Every Sunday Mr Wild Ink and I suggest to the children that we go on a lovely, long, rambling walk. It's a great thing to do as a family because we talk, giggle, jump in a few muddy puddles and get back home feeling like we truly deserve a hot chocolate/cup of tea/biccy/DVD etc. Recently our suggestion of a Sunday ramble has been met, not with enthusiasm, but a whole load of moans and groans. The whining continues throughout the WHOLE walk making it not a thing of pleasure but a miserable chore for everyone.
I felt that our local walks needed an injection of something new and exciting and I'd read about 'geocaching' in a newspaper article a few years ago. It's basically an international treasure hunt with a huge following. All round the world 'caches' have been hidden ready and waiting to be found.
After logging on to the site and registering for free we were delighted to find that loads of caches were hidden along the footpaths near where we live. We downloaded the app on my phone and followed the GPS reading which helped to navigate us to the caches.
After a longish walk, our GPS told us that we had indeed hit the spot so the children began searching high and low. We looked under big stones, piles of sticks and then the big boy spotted this in a rotten old gate post.....
It was a 'nano' cache!!!! The children were so excited (as were the adults!!).
We unscrewed the lid and wrote our details on the log ......then replaced it where we found it ready for the next geocacher to discover.
We marked it on the app as having found it then searched online for the next nearest cache which we found in no time. This proved to be even more exciting as it have little things to swap in it (the website has suggested you bring with you a few nic-nacs). The kids chose a badge, we left some marbles for the next intrepid explorer, logged it as found then searched for the next one...
...and found it! This was an even bigger cache and the children were quite beside themselves with excitment. The brilliant thing is that all these exciting boxes are all over the place but unless you're 'in the know' you would never be able to find them. We felt like we were part of a secret and elite club!
Loads of interesting things in this one!
We logged it and left feeling very excited and quite addicted!!
Fortified by some chewy sweets found in my ancient raincoat (no GPS required), we set off home feeling like we'd had a proper adventure and had, without a doubt, earned our hot chocolates! x
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