Almost got arrested this morning...

I got off the graveyard shift, and as I had my last can of coke a bit too late, I wasn't really sleepy yet. So I decided to do some geocaching.
So I picked out a nice microcache, which was pretty much on the way home if I took the scenic route. So after a little drive, I parked my car and went on on foot. After a short walk I found the spot and the cache was quickly logged...
So I start to make my way back to the car, when all of a sudden a police officer jumps out in front of me and his partner was coming in from behind.

Somehow they thought it was suspicious, me doing recon in the small patch of woodland where the cache is hidden with a flashlight and my GPS. Maybe it had to do with the High voltage pillon a few yards away and the busiest piece of railway of the netherlands a few yards in the other direction...

Anyway, they made me take them to the cache, so when we got back at the woodland, I pulled out the L1P, and the officers just couldn't believe that such an amount of light could come out of such a small package I gave them the URL of 4sevens website and showed them the cache. After they checked the contents I could go on my way. So 1 of the officers is now going to try geocaching and the other wants to buy a Fenix

Sweet. I've always wanted to try geocaching, but I don't have a GPS.

Added to my flashlight stories collection, btw.

:lolsign:

:goodjob: MayCooper!

Nice!

Lucky for you they believed your cover story!

Wow, nice turnaround, MayCooper! Not only did you educate them about geocaching, you've turned them on to some decent lights to boot!

Oh and not getting arrested was a nice bonus. :laughing:

carrot said:

Sweet. I've always wanted to try geocaching, but I don't have a GPS. Added to my flashlight stories collection, btw.

Click to expand...

A GPS is not required. I did a couple with a topo map and compass. Its more of a challenge. But the GPS makes it a lot easier.


Steve

MayCooper said:

I got off the graveyard shift, and as I had my last can of coke a bit too late, I wasn't really sleepy yet. So I decided to do some geocaching.

Click to expand...

Good story. I never experience anything like this.

Geocaching is a lot of fun. I haven't done much lately. I like the ones that require a nice hike. The last geocache I did was a 7 mile hike round trip up a mountain. It was a nice view from top of the mountain.

Steve

Unfortunately geocaching isn't that well known and stories like this are not uncommon. Glad it had a happy outcome.

GeoScouter said:

Good story. I never experience anything like this.
I like the ones that require a nice hike. The last geocache I did was a 7 mile hike round trip up a mountain. It was a nice view from top of the mountain.

Click to expand...

Me too, unfortunately I live in the netherlands, and in one of the areas with the highest population... We don't have mountains here. The cache this morning wasn't even a kilometer on foot... the one I did yesterday was even shorter 100m round trip, but that was quite an adventure as I had to cross a really narrow, really old, bridge while carrying 700+ euros worth of gear (pda, gps, lights) with me weighing more than 100 kilos... getting my courage together to cross that bridge took me more time than finding and logging the cache

I am a heavy geocacher now, and fortunately havent run into a issue like this yet. I came close a couple days ago though. I was on my way to a cache for the second time as I didnt find it in the dark the first. I was walking up to the general area in the woods behind a small church and this guy was standing there looking at me walking closer. As I got closer to him, walking right at him, we realized why he was their along with many other cars in the parking lot of the church. The woods behind it the church, right where the cache was at was totally scortched from fire. I couldnt believe it. A nice area, with a good cache, gone. He, a guy from the church, obviously wondered why we were there and had to explain geocaching to him. He told us to get whatever it was and get out of there, and to not come back. I understood his frustation as it got too close for comfort to the church. As we were looking for the cache, we still saw glowing hot embers and had to stomp out a few small fires from what was left ourselves as we turned the woods upside down looking for the cache. (The fire department had left not but 15 minutes before we got there). After looking a long time all we found was a lump of plaster used in the base of the cache, and that was it. I figured I would get a call or something from the Police asking more questions why I was there, but nothing ever came of it.

-C

stay inside...!

Hopefully im not the only one here, but what is Geocaching? I've never heard of it before till I read this thread.

Ok! Please recommend some sites or forums to educate myself on geocaching.

What do you get in doing it? Do people leave things at certain locations for others to find or what?

I don't get it.

AlexGT

Geocaching:

You use a handheld GPS device to find a container, "cache", that is located somewhere. Sometimes they are hidden incredibly well, others are so obvious that you wont believe it! Once you do find it, pending the size you will have a log book in which you write your name and what you took and left, date, a little story if you'd like about what it took to find it. Many people leave and take little trinkets that are in the cache's. Cheap stuff, sometimes batteries, toys, just little frugal things that you may like. Then you leave one as well. You also have GeobugTags that have a special number on them. They will move from cache to cache, and when you do get ahold of one, you log it online. You can then see where it all has been. I myself have had one in Houston that was from London England.

You dont really get anything out of it except the satisfaction that you truly found a needle in a haystack using up to 12 satellites that are hundreds of miles away from you; The most high tech sport available. Its a very very cheap hobby that you and the family can easily get into. Once you buy the GPS, ~$100 and go WAY up from there, you have essentially no costs except gas. I guess something you can get from it is scenery. You will typically find a cache thats located in a fairly unique area. I have been to a side of a lake that was outstanding looking and never knew it was even there. Been on top of the largest rock in Texas, Enchanted Rock, and found a Topo marker.

I enjoy the heck out of the "sport." Its great to just get out, see new things, and when camping, gives a lot more to do.

-Cam

[edit]
I forgot to add that you also can get together with other cachers around you. Meet some new people that are very cool. Then you will sometimes have events, challenges. Coming this March, Texas is having its "Texas Challenge." Over 300 might be expected at Inks Lake State Park and it will be Southeast Texas vs North Texas vs Dallas area. Whoever wins, finds the most caches amidst other stuff, gets to plan the next years event.
[/edit]

WOW what a story! LOL! Thanks for the referral - I think I did get
a few orders from NL!

The last part of the geocache is a pain. I've had so many unsucessful
searches cuz I couldnt' find it. I wish it would be standard to mark the caches
with UV sensitive marker or just mark them up with yellow highlighter!

Try here:

www.geocaching.com

-Bill

What I like about GeoCaching, is that it gets you to places where you wouldn't even think of going. And the good thing is, there's so many levels of geocaching.

There are urban caches, which can be done on a shopping trip while the girlfriend is shopping for shoes...

There are the regular, one point caches (like the one I was doing) which can be quite a challenge

There are multicaches, requiring you to go to certain coordinates, while picking up answers to puzzles on the way which will give you the location of the cache (if answered correctly that is )

There are caches that will require a multi day hike to get to them

There are caches that need special equipment to find them, like climbing or scuba gear

there are currently 235580 active caches in 220 countries


A lot of people make the mistake thinking that caching is easy "You know the cache coordinates, so you walk to it and bang there it is" Nope... you know where to look (and a GPS unit isn't as accurate as some people think), but more often than not you don't know exactly what you're looking for.

So if you are visiting the netherlands, and want to have a little introduction to geocaching, just gimme a shout, I'll be happy to take you along on one of my trips (and I'll try not to get you arrested :nana: )

4sevens said:

The last part of the geocache is a pain. I've had so many unsucessful
searches cuz I couldnt' find it. I wish it would be standard to mark the caches
with UV sensitive marker or just mark them up with yellow highlighter!

Click to expand...

Thats why I take a few tools along when I go caching. First there is the flashlight (Fenix l1p on my belt) for the low light situations, when going out in darkness I also carry someting with a bit more throw to back it up too. Second, I take along one of those Leki trekking poles, they make great prods to make searching under (thorny) bushes a little easier, not to mention it's a good thing to have around, as my left ankle isn't always doing what its supposed to do. Another thing I take along is a little metaldetector. It used to be one of those detectors for finding pipes in your walls, I modified it a bit so I can clip it to the trekking pole. A pretty good tool, as a lot of caches here are stored in old ammoboxes.