Geocaching

[Coolsox]

Ive been doing it for a while. Great fun! Makes you feel quite 'naughty' when your trying to retrieve a geocache sneakily so other muggles dont see you!

This was todays find


Geocache by Coolsox, on Flickr

[Lowe]

Another fan here though I've not had chance to go caching for a while.

[Coolsox]

Can be very frustrating when you go home empty handed though!

[alley cat]

I am so addicted to it now that i am out at every opportunity! A few days ago I found 7 Geocoins in one cache, couldnt believe it, non were supposed to be there, so I guess someone had been collecting them up then just dumped them maybe they didnt understand how to log them or something, or it could have been a joke as the cache had a pirate/treasure theme.
Bought a Garmin Dakota 10 GPS it is great, especially for me as it is so staight forward to use.

[Fred123]

Sounds great, I think I saw this on country file. Are they always difficult to find or get to? My 4 year old is so into "treasure" he would love this, but would have to bring the baby along so hiking up a mountain and swinging from a tree would be out of the question.

[Pussygalore]

is there anything in the containers that you find or are you just looking for the container, I also read that you are supposed to put something of a similar value inside when you have found it?. How do you know what to take along to replace the found item?.

[alley cat]

Originally Posted by Fred123

Sounds great, I think I saw this on country file. Are they always difficult to find or get to? My 4 year old is so into "treasure" he would love this, but would have to bring the baby along so hiking up a mountain and swinging from a tree would be out of the question.

There is no way that i would be hiking up a mountain or swinging from a tree! although some do! the caches are all graded for difficulty to find/terrain and often in the description there is brief info about the area and advise re if you would be best to take wellies or maybe that there could be styles or livestock so you can pick and choose which suits your ability by the attributes that are listed. This is a good hobby for families who like to walk.

Originally Posted by Pussygalore

is there anything in the containers that you find or are you just looking for the container, I also read that you are supposed to put something of a similar value inside when you have found it?. How do you know what to take along to replace the found item?.

Some containers are just very tiny, as in smaller than a marble, these are "nano" containers they would just hold a very tiny log book for you to sign and log your visit, others are big lunch box sized (and all sorts in between) these can hold little swaps mainly cheap kids toys, say a car or a yo yo all sorts of things really and you dont have to swap anything if you dont want to but if you do you should replace as you said. You need to register on the Geocaching website as linked above and create a user name so that you can log all your finds online, this is very easy, then download the ap for your phone to try it out, or in my case while I was waiting for my GPS I did a few just by the map ref, easy ones where I knew the area.

[ibizathetort]

Having tried it on the Iphone 4S it isn't that accurate it will get you to within 10m or so of the cache but from there on its guesswork, so i can only really find the caches when there is a clue included. Phones don't have a true GPS receiver yet, they still use mobile phone masts to determine positions

[alley cat]

Originally Posted by ibizathetort

Having tried it on the Iphone 4S it isn't that accurate it will get you to within 10m or so of the cache but from there on its guesswork, so i can only really find the caches when there is a clue included. Phones don't have a true GPS receiver yet, they still use mobile phone masts to determine positions

That's about how close my gps gets me too. You have to use your catchers nose after that!

[wigwamman]

right! lets get back to post 18.
can alan entertain us with his dogging exploits??????