NWOG's Spring Featured Cachers are JungleBus. They have been caching since 2006 and have won the Spring Cache Challenge two years running. (Someone remind me, they won the Eco Cache Challenge too, right?) In addition to finding caches faster than everyone else, JungleBus has hidden many creative and notable caches, that make caching in NorWest Ontario all the more fun. For these reasons (and just for the fact, they're plain-old-nice folks) JungleBus are NWOG's Spring Featured Cachers! (May 2009)

1. How did you get your geocaching alias?

   JungleBus is actually the title of one of our kids favourite books about a bunch of crazy animals on a bus – we thought it kind of fit our family so we decided that that would be our alias… “the Jungle Bus goes bouncing by it jogs and jerks and jumps, the drivers head bobs up and down, from hitting all those bumps...chug, chug, putt, putt, thump, thump, thump…”

2. What do you do when you're not geocaching?

   Greg is a computer programmer, running his own business out of our home, and I'm a stay at home mom to our two boys who are 2 and 4. We love to get out in the outdoors and do a lot of walking, biking, hiking and camping. We also enjoy playing sports; volleyball and tennis have been the ones we've played the most recently, but I will pretty much play anything that I can and I can usually get Greg to come out and do it with me too. Our other passion is board games – mostly the strategy kind. We have a bunch of games and like to have people over the play with us.

3. When and how did you get started geocaching?

   shroomAzoom got us into geocaching in 2006. He had taken Greg out a couple of times and then he lent us his father-in-laws GPS (before they got into caching!) so we could go out on our own. The first cache we found on our own was Magnetic View at the Marina. It was actually a fairly easy cache, and I remember the feeling of guessing where I thought it might be, and being right, it was great!! Of course not all our cache experience has been quite as easy as that. I would say we slowly got into it, but by the time we had participated in the SCC 2007 we were really hooked. After that event we started hiding our own caches and going caching anytime we went on a trip and going out more with the family. We're not really very numbers oriented though, we just want to have a fun family outing once a week or so. We do enjoy trying to pick up some FTF's, but with H-K around that hasn't been very easy lately!

4. What do you like most about geocaching?

   Two things, the first one being that going to find a cache is a good reason to go on a hike with the family, find some really neat places that we haven't seen before and have the challenge of trying to find the cache when we get there. The second part we really like is the Challenges. I love to do things that are competitive, I used to spend quite a bit of time competing at various sports, and don't get to do that too much anymore, so it's a great avenue to have a little fun competition every so often. Greg is the strategy guy – he really likes to plan out our strategy for what caches we're going to attempt and make maps and that kind of thing. Even if we didn't win, just the fun of having something where you can push yourself to do your best is great. It's also fun to be creative and try to come up with interesting caches, I think we enjoy planning our caches almost as much as participating in the event.

5. Do you have any geocaching pet-peeves?

   Hmmm, I think we would have to say a really difficult cache that has another aspect of it that makes it hard. For example a really hard micro hidden after a really long hike. Just because, if you can't get it the first time it doesn't seem easy to get back to to try again and I think we can get discouraged – granted we still have a ton of caches to find in the area, so if there are some that we don't find, I guess that is okay!

6. What do you take with you when you go caching?

   Usually just the GPS, swag (if we remember!), pencil and a printout of the cache page. And usually a stroller and diapers and juice and that kind of stuff…although pretty soon we won't be needing all that!

7. Have you introduced anyone to geocaching?

   We have introduced a few people to caching. We have a few friends who enjoy coming with us, but not enough to invest in their own GPS. The one person that we introduced that went to the SCC this year was jmwheatley – he couldn't get away from caching in the beginning since he lived with us for a couple of months, but now he seems to enjoy it on his own!

8. Which other geocacher has influenced/stands out to you the most?

   shroomAzoom and Jenn have definitely influenced us the most. We were friends before we started caching and just hearing about their excitement for caching before we got into it, and being able to have discussions about caching afterwards has helped to get us excited too. We're very impressed with the number of people that they have gotten into caching, and how they organize the Challenges and the forum, they put a lot of work into making the geocaching community excited about the sport.

9. What is the most interesting place geocaching has taken you?

   I can't think of one particular place that stands out, but I think where we appreciate it the most is when we go to Florida on vacation. My parents rent a condo there so we go back to the same place every year, and there have been lots of places that we have gone to find a cache that we never would have even known were there. We've found lots of neat little playgrounds or parks or walking trails that aren't advertised in all the tourist information.

10. What has been you most memorable geocaching find (or DNF?)

    I think our most memorable find was PUNT which was our first FTF. Not only that, jleecollins had tried to find it and not been able to, and we were very much in awe of his caching abilities, so being able to find something that he couldn't somehow made the FTF even better. I think after we found it, the coords got updated which made it a lot easier, but it seemed like we had to wander around a lot of bush to find it before that!

    As for a DNF, I would have to say John & John in our first cache challenge. We eventually did find it the second time we came back, but it was the first cache we tried to find of the SCC and had us wandering around for 45 mins or so until we gave up… no other FTF's after spending that much time! Now that we know about that type of cache they are usually a walk up and grab, we were pretty green then though.

11. Which of your hides are you the most pleased with?

    I think both Once a Year and Caught by Surprise that we put out this year. They had been on our minds to do since probably before last years cache challenge but we couldn't get them together for that one. We really have fun trying to surprise people with different types of caches.

Special Guest Interviewers Q and A asked the following…

12. When did they first get their caching superpowers? Was is something cool like being bitten by a radioactive travel bug?

    We would never reveal the source of our power…

13. I take it the "JungleBus" refers to their minivan… does that thing got a hemi? What is its top speed anyway? Who do they pay off on the force?

    You can look at the answer above for what JungleBus refers to, but I guess it definitely encompasses the van… I like to think that we're law-abiding citizens when it comes to driving.

14. Being repeat challenge champions, does Greg believe that he'll be doing a Gillette commercial anytime soon?

    He's not ready to shave off the beard quite yet for the commercial.

15. Have the Stahl brothers called them for their autographs yet?

    No! We haven't got to meet them yet… What a shame.

16. With their continual dominance in the sport, have they ever been concerned that the other jealous cachers might pool their resources and hire Hunter/Killer to "take em out"?

    Well I know how much everyone would like the glory and fame that goes along with winning the SCC, but we're hoping that they come and beat us fair and square next year, and not resort to such tactics!

17. Have they ever been in a Challenge situation where their babysitter wasn't available? And what would it take to create a situation like this?

    Actually in the SCC2007 we dragged our 6 month old baby along with us – of course we didn't win that year! I don't think I'll give out the names of our babysitters so this situation doesn't arise… Although as the kids get older I have a feeling we may have to start bringing them along to the Challenges.

18. Finally, are they planning any trips in the autumn months where they will be unavailable to cache or out of country? Say around October? If so when??? ... and would they be very disappointed if the Fall Cache Challenge just happened to fall on those dates?

    No trips planned yet – if we do have any planned I'll make sure NOT to write our date preference on the forum!!