Emboldened by recent successes, Team Mardya thought the time fit for our first four star cache. We chose a recently added series by Team Casco, conveniently placed in our home town. This series consisted of four traditionals and a mystery bonus cache aptly named: Kleurenblind, which translates to “Color Blind”. The traditionals were marked as fairly easy so we assumed (quite wrongly) that the bonus shouldn’t be too hard to solve either.

The KNMI had promised gorgeous weather, so today should be the day for our first four star mystery! We decided to pick all five caches in one go, and do this “Rondje De Maten” by bicycle.

“De Maten” is the largest residential area in Apeldoorn, with approximately 30,000 people. Despite its size and amount of people living here, it is still a very green area, with parks and plenty opportunities for walking and cycling.

It took us little over an hour to find the first four caches:

Blue, Red, Green and Black and we confidently calculated the coordinates of the bonus cache. (register for free at www.geocaching.com to view the links)


Train Station “De Maten”, by Gemeente Apeldoorn

So close to our goal, we set course towards the final destination where this bonus cache should easily yield to our genius! We arrived and found the location within several minutes, after which reality came visiting quite cruelly…  Remember the bonus was a mystery cache? Well, we had thought we had gathered the correct information from the first four caches, but when faced with the color coding to solve the combination for the number lock, it turned out we had overlooked a small but significant detail: color blind indeed.

Slightly disappointed but determined to solve this puzzle, we went home where we found inspiration for attempt no. 2. Wrong again! Only this time, the cache-owner was nearby and came over, rubbing his hands in glee at finding another team falling for the ingenious mystery. With his help,  we broke the code on our second try, and concluded a superb day of cycling with the find of five caches. YAY us!