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The Chicken/eggg Theory


Geo-Kate

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Just curious as to how people get into the sport...

 

Did you have a GPSr anyway and find out about the game, or did you get your GPSr to enable you to play?

 

I'm just wondering, we got our first e-trex yellow as an aid for our walking. Mostly just to have an accurate mileage and like the idea of the track logs and knowing one's exact location if lost.

 

Please share your thoughts

 

GK

 

EDIT: just saw that i can't spell the word 'egg'. Sorry

Edited by Geo-Kate
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Had all the stuff I needed already - for Sat-Nav. (PDA, Compact Flash GPSr, TomTom amd MemoryMap.)

 

Found out about Geocaching after I did a Google search looking for treasure hunts (one bored Sunday afternoon).

 

Typed in my postcode expecting one or two within a hundred miles and was amazed to find nearly 2000! :blink:

 

Found my first couple of caches the next day, after printing out the cache sheets at work. Then went "paperless" a few weeks later :blink:

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Having been forced to give up playing football (injury) I knew that I needed to keep fit and keep my weight down, so I started walking and cycling more and more. This was fine, apart from the nagging feeling that I should be spending a little more time with my wife and children. So I needed to develop my hobby to include them (most parents will know that it can be difficult to get kids out walking unless they can percieve a reason for it). One internet session later I had found Geocaching, and ordered my GPS the next day. We havent looked back since.

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Read about it in Trail Walker 3 or so years ago. :blink:

 

Didn't persue it even though I had a yellow etrex at the time. ;)

 

Then last year whilst preparing for a family trip to Devon I stumbled accross Letterboxing. :blink:

 

After a little surfing (t'Internet not in the sea) Geocaching raised it's ugly head and now I'm hooked.

 

Did our first one the day before we went on holiday and then continued whilst in Devon ...

....Now I can't stop!! :):P:);)

 

Cheers

Dave

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I've always been interested in getting out & about & first heard about Geocaching years ago but forgot all about it. Then read an article in a walking mag in 2004 which mentioned it & thought it'd be a good way to persuade the kids to come out. Bought myself a GPS for Christmas 2004 & had our first DNF Boxing Day :blink: but managed to get the hang of it by New Years Day 2005 and logged our first find :blink: .

Edited by MartyBartfast
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Friends of ours took us to find our first geocache one weekend when we were staying with them - they thought it would interest the kids. We already owned a Garmin Forerunner (we're both keen runners) so we started using that for geocaching. It's not the ideal unit for caching but it seems to work well enough for now.

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I was going skiing and decided that I needed a walkie talkie to keep track of my wife (to make sure she couldn't find me you understand). A friend recommended Garmin Rino walkie talkies on the basis that they had built in GPS, so I'd be able to see where she was as well.

 

I explored the GPS on-line retailers and there was a link to geocaching. I did the same as someone above - looked, expecting a few within striking distance and saw there were loads, including one in a wood we walked in quite alot.

 

Found my first before the GPS arrived.

 

Ended up with standard walkie talkies and a Garmin Vista from ebay.

 

The family? They tolerate me. :blink:

Edited by Kitty Hawk
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Had a GPS12XL for years (since 99) and used it for mountain navigation. Found out about Geocaching from a friend who's Dad read a small column about it in the Telegraph or something.. We tried it out and went from there. Have subsequently bought a Geko GPS for Mrs James W to use and a Bluetooth one for use with a PDA.

 

So to answer the original question... A bit of both! :blink:

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I was online reading about Little Church Rock at Simonside and I stumbled across this site :blink: I had never heard of Geocaching before, but it sure does seem like good fun :)

 

We (me and the wife) haven't had a chance to do any caches yet, as money is a bit tight at the moment ;) But as soon as we have some spare pennies we will be buying a GPS and getting the car on the road ;)

 

~fingers crossed~ I hope it's soon , as I'm eager to get out there and see what all the fuss is about :blink:

 

We're thinking of getting a Geko 201

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Back in the olden days when I was half of Hazel and Phill, Phill got a GPS for his birthday, or Chrsitmas or something - that'd have been about 2001 I think.

 

He was a gadget freak, and had to have any new gadgets, and like most, it sat on the shelf for a good while before his mum saw Countryfile and the Handsome SP's piece.

 

We went out the next Saturaday and found our first 4, and the nest day we found our next 8!!!

 

so - we had a GPS, but it was gathering dust!

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Had bought a gpsr for walking on Dartmoor thinking it would save time by finding places easier than using a compass. First time I used it I set it up wrong and walked for miles out of my way, DOH. Was looking on the computer at a gps site and spotted geocaching. I can still remember the excitement building up inside me as I read more. Thankfully I was helped very early on by Stuey who put me right on setting up the gpsr and have never looked back.

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We've had a GPS for a couple of years because we enjoy cycling and one of us likes gadgets. Then last autumn a friend asked us if he could borrow our GPS as he had read about Geocaching and wanted to give it a try. The GPS was returned the following weekend - he bought his own, we registered with Geocaching, and both families have never looked back! We've done a couple of trips together too.

 

It's great for the kids to have a walk with a purpose, and, although they are not always keen to go out, they have almost always enjoyed our expeditions. When the weather gets better we'll combine it with some cycling.

:blink:

 

We now also have a bluetooth which we use with a PDA and memory map - generally the Garmin is more accurate but I've always been a map freak and like using the PDA!

Edited by BikerKats
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my nephew came back from the states with a gps and tales of geocaching so decided to see what it what it was all about and got hooked so thanks to my nephew or i wouldnt have heard about geocaching

my family laughed at me but now they like it especially my wife who one day went out to buy her own so now shes hooked as well

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I've been into hiking and camping for years but never felt the need to own a GPSr. I've only really got into canoeing in the past 2 or 3 years and it was while I was on another forum (paddling.net) that someone started a thread about Geocaching. I didn't take much notice for a day or two then clicked on the topic because there weren't many new posts, did a postcode search and was astounded to find loads of caches down the Borrowdale valley - we went out a couple of days later without a GPSr and found the Bowder Stone using the clue and the spoiler picture - well that was it!! :blink:

Bought a second hand, never used GPS12 from a friend and the rest, as they say is history... :blink:

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It all down to my brother one half of The Gecko’s. I was going on holiday to Majorca and just before I left he handed ma a yellow e-trex and said if I had time to turn it on and follow the arrow. I ended up at the end of a very narrow road high up on top of a cliff with a huge pile of rocks looking at me. All the family searched for about 20 minutes and eventually we found it Majorcas Best View.

 

That was the start of the addiction.

 

And the e-trex…………….I never did return it I’m still using it now :blink:

 

Andy

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A friend told us about the great Tupperware hunt and a magical item called a ‘T & J Bear’. I humoured him and listened, nodding my head occasionally but secretly thought he’d lost his marbles :P . Then a few months later another mate started talking about geocaching and a spark was kindled. So I got a Magellan Explorist 100 of Ebay, went in search of a plastic box (Ramparts Revisited – in Dorset) and booked my self into the asylum. Haven’t looked back since, well and truly hooked.

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I had spent most of my sporting life playing rugby. My wife couldn't join in. So along came golf, the dogs couldn't join in. Then along came a PDA with sat nav to help with car/caravan navigation. The next addition was Fugawi. The rest is obvious really. Its an odd sport that caters for the outward bound, families, techno-nuts, folk racing down a motorway from one meeting to the next and ex rugby players who would like to keep some of the weight off. I'm sure we all fit in there somewhere.

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My wife had read an artcile about Geocaching written by radio presenter Stuart Maconie, and was intrigued. Then, over the last few months she got lost on two or three walking expeditions with friends, and I decided to buy her a GPS for her birthday. When she unwrapped it last week, more or less the first words out of her mouth were "wow, we can have a go at Geocaching now". And so we did.

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Whilst we're talking about how people got started, I dug up a very old thread about how some of the very first people in the UK started caching, and the earliest sources of information about geocaching.

 

How the UK got started

 

I too have had a look at this old thread. It is quite facinating to look back at the sport when it was in it's infancy. The link in the thread to an old BBC article still works, and makes good reading too!

 

Thanks for all your replies so far, it has been interesting to hear all your stories :smile:

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my dad had been doing in for a year but id never had much interest. then we went on a late-season family holiday to malta in dec(mum dad me and my other half-zr7) and dad went to find one. as neil didnt want to veg with me and mum he went out with dad and when he came back demanded we went when we got back to england

 

so we came home, borrowed dads gps to find a couple which lead to us getting our own yellow garmin and .....

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Our latest obsession started from 2 directions, The first was that as I used to be a glider & light aircraft pilot with a dodgy sense of direction I have had a few GPSr’s, starting with an early Garmin that was nearly the size of a house brick!

I also used to do a bit of jogging, but when my back started to complain it was time to change this to walking, this also meant Max was able to join in, as flying and running where never going to be on her list of likely pastimes, and as the kids had left home we could spend more time together (and I would get nicer packed lunches).

So we started walking with the GPSr, as I sadly have to log every possible thing in every possible way and know exactly where, how far we have been and how long it takes us. Then our son told us about using it to find boxes in the woods, so we started to walk with a bit of added Geocaching.

This has now changed around, and weekends now are a Geocache with a bit of added walking!

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I blame Jen of BikerKats, who posted about geocaching on the MSN Big Read board. We already had a GPS which we used in the car with laptop/navigator software, but now it spends its time talking to our Treo which runs CacheMate/CacheNav.

 

LOL Rachel, I'll apologise if you want me to!! :ph34r:

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We (me and the wife) haven't had a chance to do any caches yet, as money is a bit tight at the moment :o But as soon as we have some spare pennies we will be buying a GPS and getting the car on the road :ph34r:

 

 

You can manage to do some without a GPSr, I have done 2 so far by printing out the streetmap.co.uk map and using the clue. Google earth is very good for this as well.

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We (me and the wife) haven't had a chance to do any caches yet, as money is a bit tight at the moment :D But as soon as we have some spare pennies we will be buying a GPS and getting the car on the road :D

 

 

You can manage to do some without a GPSr, I have done 2 so far by printing out the streetmap.co.uk map and using the clue. Google earth is very good for this as well.

 

Don't rely on Google Earth to put you close to the cache, the positions tend to wander a bit - but having said that it is a fantastic resource! :huh:

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