Tuesday 6 September 2011

Our First Day Geocaching...

28 August 2011

Yesterday Sara and I went Geocaching for the first time.  We have been thinking about starting a hobby that would give us a bit of adventure, and get us out in the great out doors, and with the added bonus of leaving a gift for someone else to enjoy and signing a log, we thought we would give it a go.

We set off early in the morning, around 7:30am, and loaded our co-ordinates into our car satnav to see if we could use it to find the cache we wanted to find, and hoped that we could use it for future Geocaching.

So armed with the satnav and a few clues to help us, we set off.  We took a bag with some coffee and munchies, and some items to put in the cache and we began to walk across a large field heading for a hill towards a castle.  We knew the area roughly, as we live nearby and know how to get to the castle, so when the satnav failed to help us at all, we carried on up the hill regardless.  I was quite cheesed off at the fact it was no help to us, and thought our chances were slim at finding our first cache.





We got to the top of the hill and were met by a little dog jumping up at us and covering Sara in mud.  We waited for the dog and owner to leave before we began to look, as we did not want to give the hide position away to a Muggle (someone who is not a geocacher).  We found the cache easily after using the clue.

I did not think I would get excited about it, but it was a great feeling to find it and felt great to open it and see all the things other people had left.  Although it was just a small container, it had a log book and notes and cards from people, and a few gifts which are used to exchange (you leave an item and take an item of the same value), but we decided to take nothing and leave two items.  We left an alien and a small magnifying glass and signed the log book, and sealed up the container and put it back where we had found it.





I was sold on the idea of doing more geocaching in the future, and as we sat and drank some coffee I felt relaxed and took a few photos and thought about how great it was to share this with Sara, and share the moment and views too.




We got home and logged our find and decided to buy a proper handheld GPS as this would be great to help us in the future.  We are looking forward to doing more geocaching in the future, and can’t believe how many caches there are to find.  We are going to be very busy  :O)

Jason


29 August 2011

Jason and I went on our second geocaching trip today.  We knew we couldn’t rely totally on the car satnav, and are still waiting for the new GPS to arrive, so I had a good look at the clues on the Geocaching.com website, so I knew the approximate area in which we would find the cache, and wrote down the clue.  I didn’t tell Jase where we were heading, as I thought it would be a nice surprise for him when we actually found the place.  I have lived all my life nearby to the park where the cache was hidden, but I didn’t even know this particular place existed, so I guessed Jase didn’t either.





We set off, following the satnav in the car until we were nearer to the cache site.  Then we parked up and began our lovely walk on a path through the woods.  It was a beautiful clear morning, and we met lots of very friendly dogs and their equally friendly owners.

When Jason spotted the main area of the cache site, he was surprised.  He hadn’t been there before either.



We had to wait until the coast was clear and there were no muggles around before beginning our search.  After searching around for a while near the house, we still hadn’t found anything.  The satnav by now, was pretty useless, so we couldn’t get a lock on the exact spot.  I had looked at the photos on the cache’s page and had seen people poking around on a wall behind the house.  We looked everywhere, but couldn’t find anything.  Jase was searching high and low, while I stood on the path ‘spotting muggles’.  Eventually we gave up and decided to come back and look again once we had the proper GPS to help us.

As we started walking back to the car, I suddenly remembered the clue I had written down.  I stopped and pointed out a big tree to Jason.  We checked the coast was clear and Jase searched around for a little bit before he found it.  He nodded excitedly to me when he spotted the cache.  He grabbed it, and we took it to a nearby bench to examine it.



There were lots of little bits and pieces inside.  We signed the log book and took some badges, leaving some small toys.  Jase rehid the cache, and with big grins on our faces, we headed back to the car.

Sara

No comments:

Post a Comment