I have a Pinterest obsession. I’ve found so many great things on Pinterest, but my favourite to date was the Peanuts or Pretzel’s post about their layover in Sydney and how they put their time to great use: Geocaching.
They had been so creative with a layover, which so few do. But more, I was intrigued by what this ‘scavenger hunt’ activity was….
By the time I had finished their article, I had researched geocaching, downloaded the app and was searching for nearby caches. There was one just down the road. I was hooked.
I’ll admit I’ve always wanted to be on the Amazing Race (and believe me, I was bitterly disappointed when I discovered I was ineligible to apply for the U.S. version). Geocaching brings the clues and the search, the part of the Amazing Race that I love, to my reality.
It really fits in with our family’s travelling mantra: Try Something New.
It is so up our alley. We’re all about connecting through travel and this just fits right in!
The discovery of our first geocache was both fun and humorous. After picking my teenage daughter up from her part-time job, I casually said: “We should see if we could find that geocache.”
With an enthusiastic nod, we drove to it in our ‘hood and went searching the location. The area is always teaming with muggles and given the time of the afternoon, we really were challenged to not seem “stalker-ish”.
No less than five minutes later, we found the container labelled ‘Official Geocache’. The find was recorded, photos were taken, and we hopped back into the car to head home and share the details of our find.
Not to be outdone, my husband went on a walkabout, with the intent to find the geocache. He got to the location and searched around, but couldn’t find it. Granted, he didn’t have the app and only a rough idea of where it was located (“under the palm trees”). Apparently he was looking across the street in some ‘other’ palm trees. The poor neighbours. (He eventually found it.)
This find was a major kick-starter to our adventuring. Since then, every time we’ve travelled, we have looked for geocaches.
We’ve travelled south to the Snowy Mountains in NSW (Australia) and made the trek back to Sydney a geocaching adventure. We took a day trip to the Blue Mountains and the focus there was “Geocache Adventure”! We even found a cache at the end of the street my grandparents had once lived on! Now, in planning a trip to New Zealand, we’re already mapping out where and when we’ll be doing some geocaching.
Now we have a Geocaching Obsession. Our family has seen so many new things that we hadn’t even thought to look at, and it’s awesome. And we have Liz and Josh to thank for that!
GC3N8NM – The Palm – New South Wales, Australia
Guest Post by: Tara, Travel Far Enough
** all photos kindly provided by Tara, Travel Far Enough**
We want to thank Tara from Travel Far Enough for sending in her story on how Geocaching became her new obsession with her traveling family. Australia is full of great geocaching adventures and we are sure that Tara and her family will have many great adventures to share with us on her travel website, Travel Far Enough. We are so thrilled to have turned her on to life long adventures through the world of Geocaching.
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So happy to have contributed and happy to have found…yes…this new obsession. With trips to Adelaide (Australia) and then New Zealand so thereafter, we are busily plotting…. Thanks to you guys!
Thanks for sharing your story with our readers. Geocaching will open up a whole new world of travel for you and your family and we are thrilled that we could have a little part in doing that. We hope you all have many great adventure together and hope you find some amazing caches along the way. All the best!
Happy Travels & Happy Caching!
Josh