Right, I researched the site geocaching.com and I found 3 caches were hidden in a park near me. I entered the co-ordinates into my GPS. I tried the instant download programs but neither of them would work with my Binatone. I may have to research that further, but putting the co-ordinates manually wasn't too taxing. I made a few notes on where the caches could be found, i.e, two were hidden in trees (1 high, 1 low) and one on the ground. Then just for a back-up I did the same for a cache hidden at a local railway station. This was described as a Cache and Dash so should be easy to find.

So off we went to the park....and down came the rain. Still, nothing was going to stop us now! At least the park was pretty empty (it's normally really busy). To keep the cache's safe you are supposed to be wary of other people around (mugglers) and be stealthy. I think we need to practice that a little more. So GPS in hand off we trotted following a little pin on the screen. There was also a flag on the screen but we decided it was the pin we needed to find....mmmm, its' good to know your equipment, we later found out it was the flag. Anyway, we got pretty close to two of the caches but just couldn't find them. A little further research when we got home made us realise that the one was very close to where we were looking but we on the wrong side of the path. The other one we can't understand why we didn't find it and the third, well we just couldnt' get close, I must have got the co-ordinates wrong. So we learnt a lesson, research, research, research. You think it would be easy to locate a particular tree in a park if you had the co-ordinates, well, think again. The rain got worse and I'm sad to say we gave up in the park. That's nothing to be ashamed of, a lot of caches take more than one visit to find (maybe not 1/1 caches but hey, we are newbies at this)

So, I decided we should try the station. From my research I knew it was in the carpark, by something yellow. I also knew which part of the massively huge carpark we needed to head to. It was in this car park that we realised it was the flag we had to follow, doh! A quick search of the area and whoo hoo! I found a magnetic key box. I opened it and there inside was an official geocache log sheet. I signed it with my username and the date and jotted down that it was my very first find. Then I hid it again. It sounds a little crazy now but it was very exciting at the time. Back home I logged my find on the site. Now I really have the bug and I'm sure it won't be long before I'm off out looking for my next find.


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1 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    Hi, fun reading your first adventure as my family have just started Geocaching ourselves. We've noticed that the more we find the better we get at seeking them out but we still have to use the hints to help us. We too get very excited when we find them and I have a habit of shouting out "FOUND IT", must stop doing that as the mugglers will hear me ;)

    Good luck with the new site and hope you continue to find lots more caches.

  1. ... on 25 August 2009 at 06:22