We spent this morning geocaching in a nearby town.
“Geo-whatting?” did you ask?
Geocaching. It was first described to me as an online treasure hunt but that isn’t accurate. It’s true that can find a list of caches online on the official Geocaching website but there’s much more to it than that.
Sign up for free (there is a premium membership as well if you want to pay for that but you definitely don’t have to). Then download GPS coordinates for the caches you want to find.
And go out and find them.
So rather than an online treasure hunt, it’s a real world treasure hunt.
Sounds easy, right? Well, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. Caches range in size, terrain and difficulty.
Once you find one, there is usually a log to sign. There may be small items left by other cachers for exchange. We leave a dinosaur sticker but rarely take anything.
And don’t forget to complete the online log as well.
There might also be “trackables” that can be moved from cache to cache and their movements are logged online.
Don’t be discouraged if it sounds a bit confusing. Sign up, find one near you and have a go.
We also use a smartphone app, c:geo, which is free to download and will find caches and and act as a GPS too. Then you can log your find on the app, or wait til you get home to your computer.
One of the things that we really like is that it takes us to places and bits of history and information that we might not have found otherwise.
Even in our local area we learn something each time we go. Today we were led to this memorial to underground miners who were killed at work.
And to this mining machinery display at the Blackwater International Coal Centre. We didn’t find the cache here. We’ll have to go back.
Are you already a geocacher? What’s your favourite find? Mine is a cleverly hidden one within walking distance of home. It took us 3 goes to find it.
Not signed up yet? Give it a try and let me know how you go. And “cache” us if you can. We have 42 finds logged so far.
Only several million to go!
flying goannas 
I’ve always wanted to do geocaching! Im going to look at the site you mentioned and see if there’s any near me!
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Georgie I’m sure there’ll be many. I’d love to hear about the ones you find if you do sign up.
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Sounds like fun. I’ll look into it and let you know if I manage to find anything too. 🙂
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I love geocaching and I love how it combines with my other great interest of being outdoors. But my favourite ever caches were a series of six by a Hong Kong genius cacher themed on the five senses, (plus geosense as the sixth in the set). The guy had made fortune cookies with the final coordinated hidden on the paper inside (taste), hidden a box of mystery scents (smell), rigged up a two-person-required touch-triggered vibration system (touch), installed a fake CCTV camera with a small screen (sight), and somehow got a radio broadcast constantly broadcasting in a specific area (sound). I solved them over three visits and felt giddy with childish amazement at the skill and time put into creating them.
I’ve recently hidden my first couple, nothing as well-designed as his but hopefully I can aspire to that!
(If you’re in Hong Kong you can find them using the GC codes: GC57JV2, GC5QGZE, GC5QGZQ, GC5QH01, GC5QH07, GC5XXQ5.)
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Wow! What an amazing series of caches. No wonder you were excited to solve them. We’ve only been to Hong Kong once and were saying just the other day that we may not have got the best out of it. We’ll definitely have a look at these if we head back that way. Thanks for the tip.
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