Geocaching

[ladysybil]

Anyone else discovered this? would love to chat to someone about best ways to go about it with children in tow.
i only have an iphone 3g. would love to have something a bit more hightech to do it with, but one of the main attractions for me is the nil cost of the activity. well, other than ice creams etc

I discovered it the last week! I haven't done much more than download the app on my iphone. There are quite a few near me so would love top tips too.

hi there

we discovered this at the weekend. we did 5 over 2 days.

took the dc with me using my iphone too. great fun!!

we had one mishap when ds who is 7 fell in a pond,much to his brother and sisters amusement!! just his legs went in.

I was introduced to it recently by a friend while in Snowdonia and we spent a day hunting out caches round Beddgelert. It was such good fun! I think your DCs would love it - I intend to take my DS at some point.

My friend had a Garmin GPS which we couldn't have done without, TBH - you can download the position of caches onto it from the internet and then use it to locate them. But he had also printed out the details of all the local caches from the geocaching site, and those printouts gave quite a lot of detail too.

we took sting spray and plasters on second day!!

long sleeves'/trousers...thick socks and good trainers

we had printouts first day....then didnt bother and just used iphone app

boyfriend came with us on second day,using an iphone also

We found our first two today, no GPS at all just good instructions on site. Aiming to find 2 more tomorrow, one is a grade3 difficulty so maybe impossible without GPS. May put it on my Christmas list, I can see this becoming addictive!

ooo, thats good to hear. i was quite pleased with our succes with the first two, but when we coguldnt find the third one, (it was on our way home) and the iphone just wouldnt refresh, i got quite frustrated. Then, when i got home, and had a look at the official sites forums, it seems that a 3g is the poor relation.

I;m glad it was raining today, so we all had long trousers and rain jackets with us, so going into the bushes was hot, but not itchy. i discovered areas around my house i never knew existed. was great fun

i will drop the idea of the buying a gps then, as too expensive, and you all say it can be done without. but i think a compass will be a good idea.

yes, we need to take basic fisrt aid with us too. plus wipes

We've managed to get into this over the holidays and it's proving to be the best fun ever for my DC's (8 and 5). I'm using an android phone and downloaded C:geo onto it and it works really well. Spent all day yesterday scrabbling over rocks and through gorse. The scenery is spectacular too. I'm quite ashamed to say that all the cache's we've done are within 30 minutes drive of my house and we've lived here for five years and it's taken us to places we've never seen before

When we got home yesterday the DC's were straight upstairs to the computer to find the next one to do, because apparently they want to go again tomorrow.

We just take a picnic and a camera and some anti bac hand gel. Decent shoes and long trousers are recommended though.

I am bumping this because of our failure to find our first cache yesterday. I must admit that as it was clearly a popular cottaging spot (boak) I didn't dig around too much but is the container fairly obvious or buried or something?

And I was using my satnav which seemed to focus a lot on the roads even though I entered the co-ordinates from the site. If we go somewhere a bit more remote (this was a tiny park between a couple of roads) are the co-ordinates a bit more accurate?

Hi!We've done about 20 over the summer-some far more obvious than others.We have been caught out by earth caches which aren't boxes but locations(huh!)checking the details on the site clarified it after a long search.Some have been very well hidden-others up trees,in hollow logs etc.check the log for the site to see when last found.
It's really frustrating if you can't get it!We have found the level of difficulty etc a good guide.It's addictive!!Got DD doing big walks!

I discovered it early this year and I am up to 92 now. 8y DD nomally comes out caching with me, though I have done a few by muself, esp drive by ones. Katz and her two DDs enjoy it too so we often enjoy it as a trip together. Went to York and found lots in one go round the walls in the summe rholiday.

I mainly use my iPhone 3G as does Katz. I do now have a Garmin Etrx H too, a basic GPS, which DD often likes to use It is handy when the iPhone reception drops off as it is more reliable, but it doesn;t have the satelittle maps.

Just been on a reccy walk this afternoon after work ready to lay our own route out at the weekend with Katz and our girls. Hoping to lay several caches round a 2 mile route through local parks, a child friendly one.

Me and Katz hadsome help from MN this week in solving a couple of local puzzle caches so we may go and find them tomorrow afternoon :)

LadyBiscuit - caches vary

LadyBiscuit. Caches vary. We have found some that are nanos which are usually tiny magnetic caches, often they are the size of a small bolt/screw so easily disguised on metal objects. Micros are a little bigger - often like a film cannister, but there are also novety shaped ones such as snails. Then the other caches tend to be tupperware type containers which range in size. I have a selection of small tupperwares here ready to use at the weekend, plus some black round caches with screw lids. Have seen some metal caches too, bigger ones, and also different shaped caches - cylinders with screw lids, etc.

Have noticed some caches have cammo tape or or are in camo bags as well.

Did the cache details give any hint to size and type? Was it in an obvius location or not? Did you read some of the previous logs to see what they had to say?