Monday, December 12, 2011

Geocaching good times - Licence to PLAY

In March this year I had my first experience with geocaching with Allanah at the Jester cafe in Nelson.

I clearly remember the buzz of finding my first ever 'treasure'.  I remember thinking then, that I needed to move from my pear tree, into the ''Apple" tree! (With great ribbing from Allanah, that I wouldn't need my triumverate...)

My next experience with geocaching was in the Waikato with Barbs when I was to be found acting like a troll under a bridge...  The excitement of finding the 'treasure' again was a great buzz and it was even more exciting to find a temporary home for a travel bug named Phillipe...  http://annekcam.blogspot.com/2011/07/day-2-in-waikato.html
 I even managed to find a cache in the centre of Hamilton on my own.  I was starting to feel the buzz of this!

In August I finally got a smartphone and caching finally became possible!  When Jo came down for educampdunners we cached around my home patch!  Hmmmm it really is easier to cache where you are not known, it is so much harder to look inconspicuous in your own town.

My next big caching experience was the journey from Cambridge to Rotorua for Ulearn.  Now, this journey should take a couple of hours max... We managed to drag it out somewhat and have a MAGIC day, filled with laughter, challenge and many successes.






We even managed to "Find Nemo", a little travel bug who had an awesome time in and around Rotorua.


Nemo returned to Dunedin with me where he was 'released' by the sea at Broad Bay, to continue his travels.


I cached in and around Raumati beach with Jo and even took in a pilgrimage up the hill and found a cache at the top near Mary.


Caching adventures since then have been very memorable.  Barbs, Jo and I set a target of 11 caches on the 11-11-11 and we managed it with a very memorable 11th find at the memorial. 



 The next day we traveled south for educampinvers and cached along the way... followed by a caching session down the bay to Port Chalmers with Barbs and Jane.


I had an awesome weekend in Queenstown and managed a walk around the gardens and the lakefront and found travel bugs everywhere, arriving into New Zealand for travelling adventures.




Recently geocaching made the front page of the local Star paper with reference to the danger element, referring to a cache in the middle of a roundabout in Mosgiel (which had been removed some time ago) and a cache down the bay with a very dangerous, narrow track out over the sea).  The profile of caching has really been lifted.

Yesterday Claire and I caught up and headed off on a caching drive.  Many hours, much laughter and 13 successful caches later...

Very clever mushroom!  This cache was set up to race Travel Bugs from.  http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=f94a9dfd-0527-4b2e-9769-b5b83280a7dc
This got us thinking about the fun involved in sending off class travel bugs on and expedition and tracking their progress.  This is definitely in our plans for 2012 with our classes.  

And I thought this Krupp Gun down at Portobello might bring back some great Rotorua memories girls!



 Above and below are the access to the cache referred to in the article with dangerous access.  Maybe the photo doesn't show the full extent of the danger, but it was blowing sooo hard we could hardly stand up and the track across is very steep and narrow.  We will let you know when we conquer it!
 Below is perhaps, my favourite cache of the day!  How clever is this?  This is at a whole nother level I believe.

So now for the BIG question - WHY?

Because it is FUN!  It takes you to places you wouldn't normally go!  It challenges your thinking! It gets you out and about! And above all - it gives you licence to PLAY!  I have some amazing memories of times spent playing with friends this year.

 A HUGE thank you to you all - I just love the licence to PLAY...


2 comments:

  1. That was a big read. You soooooo need a blog just for caching. Needs updating which I might be able to do now holidays are nearly here http://geocachingandme.posterous.com/

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  2. Very fun.

    ANd you get to go to a whole lot of places you normally wouldn't even know about.

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