Hope you enjoy virtually celebrating with us.
Jen & co
On Saturday we went out for the first time in seven weeks as a family and most importantly doing what we love the most… Geocaching. We needed to see something other than the four walls of our home, inside our car or the shops.
We didn’t realise there was a souvenir to grab in aid of Blue Switch Day 2020 which is to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Geocaching. It made it even more special for our time out of the house during lockdown.
The kids have only been out twice since lockdown commenced, of course there’s the backgarden. Rob and I only go out once a week and are both careful as explained I have two auto-immune diseases and other health problems, I am not on the vulnerable list but am susceptible to getting things so we have made sure to be extra safe.
We loved to see the green in the trees and the grass growing as well as spotting the wild flowers, bugs and birds. My eyes felt refreshed and pleased, such an odd feeling.
We found five caches and only came across a handful of people, we used hand sanitiser after every cache was handled just to be safe. On our first cache we gained the souvenir badge and we were all delighted especially as we miss Geocaching so much.
I have to be honest with you and say that for me personally it helps my mental health, I can get away from the reality of life and get soaked into the game whilst walking and discovering new areas around us.
We all want to send you our best wishes and hope you are keeping safe during the coronavirus outbreak.
Jen & co.
Before the lockdown came down on the UK, I was down in London for the Digital Women Awards. I had some free time the morning after and spent it Geocaching, I think I walked over three miles in total that day.
I found six caches, five of which were virtuals. I had only covered a small section of London and there are more virtuals for me to go back and claim in the future. The smileys represent the virtual finds of the day, see the little ghost? That’s how we know if a Geocache is virtual, there are quite a few different types of caches.
About virtual Geocaches:
A Virtual Cache is about discovering a location rather than a container. The requirements for logging a Virtual Cache vary. You may be required to answer a question about the location, take a picture, complete a task, etc. In any case, you must visit the coordinates before you can post your log.
The Virtuals that you can find today are mostly great examples of this cache type. But they took a lot of time to review and it was difficult to determine guidelines for high-quality Virtuals.
(source Geocaching.com)
Finsbury Circus Green
The first find of the morning, the virtual was to locate the drinking fountain and to claim the find I had to provide the cache owner with the answer to their question: Who was the object at the GZ presented by?
A nice and easy cache to start the day and a lovely garden with stunning buildings circling it (GCK63N).
MMMonument
I would have never have found this monument without Geocaching. The monument is under the Millennium Bridge and celebrates Millenium measure with scientific instrument makers. The instructions to claim the virtual: the top item on one face is of interest to all geocachers, but to prove you’ve visited, what item is listed at the bottom of that face?
I knew exactly what the answer was just after inspecting each side and I thought it was a perfect virtual for any Geocacher (GCHC6H).
Golden Gallery Virtual Cache
I don’t ever remember going in or even seeing St Pauls Cathedral when visiting London as a child or teen. It was an impressive sight and I would have loved to have gone in but time didn’t allow it, I plan to come back with the family in the future and enjoy discovering St Pauls Cathedral together. I did, however, spend some time looking up and walking around.
The task from the cache owner was to go into St Pauls and visit the uppermost gallery but they accepted claims outside due to the fee to gain entry. I was glad to claim this find (GCHX1W).
TechnOLOGY (Central London)
I have to admit I went up to the virtual and then looked at the page after having a quick mooch around, only to find out that you shouldn’t linger due to the security cameras. I did manage to grab the information required by the cache owner: To claim this cache, mail us the exact wording of the CIRCULAR GREY historical plaque/sign on the wall. Mail the answers through our profile at the top of the page. The answer is NOT the white oval “City of London, Ward of Cheap”.
It was interesting to find another historical virtual for a different reason and one that resounds with Geocachers (GCCC6B).
A meeting place for Martyrs
The last virtual of the morning and there was a lot to do to claim this find, I hoped that I was right with my answers here. I did spend a lot of time investigating the area and I could tell people were wondering why I appeared to be very interested in this building.
The cache owner required: When you arrive at the site. Find for me as evidence at GZ THE FULL NAMES OF 3 JOHN’S AND A BILL. In between the Johns and Bill you will find some steps, go up, turn around and look up. How many floodlights do you see? To the right of Bill there is a drop down covered by a metal grill, what is the amount of windows you can see there?
The cache owner was right in saying that tourists would be interested to find out about this location with more history to discover (GC22E5).
With so many virtuals to find in London, it will be quite a few trips before claiming the virtuals alone. We are looking forward to when the lockdown is over so we can head down and discover them, in fact, go Geocaching at all! It has been just over a week since we last went Geocaching and we are all missing the long walks and fun that it brings.
I hope you’ve enjoyed having a virtual walk around with me as well. If you do manage to discover any virtuals in London in the future, do let me know what you learn.
Keep safe.
Jen
When we found out there were souvenirs to be claimed on the last day of 2019 and the first day of 2020; we couldn’t avoid the urge.
Souvenirs in the Geocaching world are like digital badges on your profile and throughout your Geocaching adventures, sometimes there will be a challenge set to achieve them and sometimes it will because you found a cache in a different country.
To claim the individual souvenirs we had to find one cache on each day and I am glad to say that we DIT IT! We actually did it in 2018 as well but in 2017 we only managed to claim one as we were away.
New Year’s Eve and we managed to find a Geocache very local to us, we like to keep a few for emergency caching. Thankfully we can find micro’s nice and easy now. Our last cache of 2019 was Priory Road Cache and Dash (GC676GF).
Our caching year totals so far:
2017- 191
2018- 134
2019- 102
Despite the decline in finds we absolutely love Geocaching and 2020 we are going to aim to increase our finds. Things are a little different as we are now a family that works from home full time. We are looking forward to 2020.
2020 arrived and Rob is going to remind us all of this moment, the first find of the new year. A quick magnetic find and not that far from us, we were near Riplingham. 100 yards (GC6RKAD).
We didn’t stop there, we went on to find three more and had a lovely fresh New Years Day walk. We would have done more but it was a bitter cold despite the sun shining bright on us.
You can see they were all excited to be back out caching again but it can get competitive. Your dog will like this one (GC6RK9R).
Two new badges and an exciting caching year ahead planned.
The Gilmours
The other week we received an email providing us some statistics on the caches we have hidden.
I have to admit I was impressed with the total amount of times our caches have been found. We love reading the logs and finding out what others think of our hides.
If you haven’t found any of our cache’s yet here is a list of them available in East Yorkshire. We have plans for more and we hope to build a trail in the future.
View our caches here:
Travel Bug B&B is our most favourited cache, we did love placing this one out there to be found. All of them are child friendly, Carlton Micro and Amy Johnson are micro caches but the rest are big enough for some swag.
Happy Caching.
The Gilmour’s
We were gifted a Kooties coverall a couple of weeks ago and we have spent some time trying it out with Robyn (3).
WE WENT GEOCACHING, keep reading to find out our caching fun.
Robyn absolutely loves to pretend to be a doctor and make everyone better. There was an obvious choice when deciding which coverall to go for, you can choose between: fire fighter, construction worker, paramedic and police officer.
Kooties are a worlds first coverall that combines messy play and role play.
We have three children and so this is perfect for us as our washing machine is always on the go when they have been playing outside with chalk, painting with water or in the mud. Our kids seem to get covered in all sorts and so I was excited to see if it would reduce our in the week wash down with Robyn’s school uniform.
Robyn’s first impressions was that she couldn’t wait to get in them, she loved that she could be a ‘doctor’ and fix everyone back together again. Robyn is 3 but 4 in November, we decided to go for a size 3-4 because she is on the tiny side. We were pleased that the Kooties coverall had plenty of space to grow but it didn’t matter that it was a bit big her her because of the elastic on the wrists and ankles. Either way they offer a lot of space making it easy to get the coverall over all of Robyn’s clothes.
The first thing we did was let Robyn chalk away and it proved useful because it meant her school clothes were kept clean. The chalk was easy to wipe off the coveralls as well. Find out about the chalking in the vlog (keep reading).
Whilst out Geocaching Robyn enjoyed searching for someone in need and running to help as well as running to find the cache. Often when we are out Geocaching we wear old clothes because we don’t want to get them muddy or grass stained, the coverall is a perfect alternative for the kids and it means we wouldn’t have to worry as much.
Robyn was very happy playing in the Kooties coveralls, you can see for yourself in this short video we put together. See what Geocache we discover…
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNDGN-Zux1Y&w=560&h=315]
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The Gilmour’s