I'm No Longer a Muggle

12 August 2005

I recently bought a Garmin GPS device because I have this great plan to geotag all the photo's I take so that I know where I took them. Up until a couple of days ago though, my use of it had been limited to knowing where I am when cycling and I used it to collect a broken dishwasher (and that's another story).

Then I discovered Geocaching.

I've a feeling that this is going to be a very addictive hobby. Basically it's a high tech treasure hunt. People create a cache, normally an old ammo can or tupperware box, and fill it with a log book, pencil and usually some low value trinkets. They then hide it somewhere cunning, note down the GPS coordinates of it's location, and post them up to geocaching.com. The sport is to discover these caches, write your name in the log book, register your visit on geocaching.com, and then (if you want) swap items out of the box for other things of equal or greater value. Whilst doing this, you need to ensure that 'normal' people (or muggles in geocacher parlance) don't see what you are doing.

Last Wednesday we headed off to find our first geocache. We had great fun doing it, and Billy was really excited at the prospect of discovering hidden treasure. We found the cache in about half an hour - it was an army surplus ammo tin hidden under mossy logs. Inside were all sorts of bits and bobs. We signed, swapped a few items, and concealed the cache for the next seeker and all had a bloody good time.

I would seriously recommend this to anyone who like to walk in the country and has kids. It normally takes a bit of convincing to get out into a boggy field , but he couldn't get his wellies on quick enough when I told him we were going to hunt out hidden treasure. Beg, borrow or steal a GPS device and try it out - you will love it.

Hello. My name is Roy. I live in rural Oxfordshire.

This is my blog. I write about things that interest me, make me laugh or that I want to remember.