Geocaching

A sort of modern day treasure hunt, where the treasure is rather subjective, and the real thrill comes from the find.

The object is to use some sort of Global Positioning System (GPS) device or instrument to navigate to a specific location using longatude and latitude co-ordinates. Once there, you search for and hopefully find, a hidden container ranging in size from half an 'AAA' sized battery upwards to in some cased a dustbin size. The cache container will generally contain some sort of log book/page where you can register your visit, but may also contain any number of small to large (low cost) treasures, that you can remove, add to, or exchange. You can also log onto a website (http://www.geocaching.com) and register your find there, this is nice as both you and any number of other people can follow and chart your progress.

Map You can use Google maps (from the above link) to identify the location of geocaches in your local area, or an area you want to visits. This allows you to add another twist to 'going out for a walk', and can add a significant 'interest' element to taking children along.

Another aspect of the hobby is that you and any number of your friends can organise a sort of race. You each purchace or create a race tag, and then launch them from a cache, the general object being to see who's tag travels the furthest in a fix time, or registers the most cache visits etc, the possibilities are almost endless.

I use a Garmin Oregon 300 GPS unit. At first I thought it a bit complicated, but the more I've 'played' with it the easier I find it is to use. It seems to hold the GPS signal reasonably, when not under a thick tree canopy, and seems accurate enough to get within 10 feet or so of most caches. The only accessories I added to it is a screen protection film, and some re-chargable batteries, both of them I would rate as 'must haves'.

Hopefully, you should be able to see from the image on the left that I have now visited/found 70 caches both alone and with the help of the winos group, and I have launched 2 travel bugs Trotalong in the lazy pig race, and my latest SubZero in the 'bearly thought about' race. You can see more details by clicking the links.

Update: I am due to launch another tag soon, called 'Course De Castor' for this years race...Info coming soon.