On 19 January 2014 I visited Stafford to see my university friend Caitlen for her birthday. We were looking for something to do on the last day of the weekend when Caitlen suggested we try a new location-based game she was aware of. She had worked at Stafford Castle during her summer holiday and there had been a tupperware box hidden there as part of a game called "geocaching". So, we head out for a hunt on what would become my first ever day geocaching and my first two finds.
First we found the nearest cache to her house, GC2X665 "Monkeys Can Swing!" in Wildwood Park. My friend Charlie found the 35mm film pot at the base of a tree. Then, we visited Stafford Castle and I raced Charlie to GCBA60 "Any Fort In A Storm (Staffordshire)". I won the race and was the one to find the tupperware box under some stick camouflage.
I was immediately hooked. My university friends, it turned out, were not quite sold, and despite my protestations drove past some caches on the way home without finding them! I returned to Sheffield and started finding caches after work all that next week. The obsession had begun! I was a geocacher!
Join me now, 10 years later, for a casual event to mark the occasion of my tenth anniversary of geocaching.
- Where: The courtyard outside the Temple Newsam Café, Temple Newsam Road, Halton, Leeds, LS15 0AE
- When: Saturday 20 January 2024
- By Train: Cross Gates Station is 2.5km away
- By Bus: Number 19 from Leeds or Garforth takes you to the edge of the estate every 40 minutes
- By Car: Park at the Leeds City Council car park (£) or along Temple Newsam Road (free)
If the weather is bad we'll go inside the cafe, but of course there's no obligation to buy anything to attend the event. I look forward to seeing you there!