The group that organises our Friday Burns Beach walks proposed a new (to us) pastime. Geocaching. I had an idea about it, I thought something like a cross between orienteering and a treasue hunt. I wasn’t too far out.
Yesterday (Saturday 6th Nov) we met up in Yanchep by the sea near Lookout Point. A couple of seasoned geocachers chatted to us about it. Essentially people all over the world hide things, publish slightly cryptic clues about where but locate them fairly accurately with co-ordinates. and you use the GPS on a smart phone to get you close.
When I say “people” – there are a lot of them all over the world. Not sure how many but the geocaching.com app shows the location of hundreds within a few kilometres of us here.
So far we have found three little metal cylinders with screw tops and containing a rolled strip of paper on which to write your initials and date.
Apparently worldwide its very popular. Paris is almost totally obscured in the app by cache locations. But you click on one and it then shows info about just that one. We were regaled with tales of holidays and day trips that were enhanced by not only the local scenery but also an extra frisson of solving and finding.
We just took Siena to find a local dog park and also found a further two in a tree and a fake bolt in a fence post. I haven’t seen one yet but apparently there are “Earth caches” which inform about local geology and pose some questions too.
Before leaving our introductory geocaching session we arranged to meet as a group regularly and then we two wandered off to Lookout Point (and found our first geocache independently). The view of the coast was beautiful here.
We also managed out first swim. Still pretty cold (says he who has swum off Cornwall in November!). But I must admit to not especially relishing swimming amongst the jellies so somewhere safer like Yanchep lagoon was just perfect.
Picnic and a shower – this is what a holiday is all about! Then, since Delia is a bit more persuaded that Yanchep could work as a home base, off to look at some developments.
For us this was a bit disappointing since if we were to buy a house and land package we’d be lucky to move in before 2022. Notwithstanding actually getting a mortgage. So a “second hand house” it will have to be – I know, thats all we usually get in the UK but things are different here, knock ’em down and build to order seems the norm here, I wondered where all the Tudor buildings had gone 🙂
Here’s a view of the pleasure bit of the beach and a critter on a post.
