I bought my first GPSr with the proceeds of my selling lots of DR Who memorabilia on Ebay. I mostly used it for hiking and navigating purposes, although it also had a few cool outdoor ganes you could play too!
On the train home from a walk in North Lincolnshire, the chap opposite me asked me if I'd been out Geocaching. I asked him what that was and he explained, so that night I logged on and signed up for my Geocaching.com account. The next day Lottie and I headed out to find this one, which we did easily, and so began one of the major obsessions of my life (there's been others!)
This first find of ours was called Logzilla (GCRFN9) and was hidden by Doctors Ostracod. I recently discovered that I actually knew them and had been to several social events with them, neither of us knowing that the other was a geocacher! Caching was such an secret, underground activity back then!
Lottie at Logzilla, 28th July 2006
Caching has changed quite a bit since those days though, and here's a few examples:
- You often had to travel miles to the nearest cache; there really weren't that many about. Maybe 5 or 60 in the whole county!
- There were no series; most caches were stand alone. The nearest to a series was a multi.
- There was no smart phone app.If you didn't have a GPSr you couldn't play!
- There weren't many events at all. I'd been caching 4 years before I went to one!
- My GPSr didn't have maps on it either, just an arrow pointing to GZ. Finding the route was all part of the challenge.
- There were no Wherigos, but lots more virtuals and webcams- wishing now that I'd paid them more attention!
- Most caches were small/medium in size - I had been caching a few years before I came across my first nano!
- Most caches were rural.There were very few in the City of Lincoln itself
- It was normal to find TBs and geocoins in caches.
- Most people swapped swag.
Hope to see you there. Please log your attendance to give me ideas of numbers.