The red phonebox is a British landmark pre-dating WW2, found abundantly in both urban and rural areas, and for several decades was the most effective means of communication between the people of Great Britain, alongside that of the Royal Mail Postage Service, which also used to be operated by the General Post Office, encompassing both postal and telephone communication. They have survived through some harsh decades' worth of poor British weather, facing storm, snow, torrential rain accompanied by blistering heat (though not as much heat as the other weather variations!). The phonebox has been with us almost as long as living human memory; however its downfall is soon to come. They are too costly, too infrequently used, too much a bother to the organizations which service them, to be of much profitable value. Some have already been uprooted, taken away and left for scrap, merely because of the small cost of electricity required to power them, and with the era of the mobile phone completely upon us, their demise can only be hastened.

However, it is because of their cultural, sentimental and heartening value that I have decided to create a series of caches which will (hopefully) eventually include every phonebox left standing on the Isle of Man. I would also like to dedicate this series to my loving uncle, a part-time historian, who has documented the progression of human communication including, with great reference, the British phonebox in one of his books, and has also expertly taken the pictures to accompany each one, throughout all seasons of the year.

PLEASE NOTE: when arriving at GZ please note the phonebox is no longer here. The cartridge will ask you for its telphone number: type into your device: 897608

This one's a bit special; the IOM's first Wherigo. I've wanted to do a wherigo for quite a while, and you're probably thinking: Jurby? Why on earth there?! And you're right to be - Douglas would have been the obvious choice. But obvious is boring, and encouraging people to get out and about is never a bad thing. I also chose to put this here due to the lack of 'conventional' hiding places around this phonebox, so I've gone for something a little wilder instead. You can download the cartridge here - however, in order to do so you will need a Wherigo enabled Garmin GPS (or pocket PC, iPhone etc) - here's a full list of compatible devices. That's the problem with this, I'm afraid - I personally am very much against Premium Member only caches and the like, because you don't want to exclude people from these things, but share the fun and enjoyment that geocaching has to offer. But in this case, if you don't have a suitable device I recommend you ask around with any other geocachers you know, and maybe try it out as a group thing - at the final GZ there's a nice flat area near the beach where you can sit and have a picnic looking out over towards Scotland. Alternatively, if you like you can borrow my GPS (so long as you take care of it!) - just send me an email and I'll be happy to help you out.

The cartridge should guide you through everything, all the way to the cache itself. Please put in your logs what device you used and how well (or otherwise!) it worked for you - it worked fine on my Oregon 550t. If there are any problems let me know and I'll try my best to fix them. Have fun!

Important directions/information: as this is the first of its type on the island, I reasoned that most Manx geocachers won't have had any experience with them before (I myself have never found one, I just did a good bit of background reading and research into how to do it). So I've kept it very basic, not using any clever character interactions or item features (I'm not sure how to do them even if I'd wanted to!), and there's only one bit of what I'd describe as 'clever scripting' right at the start, as you arrive at the phonebox. You have to complete a little puzzle it sets you (it's not exactly difficult, just a little uncertain perhaps). Once you complete this (correctly), a waypoint (or destination) will be unlocked, and a notification will flash up on the screen. However, to add a sense of mystery and a streak of adventure (and not make it too easy), you need to be within 0.3 miles of a waypoint for it to become visible in the 'Locations' tab. If you fail the puzzle, you will need to re-start the cartridge - a mobile phone may be of help here. To have piece of mind with where you're heading, I'd recommend bringing a map with you. The only two compass directions (roughly) that you should be heading in is westwards and north-east. When you pass through a waypoint 'zone', another will be 'unlocked', and so on. When you are close to the cache, don't worry about proximity of the zones - there are three waypoints all within half a mile, and when you're 25 metres from the GZ a message will flash up with the clue on it.

I would recommend driving, as the cache is a few miles from the telephone box, though you could walk if you wish (parking at the box you could walk out along the roads, then back along the beach). The terrain rating is due to the distance required to travel - the difficulty reflects a) how it will probably be a new experience for you, and hence will require a little getting used to, and b) the fact of the uncertainty of the waypoint locations, and the question you have to answer at the phonebox. If you study a map and read the description given here and on the download page carefully, it should become apparent where the waypoints are likely to be. They are positioned at junctions and important places (i.e. a car-park, the cache etc), and are just as a guide to help you along.

The cache itself is a regular sized screw-top container in a camo bag, with a logbook inside and a nice clicky Parker pen to sign it with, along with plenty of space for swag and trackables.

I hope this isn't too difficult for you to follow - any questions, you know how to contact me. As a last word of warning, it's quite a distance between 'Target1' and 'Target2' - just keep driving, and hope you've picked the right road!

Good luck!

PLEASE NOTE: when arriving at GZ please note the phonebox is no longer here. The cartridge will ask you for its telphone number: type into your device: 897608