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.
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 have been to paint some pottery and it’s not something I have done since I was a child myself. Our eldest (Sophie) had been as part of a party and so we decided we should take Robyn and Riley on separate dates and enjoy some time. We usually do things together as a family and sometimes we forget to have that quality time together.
We went along to Tea & Bisque-it which is in Willerby and not that far from us.
Robyn was very excited at the thought and had no trouble in picking what she wanted to paint, Ariel. I chose a tealight holder and Rob chose a small gnome. Robyn was the first to get stuck in with her painting.
We enjoyed some light lunch whilst we were there and had a pleasant time. The food was delicious and we can recommend trying their desserts, especially the bonoffee cookie chessecake.
We were worried at thinking Robyn may not understand that we have to leave her Ariel to be finished but she absolutely fine and couldn’t wait to see what it would look like.
A week later and we went to pick up our pottery, it was actually ready way before then but we didn’t have the time to collect.
Here were the results:
We were so pleased with the outcome and will certainly be going back again. We found the pottery painting relaxing and it was in a nice environment with good food and friendly staff.
We said we would complete Streak Week and we are glad to say that WE DID IT! We wanted to share with you our 7 days of finds and what we got up to.
Day 1: Leeds
We decided to go to Ikea in Leeds and whilst we were out and about we saw that there were caches available near by and so we thought this was the perfect way to start streak week. We went to find Big Brother (GC83K5T) and Riley was the one to discover this cace, we were over thinking the hint.
Day 2: Hull
You wouldn’t believe it but we were busy all day and about to wind down when at 6pm we realised that we hadn’t found a cache. How could we miss this?
“Family emergency, family emergency” and we all made siren noises as we drove to a relatively close and new cache.
Phew, thank goodness we found it, in fact it was Sophie who found this sneaky cache; Tigers Lair (GC8CA4C).
Day 3: Hull
This day brought us glorious sunshine and a reason to finish a trail we hadn’t completed, we only had two caches to find as part of the trail on Victoria Dock. It helped that Riley found one and Sophie found the other, there was a park close by which Robyn thoroughly enjoyed.
Victoria Dock Walk #8 – The Watchtower (GC82ER) and Victoria Dock Walk #7 – Half Tide Basin (GC82EQ9).
Day 4: Anlaby
This was a fast grab and go with Sophie and Robyn as Riley was out at a friends for the day. It was a nice and easy find, we met a cute dog along the way, Jack’s Cache (GC4XY4C).
Day 5: Durham
This was a fun one to find as we were up staying in Durham for the evening, we were visiting a friend who is in the sports industry and the perfect cache to find was one of a sports nature. Football Micro Series 003 Durham City (GC55Z2Z), we were lucky that Riley spotted this one as we spent around 15 minutes searching at the wrong points in the small carpark, but we got there in the end.
Day 6: The Angel of the North and Durham Cathedral
An exciting find for us because last time we were up here we had no idea about Geocaching. It certainly was exciting to rediscover places with a new objective. We found three caches on this day.
Angel of the North – Virtual Reward (GC7B7FN), the kids loved completing this one because we had to find some information and do some counting as well. We all got stuck in to get the answers, grab a pic and claim the find.
Angels View (Tyne & Wear) (GC781), we would have never of known about this nice woodland walk if it wasn’t for Geocaching. A nice easy find and one the kids got excited about because we could leave one of our coins, we also claimed a trackable and did some swaps.
The Cloister Bats ! – Virtual Reward (GC7B951), what an awesome virtual and one we were excited about because its one of the filming locations of Harry Potter. This virtual reward came with a lot of counting and discovering which we would have missed in the detail if we were just casually walking around.
Day 7: Hull
We are back and to be honest we tried to find a different cache which was very sneaky and we left it after a good 20 minutes searching. I don’t know why phone box caches are so difficult to find, we all struggle with these.
This one was our next go to and once we were at the right beacon at Chanterlands Avenue Nano (GC7N13C) as the GPS was slightly out, mummy found it. Some lovely wall art to be discovered around this area.
WE DID IT! Streak week completed, we were so excited and the kids cheered with us. I read out the digital badge and they all had a glance, we completed the challenge.
A couple of month’s ago we had a local adventure in discovering the Fish Trail in Hull City Centre. I had completed this as a child but despite living back here for over five years, I hadn’t taken my three children to discover the 41 different spots.
Our adventure was a part of The Hull Hub Issue 7 which is currently available to pick up at different locations in and around the city. You can also read online.
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.
This afternoon we enjoyed the sun and went along to the first day of Friends On Every Street pop up store. To be honest we have been excited to go along to this event since we discovered the reason behind the ‘Peter Levy Changed My Life- 29.06.2019’ when I posted our family feet pic on Insta. Glad to say that this photo has been used by Friends On Every Street and the Fruit Market as well.
As soon as we walked down Humber Street we could see where the pop-up shop was because of the people crowding around the entrance, we soon found out that Peter Levy himself was present. What a fab turn out and soon you could see a sea of people wearing the iconic shirts.
Anyway, we decided we couldn’t miss it and with the build up on social media it has been enticing. The kids were also intrigued to find out what all the fuss was about. There’s lots of photo’s to come because there was so much to take in, we have narrowed it down but it was difficult. It is well worth the visit if you don’t have anything to do tomorrow or just go anyway, it will be the last day and open from 12 midday. There’s refreshments and music which gives it a brilliant atmosphere.
There was a lot to observe and it felt like an alternative art gallery, there were lots of photo opportunities and with directions and instructions we couldn’t go wrong.
We were particularly excited about this photo opportunity, Robyn our youngest wanted to pose for the camera but Riley was taking the mick out of me because I had a snap taken laying down before (cheeky thing).
A snapshot of the wall’s and what there is to see, we spent a while observing and having a nosey around. As I mentioned before, it felt like an alternative art gallery that expressed the love of Hull (its people, places and slang).
Peter Levy was present and so it only felt right to grab a photo with him. We had met him last year at the Freedom Festival and Sophie had a picture with Peter then, Sophie wasn’t shy to let him know of this and I mentioned she had his signed sticker on her bed frame. It made it more memorable and Sophie won’t forget it, she gave him a hug which was quite sweet.
Sophie says “Peter Levy is a very nice guy who is very intelligent. The wall art was amazing because it had all the colours of the rainbow”
It wouldn’t have been complete without an Insta wall with a lot of the fun gimmicky work of Friends On Every Street. We spent a lot of time giggling to ourselves and perhaps sniggering as well, even coming home and looking back on the photo’s we found new re-created logo’s we hadn’t spotted before.
We couldn’t resist splashing the cash to buy some local swag and investing in a Levy’s shirt, pin badge and sticker pack! We congratulate Friends On Every Street for their genius work and have enjoyed seeing their journey so far, we look forward to seeing what’s yet to come.
My MacBook has had a make over and I certainly feel ‘cool’, yes I said it. My hubby has been subtle with his placement of his sticker as you can see, clearly didn’t want to potentially over kill it (like me).
Thank you so much for a fun afternoon and there will soon be another feet family photo on social media, keep your eye’s peeled and nose’s pinched.
