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Geocaching Family History


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Having seen Beds Clangers comments in a previous thread

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=77538

 

pointing out that we introduced him to geocaching makes me wonder if there is some sort of family history out there where you can trace most peoples interest back to an evil godfather type figure who is slowly spreading his tentacles out across the country. :o We became interested after a conversation with Deva Duo who in turn were introduced by Obi Wan (I think). How far can people trace back their geocaching family history?

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I guess it would be BarberClan who introduced us to geocaching, although not in person... I get emails from the BookCrossing website when books are released near me, and one of them was released by BarberClan into their cache BC1 (now archived). Mr. AnotherMrLizard had recently bought a TomTom GPSr to use in the car so I persuaded him that we should go and find this weird plastic tub hidden in the woods. And we did! :o

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The "evil godfather type" was Moss Trooper....he did a bit in a computer mag way back in August '01.....I was hooked, The Northumbrian was hooked and probably many others....mind you, there was only 40 odd caches in the whole of the UK!! I have a map from GC.com from way back.........dunno how to upload it!!

 

GAZ

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For me it was a mention on either Slashdot or TheRegistry. Had a look to see what all the fuss was about then went and bought my wee yellow Etrex (Ihave no other use for GPS that I can think of). I have introduced one person so far who doesn't frequent the forums so I'll say mention him anyway, it's DarkEntity. a good caching buddy.

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I remember only too well the day Andybug and Ladybird came to our house. It was on Mothers Day 2003 and they came to take our kids out "Geocaching"

 

Wheres Geocaching? I asked (Thinking it was some village or something) They went out and did Plantation set no.1 by Pharisee and the kids came back later in the afternoon talking about their treaure hunt.

 

After a few trips out with them to see what it entailed (They are my sister and Brother in law) we decided to invest in our own Gps's and although at the time we found the whole idea a bit weird to say the least, we are now "addicted!"

 

The rest like it has been said........is history :o

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:o We totally BLAME The Forester for this addiction!! If he hadn't told us how much fun it was..we would never have gone out with a map in hand to find our first local cache..within the hour of arriving home, Mr Mady was on EBAY trying to find out how much a GPSr would eat into the budget...Totally hooked..addicted...whatever you want to call it ...Been going through withdrawal for past 7 days...need a fix! I admit I am a GeoJunkie and it is all The Foresters fault...God Bless His Big Heart.

Lynn

Edited by Mady
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I'm slightly surprised no-one has mentioned R*bin L*vel*ck.

 

I found his site whilst looking for mapping stuff to use with a GPSr, and that led me to the Geocaching.com.

 

I know there are others that found geocaching by the same route, but I guess it might be bad form to admit to a connection to this evil "commercial cacher" - as if allowing Magellan and Jeep to run commercial caching campaigns - but only in America - wasn't in the slightest bit commercial!

 

Bob Aldridge

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We were also introduced by Moss Trooper's article in Aug 01.  We travelled long and far for a cache in those days.  Tell that to the kids of today and they don't believe ya.....

Ah... The Wombles! Relative newcomers to the game. :D:P:P

 

We had a subscription to ComputerActive in those days so we got the magazine before it hit the news stands. So we signed up on the 18/8/2001 1968th member of Geocaching.com

 

I can only imagine that ukdean got out of bed earlier than us that day as he signed up as No. 1966, two before us, probably due to his dad's jetlag.

 

Bringing up the rear of those Computeractive converts were Carwash (1983), Tim & June (2046), lathama (2096), LanceAmbu (2141), good old McDehack (2162), Northumbrian (2176), Kennamatic (2181), and last but not least The Wombles (2191). All of us joined up in the last week of August 2001 or very early September.

 

Bearing in mind there were only 43 UK caches the day that we signed up - that article in CA must take credit for giving geocaching in the UK a major boost at the time.

 

50 caches in a day?? You couldn't do that in my day........

Edited by SlytherinAlex
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I must confess to being the guilty party who infected Mady with geocaching.

 

I knew that Maddie the Border Collie would love the whole thing and I knew that Martin would enjoy aspects of it. He's a professional Geologist and a well trained navigator with a great deal of experience of hillwalking in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

 

What has surprised and delighted me is the enthusiam and great success that Lynn has shown as a result of being infected with the bug which we know of as geocaching. As a result of several ailments, she used to find it both difficult and painful to walk more than a very few hundred metres without having to stop for a rest. She's not the natural shape for an Olympic marathon athlete, so her recent geocaching in Shropshire and Wales is quite extraordinarily impressive. I've seen her stalwartly climbing some really quite severe inclines and have seen the mapped terrain of some other caches that she has done, including a six mile total of hillwalking in one day. She has adopted a very unusual method of descending steep hills which saves a lot of pounding of the knees. It involves bouncing down the hillside on her backside.

 

I wasn't introduced to geocaching by anyone in particular. I wanted to look up the co-ords of a couple of trigpoints to check out the boast of the manufacturer of my latest GPS (my third) that it's accurate to 3 metres with WAA. As a trained Surveyor who routinely works as Client Representative for some of the largest oil companies, I'm a natural sceptic when it comes to claims of accuracy for such devices. A Google search led me to the geocachingUK website which then led me to the geocaching.com one.

 

Within a day I had bagged my first cache and following a gap in my geocaching after a close family bereavement, I was given a friendly private warning by a fellow geocacher that the activity can become quite addictive. So true!

 

Cheers, The Forester

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I found Geocaching in Antarctica! I was researching people's experiences with a Canon IXUS400 camera which I was considering getting. I found myself on this guy's website who logged his experiences in Antarctica. He showed a picture of a "geocache" which he was hiding. I just assumed it was a time capsule, but a quick Google search soon took me to GC.COM.

 

Being a gadget freak, I had been wanting an excuse to get a GPSr for ages. At last I had just the excuse I needed!

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I honestly don't remember now how I found out about Geocaching, being one of the old men of the game in more senses than one! I had a GPSr (Garmin 45) which I used for walking and assembled quite a list of waypoints in my favourite areas and must have stumbled across geocaching when surfing the net.

But as Alex has said there were not that many caches in the UK at that time, I think it was 37 for me and the nearest was 100 miles away, so it was a few months before my first find and I then found that I could have been liable for a £2000 fine as it was in a Country Park closed by Foot and Mouth restrictions. Then a holiday in Northumbria with a few caches found and I was hooked!

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I've said it once, and I'll say it again, IT'S ALL GEORGE AND MILDRED'S FAULT ... only joking guys :(

 

we've introduced a couple of part-time cachers, they haven't signed up to gc.com or bought a gps yet, so they just sign their names when they are out with us - The MacCombs if you ever come across them.

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As Kelsborrow Wayfinders state " they introduced us" to the addiction. Can still remember, well it was only five months ago, being shown the geocaching website and seeing caches around our home!! Like "Dark Deeds at St Marys" recently replaced by a plastic bag! "Henry gets the Needle" recently run over by a tractor!! "The Wild Woods" which were soon chopped down!!! Is this a bad omen! :(:(:o

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I had a GPSr before I discovered Geocaching and used (and still do) a software programme *GPS Utility* which described the sport/game. I then went to GC.com web site to see what it was about. I didn't read too much about it before doing my first cache and took a trowel with me as I thought they were buried!

 

Andy.

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Discovered it on www.globalpositioningsystems.co.uk while I was looking for a satnav for PDA for the car.

 

This geocaching section kept coming up and I just had to read it.

 

I tried my first find using a PDA and a shareware program called GPSdash. At that time it did not have distance to go on the compass rose page so it was jsut about impossible.

 

So back to the website for an Etrex.

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I guess it would be BarberClan who introduced us to geocaching, although not in person... I get emails from the BookCrossing website when books are released near me, and one of them was released by BarberClan into their cache BC1 (now archived). Mr. AnotherMrLizard had recently bought a TomTom GPSr to use in the car so I persuaded him that we should go and find this weird plastic tub hidden in the woods. And we did! :huh:

There's a link then, The MoonHerbs introduced the BarberClan to GeoCaching . . . .

 

The MoonHerbs on the other hand heard about it via a Radio 4 program . . .

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Happy Humphrey introduced me to geocaching and I suspect he wanted me to keep it secret in case broadcasting this information made him the most unpopular cacher on the forum

 

I was safe enough until you started Angela geocaching as well! :huh:

 

I also introduced CC#1, but I found the sport by accident when surfing the net. So I suppose I'm a father at the moment - when are you going to make me a Grandfather, young Ullium?

 

HH

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I was safe enough until you started Angela geocaching as well!

 

You know Happy Humphrey you could just be right there....since I have been bitten by this geocaching the whole house has taken on a rather untidy aspect ... what with printouts here and several walking boots there....numerous daypacks in various states of loading dumped unceremoniously here and there....lots of plastic bags containing TB's, swaps, first aid items, OS maps...etc etc.

 

Not to meantion all the extra cables running from my computer to all the extra bits and pieces needed to download and upload info from my GPSr, my Palm M505, my battery charger, my digital camera etc etc. Spaghetti junction hasn't a look in.

 

Yes the house has that geocaching lived in feeling since the New Year and there is a certain Pink Panther captain's twitch to her left eye which has even me worried ... so I don't doubt that an intelligent perceptive chap like yourself will have foreseen this probable danger eminating from the direction of a new geocacher's good woman <_<:P:P;)

 

And who is she going to phone ... sorry blame ?? Not the Ghost Busters that is for sure :):):o

 

Ullium.

Edited by Ullium
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:huh: We got into Geocaching through a link on Global Positioning systems, when Andy had just bought his GpsV for navigation in the car and out walking.

We are now the proud parents to The Ollies, who have in turn got Pieces of Eight&Murray Mint involved, and George & Mildred, who in turn got ChoccyM&M's and Squirrel, fish and Baby Bear hooked.

I think that's not a bad family tree at all!!!! :lol:

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But as Alex has said there were not that many caches in the UK at that time, I think it was 37 for me and the nearest was 100 miles away, so it was a few months before my first find and I then found that I could have been liable for a £2000 fine as it was in a Country Park closed by Foot and Mouth restrictions.

How come you have managed to avoid Fossil Transfer all this time John? :lol::huh::o

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SlytherinAlex @  Aug 25 2004, 03:56 PM

So we signed up on the 18/8/2001 1968th member of Geocaching.com

 

How do you find what member number you are??? :lol:

 

Can never remember how I come to stumble across geocaching but it was whilst surfing the internet. But it ended up with a visit to Staples in Exeter to buy a yellow etrex and my first cache was two days later, a photographic cache at the Eden Project (18th March 2002). :huh:

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We were introduced to the sport by Robin Lovelock who took us on a few hunts with us acting as passengers, co navigators and eventually progressed to GPS operator (junior rank).

 

He opened our eyes to the mysteries and delights of hunting for something that you don't know what it is and having a bag of goodies to swap for something that you know not what it may be!

 

Thanks to everyone in the sport who helps to make our walks more interesting.

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SlytherinAlex @  Aug 25 2004, 03:56 PM

So we signed up on the 18/8/2001 1968th member of Geocaching.com

 

How do you find what member number you are??? :lol:

 

Your 45426.

 

put your cursor over the name and it shows the link to the profile page including the user number.

 

from no 76085

Edited by Deego
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put your cursor over the name and it shoes the ling to the profile page including the user number.

 

from no 76085

 

Sorry Deego...I'm not too certain what you mean there??

 

If I put my cursor over someone esle's name on the forum it takes me to their profile right enough ... but for the life of me ... although I can see the date they signed up....I can't see their membership number???

 

So I thought you must mean if I put my cursor over my 'own' name I will see 'my' membership number....but here again ... no luck ???

 

So I must be missing something....sorry to be so slow on the uptake :lol:

 

Ullium.

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Thanks Deego :lol:

 

I knew I was missing something :(;):D

 

It works great when viewing someone else's profile and discovering their membership number...but I find if I try to view my own by the same method it just flashes very quickly across the Address space before it changes to something else !!

 

Ullium.

Edited by Ullium
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I'd love to know which geocacher introduced me! ! Caching was mentioned on my OU intranet site in March by another student studying an environmental course saying it was taking up too much of their study time!! Being nosy, I found GC via Google and saw that my nearest cache was only 1 mile away and contained a TB wanting to visit Europe!! As I was off to Germany 2 days later I drove there straight away and picked it up. The student was right - it was addictive and that's why I'm typing this rather than finishing my essay!! :P

Edited by The Ringwood 4
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