So, Friday night was going to be spent with me simply watching the rest of an anime (fate stay night) but was instead interrupted by Jess (my brother's girlfriend who is living with us) and her friend Jacinta. They had just come back from some geocaching* and were intending to go around Crawley/Nedlands looking for more.
An explanation
Geocaching involves people all over the world setting up hidden caches in various locations. They then put the location of the cache on the website for people to find using GPS or otherwise, as well as occasionally putting in more details on how to find it, hints, etc.
Inside the caches is usually something to write on so you can put who you are and when you found it. Occasionally they also include enough space to drop little things in some of which are tagged. You can look the tagged items up on the website to find where they've been so far (Jacinta had a toy Bruce from Finding Nemo who was in France prior to his visit to WA).
The idea is for people to search for them using the GPS coordinates or otherwise and sharing their experience on the website and just enjoying the treasure hunting-like experience. One important part is to not let those around you (you're going to love this Sheeba - they call non-geocachers 'muggles') know what you're up to and find or ruin the cache.
We tried a total of seven sites and managed to find four of them (technically I found each of them but the others would have found three of those if I hadn't seen it first - yes, I know that's a stupid thing to say but it made sense in my head).
- One we couldn't really find the path it was referring to.
- Another we ran away because the sprinklers told us to.
- And the one in Matilda Bay somewhere we couldn't find because the GPS was acting up and we were lacking torches (we were trying to use our phones).
Fortunately, Jess has just gotten an iPhone (read: GPS device of some description) so we can do it when we get bored instead of watching Gilmore Girls so we each get some exercise (yes, I realise I don't need to lose any weight).
Anyway, I have lasagna to devour now.
*
www.geocaching.com for those who are interested