We went to find our first geocache at the weekend. Geocaching is an outdoor ‘game’ where you try to find caches (hidden boxes, for example) concealed by someone else: they publish the exact latitude and longitude of the cache, and you go to find it using your handheld GPS receiver.
We found this one which was actually a small treasure hunt. The co-ordinates you’re given are for a sign at the entrance to the park, you need to read some numbers from it to form part of the co-ordinates for the next location. You go through this routine a couple of times before you get the final co-ordinates of the cache itself.
We had the final location nailed down, but couldn’t find the cache and were about to give up until one of us spotted it (thank you Louise!).
All members of our group were happy to find it:
I think we’ll go searching for some more of the local ones soon.
Does nobody realise that this is just a hi-tech version of LetterBoxing ?
( See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letterboxing )
PermalinkYes, but it lets you use GADGETS, like a handheld GPS … we wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t geeky. GPS was invented to get geeks out of the house, I believe.
Permalinkwhich GPS did you get?
I have been after one for ages but it seems the Garmin ones are too proprietary.
What prompted all of this? An article in MAKEzine which led to this web page:
Annotated Google maps, he did a video too!
http://www.infoworld.com/article/05/03/04/10OPstrategic_1.html
Now a bluetooth GPS linked to a bluetooth Symbian phone is a thought.
PermalinkMrs davee bought a Garmin Geko 201 – no mapping support installed.
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