Skip to content

PINK PENGUIN LETTERBOX Letterbox Hybrid

Difficulty:
2.5 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size:   regular (regular)

Join now to view geocache location details. It's free!

Watch

How Geocaching Works

Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions in our disclaimer.

Geocache Description:

This was a short Multicache / Letterbox Hydrid set to celebrate Signyred's first year of geocaching. Alas the original went missing along with the special stamp & inkpad so now it is a Letterbox cache in name only but Captain Gentoo & Emperor Chinstrap don't want to change it's designation

There used to be a seat with what Emperor Chinstrap thought was an interesting plaque near the listing co-ordinates that we used as the basis for the cache. However, this got fenced off meaning the writing was not visible so Emperor Chinstrap copied it out & put a laminated copy in a tube behind a fencepost at the co-ords. Alas this is now totally overgrown with brambles so the plaque with the 4 lines you need to read to work out the location of the nearby hide is now the background image of the cache page (& might need enlargement!)
But first Captain Gentoo & I must tell you about the "Pink Penguin" .

Anyone who’s met Signyred knows that he has a penchant for penguins and he swears that what follows is a strange but true story.

We are here to tell you the tale he told Captain Gentoo & I, as none of his friends would believe him. It was near the end of his first year of geocaching and we penguins think, like his wife does, that all that rummaging around in undergrowth has started to addle his brains!
Signyred told us
“It was a Saturday night and I was at “Ye Olde Saracens Head” pub having a triple celebration. It was my friend’s birthday, Liverpool had just won the Premier League and Birmingham Humanists had just recruited its 1000th member so we were obviously enjoying ourselves and had drunk a few real ales Just after 11pm it was time to leave the inn and go our separate ways but, instead of going straight home, I walked towards a nearby bus stop in order to stretch my legs and get a breath of fresh air.

It was a chill night lit by a gibbous moon and the odd patch of mist hung over the roads and fields. From across the road I smelled an unusual fishy smell and the sound that sounded like a donkey braying. I followed my nose and headed along an obvious footpath. Time lost all meaning and I haven’t the faintest idea how far I had walked before that fateful stumble and fall. One moment I was on my feet, the next I was staggering forward, having tripped over a bramble stolon. As I fell to the ground, my outstretched hands made contact with a strange pinky purple coloured box covered in twigs and moss. I brushed the top clean with three wipes of my hand and then a strange thing happened!! A bank of mist descended on me and, as it swirled all around dimming the moonlight, a huge pink penguin materialized on the path in front of me. I raised my hands to rub my eyes and he seemed to take this as a gesture of friendship because he extended a flipper. I shook it deferentially and to my amazement the penguin opened it’s beak and said “Hi there Signyred,- I’m Pete and I’m tickled pink to meet you.” I couldn’t believe my eyes & ears but I quickly regained my composure and we started to chat – as you would! It turned out that Pete was feeling a bit peckish and by good fortune I had in my pocket a pink plastic fish (I’d swopped it for a posh pink badge at a geocache I’d found earlier in the day). I pulled it out and proffered it to Pete, who let out a gentle “Cooorrrrrr”, plucked it gratefully from my hand and swallowed it whole. As it passed down into his crop I could have sworn Pete the Pink Penguin blushed an even deeper shade of red. Then, as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone and I was left standing alone. As I pinched myself to check I wasn’t dreaming, a distant church clock chimed midnight so I made my way back to my car. As I got in a sudden drowsiness came over me, so much so that I promptly fell asleep

It was dawn when I awoke. Had last night really happened? I went back to the spot where I’d found the box and where I had left it lying on the ground or so I thought, but it wasn’t there. I spent 10 or 15 minutes searching but I couldn’t find it – like so many of the geocaches I search for!! I sat on a nearby seat and got my G.P.S. out so that I could mark the spot in case I wanted to come back at a later date. If you go to the co-ordinates at the head of this page or look at the plaque shown as the background image to this page, you should be able to find some clues that will take you to the spot
Hopefully you will be luckier than I was and find it again. If you do, be sure to rub the lid three times because then, you never know, you might see Pete the Pink Penguin materialise too. Be sure to e mail me if you see him, then I’ll be able to go back to my mates and prove to them that these events really did happen and that it wasn’t all some alcohol-induced dream. To be on the safe side, I’d slip an oily fish into your pocket before you set off - a sardine or, if you’re feeling particularly generous, a fresh mackerel – just in case the Pink Penguin is still feeling peckish.”

The 4 lines of engraved writing on a plaque in the background image contain a heart-warming thought written by some apparently agnostic friends of the deceased.
Use these lines to work out the co-ordinates of the final hiding place.

The Pink Penguin was last seen at N 52 2A.BCD W 001 4E.FGH where
A = the number of letters in the name after “&”
B = the number of letters in the top line divided by 4
C = the number of letters in the last word on the sign
D = the number of letter ‘t’s minus the number of letter ‘J’s
E = the number of capital ‘M’s minus the number of lower case ‘r’s
G = the number of letters in the bottom line minus the number of letters in the line above it.
H = the number of letters in the first word on the sign
To find F you must find the mis-spelt number on the bottom line (think about it!) then double it and take this number away from the number of letters in the deceased’s surname. What you’re left with is F.

The check digit sum of the 8 figures A through to H is ONLY 19, that's only nineteen!!

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

3 sg hc va n ynetr Nyqre gerr jvgu gur bevtvany uvqvat ubyr ng gur onfr bs gur gehax. Cyrnfr ercynpr gur fgvpxbsyntr jryy.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)