Geocaching- kinda like Pirates of the Caribbean, but without Keira Knightley, or pirates, or the Caribbean…

Those of you with no idea of what I’m on about, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess it’s most of you, will be surprised to hear that it’s quite a massive hobby in many, many countries.

Geocaching involves searching for “hidden treasure” through the use of GPS with coordinates gleaned from a website, and those of you who are immediately conjuring up visions of the untold wealth of the Templars treasure, new Ferraris and fighting off the legions of hotties who will be breaking down your door to ummm… get to know you when you’re insanely rich, are setting yourselves up for disappointment: general stashes include some arbitrary (and usually non-valuable) item placed in the waterproof container and stashed away with a pencil and some paper to allow those who find it to record their findings as proof. They then restash the item for the next lucky Captain Jack Sparrow wannabe to come along. Apparently it’s all about the search.

They then get to brag about it / discuss the search / bask in geocacher glory (no idea) / find details on the next item waiting to be discovered on the official Geocaching website.

You’d be surprised how many folks are into this hobby, and if you promise not to tell anyone, I’ll admit it does kinda sound like fun – especially when one considers that it’s not all easy stashes in Aunt Myrtel’s garden hedge down the road from your Mom’s house. Some geocaches are hidden in remote forests, on mountains, even under water requiring SCUBA gear, a sense of humour and a fairly impressive set of cajones.

Inevitably, it’s ended badly for some (well, badly for them – amusingly for us) – there have been a number of news articles about bomb squads being called to investigate strange objects stashed in random places, and general incidents of police questioning dodgy-looking folks rummaging around in places one wouldn’t generally expect them to be rummaging about in. You just know someone somewhere has spent a night in the slammer for hiding a film canister containing a fridge magnet. Fail.

Can’t really tell y’all much else as I’ve never tried it, but I’m gonna go and give it a bash. Will report back (hopefully not from Pollsmoor Prison) shortly.

Go have a look at the Geocaching website for more info.