Treasure Hunting for Geeks
July 9th, 2009 by Phill Watson
Found it!
This lunchtime Simon C and I went ‘Geocaching’
If you’ve never heard of it before, the idea is simple; some people go out into the world and hide stuff and then other people using handheld GPS receivers go out and try and find it.
Basically Geocaching utilises billion dollar military satellites to look for Tupperware boxes hidden in woods, parks etc.
Using a handheld GPS, you key in the latitude and longitude coordinates of a geocache and then just follow the arrow. A GPS is accurate to just a few feet but once you arrive at the location the fun of the game is putting yourself in the mindset of the hider. Some geocaches can be very hard to find, as obviously they don’t want to be found by random, non-geocaching people. Non-cachers are called Muggles, (a term borrowed from the Harry Potter books where a ‘muggle’ is a non-magical person) if a cache is discovered and destroyed by non-cachers it is said to have been ‘muggled’
All caches will contain a log book for you to sign to say that you’ve successfully found it and depending on the size of the cache will typically contain small prizes, nik-knacks etc. The etiquette of geocaching is that if you remove an item from the cache then you should replace it with something of equal or greater value, that way there is always a treat for someone else to find!
If you visit www.geocaching.com enter your postcode, you’ll be amazed at just how many geocaches will be hidden in your area. There are currently 844,397 active geocaches spread all over the world. Caches range from the smallest, known as micro-caches to very large ex-army 50 caliber ammo crates that can contain lots of goodies.
