What is this geocaching thing anyway? I’ve looked hard to find a neat and clear explanation that really describes the fun of the chase, but ‘Treasure hunting for the 21st century’, and ‘Techno-hiking’ don’t really do it for me. Here’s one from Wise Geek that is not too bad:
‘Geocaching involves two separate parties, which are composed either of individuals or groups. One party hides a cache anywhere in the world and records the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates using a portable
Hmmm…still didn’t really grab me. This is a better description from Whatis.com :
‘Here’s one typical geocache hunt: The geographic coordinates of a geocache were described on a Web site, which the users followed to the cache. The geocache consisted of a plastic Tupperware box containing a little notebook, a disposable camera, a printed informational sheet about the location, and several trinkets (a pen, postage stamps, a rubber ball, and a local postcard). The finders were encouraged to write a short note in the notebook, including the weather that day, who was involved on the hunt, whether the cache was easy or hard to find, and any other information they wanted to include. One finder took out the rubber ball and left a little toy car in its place. The finder left a photo of her husband and son in the camera and then placed everything back in the box and rehid it for future geocachers to find. Back home, the finders sent a note to the Web site describing their experience.’
That is pretty much what it is about, but since I spent several hours trying to find an explanation and still haven’t found one that might really catch your interest, I thought it may be better to just walk you through a day’s cache hunting, which is what I will do this week.
Getting started with Geocaching
I mentioned Geocaching.com yesterday, and if you haven’t gone there and registered for a free account, do that now. Take some time to look at the Getting Started page.
The co-ordinates of hundreds of thousands of caches worldwide, are listed here. Click on Hide and Seek a Cache on the menu bar and it will take you here:
Click on Zip Code and insert your postal code, then underneath that put 10 (miles radius). This will bring up a list of all the caches within 10 miles of your home. I live out in the country near Havelock which is pretty rural. There are over 350 caches within a 20 mile radius of town.
Take a look at the individual listings for a few of the caches. Typically they will show how easy or challenging it will be to find; may give some indication of the general location; and may have a clue to help you out.
Now, you may be wondering how you can find these things given only the latitude and longitude of the location. Well, as with many outdoor activities, you will need some equipment, and in this case it is a GPS (Global Positioning System) unit. You might be familiar with the larger -and more expensive- units used in vehicles. GPS for outdoor activities are suprisingly inexpensive. Tomorrow I will review some of the more popular ones that make geocaching a really fun experience.
