Thursday 30 May 2013

do you geocash ?

have you ever been geocaching ? we are relatively new to it. me and the two younger girls had a go with the wildlife watch club. geocaching is a real world outdoor treasure hunt. you have to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using a smart phone or GPS.

there are a number of caches hidden in and around our town, so we met up with a friend (with a smart phone), her two sons, a picnic and set off.

our first one directed us a short walk from home onto 'the green' that runs along the estuary, the main clue was 'a famous Lytham landmark', which of course was the windmill.

the GPS lead us to the area around this bench, we searched and searched...

 
and then suddenly Hebe found this tiny tiny magnetic container attached to the metal frame of the underside of the bench..


it really was tiny with a very narrow strip of paper as the 'log', we put the date and our geocach user id on the strip, rolled it back up and put it back where we had found it.


from reading the 'log' we could see that this particular cache had been found the day before by someone else.

i knew we would not be able to walk past the beach with out having a play..


when you look at old photograph of Lytham, there was a proper beach, pier and seaside. apparently a channel was dug out along the estuary to get to a new boat yard, and this created a central channel of water, and the strips either side became marshes so there was no longer a beach.(the proper seaside starts at St.Annes and goes along past Blackpool).  this 'beach' that the children are playing on appeared a few years ago when someone put a load of sand in this little corner..


after a lot of digging we managed to coax the children along the coastal path to the next cache, which Clemmie found in this false rock..


it was hidden behind a couple of stones in a gap at the bottom of the cobble wall.



this cache had 'replacement' written on the paper inside the 'rock' but no other log, perhaps the log had got lost ? this was also bigger that the previous cache so the children were able to add some 'treasure', in this case, some fools gold, a penny and a button. (some caches have treasure, if they do you can take something and add treasure of your own).





next we went to nearby Lowther Gardens for a picnic and play at the park...


a hunt for fish in the pond..


and a bit of squirrel watching..


our final cache was quite a walk away, the GPS lead us to the railway foot bridge near the next station along the line from Lytham. the clue was 'a bridge to far'. again we looked for a long time, but eventually found another tiny magnetic cache on the underside of the bridges metal framework.



wrote on the log book...


and put it back where we found it.


we had a fantastic few hours, geocaching , it adds a different dimension to going for a walk. if you have not had a go, check out the website for ones near you. if you are a regular geocacher perhaps you could recommend particular good ones ?

1 comment:

  1. I have heard of Geocahing before, but it makes a great deal more sense now, thanks. It looks like a great day out for the kids, what fun to go treasure hunting! I am so jealous that you live close to that beach, it looks amazing. Seems like you have made the very most of the school hols. Enjoy the rest xo

    ReplyDelete