Kingdom of Fife Orienteers

 I had my first geocaching experience this week. I have investigated Letter Boxes in the past, failing to find the one at Cranmere Pool on Dartmoor some 40 years ago. I did however find the one on Meall na Teanga, a Munro west of Loch Lochy.

 According to the Geocaching site is: “Geocaching is  a free real-world outdoor treasure hunt. Players try to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using a smartphone or GPS and can then share their experiences online”. Beyond looking for a target, the similarity with orienteering ends there. I found the coordinates of a geocache (NO 38757 22721) near Gauldry in Ghoul’s Den from their website. The idea is that you feed these co-ordinates into your GPS and follow it till you are at the target. Since I don’t have a GPS, I looked up the position on the OS map, the co-ordinates giving 1 metre accuracy (better than the GPS). There I found a small 5 cm square plastic watertight container, well hidden from any public scrutiny, behind the wheel of a gamekeeper’s hut. The box contained a plastic butterfly and a metal nut, and a list to sign with your name and the date of your discovery. That was it.

 There are almost 2 million geocaches throughout the world, and over 5 million geocachers. Some caches seem to be more interesting than others. One, near Gauldry, I have passed hundreds of times and I was completely unaware of its existence. It is a ROC Post (a Nuclear Reporting Cell left over from the cold war, something I had not heard of before). I haven’t yet investigated this.

 That was also my last geocache. Perhaps I should investigate hashing next.

Dave