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The Medoramas Clan decided to have a little go with Geocatching.
It was misty, windy and drizzly on Saturday. Not an ideal weather to go out for a family walk. But - hey - just one "catch", nearby...
And that was it! The rest of the Saturday and whole Sunday we were wandering around our local bridleways and footpaths, crossing the fields, mile after mile in "full on English Summer"!
Few days before I was thinking what a shame that there is such a big network of paths and tracks around, that the wife and our daughter would not discover, as it was not their thing to walk on the tracks that are not particularly tourists attractions... And suddenly my good old OS Map is not just my own anymore! 😆
Have you tried it?
I gave it a crack and decided it was one of the oddest and most contrived activities I've had a go at. Dumbed down orienteering followed by a desperate scrabble in some brambles to find a tupperware with a damp notebook and a toy car in it.
After finding a couple I decided to just go for a walk instead.
Each to their own though.
I thought you had invented some new sporting activity like humane fox hunting but with GPS tracking devices.
We have given geocaching a go with the kids but the quality varies massively and a run of missing ones and ridiculously difficult ones soon sapped their enthusiasm. It is still a good way to liven up dog walks for the kids though and the free apps are pretty good.
Haven't yet tried it with the kids, should do it soon
Did a fair bit of it a few years ago (paperless caching with pocket PC based phone and garmin gps), now much easier with an iPhone or similar
Geocaching is indeed mighty addictive - fun to do on bike as well as off the bike.
I'm "going for my comma" this year - geeky Geocacher speak for finding a 1,000 different caches. Over the 500 now and on track - I'm having to travel a bit now - some good training bike rides!
Any other Geocachers on here?
TM
Over the 500 now and on track
I've got something like... 15... 🙄
The number is irrelevant - its the fun you have that's important.
There are guys in the USA who find 60 a day, every day. Their total finds totals are well over 25,000.
I'd take a super afternoon out with my family wandering around the woods playing about and eventually finding one geocache to that any day.....
TM
I've got something like... 15..
I'm at a similar level, I'd have to check.
I enjoy it, just don't get out as much as I'd like any more. It's basically a treasure hunt, what's not to like?
Um...
I have eight. 😳 Two of which no longer exist.
thought about it but is it a challenge?
After all, you have the gps location of it so you are not going to that far out when you get there!
[b]mrchrispy[/b] The catches come in different difficulty levels. We were aiming for "easy" ones, to let our 6 year old girl enjoy finding them.
But we tried one "Mystery" one, it was nearby. The GPS only took us to the graveyard, where we had to find specific graves, then there was some formula given to get further location clues using some letters from the names shown on the gravestones... We gave up after about 30 minutes 😆
Challenge?
There are some hides that have taken me 4 or 5 revisits to actually find. Extremely satisfying when you crack it!
There's also a terrain rating - if you seek out the caches with high ratings then finding yourself 150m down a 4 ft drainage pipe can occur. Or 80ft up a tree 🙂
TM
What app do you guys use?
Also, Microcaches are... challenging to spot.
I use C:Geo, which is [url= http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=291453 ]controversial[/url].
C:Geo all the way.
Nanocaches are typically cylinders less than the size of a 5p and about 10mm long. They can attach using a little internal magnet to anything. Can be evil to find!
TM
we bought a work colleague a gps for a leaving pressie, he found geo caching addictive and lost several stones in weight, healthier lifestyle and thoroughly addicted.
me and my daughter had a go about 3 weeks ago and found it such a blast, completely fun. She's 10. Its perfect to combine a walk in the woods/fields with a bit of treasure hunting, she loves taking something to swap for larger cache's and In love the fact its getting her outdoors into the fields/woods. So far we're newbies, novices and I've chosen groups of caches on walks / areas I sort of know. I've chosen circular country routes and it just been ace. We've managed to find most but not all of them so far, only a few we couldnt locate. I commend it to the house.
Me and mrs njee20 have done it a couple of times. First one was a nice circular walk where we found each of the 7 or so, all nicely hidden, but findable.
Second time we went onto the Surrey Hills, and despite having the smart phone app and a Garmin we found I think 1 of the 6 or so we looked for. A couple had photo clues, one of which was a manhole cover, found the exact manhole, but no caches. Dunno if they'd just gone, but it was a bit lame. The one we did find was absolutely tiny anyway.
Yep geocacher here, upto over 5000 finds now and been going for a few years, even have a tattoo of a TB around my wrist (cachers will know what that is). For me I love the challenging ones so have rowed a mile give or take into a disused canal tunnel, climbed up enormous trees to get them at the top. I also love getting them in cities I've never been to, for example last year I went to hamburg and walked up about a 600 step spire to get a cache at the top and experience the 360 view the spire had. Love it!
Mystery caches take a bit of practice and can be fiddly, but worth persevering with to get that feeling of finding the super secret 🙂
Oh and check out night caches - reflective markers in the trees to follow at night. Excellent fun!
TM
signed up near the start years ago
almost at 100 i think
used to just have a look every so often to explore a new area
ought to have another go
Can be very useful if you're going to a country/area you don't know very well as the locals will often set the cache in a particularly scenic and/or interesting location.
We were very excited to do it on our holiday in France in August. But we didn't realise all the catches there are in French... Despite knowing 3 languages - French is none of them 😕
Kids like it and so do I, interesting and diverting for an afternoon,like @scotroutes says usually in scenic or interesting places.
FWIW, there's no "t" in geocache.
We used to do them as much for getting 'local knowledge' walks away from the normal M25 paths and things. We stopped a while ago. It was however, a bit of fun and even if we never found all the caches, we went on some splendid walks!
I've had a dabble...
[url= http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCKXEC_the-geographical-centre-of-wales?guid=cf9e8982-d780-4896-a2a4-33c3b10c1d5e ]The Centre of Wales[/url]