Geocaching Sweeps the World


Miles stands at the edge of the bush on the old Woolshed Creek tramline and studies the small device in his hand. It is a GPS unit, a Global Positioning System, about the size and shape of a cell phone. It shows him exactly where he is on the planet and, of greater interest to Miles, where he is going. The small screen displays co-ordinates, arrows and distances.
“It’s this way,” Miles waves his right hand like General Custer rallying the cavalry, “about thirty metres into the bush.”
We plunge into the trees, closing in on our prey.

Welcome to the world of geocaching, a digitally-enabled treasure hunt. It is fun, infectious and is sweeping the world. It is also unique in using digital technology to encourage physical activity.

If you have never heard of geocaching I can tell you it is happening in your neighbourhood, on your street, perhaps right under your nose.

The story of geocaching begins with the US military – but keep reading because the story is positive. In the 1980s the US Defence Department developed a network of satellites to provide super-accurate navigation. Civilian use of this network was severely restricted by the military scrambling the signals from the satellites. In 2000 the US government turned off the scrambling, allowing you and me to buy GPS devices with accuracy almost as good as the army’s. Today, for a couple of hundred dollars, you can buy a small GPS unit that allows you to locate your position or track objects to within a few metres, anywhere in the world.

Geocaching sprang up as an inventive use of this new and powerful technology. A geocache is a small treasure chest hidden by a player who then advertises the co-ordinates and a description of the cache on a website. Other players pick up the co-ordinates and try to find the cache.

Simple? Ho hum? Well, not quite. Caches can be extremely difficult to winkle out, as we discovered in the bush at Woolshed Creek. Steep or difficult terrain limits the accuracy of the GPS so the treasure seeker may still have to cover quite a bit of ground in a manual search for the cache. A cache’s location may be masked by cryptic clues. There may be a series of co-ordinates that have to be followed before the cache is reached. There are other variations: Offset Caches, Multi-Caches and even Virtual Caches.

Caches may take a number of forms but the few that I have seen are plastic lunchboxes with a notebook, a pencil and a collection of trinkets and other small objects. The successful treasure hunter records his or her name or caching nickname, the date of discovery and a comment in the notebook and swaps an object.

At Woolshed Creek, when we finally found the cache hidden deep within a rock crevice, one of our companions took a plastic light stick from the cache and left a small soft toy. Occasionally you may find a small engraved metal disc, a geocache ‘coin’, which I’m told is a collector’s item. I have also heard of objects being tagged with a small electronic tracking device enabling the person who first planted the object to track its progress from cache to cache.

When a cache has been found the successful geocacher records the find on a website, allowing the owner of that cache to keep track of the cache’s success.

Anybody can hunt for geocaches and anybody can hide a cache. Owners of caches are encouraged to manage their cache, checking it occasionally to make sure it is in place and has not been vandalised. Caches can swap owners: a friend recently took over the management of one on Quail Island.

Geocaching builds on older versions of the same idea. When we lived in England several years ago we were introduced to Letterboxing, a version of caching using written instructions, maps and a mailing list. We scrambled around Dartmoor, startling wildlife and wading through nettles, in search of ‘letterboxes’. I don’t think we ever found one.

If geocaching seems a bit too much like Morris Dancing or playing quoits, don’t be too hasty in your judgement (some of your best friends may be geocachers, or even Morris Dancers). It is highly infectious and a novel way to explore the countryside. When planning a walk or trip, check the website first for co-ordinates of geocaches in that area and plan your route or itinerary around them.

You may not have to go far. I’m told there is a geocache within 500 metres of my home and there is probably one close to you. You may walk past it daily, it may be visible from your front gate – if only you knew. Google ‘geocaching’ and get started today.