I had heard of Geocaching before, however I would never have realised it was such a big thing in Northern Ireland had I not been reminded about it by Domestic Spaz's WFMW.
Since doing a bit of reading up on the subject and registering on Geocaching.com we've been having a ball.
This is such an inexpensive way to entertain the family provided, like us, there are at least a few caches quite close to you. There are roughly 10 within about a mile of our home increasing by about ten for each mile further out we travel. Some of the caches are even within walking distance and are in parks which we would visit regularly. This is great when petrol prices are so expensive at the minute, we're trying to cut back on driving as much as possible, but a mile or two each way is fine.
The first cache was great, it's at a pond we would visit every week in the summer to feed ducks and Toots was just bowled over that she found a little box of toys under a tree which she sits beside almost every week for her picnic and had never known it was there. I tried to tell her that fairies had left it there for kids to find and swap toys, but as I've mentioned before she's more intelligent than me. She played along but I think she was a bit dubious, maybe I just didn't "sell it".
We've been to a few more since then and she's enjoyed each one just as much as the first, plus it's been a great way to recycle all those little toys nana keeps bringing by. She'll play with them for a little while but there's no real staying power in a small plastic toy, we've also swapped in some small rolls of boys stickers which came in a huge bumper box as a present at Christmas.
So far I think we couldn't definitely get an entire summer out of this without toots getting bored. I've counted the caches which are easy enough to get to with a 3 year old and there are over 50, within a 4 or 5 mile drive. There are more than this close to us but the terrain is a little more challenging, maybe next year.
I'm still getting used to how everything works and so far Himself is the tech side of everything (when is he not). We've actually found a few parks and walks near us which I wouldn't' have know about otherwise without the coords, so rest assured I will be posting about all our days out and adventures with this.
I have recently discovered this online, but have yet to go out looking. Do you have a GPS? If so, which one?
ReplyDeleteIt's just a TomTom One for the UK and ROI, which is SatNav really. It does the job for the easy ones in parks and forest parks, I don't know about the ones that are a bit off the beaten track but then It'll be once toots is older we'd try those. We have to put the coordinates in as a waypoint and once your in a park or anything like that it's just a green line passing through nothing on the screen, but it gets you there. You might have to use some the hints people leave on the website, some of them are really cryptic but it's just more of a laugh that way.
ReplyDeleteYou could try using one of the athletes GPS watches, they quite cheap and I've heard some people have had success with those. Obviously its not a screen you would be looking at but it tells you which direction to go in.
It's great even just for reminding you of places to take the kids without having to go for the cache.
Thanks for stopping by my blog earlier.
ReplyDeleteMy family does geocaching quite a bit. I agree that it's inexpensive fun for the family. We have a Garmin GPS, neither top nor bottom of their line, but it works well for what we need. Which, so far, has only been for geocaching. :)
I'm so glad to see you're having so much fun! It's a wonderful way to entertain kids, I agree. :)
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