Geocaching is, (to lift a phrase straight from the website), a free real-world outdoor treasure hunt. You basically create an account at www.geocaching.com and from then on you can search for 'caches' nearby. Caches can be as small as the containers you put on a cat's collar (to put your name and address in) or as large as... well... anything you can hide, really, but the largest we've found so far has been a lunchbox approximately 7x5x3".
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| A beautiful cow we met on our travels! |
So, what is the point??! Well, caches are usually hidden in somewhere of interest or beauty. Searching for a geocache usually involves going for walks in places you wouldn't usually have gone - there are places in our area that I didn't even know existed until I discovered there was a cache there! I hate going walking - I think it's the most pointless activity known to man - but with geocaching there's a purpose and therefore I'll be quite happy walking for miles.
Once you find a cache, there'll always be a 'log' in it - a piece of paper where you put the date you found it and sign it with your user name from the website. If it's a larger cache, then there might also be 'swapables' - small toys/items (like the kind you'd get from a cracker) that are just a bit of fun, really. If you want to take something, then you also have to leave something (which means that our geocaching bag is full of random bits of tat that we've found whilst tidying the house!) When you get home, you also log your find on the website, so that the cache owner (and other geocachers) know that it's been recently found - this can be the difference between continuing to search for a cache and giving up and assuming it's been trashed! If you don't find it, then you still log it on the website because then the cache owner can make sure it's not been 'muggled' (destroyed by non-geocaching folk!) |
| 'Derica', a travel bug we're currently carrying |
'Travel bugs' are another thing that can be found in a larger cache. These are usually coins or army-style dog tags that have a unique number printed on them. The person who owns the travel bug will have registered it to their geocaching account and will then decide what they want its goal to be. Other geocachers who come across the travel bugs can take them out of the cache they were found in and move them to other geocaches that are more in the direction of their goal. Some people just want their travel bug to rack up as many miles as possible, others are racing their friends as to whose travel bug reaches a particular geocache first.
So, it's our new favourite pastime and we thoroughly recommend that you give it a go! We have discovered that gardening gloves are a must (due to the amount of time you spend delving in hedgerows). It is also vitally important(!) that you know what a dock leaf looks like (I don't, Sarah does) because certainly in the UK, you'll usually come across some stinging nettles at some point. Sarah learnt early on that you shouldn't wear shorts and you should always have your trousers tucked into your socks.
