RogerBW's Blog

I cached a geo 13 August 2021

I finally tried geocaching. So far it's not a bad excuse for a walk.

I signed up at geocaching.com; they really want you to use their app, but I suspect the Android version relies on Google libraries that my LineageOS phone doesn't have, as it displays the sign-in screen and than crashes. Fortunately I already have OSMAnd (and some experience using it on walks), and the site lets you download standard GPX files which can be loaded into it. (I should write a thingy to strip together multiple GPX files into a single group, and move the descriptions into a field that OSMAnd will display. I hate XML namespaces; they may help with validation, but they make everything harder when you just want to get data out.)

There were two caches conveniently near home in roughly the same direction, so I set out to see what I could find.

These birds believe they are camouflaged.

Getting to the right spot within the accuracy of the GPS receiver was easy. But then I was faced with this. (Well, not exactly this, because that would be a Clue, but something quite like it.)

With a bit of thought ("if I were a moderately non-obvious item, where would I be?") I managed to locate it. This was an airtight food container (though it had clearly got water inside at some point), with logbook and various plastic toys.

On the way back; in this modern age, I could check for passing trains and determine that there wouldn't be anything for at least twenty minutes so it wasn't worth waiting for one.

The other site was a bit more of a challenge (a "nano" cache, in this case a plastic tube about 6cm long and less than 1cm wide with just the log sheet rolled up in it) by a relatively well-used road. It was while I was waiting for a good moment to retrieve it – one of the rules is that you don't do this stuff in sight of normal people who might not understand – that two bits of knowledge clicked together, and I realised that this is basically dead-drop protocol: don't make the location obvious, just casually walk past and scoop the thing up or put it down in an entirely normal and relaxed manner as if you are doing something entirely usual. Well, I can do that

(Indeed, I am told that a somewhat parallel system is used by drug dealers in some places: you send them the money for a standard packet of whatever, and they tell you the location of one that they've already hidden somewhere.)

Of course, that's two out of the five live caches that are within an easy lunchtime walk from home, so I may start going further afield.

I gather it's traditional to leave small plastic toys in a large cache, and there's this convenient generator for random 3d-printable puzzle boxes


  1. Posted by J Michael Cule at 11:00am on 13 August 2021

    << Long rant mentioning trainspotting and golf deleted before I got to stamp collecting. >>

    Replaced with: Don't diss other people's fun, Michael. There are people out there who find your obsessions odd.

  2. Posted by RogerBW at 11:15am on 13 August 2021

    Oh, golfers are fair game. They lock up huge areas of conveniently-accessible open ground that could otherwise be used by many more people.

    (Though to be fair given the option most councils would probably just put up more ramshackle housing on it.)

  3. Posted by Owen Smith at 11:53pm on 13 August 2021

    The golf club nearest to my parents still has only one day a week women can play with no pre-conditions. On any other day of the week they can only play if no men are booked to play in that time window. And women can't be full members, only associates. I lack the vocabulary to properly express how much I despise that club. Covering it with ramshackle housing would be an improvement.

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech aviation base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2022 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1