Geocaching

[Quillan]

Anyone doing this?

[Gardian]

Comment ?[8-)]

[woolybanana]

Says it all really Q!!

[cooperlola]

Even if I were, I'm not sure that I would know, Q.

[Gardengirl]

Our sons and their partners do this a lot. They used to do letterboxing on Dartmoor amongst other places, but moved on to geocaching. One partner even bought a special satnav like a watch for it. They looked up places before they came out for their first visit to us in France, and we joined in with them for 2 near us. There's an internet site which gives locations and clues; we found the clues given in French were more useful than those in English! 

[Sunday Driver]

http://www.geocaching.com/default.aspx

 

[Chancer]

What a load of hi-tech rollocks!

No different to the treasure hunts and scatter rallys that we used to do in our motorclub or indeed orienteering, using a landranger OS map and a roamer if you want to be posh you can locate a grid reference  to the same accuracy as a GPS and have much more fun in actually trying to find the place.

IMO its for the muppets that cant find their way to a location using a map, once there the searching is exactly the same.

[Gardengirl]

Well, Chancer, my two 'muppets' have been reading maps since they were 5 years old, and can find their way up, down and along any terrain in any country using maps or even sun direction if needs must! But they are very keen on geocaching, enjoy the exchange of messages in the tiny containers (very short!), and reckon it's great fun, having done years of orienteering!  [:D]

At a family 90th birthday party not long ago, people of all ages went out in the woods beyond the garden at varius tmes to geocache, and a good time was had by all. It was pretty much spur of the minute, and a great addition to the day. By the way, the 90 year old didn't join in tripping over tree roots!  [:D]

[LEO]

Does it give boring people,  a bit of  excitement ?

[Chancer]

I understand your posting completely Gardengirl and agree that the thrill of the search is great fun for all, but dont your two experienced non muppet orienteerers feel like it is being dumbed down by using a GPS?

Do they use theirs or maps when they geocache? I bet its the latter as its far more interesting and mentally challenging to use a map, which surely is the purpose of the whole exercise, also with a decent map one can see and keep a look out for many more interesting features en route which you would never see on a tiny GPS.display.

That said I do sometimes allow my GPS (yes I do have one!) to take me back on my return journey by the shortest route just to see what interesting villages etc there are that I would normally pass by, it does however frequently try to direct me through the courtyards of fermettes which wouldnt go down too well.

[Gardian]

[quote user="Chancer"]

That said I do sometimes allow my GPS (yes I do have one!) to take me back on my return journey by the shortest route just to see what interesting villages etc there are that I would normally pass by, it does however frequently try to direct me through the courtyards of fermettes which wouldnt go down too well.

[/quote]

Elder son, who has driven down here loads of times, allowed his GPS to take him on the 'direct' route to here from the motorway.  Idiot !

It took him right through 'indian' country, and he spent 50% longer getting here (only 20 mins or so, admittedly). 

I rely absolutely on my 'sense of direction', though this is an object of derision in the family. OK, so on the odd occasion it's failed .....................

[Quillan]

Most of the GPS units used for recreation do have built in maps. They also have POI's and you can upload ones specific to things you are interested in. Likewise they have a compass built in so you can navigate the 'old' way if you wish. The 'buz' as I understand it is that its not just as simple as arriving in a forest or town at a given place but just like car treasure hunts of old you then have to work out the clue to actually find the cache. I'm not defending or knocking those that do this it's just that we have had several French groups this year stay who are Geocaching either individually or with their families and I am thinking of ways of perhaps getting more people to come and stay (bums in beds as they say). One thing I did notice is that a lot of families take part, it gets them out and about as a family and seems to be fun (it is classed as a game by the way) which can't be that bad surely? Better than exercising just the thumbs on these stupid computer games.

[zarathustra]

I recently bought an eTrex-H. Doesn't work so well in Paris, unless I walk down to the Seine, but I'd like to give geocaching a try in the countryside before too long. I was a boy scout and did all the orienteering stuff when I was young, but I'm quite content with using a GPS these days. My girlfriend thinks I'm a geek for having one, so I guess I'll be doing it by myself.

[Chancer]

My shatnav had me over several times on the way back from Dordogneshire recently, its the first time that I have not had my bearings and did not keep mytrack on a map at the same time, sevearl times I thought "this dont seem right" and after checking the map found thatit was sending me miles out of my way just to join all the queing traffic on a periphique.

Just to break the monotony I started playing between fastest and shortest when I was near to home and knew the terrain just to see how it compared with my internal inertial navigation system.

I was about 35km from home and it showed la route plus vite as being an additional 20 km and 18 minutes longer than la route plus direct. thats why I call it shatnav.

[Quillan]

The two important things with satnavs for cars is that you keep the maps up to date (TomTom charge 8 Euros per quarter for complete new maps) ad to understand how they calculate the route. The algorithm used assumes you travel at the speed limit of the road you are on i.e. if ts a town you drive at 50 kph for example. Depending on the route sometimes you can do it quicker but round here were the roads are very twisty and often single track is only possible to drive at an average of 60 kph when the roads are listed at 90 kph so trips take longer. After a while you sort of get a 'feel' for it and when it says 2 hours you know it will be either longer or shorter as you already know part of the route. I have used my TomTom a lot for holidays etc, I always take a map with me for emergency use but have found the TomTom accurate and it has not let me down mind you I always do an update before I go.

[Chancer]

Actually I find its unnerringly accurate at calculating journey times, in this instance I had programmed in a restricted speed as I was towing a rigipliante caravane.

The point I was makig was that according to its calcs the fastest route was another 18kms, thats OK it could have been motorways but it was RN's instead of RD's, no the killer was it showed "the fastest route" as taking 20 minutes longer than its calculated most direct route, that aint faster to me.

If its logic is "well you would be travelling faster" - a bit hard when I had programmed in a maximum speed, then why didnt it take me on a tour of all the autoroutes of France before allowing me to get home?

Its true that I am too mean to buy updates but I did get one update when after having replaced 2 units under warranty they downloaded new software after 20 months, the machine was taking so  long to find a satelite that often I would have crossed the channel and got to Maidstone before it knew where it was, when I took it back to Halfords I showed them that it was still stuck 2km from my French address where 2 days before as I had some time in hand I wanted to know how much longer the mos direct route would take.

The new updated maps still showed several local UK roads that have been closed to traffic for over 40 years (one in the middle of a huge industrial estate) as well as not knowing that our new international airport had cut the RD in two and that new roads had been built in 2006 or that the Airbus factory had closed an old road between two factories to vehicle traffic over 25 years ago.

I wont be wasting any money on new maps in a hurry, especially at £8 per quarter

[powerdesal]

Geocaching is good fun.

Satnavs are great but need intelligent use, trying to read a map whilst driving is a dangerous occupation. Trying to find a place to stop in a strange city whilst looking for an address is the stuff of nightmares.

Plenty of technophobes on this thread

[Quillan]

[quote user="powerdesal"]Geocaching is good fun. Satnavs are great but need intelligent use, trying to read a map whilst driving is a dangerous occupation. Trying to find a place to stop in a strange city whilst looking for an address is the stuff of nightmares. Plenty of technophobes on this thread[/quote]

Well doing a bit of reading it seems the current system combined with the European EGNOS (their version of WAAS, they work exactly the same) system has just been approved for emergency services use for ground based units. I understand that the BLU at Bedford (thats Blind Landing Unit) is quite happy so far with results for using this system to land aircraft as it gives an accuracy of <3M and its hoped to be approved by the end of this year. I was wondering if that means we shall see loads of aircraft lining up on our road to land given the sceptical reception in-car GPS systems get. [;-)] Although my Nokia N95 does not have this chipset I see that all the Garmin range for recreational use sold over the last 18 months does. So just to find out what its all about I'm going to have a go this afternoon at a couple nearby and see how I get on with my Nokia.

 

[powerdesal]

Info for Garmin users: The Nuvi 250W (amongst others) is subject to a recall depending on the serial number. Battery problems apparently.

[pachapapa]

[quote user="powerdesal"]Info for Garmin users: The Nuvi 250W (amongst others) is subject to a recall depending on the serial number. Battery problems apparently.[/quote]

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/2237056/ShowPost.aspx

[water rat]

That's strange Quillan ,I had the same idea after a family booked with us specifically to do this so I was thinking of promoting it . Needless to say once they arrived they didn't go anywhere. P'raps they were scared of doing it in France?

[Quillan]

[quote user="water rat"]That's strange Quillan ,I had the same idea after a family booked with us specifically to do this so I was thinking of promoting it . Needless to say once they arrived they didn't go anywhere. P'raps they were scared of doing it in France?[/quote]

The ones that stayed here were French and they were quite happy going off in to the mountains looking for their cache.

I just did a couple nearby, one in a town and the other out in the wilderness but fortunately there was a track. Surprisingly it was the town one that was the hardest to find, I can see why people do this its great fun plus it gets you out the house. The dogs enjoyed it also, nice run in the country.

[Gardengirl]

Of the two geocaches we did when our son and partner came, the one down in the valley was quite tricky, although on reading the French clue, it became a little clearer. The one in the middle of town was really hard; all four of us searched carefully behind signs and pipes etc, and they even returned the next day to search. That was so funny, as it was market day, and they were feigning great interest in a tiny square just off the main square, without drawing too much attention! They did finally find it, but it was very hard. We watched from a distance, and it was so suspicious to see these two tall young guys feigning interest in windows, doors etc!  [:)]

They're on the south coast of UK this week, so no doubt they'll have plans for more geocaching; I wonder if there are any on Brownsea Island.

[Quillan]

[quote user="gardengirl "]

Of the two geocaches we did when our son and partner came, the one down in the valley was quite tricky, although on reading the French clue, it became a little clearer. The one in the middle of town was really hard; all four of us searched carefully behind signs and pipes etc, and they even returned the next day to search. That was so funny, as it was market day, and they were feigning great interest in a tiny square just off the main square, without drawing too much attention! They did finally find it, but it was very hard. We watched from a distance, and it was so suspicious to see these two tall young guys feigning interest in windows, doors etc!  [:)]

They're on the south coast of UK this week, so no doubt they'll have plans for more geocaching; I wonder if there are any on Brownsea Island.

[/quote]

Three apparently and one is very hard to find.