Geocaching - 4WD Off Road Style
Trip Start
Jun 18, 2008
1
61
72
Trip End
Ongoing
Melbourne,
Victoria,
Australia
Monday, November 3, 2008
People hide caches in all sorts of places, then leave clues to its wearabouts on various internet websites. In these caches are normally a log book, to leave a message that someones been there, and often little items such as coins.
Using a GPS unit and a map, people try to find the caches, and log their adventures on the aformentioned websites, often with photos and stories of how they found it etc.
I'm not sure I've done it justice with that description, because it really is a great deal of fun. Especially when the caches we set out to find require a lot of 4WD off road driving. In the rain.
The location of the caches were somewhere in Bunyip State Park, about 100km East of Melbourne. It's a popular off road driving park, with some seriously hard tracks and trails to traverse, if you wish. It's generally a good idea to go with a group of other cars, because it is inevitable that you will eventually become stuck. There were a few groups we saw trying to get one another out of very deep bogs - it's all part of the fun.
Using Andy's GPS unit, we started to track down the caches. We spent a few hours going up and down some really steep, heavily rutted tracks (at one point I bottled it, and walked up - there is only so many bumps to the head you can take!), sliding everywhere, doing some huge jumps (it takes a lot to get a Land Rover off the ground) etc. It's not often that a mate tries to kill you, but it was good fun nevertheless.
Once in the general area of the cache, we then had to track it down. With the Dogs let loose (I dunno what they thought about the ride in), we then went on short walks to find the caches. It often came down to thinking "Where would I put it?". The most obvious place was in tree hollows, and in that we guessed right. Trekking through the forest and long grasses (on the lookout for Snakes) was a great laugh, and a great excuse to go out for a walk someplace you normally wouldn't.
As luck would have it, one cache held a geocoin. Put in by the person who hid the cache, they are often attached with a message, asking that someone does something with it - in this case, it needs to go to Scotland. Knowing we could get it to within 500 miles of that goal, myself and Helen held on to it, and we will be putting it in our own cache when we get home (hint: It will be in a large forest on the Kent/East Sussex Border).
It was a great day out, combining all sorts of fun activities - off road driving, hiking, tracking down stuff. A great laugh, we got filthy, got some exercise, and it's all for free. We also got to see a lot more of Victoria than we would have done otherwise, and you cannot argue with that - surely thats what Travel is about?
You can check out more at http://www.geocaching.com/.
Condition of the track!
