These sites include facilities for you to get a list of
hidden caches in a particular area, then see the page of details describing
a particular cache. i.e, it's location, description, and perhaps tips on
other interesting places to visit while you are in the area. Simple means
are provided for you to add your "log" after your visit. For those planting
caches, facilities are provided to upload the cache information including
pictures.
We understand that all these enterprises are even smaller in size
and resources than Robin's small GPS Software business.
However this may change rapidly if geocaching takes off worldwide,
and the numbers of participants rise into the hundreds of thousands,
or even millions.
These pioneers are to be congratulated on what they
have already achieved with skill, hard work and a significant part
of their own spare time.
footnote in October 2012: above was written in 2001 :-) There are now two relatively new geocaching sites:
www.opencaching.com and www.opencaching.org.uk.
We recommend that you regularly visit all the geocaching sites above, checking
what caches are listed in your area.
If you are west of London, UK, you may wish to visit the Lovelock Geocache page
- but make sure you follow the links to the appropriate Navicache site page.
See also
www.brillig.com/geocaching
Dave Ulmer in the USA hid a box of "treasure" (a "Geocache") and posted the
exact position (in latitude longitude) on a web site - challenging
someone to find it. By January 2001 there were about 300 caches
worldwide, and this rapidly increased to over 10,000 geocaches,
with the numbers growing at over 10% per month. Of the
million people who own a GPS in the USA, still only 30,000 know about
Geocaching. In the UK there are probably fewer than 100,000 people
who own a GPS and a few hundred who know about Geocaching - but these
numbers are expected to grow rapidly.
As more people participate, there will be more caches to find.
Geocaching may be the hobby that makes millions of consumers buy
a GPS - bringing prices down - and act as a boost to people getting
"out into the country". Americans are already visiting UK to visit
Geocaches located near tourist sites. Many businesses will benefit
from this hobby, including Tourism and the good old English Pub :-)
This site has been set up by Tony Wale and Robin Lovelock.
They are both newcomers to the hobby of geocaching,
but they are most certainly not new to the field of GPS and navigation
"on foot". They share the same enthusiasm and hopes for what this new
hobby may become, and have decided to use a proportion of their time
and resources to promote and perhaps influence how Geocaching takes off
Worldwide. They have no need to profit from their activity, but are
sufficiently experienced to know "how the real world works", including the
need for geocaching web sites to be adequately funded and supported.
These are already pretty well covered on the Geocaching web sites,
which provide practical advice on common-sense things like safety
and not creating a nuisance to others, including land owners.
Pages covering this topic include
www.geocaching.com/about/ and
www.navicache.com/planningcache.html
Here are some additional suggested guidelines for those planting caches:
These are less easy to find anywhere, and is one of the reasons
for setting up this page. The existing three geocaching sites,
most notably geocaching.com, have done an excellent job of supporting
the hobby with an ever increasing range of simple to use and
powerful aids. These include being able to quickly find caches
near you, look at their details, track object (Travelbugs) between
caches, and being able to easily add new caches.
However, it has yet to be seen if these web sites will cope
if and when the general public discover geocaching, and the
number of web site users increase a hundred-fold. The problems
may not be technical ones, such as capacity and loading on the
servers: in Robin's opinion these are more likely to be related
to overload on those like Jeremy Irish who administer the web
site, due to their current manual procedures.
e.g. All geocaching sites have a process to "approve" a cache,
but there is rarely any process of establishing (privately)
who the individual, uploading the data, is. The current sites are already vulnerable
to mischief such as uploading or linking to pornography,
blatant advertising, or simply "schoolboy mischief" such as
describing caches that are not there. There is similar scope
for "mischief" and libel on newsgroups - something which Robin
has experienced and suffered from directly
- see
Robin & June's Caches :-)
In the past there have also been examples where people have
claimed ownership (copyright) on terms such as "Geocaching",
or implied that their copyright on their web site html and
asp logic extended to the information that they were hosting.
If anyone owns the information such as location and description
of caches, or logs of visits to caches, it is the geocachers who
entered this information. It could be argued that this is all
or mostly Public Domain information anyway. The geocaching
sites are also vulnerable to enthusiasts uploading information
such as a nice picture scanned from a postcard, which breaks
copyright.
Here is some "food for thought" for those with Geocaching sites:
This is very much a "first draft", and Robin will be grateful
for feedback on this - particularly from those running
the existing Geocaching sites who will already have an appreciation
of the practical issues involved. He assumes the main issue for
debate may be whether those logging cache visits should remain
anonymous to the geocache site administrator, and under what conditions
these details should be released to others such as landowners or police,
or possibly made public to "shame" serious offenders.
It must be emphasised that the above are simply "ideas for discussion".
Did you see it ? BBC Television feature on Geocaching broadcast into
200 million homes.
What is Geocaching ?,
What does a Geocacher do ?,
What's in a Geocache ?,
I am enthusiastic about geocaching because it has enormous scope
to popularise GPS to a much wider audience: this helps my GPS Software business.
It is also great fun :-)
I'm a great believer in meeting people face-to-face, or at least
speaking directly on the 'phone. It's often the quickest and most
direct way to find out what's really going on behind the facade
of a web site - not all are as "up front" about their owners as mine :-)
My most recent 'phone conversations were with Dave Ulmer, who started
it all when he planted the first geocache in May 2000. He has some
interesting ideas, including that sometimes the "place" is much
more important than "what's in the box".
In September 2001 there were 'phone calls
between myself Robin, Jeremy Irish and Bryan Roth
who own and maintain the geocaching.com web site (Grounded Inc).
Contact was also been made with Dan Foster, founder of TopoGrafix, the
software company behind EasyGPS, ExpertGPS, and PanTerra.
More recently there have been 'phone conversations with the
owners of two other Geocaching web sites: Quinn Stone of navicache.com
and Jeremy Hurst of a third site now closed down.
I understand that all these enterprises are even smaller in size
and resources than my own small GPS Software business.
However this may change rapidly if geocaching takes off worldwide,
and the numbers of participants rise into the hundreds of thousands,
or even millions. These pioneers are to be congratulated on what they
have already achieved with skill, hard work and a significant part
of their own spare time.
© Robin Lovelock, Sunninghill Systems. www.gpss.co.uk
Footnote from Robin on 11th October 2015:
Today we visited the "Leviathan" geocache near Esher, the second time - the first was in 2001 !
This must be the best cache in the UK - it still has that original 2001 log book with our
visit report from then - Michelle, June and myself, could not believe it !
We read our 2001 entry in which Michelle said she's found the cache before me,
then my words after her's, saying nobody liked a smart a*** :-)
Thanks for planting this cache - just like the old days in 2001.
It's great to see those log enties still there in the geocaching.com logs for Leviathan ...
- and here are those actual log book written entries ....... :-)
30th November 2015:
We had to visit our first cache find: "The Queen's Oak". Our old log book entry was still there - from August 2001 ! We are stood where it was then :-)
I thought I would have to find an old copy of Microsoft Office, to make a PowerPoint Briefing, as a .PPT file to put here.
However, found one on this PC, about NHSCare.info, for a Rotary Club, made on 24th August 2009, and it was done with Open Office.
So here is a test to see if you can see it. It starts with the first slide below, then follows with the slides of my old briefing.
I will obviously need to go up a learning curve ! See
Draft Talk on Geocaching
.
15th February 2018
I was very pleased to find this old video from 2001 on VHS: Sunninghill Geocaching Superstars on BBC World TV :-)
Draft of Slide 2 ... should save quite a bit of talking :-)
The next slide looks at events from 2000 until now. e.g. the vastly increased number of geocaches, including "micros" :-(
There have been
What is Geocaching ?
Geocaching is a new "treasure hunt" hobby which relies on the Internet,
GPS, and peoples willingness to get outside, in the open air. It only
started in May 2000, in the USA, after the Americans switched off the
deliberate error which had degraded the accuracy of GPS systems.
Now any cheap hand-held GPS will pinpoint your position
and guide you to within a yard or two of the hidden geocache.
These geocache positions are on the Net.
What does a Geocacher do ?
The majority of Geocachers simply search for geocaches planted
by others. This may often be combined with a trip to, and a walk
around, an area that they have not visited before.
Other Geocachers will hide a container in an interesting
location (historical, scenic, personal importance),
and will post the GPS coordinates to a Geocaching
web site page.
The page will include the latitude longitude coordinates,
a cache and terrain difficulty level,
and a description of the area and/or container
contents. It may also include what amounts to
a "tourist guide" of the area illustrated with pictures.
e.g. hints of good spots to visit or things to do.
Those finding the cache will take an
item, leave an item, make a log entry into the log
book, and then post a visit report or "log" on the web site page.
If they cannot find it, then this is also reported.
What's in a Geocache ?
The most important and essential item in a geocache is the log book,
together with pens and pencils. Visitors write their visit in the book,
along with whatever thoughts they wish to share with others. They will
normally append a similar report as their "log" on the geocaching web site.
The contents of a geocache will change, as people visit it,
take things out, and put other things in. Many include an instant camera,
so that visitors can take a picture of themselves, perhaps taken during
a walk around the area. Other items might include small, low cost toys
and "fluffy animals" to appeal to a wide audience.
How do you find a geocache ? - look at a geocaching web site
The most popular Geocaching web site for over 10 years is
www.geocaching.com
, run by Jeremy Irish and friends.
Others since that time include
www.navicache.com
, run by Quinn Stone.
Where are the Geocaches hidden by Robin and June in 2001 ?
Geocaching History
Tony Wale and Robin Lovelock
Tony Wale introduced Orienteering as a training subject to The
British Army, where he spent 17 years until 1972. He then joined
Silva, the Swedish compass and navigation equipment manufacturer,
and became the UK Managing Director - a post held until very recently.
He has been active in the ancient and geocaching-like hobby of "letterboxing"
for over 5 years.
He is a fellow of the Royal
Institution of Navigation and The Royal Geographic Society, and is
an acknowledged expert within the UK on navigation "on foot" - frequently
being asked to give presentations or submit articles on the subject.
Tony lives in Ammanford, Wales and can be contacted on tel: +44 1269 850990
and email:
tonywale@compuserve.com
Robin Lovelock spent most of his working life in the defence business,
cutting his teeth on military computers in the 1960's with Ferranti.
He then worked for 10 years as a senior NATO scientist, followed by
13 years in senior management with EASAMS, the Systems House of GEC-Marconi
in the field of Military Command & Control Systems. In 1990 he took a
closer personal interest in the application of GPS and PC based software,
and his GPS Software business has been a full time occupation since 1995.
Robin lives and works from home in Sunninghill, England. Tel: +44 1344 620775. Email:
gpss@compuserve.com
Guidelines for Geocachers
Guidelines for Web Sites
Geocaching on Worldwide Television
Robin shows Sevan a GPS... Poppy & Sam find the geocache... Tony Wale explains...
A television feature on Geocaching was broadcast into
200 million homes.
Robin, Tony and friends helped BBC World make this "Click Online" TV feature. It was broadcast on worldwide TV networks nine times
from 10th until 16th January 2002. You can read the "inside story" with pictures on the
TVINRAIN page :-)
Useful Links
Where are the Geocaches ?,
What's on a Geocaching Web Site ?,
Geocaching History,
Tony Wale and Robin Lovelock,
Guidelines for Geocachers,
Guidelines for Web Sites,
Footnote by Robin
Geocaching sites :
www.geocaching.com
or
www.navicache.com
Cache locations on maps :
www.brillig.com/geocaching
Footnote by Robin
Robin Lovelock, Sunninghill Systems, 22 Armitage Court, Sunninghill, Ascot, Berks SL5 9TA, United Kingdom.
13th February 2018:
Richard Peat sent me a brilliant video that we just need to find in good quality, like an old VHS tape.
About 3m 20 secs in, there is a fantastic 2 minutes of them at their Finchamstead cache. Chris Packam
can be recognised. Check out the
Old Poor Quality Video
- we just need a better copy ! :-)
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