Any fellow Geocachers here?
Geocahing is a slightly geeky version of treasure hunting where the aim is to find a hidden “cache” using either a hand held GPS receiver or iPhone/Android app, sign the log book in the cache and log it as found on the Groundspeak Project website. For those of you who do not know what geocaching is have a look at the video below taken from
www.geochaching.com. There is something like 17,000 caches in the UK alone and well over 1.3m active caches worldwide. So no doubt there a few hidden near to you.
I started caching with some friends last year but didn’t really have much free time, it wasn’t until this year i was able to pick it up again. It doesn’t sound it BUT it is properly addictive. I try and find 1-2 each evening so on average i walk 2 miles each evening which is a great way to stay fit or in my case, lose weight!. My wife and I will be in Canada next month for a couple of weeks and i have identified 112 “quick win” caches in Vancouver, Whistler, Salmon Arm and Banff. The easy one in Banff is on top of Sulphur Mountain which 7,481 feet above sea level and a 8 minute cable car ride to the top.
Due to a recent mountain biking injury to my left knee i have been walking more than cycling of late and Geocaching has helped maintain my interest. What i especially enjoy is that most of the caches in my area are hidden in areas i have never visited in the 30 years i have lived in Winchester. It is also a great activity to do with friends and children especially during the summer. This weekend myself and five others walked something like 10 miles and found 16 caches on the south coast one of which was attached to a post 100m off shore so we had to time our visit with low tide to walk out and find it.
Some caches can be as small as a pen lid, others the size of a clip lock sandwich box or ammo box. The magnetic nano caches are normally found on the back of street signs under railings in Urban areas where concealment is the key issue, the larger clip lock and ammo boxes are typically used for rural locations where the chance of being found by none geocachers or “Muggles” (a word i personally dislike) is less. You can also get static cling trackable which attach to a vehicle window and can be logged by others using its serial number.
Some ask what is the point of it, well there isn’t really a point as such apart from searching for sandwich boxes under bushes!
