Geocaching, What's It All About?

Geocaching is something that I have heard of, I've seen many of my friends mentioning it on their social media profiles but it wasn't until last weekend that my husband looked up exactly what it was :

Geocaching is an outdoor activity in which the participants use a GPS receiver or mobile device to hide and seek containers which are called geocaches or caches, these can be found all around the world.

In simple terms it is like a real life treasure hunt.

Where to start?

First of all sign yourself up to geocaching.com. Here you can log your finds, let people know if maintenance is needed on a certain geocache and chat with other community members.

Which app should I use?

There are quite few apps available to help you on your geocaching quest. We used c:geo for android purely because it was free but there are other apps available such as CacheSense and the official app Geocaching.

What are we looking for??

A typical geocache is a waterproof container which typically contains a logbook. Not all geocaches are the same, some are small, some are large. Some geocachers like to leave other things in the containers for trading such as small toys or trinkets.
What to do once you've found a geocache?

Once you've found a geocache, you sign the logbook with the date you found it and the profile name which you signed up with on geocaching.com. Once you have signed the log, you must place the container back exactly where you found it ready for the next geocacher to find.

Time to explore

We were surprised at how many geocaches there were to be found locally. We decided to look for a couple that were closest to our home. Our first destination, Crabble Rugby ground. So off we set with our wellies on, ready to search.

      

If you want to make finding the geocache a little easier, you can read some clues online, the one we were trying to find first said "6 foot up a tree", well there were a lot of trees!!!

      

 We weren't successful in finding the first geocache, so we decided to change locations and try again elsewhere. This time we moved onto the Western Heights. We struggled even more here because our phone struggled to pick up a GPS signal. In the end we had to give up but we walked around making the most of being outdoors.

 

Even though we didn't find any geocaches, we weren't disappointed. It was a fun day out and even better, it was FREE!!!! All the kids had a great time, mini detectives in the making!!

I'm happy to report that we did have success in the end. We decided to go back to Crabble Rugby Ground the next day and after a little bit more searching we found the geocache hidden inside one of the trees, turns out we had been in the right area all along, just need to keep going that little bit longer.

I think this is something we will be doing a lot over the Summer months, great way to get outdoors and find new areas to visit in the process.

xxxx