Geocaching ticks many common New Year's Resolutions!

[This blog entry is based loosely on an article I read in FTF Geocacher magazine submitted by Podcacher. It is entirely my wording, however, and I have put my own twist on it.]

After recovering from copious amounts of alcohol consumption, and having put away the Christmas decorations for another year, people all over the world start to view a new year as a fresh start. A time to set personal goals and improve their lives somehow. "Let's make this year better than the last!" 1st January is the optimum time for these so-called "New Year's Resolutions", and whilst some scorn the idea of making them, they tend to be beneficial if they are adhered to and last beyond January!

So here are some of the most common things people want to do to self-improve:

Take up a new hobby

Become healthy

Be more organised

Live life to the full

Spend less money

Travel more

Now these are the things that I have heard and read people saying that they would like to do more of in the new year. If you are interested in just one of these, geocaching can help. If you want to develop all six, geocaching is definitely right for you! Read on...

Take up a new hobby:

Geocaching is a hobby that quite a lot of people still have never even heard of, let alone tried. It really is a hobby that anyone can have a go at - children, retirees, families, couples, friends, anyone! Male or female, fit or fat. With just a smart phone app or a GPS device you could be out there hunting geocaches in minutes. The geocaching community is extremely varied and very friendly. And everyone's idea of a good cache is different. The urban commuter can find nanos on railings, the outdoor adventurer can trek off into the forest and the scuba diver can plumb the oceans. There are puzzles for those who like problem solving, lessons to be learned for those who appreciate history or geography, and challenges to complete for the competitive. Give caching a go and see what kind of geocaches tick your boxes. Caution: can become highly addictive!

Become healthy:

A very common New Year's Resolution, especially if the current TV and Internet adverts for fitness regimes, clubs and equipment are anything to go by! Whilst a lot of the geocaching fun is done in the comfort of your own home (planning trips, logging finds, admiring geocoins etc.) the main bulk of the appeal is outdoors. By its nature you have to get off your arse and outside. So long as you don't limit all your caches to drive-bys (cache 'n' dashes / park 'n' grabs), then you will almost certainly find yourself walking or cycling more. Walking is great in and of itself, but walking with a purpose like geocaching is a distraction too! I find myself walking in completely new places and so lost in the enjoyment of the activity that I find I've been out walking for hours! Even simple exercise like this helps you lose weight, lower blood pressure and improve general fitness. As Tesco might say, "Every little helps". Get out and see where geocaching takes you!

Be more organised:

Perhaps not an obvious one, but successful geocaching requires precision planning! You can take on challenges which ensure you work strategically (e.g. cache each day of the year, find one of every difficulty/terrain rating), and there is an entire world out there for the lover of statistics (GSAK / Project GC). Hiding caches of your own encourages you to think ahead and plan all the details from the location, to the container, to the listing, and it's satisfying when you get "Found it" logs too.

Live life to the full:

Geocaching in and of itself cannot satisfy the hunger of the soul, and I make no claim to it doing so, but it can and does enrich lives. Whilst it can be enjoyed as a solo pursuit, there is a wonderful community of other nutters, I mean, geocachers out there with whom you can cache, meet up at events, or just have banter on the online forums. It can bring families closer together who go out as a team. It has physical benefits in that it gets you up and about, but also mental benefits with its challenges, puzzles and planning. It's also educational. You don't need to be doing a history-of-the-area multi or geological feature Earthcache to be learning something; you can find new places you've never been within your own home town! Just the fresh air alone can work wonders.

Spend less money:

Geocaching does not have to be an expensive hobby. Suuuure, you can spend mountains of money on ANYTHING if you are that way inclined. Buy a geocoin a day and you'll be taking out another mortgage soon, but actually for the bare bones of geocaching, you don't need to spend much money at all. Download the app (free or inexpensive) and get out there and find the caches. Simples. Basic accounts on geocaching.com are also free. Yes, you may in time find that you want to upgrade your membership, buy a GPS unit or get some better hiking boots but geocaching neither has to do this, nor will it be a perpetual drain on your income like some hobbies. Certainly some sports I've looked into have very expensive starting costs for all the equipment or memberships you need.

Travel more:

Ignoring the previous resolution, unless of course money is no obstacle to you, geocaching has the ability to take you to some pretty amazing places. If you can't or don't want to travel, you'll still find that geocaches are often in lots of places quite close to home that you've never ventured to before. But if going further afield is your thing, take heart - geocaches are hidden all over the world! I've found caches in places like Cuba, The Gambia and Azerbaijan. What's particularly good about caching abroad is it often takes you to amazing places that the locals know about but somehow the guide books miss out. Muggles on a trip to Paris may enjoy the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and Notre Dame, for example, but Parisian cachers have put out some nifty caches in beautiful places you might otherwise miss. Find the real country when you cache, and get to see the area from a local's perspective. 

Not convinced geocaching is right for you? Why not try it... at least just for January!

Three for the price of one!

So I was out doing maintenance on one of my caches today. I'd been informed that it had got itself stuck at the bottom of a small sign post and was impossible to reach. I went with my trusty extendable magnet on a stick to retrieve it (as I had done only a few weeks previously!) and felt some resistance as I pulled it up. What should come up but three versions of the same cache which I have replaced over the years! Some very old log books there too! Replaced one with a clean log book and gave the other two to my friend to put to new uses. Well, that was a pleasant surprise!

Explaining Mega Events to Muggles...

Just got back from another great Mega Event in Bicton, Devon.

I've been asked a few times by my muggle friends what a Mega Event actually is, and, apart from saying "It's sort of like a festival for geocachers", I don't really know how else to describe it. Even then, I'm asked what we actually do when we get together!

So my friends and I came up with this list which I'm sure could be expanded upon (especially if you're a camping cacher!) but it should hopefully help clear up what it is we do at Megas!

1. We write a random word or words in a giant book, flag, wall, noticeboard, wooden cut-out etc.
2. Everyone you meet refers to you by this self-imposed random word(s).
3. You refer to your friends by this word(s) throughout the event and introduce people in this way.
4. If you're really lucky, you may actually get to know some real names, but you probably won't remember them, and they won't get stored in your phone by their real name!
5. We take close-up photos of people's chests, boobs, legs, arms, hats, backpacks, walking sticks, dogs and children. Seeking permission to do so is very much optional.
6. It's perfectly normal to chase after a stranger shouting "WAIT, ARE YOU TRACKABLE?!"
7. We buy coded scraps of metal then show them to one another.
8. We purchase used empty metal boxes and (unused) sample tubes.
9. We meet a six foot frog and have our photo taken with it.
10. Claiming a milestone at the Mega is desirable and holding a massive sign is the preferred way of celebrating because then everyone else can see our achievement.
11. We watch an ammo can be handed from one stranger to another. This is the climax of the event.
12. We'll put our hands in gross water so we can claim a cache that doesn't even have a log book.
13. We can be found wandering around a camp site for two hours or so, peering into caravans and windscreens, jotting down numbers and photographing dashboards and bumpers.
14. We also do this a lot outside pubs and on the road sides. It's easy for muggles to think we are overly-enthusiastic off-duty traffic wardens.
15. We try to do our bit for the environment by doing litter picks but when you have hundreds of people tackling the same spot, you tend to find little more than a cigarette butt.
16. We spend a lot of time looking at all the flags on the camp site and trying to read the codes on them.
17. It's a status symbol to wear a promotional T-shirt from a previous mega event, the older the better. Bonus kudos for a Giga, Maze, Block Party, Geocoinfest or Geowoodstock.
18. We buy coins that can't be spent and look at other people's. Some people collect these and are more than happy to show you their extensive collections from the boot of their car.
19. We feel cheated by the T-shirts that claim to be trackable but aren't.
20. Once we've torn ourselves away from the event venue with our new fake rock and T-shirt that has a witty but incomprehensible-to-muggles slogan, we will choose to drive down a variety of narrow B roads in convoy.
21. Driving down no-through roads is common practice, and vying for the same small layby with ten other cars is normal.
22. We'll wait in line to handle an old film pot and sign a tatty piece of paper by the roadside then wonder where it came from because the original finder is long gone.
23. Photographing said tatty paper is commonplace because the logs get full very quickly!
24. We'll drive miles to get a selfie with a rock because it's "virtual".
25. We stand in front of a random building hoping there's a webcam somewhere and wave at it whilst simultaneously trying to capture the moment on our smart phones. As a result, we are not looking at the camera when the photo is taken.
26. Once home we slightly resent the enthusiasm we had at the event because now we have to collate all our photos, scribblings and notes on our phones of trackable codes and enter them manually into Project-GC or GSAK to log them all.
27. No one remembers individual trackables they discovered, and quite often we never even saw the trackable in question - just the code printed on a piece of paper and handed to us by a stranger.
28. Logging caches and trackables is hard because they all merge into one big messy Mega memory and we end up writing "Found whilst at the Mega!" for all caches and trackables we found.
29. Logging the Mega itself is slightly easier than the side caches, but even then we struggle to find a new way of saying "Met up with lots of old faces and met a lot of new ones too. Thanks for the great event!"
30. We look fondly through our photos from the Mega but have no idea where any of them were taken.
31. When commenting about the event on social media, we have no idea who anyone is because they are using their real names.
32. We celebrate the fact we will get a small pixelated picture to show on our online profiles at the end of it. These are highly sought after and cachers will change their plans and routines to acquire them.
33. We become slightly more obsessed with our caching stats since returning home and once all caches and trackables have been logged, we update our caching profile and find out what new badges we've earned.
34. We need to find somewhere to keep the dirty day-pass wrist band, new cache containers we have no plans for and the souvenir brochure, which, although we will never read again (or indeed for the first time), it is still a piece of geocaching history and we will expect it to become a family heirloom.
35. A week later we begin to feel a bit deflated by post-Mega blues and cheer ourselves up by starting to plan our next Mega.

Smallest church in England

Today I visited Church Micro 6009 (GC4TD8N) near Malmesbury in Wiltshire. Now "micro" normally refers to the size of the cache container but today it was a whopper. The church itself however really was micro! It was the size of one small room but still had most of the trimmings.

It has one pew of four seats and standing room for six at the back! Amazingly it has one service every year for Rogationtide in spring. 

A church has been here for centuries and whilst the current owners keep it as a church, the previous ones kept turkeys in it! 

It has a very small graveyard and the last burial was in 1904. In 1986 this building became a Grade II listed structure.

Meon Shore CITO 2017

The usual affair with an annual CITO (Cache In Trash Out) event on the Meon Shore of Hampshire. Good weather this time... but my best piece of rubbish was this pipe. I think this should become a geocache but got about four or five potential uses for it. Suggestions welcome!

Lockerley ROC bunker

I love a good ROC bunker and went down my third not that long ago.

The ROC bunker in Lockerley Hampshire is where I chose to put my "War Post" letterbox hybrid cache (an ammo can with stamp) which I placed in the summer above ground not far away from the bunker. At the time the bunker was so overgrown that you'd need a machete to get to it! The cache, given its remote location and sturdy nature has meant that maintenance visits are not required!

I returned to the cache a good couple of years later with a friend, however, when we found that a recent visitor had reported that they had been able to get to the bunker and open it!

Right, time for that maintenance visit!! As it was, no maintenance was required but my friend, The Happy Panda, had not done the cache before so for him it was a chance to log and for both of us it was a chance to explore. Even in the early spring the area was still very overgrown but at least you could access the hatch from behind. It was indeed not locked but the lid was very heavy and I wasn't sure if it was going to hold. Importantly we decided to take it in turns to go down in case anything bad should happen. It would be almost impossible to open the lid from the inside and there is no phone signal underground. If you visit a bunker like this with the intention of going down, bring a trusted friend, torches, batteries, phone and whistle and ensure someone stays above the ground at all times. We even had a spare ladder in the car just in case the one in the bunker chose today to rust off and crumble away. They are very old and worn!

Down below it was quite well equipped with its bunk beds and matresses, a frayed rug under a couple of inches of water, tins of pain, cans of food that were rusting away but still unopened (!), cleaning chemicals for the toilet and other odds and ends. Whilst all these ROC bunkers are the same shape and size, each one presents a new adventure in what you'll find down there!

Here's the link to the ROC site and a photos from a visit many years ago.