Surely this is no longer on anyone’s caching radar, but for what it’s worth I have added a couple of spoiler photos to supplement the first stage, which sadly has recently become inaccessible.

Totally forgot to log this when minadequate and myself did it... Afraid I feel like I cheated a little as I didn't solve the online puzzle, but had great fun hunting for the cave. I seem to recall that we arrived at the final location just as the sun was setting, causing a certain tree to glow in the light and guide us to the entrance. A particularly appropriate image I thought. TFTC

Another great abanazar found at twilight on a Sunday night (our excuse this time was that it was raining very hard for most of the day... or it looked like heavy rain from being safely indoors). My 30th Abanazar find! Full log to follow

  Hello !!!

    I'm pleased to inform you that your cache became: Cache of the month

CONGRATULATIONS !!!
OC Team

Final stage checked. An earlier stage was also checked a few weeks ago.

To agree with Digdug the middle section is a puzzler! Seems if anything I've learnt from Abanazars caches is that a sci fi langague is always much easier to track down than a real one, unable to find the exact cypher I was able to work out enough of the letters to get started and then have a guess at a few of the others to complete it... well all apart from knowing exactly where the black men are from (or something like that) hoping I can do without that and hope to head off to the first location ASAP / once I have a new UV torch (have borrowed a couple of hard hats) and got an unsuspecting accomplice available, and maybe try to do the ascent of man at the same time. Pretty excited by this one after hitting allot of brickwalls with some other of the COs puzzles recently (who climbs and poisons, how do you respond to the interview, what comes after the computor game etc). 

I was in the area for a tour of an underground location- part of a friend's birthday present.  I thought I'd take the chance to give my "Top Log" coin a visit to a Top Cache.

I checked one of the stages today; all was well.

Very late log - sorry! I don't find or log opencaching caches very often unless accompanying team-mates during other finds. This was a cracker though. Thanks for a good 'un. 

It took us a long time but, aided and abetted by the bad influence of Sharant, we finally tracked this one down. Solving the puzzles provided much entertainment...

In the area doing a couple of other caches & having just tracked down some parts of a third, we made our way to the final location.

It was a bit of a squeeze, and Sharon did an excellent impression of the evil wizard from the story - waiting at the top of the last cramped & difficult slope for me to hand the lamp back up!

Fortunately, she was only interested in getting her hands on the logbook, and we emerged back into the sunlight with the treasure safely rehidden -Now we've got our eyes on a few more tricky ones.

What a fantastic cache.

We completed all the clues alongside this sister's cache and remembered to bring the correct equipment with us.  I was wary at the final location and followed Parway in and at the final drop I decided there was not enough room, why am I so short!!!

Each stage was unique with a clever twist.

TFTC.

I accompanied Staticman1 to the final stage and really rather wished that I'd not so I could properly enjoy it in it's entirety! The final was excellent and the cache equally so. Thanks abanazar. I will now make a point of visiting the area more often to follow up some of your hides.

Also... Thanks for the torch!

One of my favourite caches is 'The Quest For St Aldhelm's Glove' (listed elsewhere) and whilst this isn't quite as full on as that one it had all the same hallmarks and was just as much fun. The puzzle was not too difficult once I put some time aside to power through it and I soon had the first place to visit decoded. I eventually managed to find the first two things needed, although I did waste a lot of time going too far but got the goods on the way back.

 

After getting that information I tried to do a field decode in cold and gusty weather and pick up the next stage. Sadly I made a mistake on that occasion but in a million to one shot I ended up at a penultimate stage of another of the COs multis to some bewilderment. Decode wasn't so error filled at home and was soon back in the area but must confess that, despite finding a fair few caches and physical stages of the COs I was bamboozled by the camo for this one and returned empty handed :-(. I knew a fellow adventurer was also working on that quest and I asked him to let me know if he managed to find it during his mission. Well, brave Sir Antpeng came across it without much trouble and told me it was still there with some disbelief I had missed it. Unfortunately what he possesses in finding skills he obviously lacked in preparedness and was not adequately prepared to reveal all its information. Thankfully, with a don’t complicate it too much approach, I quickly had my hands on it next visit and had seen something similar during a past career as a Scandinavian detective so quick progress was made.

 

I don’t want to ruin too much of the surprises and stages for future adventurers so won’t say too much more. I picked up the final with late fellow adventurer Collapsible Tank whilst we were in the area on caving and quarrying adventures. A tricky if not too long final and an excellent cache container with an exciting added bonus but despite much polishing it just wouldn’t work. Thanks for a brilliant cache. Wish there were more of these ‘Quest’ type caches.

I'm afraid I somewhat bumbled my way through this cache. I managed to solve the puzzle without too much problem but when I was nearby the start coordinates on Groundspeak business I didn't have the instructions and equipment to find the next clue so I had to make another trip, which wasn't really a problem - but after finding the required information I returned home and solved the next step only to find that I was very nearby and other trip would be necessary.

Anyway, I found the casket without too much trouble but yet again I failed to bring the requisite equipment. I took an instruction card and warned a fellow quester to remember his kit. He later visited the casket and let me know the coordinates, but from the information on the instruction card I had already derived the location for the final.

My fellow quester and I had planned to tackle this cache along with another three Abanazar caches in the vicinity next weekend but our plans have changed to pursue a more recently published underground cache. So I decided to pop by and find the final. My last two trips here have been in the dark so it was nice to have an easier trip up the hill and I spotted GZ easily as I approached. I kitted up and headed in and soon found the nicely stocked cache and discovered the well earned Top Cache Coin.

Thanks very much for another brilliant cache - I only wish I had tackled it in one go on a nice summers day - as you can see - it was a bit cold in Aladdin's Cave

I spent a good chunk of time looking for the first physcial stage of this cache today in totally the wrong place. I have kindly been alerted by a fellow adventurer of something on the cache page which could have prevented this fruitless exercise! Now to find out where I have gone wrong!

Several people have recommended this cache to me so I thought I ought to pull my finger out and get on with it. I solved the coordinates and instructions without too much difficulty although my usual resourse has enough variations that I couldn't recognise the script - until I found where I should be looking.

I visited the locale today to find some groundspeak caches and found where I ought to be looking for the next clue - but I hadn't brought my translation with me and didn't have much time - so, after a quick exploration, i decided that I should probably leave it for now - this will have to wait for another day....

The various stages have all been checked at some point during the past few weeks; some were even checked today

It was nice to be able to take a back seat during an Abanazar cache for a change, as all the puzzle work was completed by Piddypug for this cache, while I worked out the 3 puzzle Box challenges.

We found all the required information at the first location easily enough, and eventually managed to navigate to the next location after a bit of trial and error. We found the casket fairly quickly, but got a little confused with what we should be doing next. An email to the CO proved to be enlightening, and we returned tonight to continue the quest. After working out the coordinates, we knew instantly that we would be returning to an area that we had come to know well.

We were joined on this ocassion by Clayton1999, who was eager to get a taste of his first Abanazar cache, before he tackles others that I have recommended to him. After a tough walk up hill, we soon found the area we were looking for, and went in to investigate. After an enjoyable 10 minutes or so, we had signed the log and emerged back into the blast furnace of heat, that was absent in the cool, dark cave.

Yet another fantastic "boys own" adventure from Abanazar, which I thoroughly recommend to all.

A return visit to the final stage during a woodland walk.  This time with pljg sibling- geocacher Hollingsgrose but not on opencaching yet.  I'm not sure if she will register and log this as a find given that she only visited the final stage and Amberel geocoin.  Good fun again and we came across some Easter woodland yurt campers nearby.  We visited our new puzzle cache travel bug the RAMbler. TB3EEXF 

 

A return visit to the final stage of the quest.  This time with pljg seniors, aka Gwavallers.  A great adventure and it was worth it even to discover the laminate Top Cache lamp.  Hopefully, we'll see the real thing one day.  We exited and went off to find another cache, only to realise that my mum had left her glasses inside the final location after accidentally taking them inside and putting them down half way for safe keeping.  So, I had to go back for further underground exertions.  Thanks abanazar.

A maintenance trip confirmed that all is well. It's hard to log Groundspeak trackables automatically (I think), so I'll manually record that the following visited with me: TB47J9R, TB3XX71, and of course TB3R8YP

We were browsing a bric-a-brac stall today when - alakazam! - Mr Abanazar couldn't believe his eyes. We just had to have it, and fortunately we had a sufficient quantity of shekels about us. Later, Mrs Abanazar offered to clean it up. Well, she started polishing … you can guess the rest.

I visited Aladdin's Cave this early this morning to drop off the new residential geocoin copy (thanks to Amberel for his stunning design). As mentioned on the cache page, there is a laminated copy of the geocoin permanently in residence, but I'm more than happy to leave the real version there for a few weeks at a time, if given some notice of potential visits.

En route I met a couple of deer, a fox, and heard numerous other woodland rustlings and strange calls. This really is one of my favourite areas, particularly early in the morning, when the wildlife is much more active.

This was one of three abanazar high terrain puzzle caches that were our primary objectives on my visit from Surrey with Amberel today. Although this was the easiest of the three physically, I found it to be the hardest puzzle .

Part 1 of the puzzle was not a problem. Part 2 was much trickier and I never did locate the characters I needed. However, after a fair amount of searching I did find something that was close enough and which started giving some meaningful text. There did seem to be a few ambiguities so both Amberel and I decoded it separately and checked our answers. I was pleased to find that they agreed .

So with Amberel and digdug123 we followed the decoded instructions and what followed. I particularly liked one stage that has given me ideas for a future cache of our own .

And so onwards to the underground part of the quest that the cache description warns about. This was my first experience of such a type of cache. I followed the others and before long they had found the cache, but not just any cache. Instead of them opening it and passing me back the log to sign I was encouraged to squeeze past to see it before it was opened. It was good to see the theme carried through all the way from cache page to the box itself .

The box was passed back to me to open, but like FTFers we also almost lost the jinni . Thankfully digdug spotted it before it was too late.

Thanks for a fun introduction to this style of cache.

TNLN TFTC

 

This is the first cache I have found on Opencaching.org and what a cache to start with 

   Having come across Mr A many times before via another site, I was well aware of what would be expected of me to bag this one 

  I have to say that yet again he has used all of his well honed puzzle setting skills to launch this little poser, and it took me many hours of frantic Googling before I finally had the details I needed to start my quest (I found the middle section particularly hard to crack ).

Unfortunately it would be weeks before I would manage to find the time to go for the cache itself, and this only came to fruition because I was kindly invited to join a couple of addicted cachers for the day (Amberel and Woking Wonders) to take in a few more of the Master Wizards devious challenges 

After the brain/eye straining puzzle, it was good to get out into the field to try and locate the spoils, but as per usual with Mr A it would require more work and bruises to claim our prize 

Thankfully all the toils were well worth it when we finally laid our tired eyes on the cache itself.

Mr A really sticks with a theme from start to finish when he sets a cache, and this is no exception (when you see the treasure you will understand) 

I cannot recomend this cache enough to anyone who wants to experience the best of what caching has to offer 

Thank you to Andy and Ian for letting me join them on thier day of adventures, and a special thank you to the Enigma Swami himself for another perplexing adventure 

Two new high terrain OpenCaches, these act on me as a bright light to a moth .

The original plan was for Ian (Woking Wonders) and myself to do this one, then to meet Steve (DigDug) for the more difficult il Nono Cerchio. But plans change, and things often work out for the best - it ended up that we all did it together.

And that was just as well, because this was actually rather trickier than I had anticipated it might be, and I was pleased to have the security and confidence of Steve's experience even for this one. I understand the rating needs to differentiate this one from il Nono Cerchio, but the puzzle is just as tricky to solve and I've done many less difficult 5 star terrain cache listed on Groundspeak. It's not one to be taken "lightly", if you'll pardon the pun.

So, we came, and we saw the light, and found a very fine cache .

A TOP CACHE - indeed, the very TOP TOP CACHE, with 24 points (visit the TOP CACHE page). Why didn't it get the maximum 25? Really only because I feel that once I've awarded a 25 pointer I've got no headroom if something even better comes along .

Thanks for a really excellent cache - a well constructed cache page typical of abanazar, some challenging terrain, and a big WOW .

And many thanks too to DigDug for guiding us.

Rgds, Andy

Gosh, that Dynamic Duo from B-on-A are good -- nicely done

 

Joint FTF with pljg. As usual, Abanazar did not let us down. A well crafted quest. My only one grumble is that my "must not forget to take" list for caching is getting longer and longer!

SL TN left batteries (to go with the vast collection of illuminating goodies/essentials already stashed) TFTC.

Joint First To Find with BradLad at 6.30.  

We stumbled on this on Friday via an infernal listing.  Luckily, it took less than 1001 nights to solve.  A fantastic, clever and challenging quest.  I'm very impressed that the sourcerer's apprentice managed it.

Be careful with the jinni- we almost lost it into the bowels of the cave.  No amount of rubbing produced any results so we wriggled our way out.

This cache can be combined nicely by starting with abanazar's "Highs and Lows of Box", which can be found elsewhere in the virtual caching world.

Thanks for another great quest abanazar.

Unregistered piece of trackable treasure for FTF!