In the morning at 7:30 I was woken up by a call from the courier driver of PPL on my phone, and before I could get the phone out of my jacket, which was in the next room, it stopped ringing. Including this one, I had 2 missed calls from the driver and one text message saying he was bringing me a parcel and that I should get in touch.
So I called back right away and found out he would be here between 9 and 10 a.m. After that I was looking forward to it so much that I couldn’t really do anything and thought about nothing else.
Once 9 o’clock had passed, I started looking out of every window in the house. With every minute I sank deeper into sadness that he still wasn’t here. Of course I had everything ready, above all the money down to the exact crown, because I had been told that he had no small change on him and couldn’t give me any change. I don’t even remember why I went outside, whether it was because I heard him (more likely).
And just then he arrived, exactly at 10:30. I paid and went home. I started unpacking this beauty. The package contained everything listed on the label on the box: a lanyard, a USB data cable, a detailed user manual in Czech, a CD with Czech Topo PRO maps, a 2GB memory card with the same map, only ready to use in the GPS right away, and finally the GPS unit itself.
On top of that there was a manual on CD, a quick start guide in 6 languages, an “Important Safety and Product Information” booklet in many languages, and a few “Specialized maps” leaflets. Since I had already gone to Tesco yesterday to buy batteries, namely 4x 1300mAh NiMH Tesco batteries and 2x 2100mAh Varta batteries, I tried putting them in, but I didn’t check which way the batteries were supposed to go. I only looked at one side and assumed it would be the same on both sides, but it wasn’t. It had been a long time since I had anything that ran on AA batteries.
I was already wondering whether the GPS still worked. I wrote to Martin about it, and he just told me that if I had put them in the wrong way, I wouldn’t have been able to get them in at all. Well, I not only got them in, I also pulled them out again without any trouble. Now I’m glad nothing happened to the GPS, because an idiot like me is capable of wrecking a brand new thing worth CZK 6,500 (even though I only paid CZK 5,000 for it thanks to a discount from GPS centrum) :/.
Right after the display lit up and I breathed a sigh of relief, I showed it to Mom and to my sister, who was just emptying something into the trash can. Mom didn’t say anything about it, only that Dad shouldn’t see it, and my sister said “like it’s made for dummies”. Dad then came back from town right afterwards, so I put everything in a plastic bag and took it downstairs.
Next, of course, came checking whether the GPS could get a fix on my position and whether its GPS receiver was working properly, so I went outside. Contrary to what the manual said, namely that the first fix could take up to several minutes (I don’t know why), it locked on almost instantly. After that I just borrowed my father’s bike once and rode out to find a few geocaches.
With this GPS, 2 caches were successfully found, while with 2 others I wasn’t so successful. Since then I have also hunted GC1WA8V – Okoli Tesina – Povodnovy potok with it, but I wasn’t very successful there either, as it is rated D/T 4/4 and comes without any hint at all, plus 4 more caches, of which I succeeded in 2 cases.
And then came a big geocaching trip with Martin, where we found a whole 7 caches, but that will be the subject of a separate article! And now, after this exhaustive description of all the caches I did and didn’t find, here are a few more photos of the Garmin Dakota 20 along with captions:
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