Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS-enabled devices. Participants navigate to a specific set of GPS coordinates and then attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location.
Heard of it? A student told me about it - vaguely - last year, and I mused on it and parked it.
We've had friends stay for half term who are new cache-ers. The rain didn't show on Thursday, so we signed up too and went caching! You have to be signed up, else you're a muggle, but it costs nothing and it's curiously addictive. And what's more, it gets you outside, exploring new places. For free! Hurrah!
I wont say where, but with the help of the app on our phones (the most basic version of which is free), GPS and some stealth, we found two... It wont be long until our kids can really help us too, rather than just join us on the adventure.
There are rules for geocaching: It's quite secretive and has to be undertaken somewhat covertly. You don't go telling the non-cachers (muggles) too much. You can make and register your own caches to hide, and you can take items from caches so long as you replace that with something of equal or higher value. You record your find, and log it.
I waddled about and looked at things I'd seen before from a completely different perspective. I found a cache and it was exhilarating. And I finally saw my first snowdrops of 2014.
Good, clean, free fun.
