"Geocaching is an outdoor sporting activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world." (Wikipedia)So, taking advice from @veggieg3ek (whose tweets about finding caches make it seem easy and fun) I downloaded an app to my iPhone and starting looking for caches near me. Here is my cache finding record to date:
1. Day out in Rye the day I got the app, discovered I was a few meters from a cache and abandoned the family to their ice-creams while I wandered aimlessly in the middle of a road (my phone said I was 0 meters away, then 50 meters away, then to the left, then to the right - what!?). No joy.
There are taken in the same spot, my iPhone can't make up it's mind!
2. My app tells me there is one at Shoreham train station, so I left early one morning this week and got strange looks while wandering where my phone told me and looking in hedges. No joy.
3. Shoreham Toll Bridge. This has got to be easy, it's a wooden structure. Had the family out on this one, after 15mins of looking at the sides of the bridge we gave up and went home. No joy.
Looking for a brass id tag, not many places to hide it here surely?
Rated 5 difficulty, but not sure what that means.
Rated 5 difficulty, but not sure what that means.
4. Success! Here is the cache at the wooden Heron on the footpath up to Steyning. Only I knew this was there, we found it by accident a few weeks ago. My app doesn't know anything about it, so I can't log it and there's no code.
A film canister with a list of names and dates in it.
(I'm a novice, I forgot to bring a pencil)
(I'm a novice, I forgot to bring a pencil)
The film canister has something taped to it, I have no idea what this is.
So there you go, my record of failure. Shall I stick to Foursquare and other location check in services where I only have to tell it where I am, or shall I persevere?
2 comments:
I suspect the GPS on your phone isn't sensitive enough. We've had a lot of success with dedicated GPSs.
Geocaching is a *lot* of fun!
Oh poo :( TBH I don't rate caching with only an iPhone *at all*. I have never found it accurate enough. Sometimes, particularly in rural locations, and if an iPhone has been used to lay the original cache it's fine. But mostly it's pants. Even a car GPS/SatNav is more accurate but the best thing to use is a handheld GPS device. I don't have one of these and therefore only get a good rate of success when I cache with my friend that does. I am saving up for one!! The other thing to say is that you need to think laterally with some of the clues and they really can help to narrow down the location sometimes, even if the published co-ordinates are miles out. Dunno what else to suggest really other than keep trying. Also, check the recently found logs on the geocaching website as they often contain feedback from other users about the accuracy of the co-ordinates, if it's been recently found or might be missing and other clues about how people have found finding it. Good luck!
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