My first geocaching experience

This article was originally published on Cache Up NB. It has been mirrored here for archive purposes only.

This article was originally published on February 5th, 2010. As part of a new series of articles, we will be floating older stories back to the front to get some new insight from new readers on some of these old topics.

I thought I would throw up my own personal account of how I got into geocaching. Everyone has a story of how they got started and some are more interesting than others. Here’s how my caching days started.

I had heard about geocaching actually indirectly through my ex-wife. I had heard that she and her boyfriend had taken up the hobby and so out of curiosity, I looked into what it was all about. It seemed like a pretty interesting game and definitely something I would be interested in. But, since at the time my ex seemed really into it, I didn’t want to jump on the bandwagon and seem like I was trying to be like her. So, I decided not to bother.

A few years passed and it was still something that I thought was interesting so I contacted another local cacher, FunkyNassau, who I had known since high school. I knew that he had been into caching for a long time and I asked him if when he had some time, if he could show me how it all works.

December 26th, 2007, he came by the house and we went off to find some caches. He actually was heading out to Saint John to pick up his son so he figured he’d show me how to cache on the way there.

We got in his car and he started giving me the rundown on what it’s all about. He showed me the caches on his GPS and how you pick one and follow the arrow. We started with one in Riverview by Sobey’s. We didn’t have any luck finding that one and I tried several times after that to find it with no luck. Damn nanos.

Regardless, we hit up a few caches going through upper Coverdale Rd including one which was a log sheet stuffed in a lipstick container, a couple of guardrail key holder caches, and then one in the woods where I retrieved my first travel bug (a T-Rex head with tags). As we got closer to Hampton (where we were actually going), we would stop every once in awhile and snag a cache. In Hampton I helped find one under a large bell of some kind.

Upon returning to Moncton, we grabbed a couple more and then the day was done. After having spent a good few hours doing caches here and there, I knew this was something I was going to enjoy. In less than a week, I went out and bought my own GPS and started learning the ropes on my own.

At 1,478 cache finds and counting, I’ve come a long way since then.