We have recently been introduced to the fun activity of Geocaching. Easiest way to describe it is a real life treasure hunt using the GPS.  Will be trying a few when we head out on the road later in the year.  Have still got plenty of treasures to find around our home area.  It turns a normal walk into lots of fun. 

we have been geocaching for about 8 years its a great hobby, takes you to some really good places

To quote an ex-Pollie, "Please explain"!!! 

Cheers,
Sheba.

It's quite amazing Sheba.
There are little treasures (or caches) hidden all over the world. You can look up clues for each one, lock in a town ,poast code or area and the caches are listed. They all work differently. One we have done gave you GPS co-ordinates of the first clue. At this spot we searched for the clue which gave us the next co-ordinate. After 3 co-ordinates we were given the ones for the actual cache. It took us about 10 minutes at this spot searching. We found the lunchbox container hidden under the roots of an old tree and covered with bark. The container had a log book to fill in and a few trinkets. We placed 2 in and took 2 out and then replaced the container as we found it. Somebody had found it the day before and in the week before. This particular one was set up in April 2009. It's great to do with a few friends.
Obviously Wombat enjoys it if he has been doing it for 8 years. 

Google it and have a look.

Thank You,
Cheers,
Sheba.

and once you find a cache you go online to http://www.geocaching.com/ and log your find

Thanks for the add on Wombat. Didn't want to get too complicated or long winded  .

We have been geocaching for a few years now.

My wife loves walking, I think a long walk is from the bedroom to the bathroom.

I love gadgets, electronics, etc.

My wife thinks they are mens toys.

Her idea, not mine.  Combine the two and you have geocaching fanatics.

We take our gear everywhere we travel, lots of very unusual and interesting places to be found, especially overseas. (Last four trips we have really got into that, taking lots of little Australian knick knacks to leave.)

Makes travelling and walking real fun (Did I really say that?)

Give it a try.

Dusty

A geocache was hidden near here.



-- Edited by Landfall on Monday 31st of January 2011 08:44:57 PM

Yep, we are also geocaching addicts.  All I do is tell a few friends we are going and they are banging the door down to come along.  We make sure we have a picnic lunch and afternoon tea with thermos etc, we use walkie talkings when we have a convey and have great fun with that.  Cemetaries are great history lessions too.                     We have a friend who travels to Japan for work, and because cars are not an option, he travels by train, and has to work out his route before he leaves.  Can you imagine though, everything is written in japanese.       Now that's tough.  Cheers

what sort of hand held gps do you think would be best for this,, i have thought of doing this as i know have to walk regularly after my heart attack and thouht this would make it interesting as i know that there are a fair few hidden around here, (noarlunga SA) tony

I use a Megellan Gold, great unit, have a look at hese sites for more info

http://www.magellangps.com/

http://geocaching.com.au/

http://www.geocaching.com/

Never heard of this before.  Sounds like a great deal of fun.  Rob and I will have to give that one a try.

I have a Garmin 1490T and can imput co-ords and use that, if you have a postable GPS on dash type and you can input co-ords then why not make use of that unit, instead of buying a really good one.

We have just bought a Garmin nuvi 3760 which we can use in the car or walking. Seems to be doing the job.

Garmin are good, did you know you can purchase from Camp 5 site all of the camp sites listed to put into your GPS, $19.95

We use a Garmin 60CSx Fabulous unit, can be loaded with road maps and we also have marine charts for all of Australia loaded, use it as a backup with laptop on yacht. The photo in the previous reply was taken in Singapore botanical gardens. Your not wrong "Enterprize" The last three years we have been taking some holidays in Asia. Looking for geocaches and following Chinese signs, while manipulating public transport, taxis and of course in some cases walking from the hotelopens a whole new world of puzzles. Plus the added complication of trying to look casual while foraging in the gardens, statues, monuments, etc. Great fun. Dusty

Would this be possible using a Tom-tom? Its sounds fascinating.

Gerty Dancer wrote:

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Would this be possible using a Tom-tom? Its sounds fascinating.

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Hi GD,

it depends on what unit you have, your do need the option to input co-ords to the GPS, what model tom tom do you have?

 

Our son-in-law has recently found geocaching and has had a great time.  He has also got the family involve in it and they go out most weekends.
Barb

Hi All
I have also just started geocaching and I am having a ball hunting for them around where I live and also have just got back from a holiday in Hastings point where I cached and found there.I have a bottom of the range garmin etrek very basic GPS handheld but still does the job as time goes on I will probably upgrade later.
urs excited_newbies
Chris

Our daughter had searched for a cache near her house 3 times. Last weekend in Mildura, they had a geocaching get- together, so she asked for a clue.
She was very pleased to report that she had finally found it, hanging from a hook in the tree she had searched each time before. The container was covered in fake grass so it blended into the leaves. When she opened the container, she got the fright of her life.
The last finder had left a plastic spider on the top. She made sure that the spider was again in place when she replaced the container.

Geocaching is great fun, you would be surprised how many places it take you to that you would not have known about if you did not do geocaching.

I think, several years ago, we found one of these caches "somewhere inthe Flinders Ranges" when we were totally NOT LOOKING, in fact, have only in the past few months heard about geocaching.

If you think that a small tin box, containing trinketss from pegs to plastic dinosaurs under a salt bush somewhere in the Flinders Ranges may well be a cache, let me know, I will tell your of it's wheraabouts..... maybee...

Why a plastic dinosaur - cos that is what we left.

Hi Everyone,
I am interested too.....just trying to work out how to do it......
Cheers Sharon