Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Other subjects
Original poster

Geocachers! Sign in here.

55 replies

DoesntTheTurkeyDragOn · 02/01/2010 08:44

I see from the Children's Walks thread that there are a few of you. I've been caching for a year now - thanks to a recommendation on Mumsnet. It started as a way to get my lazy children out and about but has now taken over my life - the children have been sidelined!

I am HouseOfDragons, of course

OP posts:
MrsGokWantsatidyhouse · 02/01/2010 19:23

Well DH is getting really excited about it. He's joined the site and has been reading everything he can about it. Has been looking to see if he can do one tomorrow with the DC.

halster · 02/01/2010 22:04

Heard about it on the other thread and actually found our first two caches today! Brilliant. DD begging to be allowed to go and find more tomorrow. Even more brilliant.

SoupDragon · 03/01/2010 14:46

I had 3 lined up for today after DSs rugby was cancelled. DD refused to get dressed, wailing "I'm not very well!" until I snapped at her that if she was so ill she could go back to bed. She did and was asleep for 4 hours

SolidGoldBloodyJanuaryUrgh · 03/01/2010 14:49

Are there places where you can borrow/hire the necessary technical equipment? As I fany giving this a go but the household budget cannot, actually, manage a stray £40+ on something we might not like.

SoupDragon · 03/01/2010 15:03

Do you have a SatNav, iPhone or similar? Failing that, you can find easier ones using Google Earth (copy the coordinates from the cache listing page and paste them into the GEarth search box), any hint on the page and common sense.

SolidGoldBloodyJanuaryUrgh · 03/01/2010 18:16

Ooh, will have to try it that way, then if it works out, will save up and/or see about sourcing a second hand one somewhere. (My phone is not that fancy and we are car-free so no satnav).

MrsGokWantsatidyhouse · 03/01/2010 18:30

DH and the 3 DC's found their first three today and were very happy and all are looking forward to finding some more.

HallelujahHeisBorntoMary · 03/01/2010 18:39

I looked up local ones, discovered there is one in our local churchyard - mentioned it to vicar, they asked his permission to leave it there (and no, he wouldn't say where it was!). Might try to find it one w/e when DH isn't using his satnav!

SoupDragon · 03/01/2010 20:53

If you go here you can download an overlay for Google Earth which displays the Ordnance Survey may for the area you're looking at in Google Earth. This may be helpful in finding caches without a GPSr.

MrsGokWantsatidyhouse · 04/01/2010 20:50

Soupy, DH says thanks for the link, he'll find it really useful.

wychbold · 04/01/2010 21:07

I tried loking at the geocaching website the other day but it didn't seem to work. I tried finding a site near me but it kept insisting that any B postcode (i.e. Birmingham, the second biggest city in the UK!) was either Douglas IOM or St Helier, Jersey.
What am I doing wrong?

lucyellensmumagain · 04/01/2010 22:10

i found my first geocache today!!!! i went on a search yesterday and coudlnt find it - nearly ended up stranded in the snow! Went to the woods, no snow - by the time we returned - snow snow snow and roads like an ice rink!

found todays one because it was easy, local to us and i looked it up on google earth - yesterday tried with sat nav but it was pants, it just kept giving us stupid results, one minute it was saying we were right on top of it, then it said we were three miles away!

how do the gps work - do they just show where you are - or do they give you a route?

lucyellensmumagain · 04/01/2010 22:13

how much are the GPS too?

My DP is intrigued but was worried that we looked suspicious snooping at the end of peoples gardens today, the cache was hidden behind someones fence!! must have been the home owners surely?

BadPoet · 05/01/2010 11:12

We are going to start doing this, very excited about it! I have 2 dcs who are 6 & 3 and we definitely need something to motivate us to get out and about. I think we'll start using DH's iphone and see how we go - having looked at the geocaching.com site and the Google maps overlay there seem to be a few in our area and the place we usually go on holiday as well.

My parents are also very keen but a bit technically clueless so I was wondering if it would be possible to sign up to the website as a team name and share the info? Do you all log in and report when you've found a cache or can you just use the clues, find it and sign the log but not update online? Although I suppose they'll need a GPS of some sort.

DH & I watched a video online called 'Geocaching for beginners' or something but it was more 'some people who are quite obsessed about Geocaching' . Is there a genuine starters 'how to' anywhere? DO you all print the page off the website before you go or just use the GPS?

Sorry for all the questions!

Ingles2 · 05/01/2010 11:17

signing in...
we only saw this on the walking thread last week...
DH has examined the geocache website and there are loads hidden near us, so we've got our iphone app and we're going to give it a go at the weekend
am strangely excited

SoupDragon · 05/01/2010 11:59

Wychbold, the postcode thing can be temperamental - try finding your house on Google Earth and looking in the bottom left hand corner which will give you the coordinates of where your mouse pointer is. thens earch with these (you may need to change the format to "degrees/decimal minutes" using Tools, Options, Show Lat/Long on Google Earth. This will then match Geocaching.com's standard. then you can search for these coordinates rather than by postcode.

Lucyellensetc GPSr units can cost as little as £40 for a bog standard basic one. A GPSr will give you an arrow to follow - kind of like a compass but it points to where you want to go IYSWIM. It's amazing how unsuspicious you look really - especially of you have children. If stopped, just explain - I tend to laugh and say I'm doing a treasure hunt. If the person (they're called Muggles ) is interested, I explain geocaching in more detail.

BadPoet You can just have a team name and share it. If you think you may split into separate teams later though, it may be best to set up 2 teams from the start - you could always handle the technical side of it if your parents struggle - it's really quite simple though. It's always nice to log your finds online because the person who hid the cache (cache owner) gets an email of your log. It's always good to hear that people are finding them

BadPoet · 05/01/2010 13:23

Thank you SoupDragon. I am happy to do the website stuff for my parents and I suppose it doesn't matter if there's a delay - have visions of them getting really into it and going on holiday and doing about 50 . I can see it must be nice to know your cache has been found, we'd like to hide a cache too but would rather find some first.

Good tip about setting up two teams. I think we should otherwise it could be tricky to do the same ones which we almost certainly will.

We hope to start next weekend - there's one under half a mile from my house.

SoupDragon · 05/01/2010 13:50

I love it when a "found" email pops up in my mailbox. Some of my hides I've taken a lot of time and effort over so I am desperate for good feedback!

nannynick · 05/01/2010 18:14

There seem to be several different sites which list geocache locations.

Via opencaching.org.uk I have found that a local hill near work has several boxes hidden, so will be good for the children to find at half-term.

Another site which lists some geocache locations is www.navicache.com

Are there others?

So far I have found 2 micro, 1 regular and have failed to find 1 small (which was meant to be a quick Dash&Cache, easy to find).

GPS wise I am trying out various software for my Nokia E71 phone (Symbian v3). ViewRanger looks promising, though the OS maps do cost (seems best value to pay for a token pack and download on a per-tile as needed basis). Demo version allows you to download two tiles for free, so you can test it out.

Does anyone use the Nokia E71 for Geocaching? What software do you find useful? Particularly interested in software that does not need an active 3G connection at the time of looking for a Geocache, as 3G connection in the UK countryside is rather patchy I find (3 Mobile).

nannynick · 05/01/2010 18:49

Anyone got any idea how you work out the following kind of thing, when using a GPS unit which won't let you project a waypoint.

"the cache is 312 feet on a bearing of 17 degrees East of North from the pole"
The coordinates are give for 'the pole'

Any ideas? Can it be done using Google Earth perhaps?

SoupDragon · 05/01/2010 20:03

There's terracaching too I think. None other than geocachs near me though.

No idea about your bearing question. I would have thought you could do it in google earth maybe but I don't know. Children are bogging the pc and I'm reduced to MNing on my iPhone so can't check!

Well done on your finds so far

BadPoet · 09/01/2010 15:47

We found our 1st cache today!

It was on the beach near where we live. We didn't use the iPhone really because we'd printed off all the clues which included a photo of the location and we found it from that. Luckily it was near the path beside the beach because the sand was covered in ice and really difficult to walk across. We know the area really well though and wouldn't have ventured far.

We got a little koala bear, and a fire engine eraser, (dd and ds are both thrilled) and a Geocoin AND a Boba Fett travel bug thing! So all in all a v successful first cache. About to sign in to see what we do next with the trackable items. So exciting!

In other news, my mum's getting a GPS for my dad's birthday. I've ordered a Garmin Geko 201 for her - the budget was right and I was going to ask here first, but there were only 2 in stock on Amazon. The reviews were good - anyone used one?

CatOfOneTail · 17/01/2010 20:19

We found our first cache three weekends ago, thanks to the other thread on mumsnet. We now have a GPS and have spent more time out in the open air over the past few weeks than we have done for ages. If only my children were still children! Told a friend about it too and she's obsessed with making sure no muggles spot the caches, she spends ages covering them up with leaves.

golgi · 23/01/2010 16:59

Got our first one today! We walked right past it on unsuccessful hunt a couple of weeks ago, but now we have GPS so it was really easy.

Had an email from Geocache site last week saying "notice you haven't found any yet" - felt like replying saying "yes, but we've been under a foot of snow for a month!"

thegrowlygus · 31/01/2010 12:58

YAY! Finally found one of the buggers. Both boys very excited that we found "treasure" (although more impressed with the collection of feathers etc in there than the geocoin!)

So now we have a geocoin that we need to place in another one. So we HAVE to find another one...!

Swipe left for the next trending thread