Munzee Madness

New on the scene this year is an add-on to Geocaching for smart phone users. Munzees are QR codes that when scanned take you to the official Munzee site: www.munzee.com where you can earn points for scanning and hiding them. The Geoscouts are in the process of adding these to each of our Geocaches since we found our first one in a cache near Brive. Not all are hidden in caches either. You can find them on all sorts of different locations so check out the map on the official website to see if there are any near you. Happy hunting!

The Geoscouts have been taking some time out in the garden recently. We hope to be back on the caching scene very soon but until then we're admiring this summer's Jerusalem Artichokes ...

All the fives

It was an F-ing great weekend. Not only did we reach five hundred finds at the Event Corrèzien but we also found our fifteenth FTF! We like Earthcaches so much that we went for that one first and were later declared first on the scene. In addition our scoutbus was made trackable especially for the event which took our own trackable count to fifteen. As if that wasn't enough 'F's we published our fiftieth hide on Sunday. A big thanks to Team Lamoer for making it all possible.

Milestones

As we approach our 500th cache find a short word on milestones seems appropriate.

I wasn't one to worry about numbers initially, in fact our 100th find would have been at a motorway services had we managed to find the exit sliproad. As it happened there was no available exit on this particular junction and instead we landed at "Demandez la clé" for our 100th find. After this I decided to make each cache find at the one hundred mark an unusual and memorable find. For number 200 we set out on a cold, damp New Year's Day to find a sorrowful multi -cache at Oradure sur Glane. We had visited this village before but this new reason for being here didn't make it any less sombre.

At 300 we made our way down to the South coast to find our first webcam cache at Banyul-sur-mer. It was a little tricky liasing with the team back home in order to get the webshot but we did it in the end. Milestone number 400 was an Earthcache in les Roches Enchantées series by Trapeur24. It led on from a treck into the depths of a cave which remains one of the scout's favourite caches.

As I write this we have 499 finds. Where the next one will be I don't yet know but I'm sure it will be a momentous occasion.

Cache in the City

We love spending time in the woods looking for caches and in more remote locations that can take half the day just to get to. Off the beaten track is probably our preferred destination but there is another side to geocaching which has it's own individual challenges. Caching in the big city.

You've heard all about "Muggles" - the people that don't participate in our hobby. Well, of course the city is full of them and this alone can be a problem. Finding a nano attached to the railings is one thing but retrieving it and signing the log in full view of onlookers is another.

You probably won't be looking for regular boxes as they are hard to conceal and would likely be found unintentionally by passing locals. In towns therefore, the micro reigns supreme and you will no doubt find 35mm film canisters tucked into walls or a sneaky magnetic key-holder at the back of a phone booth. Love them or hate them there are some situations where only a micro will fit.

On the positive side you are likely to find caches closer together so if you're in it for the numbers you could be in for a good day. But for me the best thing about city caching is getting to see the town centre from a new perspective. We recently found a cache in Limoges - one in the new TerraAventura series which took us to parts of our local town we had not yet exlored. We are hoping to visit Clermont-Ferrand in the summer where there are hides a plenty and we've already been to many other towns and cities, large and small. The main thing to remember when hunting in a busy place ... be discreet!

EarthCaches

Earth caches give us an opportunity to visit some spectacular places of interest and learn more about our planet. These virtual caches are placed at points of geological significance around the globe and visiting them can be a whole new adventure. There is no physical box to search for so no need to bring a pen. You will however have to answer some questions to verify you were at the spot before logging the cache online. For further information visit the EarthCache homepage.

To date we have found five Earth caches. Our first was the Dolmen de Bouéry by Stapper (pictured right). Since then we have visited many other megaliths in this part of France including the Menhir de Ceinturat also by Stapper. Our third Earth cache on our way back from Spain was Le gouffre de l'oeil doux, an amazing natural occurrence where water flows into a freshwater pool from below the surface of the Earth. More recently we have discovered Les roches calcaires and Bort les Orges and we're looking forward to finding many more.

Geocaching France

It's been almost a year for us and Geocaching and I keep meaning to post pictures of where we get to so here we go.

This was a recent trip to Bort les Orges to find the Earth Cache. The place in the photo is Site de Saint Nazaire but I preferred to call it - "I'm Bryan and so's my wife".

I will dig out photos of older trips and post them here over the next few weeks. In the mean time you can find more pictures on our Geocaching profile page