joined: 02 Jun 2006 Posts: 131 Location: Winnipeg

I got a rubbing from Selkirk yesterday. I found the coords are not that great. Also I did not find the cache that was supposed to be there. I'm not sure if the actual caches have been placed yet.

The deadline for the contest said May28/08, is that correct? It seems to be an impossible task to visit that many points in the province. I thought this would have been better to have it run through the summer.