Yesterday we took the kids out the front door for the first time in a few weeks because of lockdown. As a family, we have tried to be as safe as we can in lockdown by Rob and I going out once a week. I have two auto-immune diseases and a few other health conditions, I am susceptible to picking things up and last year had ten rounds of antibiotics. The kids have been in the back garden a lot and we have done lots of activities but we felt it was time to take a drive out.
Anyway, we miss Geocaching and so I thought we could do a drive around scavenger hunt whilst we did some errands. I made it so that Robyn could understand it with the little pictures next to it, all you have to do is tick the box when you find it. Robyn wasn’t in the mood to join in but did right at the end of our journey when Sophie and Riley had completed theirs.
It’s not the best printable in the world because its what I drew myself but I hope it comes in use. The kids loved it and we had a special extra at the end which was put onto a sticker, it was “family member”. We drove by my dads and he came to see them from a safe distance to wave, it made their day and mine.
I don’t think the kids have ever been so excited to go on a little car trip. We did see an awesome 911copcar on our journey as well. We are going to share our adventure on TikTok later today.
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.
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.
Last week we were out caching and nature called for our youngest, Robyn is four. Most of the caching we have done with Robyn was when she was in nappies or short walks when she was getting used to life without them.
BUT,,, going on a longer Geocaching hunt meant that it was going to happen sometime. We felt for her when she looked around and saw no buildings, “where are the toilets?” she asked. She wasn’t pleased about weeing in the bushes as I had put it and it took a little while for her to finally wee but she did it. Celebrations went around the family and we all started chanting “weeing in the wilderness” and high fiving her one by one. Sophie and Riley were so excited about it being her first time weeing in the bushes.
Of course, I was prepared and had some toilet roll in the rucksack. To be honest this became a must after our first ever LONG Geocaching trail a few years ago, I am going to have to leave it there though.
If you are planning on doing a long Geocaching trail, always have toilet roll or at least tissues with you. We also have nappy bags.
For quite some time we have been wondering how we can keep up with the kids when they are ahead of us on their scooters. After a while, we finally got to the point; ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’.
In January I purchased an adult push scooter for Rob after thinking about it for around nine months, we never had the money to dive into getting them. It was Rob’s birthday so it was a perfect excuse, Decathlon is reasonable on price and the quality is great. We had bought the kid’s first scooters from there around three years ago. It was quite funny because Rob had thought I had bought him some furniture because the box was huge, he was like a kid on Christmas Day when all was revealed.
It was so popular that we decided to upgrade Riley’s and Sophie’s scooters as they have Birthdays in Jan and Feb, Robyn had her first scooter already from Christmas. It was just myself left without, but we had agreed that my Birthday present would be a scooter and there wasn’t that long to wait, Rob couldn’t wait until March and wanted to get it as soon as he could.
There we have it, a family gliding together into the distance.
The perfect place to go Geocaching on scooters with children is the old railway lines. We have been watching the new series of Walking Britains Lost Railway Lines for inspiration, starting close to home and we will strive a little further in the future. Planning on investing in camping equipment for our adventures.
We will keep you in the loop.
Enjoy this short clip of us scooting about whilst Geocaching.
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.
We have been meaning to share this with you for a little while but we have been in The Hull Hub for our love of Geocaching.
Here it is:
Here is what we wrote about Geocaching in Hull…
Back in May 2017 my family and I discovered the world of Geocaching and the five of us embraced it, it has been something we have taken with us on holidays and has saved us a lot of money as a family. The photo of us was taken on our first ever trail.
What is Geocaching?
Geocaching is a real-world, outdoor adventure that is happening all the time, all around the world. To play, participants use the Geocaching app or a GPS device to navigate to cleverly hidden containers called geocaches. There are millions of Geocaches in the world waiting to be found.
Some are as tiny as a thimble and some as large as a caravan, there are clues on what to look out for or how to open it, using your problem solving skills. Once you open it you simply sign the log with the date and your username. If a Geocache is large enough you may find some ‘swag’ which are small toys/items, the idea behind this is that you swap an item for something of the same value or greater.
For us Geocaching has helped us discover different places and seen things we wouldn’t have seen without it. Some cache hiders like to give historical information and place their cache at a location linked to this.
City Centre caches are more urban and hard to discover because you are not meant to be caught finding them by muggles, which in the context of Geocaching are people who don’t know about the hobby.
What Geocaches are in Hull?
Here are a few with the GC codes if you want to find them on the app and discover them for yourself. There are 2,191 Geocaches around Hull.
We have some fantastic caches in Hull and if we take the City Centre alone there is a Hull Culture Cache Trail (GC7035W) placed in 2017 for Capital of Culture. Theres also a Historic Hull Trail (GC71D5) which is a short multi cache trail in which you have to answer questions at certain locations to gain the information to find the cache’s location. Another multi-cache in the City Centre is A Trip Around Town (GC2FNJX) which took us the best part of a day to complete as you walk a quite a bit but we enjoyed it and it cost us nothing extra to do.
How do you start Geocaching?
You can get a Geocaching account for FREE and if you want to go the extra mile then you can get the premium membership for £25 a year which unlocks the whole of the Geocaching world. It has saved us money as a family, it’s our go to weekend or holiday activity. No longer are we scraping our heads on what to do without spending a fortune.
Simply download the app and away you go.
Final thoughts
Geocaching has provided our family to rediscover places we loved and has helped us with our own mindset, giving our walks purpose and giving us an adventure. I haven’t pin pointed where the photo’s are taken in and around Hull, but you can see some of the caches and get an initial feel for what it could be like. Rob (my husband) and I will go out on our own at times and we enjoy it just as much with the kids. Robyn (my youngest) found her first cache late last year and now has the competitive streak to find it first when we hit the next Geocache location.
We were gifted a day out to The Pink Pig Farm which is just over the Humber Bridge for us, a short 20 mile journey. The three children were excited to go along, we had visited before but had come for a special afternoon tea after some Geocaching. We were excited to go into the farm and find out what was in store.
The lady that greeted us at the till was very friendly and informative, she told us all about the pumpkin carving and we decided to pay for it on the sale of “there’s no mess at home”. It was £3.50 per child. There wasn’t a map but everything was well signposted and staff throughout the day were very helpful with any directions, it was like discovering different area’s of the farm and became an adventure.
Farm Park
It’s safe to say that the toboggan run was a big hit with the kids, absolutely loved racing each other down the hill. The giant swing was also fun because we all climbed aboard and had a swing together, it was nice to do as a family. We were lucky that we had a nice autumn day and that the rain kept away. There were lots of activities in this area including football, sand play, water play, slide, tight rope and even a craft cabin.
The air bounce pillow was a big hit and thankfully it wasn’t raining so they were able to join in. Daddy enjoyed the sand diggers and helped Robyn with them. There were tractors and a play hay bail, you are truly spoilt for choice on what to do.
Pumpkin Carving
The kids thoroughly enjoyed the pumpkin carving and spent time searching for the right pumpkin for them. The area was separate from everywhere else and dedicated to the carving, they all enjoyed the atmosphere that was brought with the themed decorations.
There were lots of Halloween activities including a spooky puzzle in a little woodland trail, we had to find the letters and unscramble them to make a word. If you got the word correct than a chocolate frog was the reward. An option in the shop to have your photo dressed up and on a broom with a green screen to make a fun shot.
Lunch stop
The kids decided they were going to have the lunch box deal for £4.50, choose 5 items from the selection; sandwiches, crisps, drink, fruit, yogurts, cookies, cheese, fruit packets and jammy dodgers. Plenty to choose from. It was a good idea because they didn’t want to stop playing and eat so they ended up having a little bit, coming back and having more.
There was a hot menu in which the adult lunch meals were a good price but we felt the children’s meal were a little expensive, perhaps because we have three children it cranked the price up a bit. However saying this, people had brought in their own picnics and there was no problem with this. It’s nice to know you have a choice when visiting places as a family to do this.
Mummy tried the quiche which was delicious and filling, it came with a side salad and coleslaw. Daddy had a chip butty and then we shared some sweet potatoe fries between us. We couldn’t complain at the portions, we were all satisfied and ready for the next part of our day out.
The animals
There were so many animals to see and it was set out like a trail with a washing station for your hands. Of course there are pigs to visit but also donkeys, sheep, goats, geese, chickens, alpacas, rabbits, guinea pigs and ducks (did you see the duck selfie?).
The Tractor Ride
A pink tractor that you can ride on, yes please! We were surprised at how many we you could fit in the trailer, we were concerned that our family of five would take up the whole of one side but it wasn’t the case. It was fun to
The Play Barn
After all the fun outside it was time for a sit-down and let the kids play in the play barn, it was the kids that pointed out that the play area appeared like a pig which we thought was genius. Mummy and Daddy were certainly ready for a hot drink and the kids were kept happy, it was a task to bring them away when it was time to go home.
It’s safe to say we will be visiting again, especially as there is a Christmas Narnia experience.
Sophie (9) says “I think The Pink Pig Farm was amazing because all of the activities were fun to do. We went on the tractor ride and I liked looking at the animals, my favourite animal was the little owls cuddling together. My favourite thing to do there was jumping on the air bounce pillow.
Riley (7) says “I liked the pumpkin carving and the tractor ride. My favourite thing is seeing the animals and going on the toy tractors”
Robyn (3) says in response to what was the best part of the day “The Tractor”
Highly recommend going to visit The Pink Pig Farm. Find out more about the Pink Pig Farm here.
There is a Geocache nearby but we were all tuckered out as we spent the whole day at the farm. We are going to put it on our list to claim when we visit next time and make sure we stop to find it first.
The Geocache is called The little piggy……… (GC4WWCJ), it is a premium cache so you will have to be a member but it is only £25 for the year or you can pay monthly.
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.
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.
All about supermarkets and how we shop as a family, but my husband and the three children had no idea that I swapped their food for the basic brands. I swopped the cereal boxes over so they wouldn’t find out… and cooked just like I normally would.
Last weekend we had so much fun in the little snow that came to us in Hull, East Yorkshire. Grabbing the sledges out of the shed that we had bought on offer last year it was time to finally use them… and what fun we had!
