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Curiosity!


Gralorn

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My daughter and her famlily and my Mother and Father have all become Geocachers as we told them all about it and got them started. We started when we came across an ammo box in the woods and out of curiosity opened it- we came home went on net looked up the www and were hooked !! Purchased GPS's from e-bay and then a Palm, have never looked back, great hobby and seen some wonderful places. How did you start becoming a geocacher? how did the founder members start up, who told them? Be interested to hear the ways that people have become members of this fascinating hobby.

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The exact circumstances surrounding my discovery of GC are lost in the mists of time!! What I do know is that I first bookmarked the GC.com website on the 15th of September 2002 (the time stamp on the file!), probably after reading something on another website or watching a TV program (ClickOnline on News 24?). It took until December 8th 2004 to become a member, GPSr #1 arrived on December 25th 2004 (as requested from my parents :)) and we found our first cache on 30th January 2005. Shortly after we realised out the GPSr we had was naff (a Cobra GPS100 - it was so bad we found three caches without actually using it!) so the shop swapped it for an eTrex... So it only took us 2 years, 5 months and 16 days from finding out about GC to find our first cache! :)

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I bought an Etrex over a year ago after seeing them at the Outdoors Show at the NEC, but didn't find out about Geocaching until we went on holiday in Pembrokeshire with Bargee and his wife at the end of May this year. Was immediately hooked. Mentioned it to my sister and her fella (Purple_Pineapple)and they'd got a gps off Ebay within days and did more caches than I did in June, even though I had a week's head-start. Then Dad (Easy Rambler) got in on the act as well... I think he found about eight caches by careful plotting alone before his gps arrived!

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I bought a Garmin GPS12 in about 1997/8 to help me on my regular long-distance path walking. Apart from those two weeks in a year, I hardly used it.

 

Then, in 1999 I met Postie (before he was postie) who gave me hospitality on my Pennine Way walk. We kept in contact, and last year we went up to stay with him, and he talked to me about geocaching, and took me round the test run on the Roaming Round Richmond cache. I got interested, and began geocaching for myself. Here I am, just over a year later, completely hooked!

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We had a PDA/GPS for in-car Sat-Nav.

 

My wife was looking for info on Dinton Castle on the Internet and stumbled across the Bucks Caching site.

 

Our first attempt at Caching was one of Simply Pauls (Art of the Phoenix Trail) but that had gone missing. The very next day, I managed to badly break my toe (not while Caching mind!), but the bug had already bitten and undeterred we went on to find the Black Magic cache at Dinton Castle. We're Caching most weekends with the Kids now and now up to 55 finds and 5 hides (a bit slower progress with the two 'microcachers', but the great thing with Caching is that you can take it at your own pace and play the game in your own individual way).

 

We like the scenary and trail just as much as the find, so we generally try not to short-circuit Caches, and do them as intended.

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I Had an ETERX, Which I bourght simply for the fun of it. I do a lot of driving and liked to see where exactly on the map I was. I thought I'd look on t'internet to see if it listed any interesting Lat/Longs (Found the location of the Titanic) or anything else I could do with the GPS and came across Geocaching. And that, as they say, is that. Just completed 100 Caches in a little over a year and still have great enjoyment finding the little box of goodies and, even more so, finding the little local places I'd have never known were there otherwise. So thanks to all those who've set a Cache.

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I was working at the Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technology in NY – (all NASA education stuff – very cool) some of the guys there where taking some undergrad students on an evening caching in the finger lakes area - I had the option of joining them or going to the hotel bar for a beer.

 

It all sounded very very geeky to me so I retired to the bar and ridiculed the group for going out and “looking for boxes in the woods”

 

Got home and was looking for things to do with my kids during the summer and looking thru some of my notes from NY too (multi tasking – you like???) I found a cache in the wood opersit my house and I thought I would have a look

It was great fun and the kids (then 3 and 5) LOVED it.

 

Got hooked over the next few months then had to face the humberling return to upstate NY for two weeks work when I wanted to cache every day.

 

Since then my three members of my family have signed up and I’m averaging about a cache a day ever since

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Had a etrex for about 2 years for walking and mountain biking then i stumbled on geocaching whilst looking for a New scout leader on the bath university scout and guide organisation website thought nothing more about it until a few months later the bbc local news did a article on geocaching with simply paul. I then persuaded the family to go out on a wet saturday afternoon to do a cache. and was that we were hooked. The kids love it as so do we as the costs are low. Even last night i caught our 2.5 year son holding the GPSr and saying he was finding treasure.

 

Bruin47 we seem to be following each other around

 

theneals :D

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I was planning a skiing holiday and decided walkie walkies were needed in case me and Beth got separated. I called a gadget mad mate who recommended Garmin Rino radios for their GPS capability.

 

I didn't get them, but got interested in measuring the distances I skied and speed and wanted to add my tracks to topo maps.

 

While shopping around I stumbled across caching, then realised that there were loads near home and that was it.

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We had a GPS for about 3 years... Garmin Emap - Phill is a complete Gadget man, and just wanted one "to help him not get lost in the car!"

 

So - it sat on the shelf gathering dust for 3 years, then Phill's mum saw Simply Paul's Vid Diary on Countryfile, and we were surprised to learn that there was a cache really close.

 

Off we went, GPS in hand, and made our 1st find.... we were hooked..... we will hit our 200 this weekend, and in only 6 and a half months!

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I love gadgets and always have done, but when I first became aware of GPSs there was still that pesky wobble, and the price was huge, but I loved the idea. I didn't think that it was really worth it though, and stuck to a compass for all my hill walking.

 

However, the fact that the wobble has been removed, and the price has plummetted made them more attractive.

 

When my friend Rob, a geocacher in Holland, told me about geocaching the combination of walking, treasure hunting and excuses to buy new toys all just clicked with me, and within a week I had bought a GPS and found 2 caches.

 

Rob is now slightly alarmed that he appears to have created a monster. :D

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I have been ‘into’ GPS for about 11 years. It all started when I joined a company that made military GPS receivers as a software engineer. In those days SA was still on and you tended to get bad periods during the day as the full constellation of satellites was not up yet. The cost of about £30k each (for a five channel receiver) was a bit prohibitive as well. I knew one day when the price came down I would have to have one.

 

I finally cracked this year and bought a Mio 168 with TT3. I then started to look for mapping software so I could trace my route whilst out walking. A number of the sites mentioned geocaching so I looked up the site and that was that really, hooked.

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Heard about a mate who went treasure hunting at weekends (StrongGale) from another work mate.:P

Looked up geocaching on the web and that was it. 200+ caches & a load of cash in hardware, petrol & wear & tear on the car in 4 months. I think we may be infected.

 

Always loved maps, walking, countryside & getting into scrapes so geocaching seemed to fit the bill.

 

Funny to think I can remember thinking we will never catch Dom up. :P

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Brought a GPS in my time in the army (its embarassing for a lean green fighting machine to be lost and can't find his way to the war). When I left the army earlier this year I got rid of most of my kit but forgot I had the GPS. I then stumbled accross the geocaching site and have now infected 3 people at work with the bug.

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I have been searching the net (not diligently) for treasure hunts for the past couple years. Never really found anything that overly interested me. I mentioned this to a work mate who told me her sister did some kind of treasure hunt with a gps ...it had a silly name she said...well needless to say she found the name for me...and now I'm loving it.

 

I especially love that I can take the my buddy Shadow for an adventure. He loves it, sure beats the same old walk around the rugby field! <_<

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I've always avoided GPS's preferring to stick to map and compass. BC (Before children) I was a mountaineering instructor and navigation was an understandably huge part of my exams.

 

As a full time dad I've missed the thrill of work and being out and I caught the Radio Scotland programme a few weeks ago. Bingo I thought, something to plug the gap! Kids love it, I enjoy the impetus it gives me to explore new areas. Need to work on the kids somehow so that they don't all want to swap something in a cache.....

 

Dave

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Need to work on the kids somehow so that they don't all want to swap something in a cache.....

As an aside we tried getting one to swap at each cache and eventually gave up.

All three swap at each cache and each has thier own swaps bag.

We rotate who goes first so 1st cache it goes Aaron, Kelly, Krystal

next Kelly, krystal, aaron and third krystal, aaron, kelly and then back to the begining again.

We always start with aaron on the first cache of the day n omatter wherw we finished the last time.

As for how we got into this

read a weblog www.whilwheaton.net and he reffered to geocaching went onto the website thought that sounds fun and found one that weekend a couple of weeks later found another and then went to scotland and tried to find another but failed decided to buy a GPS at this point and never looked back after that.

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Not found a cache yet that needs a GPS but I've only been to a few! We've bought a GPS already so we can learn to use it and I think its given my wife more confidence to go and search for caches and do more walks with her pals without me.

 

Kids have mastered following the arrow to the cache and telling me when I am speeding in the car.....

 

Dave

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Bought a GPS for walking, biking and motor biking in 2002, but it wasn’t until I saw a “Post Interesting Links” thread on the Atari Community forums in 2003 that I found Geocaching.com.

 

Found my first cache the next day, but only found about six or seven before giving up totally at the end of 2003 for a number of reasons. Just come back to the hobby this summer.

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my nephew came back from america with a gps and told me he had been geocaching and told me about it

my wife bought me one for my birthday convinced i would get bored and give up and that she would have wasted her money

so off we went and did our first cache and have never looked back

all my family laughed at me at first but now they all enjoy it as well especially the wife who has now bought her own gps

so after doing over 100 caches still enjoying it more then ever thanks nephew

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;) Cath bought an etrex legend for christmas for our hillwalking, i'd read about geocachinmg in country walking magazine burt as we have no Pc on the boat no chance of joining the game,

but with a change of sites a Pc was now accessable and i've not looked back,

Cath barely tolerates it,

though she has gone out on her own to find them. :huh:

Problem still is lack of Pc as logging can only be done at work

but with 200 finds in 7 and half months shows i'm a cachaholic <_<

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I first experienced a GPS device when I was given one for use in accurate archaeological recording at excavations and field work back in the mid 1990's. They were quite chunky and bricklike then and had an adjustable arial so you could 'hunt' for the satelites. Gave the device back at the end of the work and thought no more about it.

Zooming forward to May this year, Alibags who I've known for many years asks me if I can help translate some Dutch geocaching pages. Intrigued, I accompanied her on the hunt while solving the clues. I was instantly hooked and marvelled at her 'swanky' etrex, quite a change from the one I used back in the '90's. When we got home Alibags helped by finding me my first Etrex and though I don't own a car I get to caches when I can. My six year old loves it too :laughing:

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My introduction to gps (satnav) was back in 1971. I joined a oil research vessel called "Cecil H Green' out of Houston Texas we were working off the coast of Cental America.

She had been fitted with one of the first satalite navigation systems. I remember the antenna was something like 'Blue Peter' might have made. It was the size of a 55 gallon oil drum and looked like a porcipine with all these rods sticking out in all directions. And it had to be installed in the highest possible place on the boat, top of the mast. This fed info to a 'track plotter' via alot of spagghetti (wiring)and countless boxes and cabinets little flashing lights and reels of magnetic tape. We had to keep the boat on track by keeping the pen running up the middle line of printed paper on the track plotter. It worked very well provided 'THE' the satalite was in our area.

So now I have a hand held satnav. How things have improved over the years. :laughing:

 

B.

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Was visiting my brother-in-law and his family in North Carolina for a few days and it was kind of a thing where his wife said she'd watch all the kids on a Sunday morning and my wife and I could spend some "alone time" with her brother. He took us on a "nature walk" that involved finding 2 geocaches and introducing us to the whole thing. It was a lot of fun and we tried it with our own kids last weekend!

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I've twice driven Route 66 - all the way from Chicago to LA - and am on a few R66 email lists.

 

Someone mentioned accidentally finding a cache, I think it might have been near the Midway Cafe, Adrian, TX.

 

One of the other listers explained what geocaching was and pointed to GC.com

 

I was interested that there was an outdoor, technology related hobby that I hadn't heard of and went looking.

 

Putting my post code into the site, I was stunned by the number of caches nearby, so I signed up immediately - late August 2004, bought a GPS on eBay and found my first cache a few days later near a mates pub.

 

Some 500 finds later, I don't feel a veteran ...

 

Malcolm - The Powerbook Fanatic

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We were on our hols in S.Scotland in March 2004 when we came across a totally exposed tupperware box under Bruces Stone somewhere up by Loch Trool I think.Anyway, being a very nosey person, I took a peek inside! :laughing: We signed the log book to say we had accidently found it, & placed a shiney new penny in there too, then put it back, making sure that it was well hidden.

As soon as we got back off our hols, I looked up this website, & was amazed at all the nearby caches! We only wanted a basic Garmin GPS, but they were still a bit pricey, but I managed to get a brand new one from the US for £50, it took about 3 weeks to arrive, so while we were waiting for it to arrive, we went out armed with directions & spoiler pics, & managed to bag 2 or 3 local caches,which we were really pleased with! :blink:

I am the driving force in this team, Shep can take it or leave it, hes a bit of a technophobe, so distrusts all things technical.So it is left to me to choose where we go for walks & what caches we do, as hes just happy to come along for the walk.Having said that though, he really likes searching for the caches when we get to the places, hes got a really devoius mind, & is very good at guessing where caches are likely to be hidden! :ph34r:

Seren.

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We first got into Letterboxing on Dartmoor, introduced by my sister and brother-in-law (Izzy and the Lizard King), and got a GPSr so we could stray further from the car and (Mrs B ) not worry about finding the car when the rain came down and all visibility lost (a common occurence on Dartmoor). Then later received an email from her giving the address of G.COM say "Looks like an interesting idea", so we tried it out and we (me especially) got hooked! :):ph34r:

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