" George Fisher's Geocaching "

Date & start time: Thursday 9th June 2011, 6 pm start.

Location of Start : Great Wood car park near Keswick, Cumbria, Uk ( NY 272 214 )

Places visited : Great Wood, Watson Park Coppice and the foreshore.

Walk details : 3 mls, 550 ft of ascent, 3 hrs including supper.

Highest point : Finding more frisbees than the other teams ;o)

Walked with : Fifteen Fisher's crew, Tom from Dalesman, Gill and the boys from Bradshaw Taylor.

Weather : Overcast with showers.

What a crew . . . some of the George Fisher staff meet up at Great Wood for an evening's Geocaching.

Carol, Ann, Patti, Dot, Caroline, Dave, Fred, Lorraine, Andy, Jan and Donna's feet, Eileen, Helena, John and myself.

(Photo by Gregor)

	Geocaching in case you didn't know is the art of treasure hunting using a Gps. Originally a kids game, fast becoming an outdoor pursuit in its own right, we take to the radio waves to find a series of treasures in this one-time semi-competitive event.
Our route card for this occasion.	[ Don't try it for yourself as these treasures were only there one evening.]

Our route map listing the locations of tonight's treasure.	Gps in hand, we set off into Great Wood.

Nice views of Rampsholme Island through the trees now that the rain has stopped.

Up the track finding caches as we walked.	Sometimes our route was a little less obvious.

Having imported the grid reference, the Gps says it's around here somewhere.

Gregor found it . . . as he did with many of them.

On this one-off Geocache evening we only had to collect a token, search for a Frisbee (one per cache) and move on, as the boxes would be collected in at the end of the event.

Normally with geocaching you are allowed to take a prize or trinket from the box only in exchange for leaving one of similar value. This ensures the long term caches are self perpetuating and can be enjoyed by anyone at any time.

Fred embraces technology to search for the next one.	Highlighted by the flash but tricky to find in the gloom.

Back at Great Wood car park at the end of a slightly damp walk underfoot.

The evening, apart from being a very sociable affair, has allowed many of the staff to take out and use a Gps for the first time.

As a result they are now more knowledgeable about geocaching and will be able to talk to customers about 'caching' and using the Gps outdoors.

- - - o o o - - -

Tonight was just an event-geocache using temporary boxes.

True Geocaching involves permanent boxes hidden from view and hopefully containing goodies to collect.

Sometimes these can include numbered tokens or geo-coins which are registered on the internet before being placed in the cache box. These are then exchanged by subsequent participants who register each find on-line. By checking the internet later you can tell how far and how fast your token travels between locations as they are collected and subsequently swapped by participants. All very technical !! Now that it has been registered, this geo-coin will shortly be placed in a local Geocache. I'll post information here as and when it becomes available

Our thanks to Tom from Dalesman (George Fisher's Garmin supplier) for organising the evening event.

- - - o o o - - -

Afterwards we adjourned to the lakeside for an evening barbecue . . .

The boys from Keen Footwear ( Bradshaw Taylor) have organised the food but haven't told us where it is.

That yellow flag over there gives us a big clue.

A short distance down the lakeshore path . . .	. . . and we arrive at HQ with our stash of tokens.

Gregor lays them all out and we have six of the ten frisbees . . . I think that's a winning number !

The crowd assembles as Gregor collects up the goodies.

There now followed a period of re-hydration and feasting following the damp forest walk.

The weather has cleared nicely and there's no need to huddle under the tents.

Fred and Dave (and possibly Patti too if she turns round) . . . put the world to right.

Keen are having a summer promotion and are enthusiastic, dare I say Keen, to take everyone's picture.

Carol chooses her own caption . . .	. . . and Fred his !!

I'm sure Patti finds time to play . . . sometimes !	A spoon full of testosterone !

Oh dear . . . another shower is heading our way.

You can't have an evening barbecue down by the lake without enjoying the scenery . . . however damp.

Sheltering under the gazebo, a Keen paper wellington is produced.	Gregor takes a blindfold swing at it.

After a couple of near misses, and one direct hit, the welly broke open and showered everyone with numerous small gifts.

While the drizzle continued we all grabbed a paper and pen to complete a general knowledge quiz.

Handy as writing boards these Keen Frisbees !

The last of the burgers are consumed as the shower passes by . . .

To reveal a dramatic sky to end our evening by the lake.

A big thanks to Gillie and the guys John, Graham and Adam from Bradshaw Taylor	. . . and to Tom from Dalesman and Gillie again for this evening's geotrail.

- - - o o o - - -

Technical note: Pictures taken with my Canon G10 digital camera.

Resized in Photoshop, and built up on a Dreamweaver web builder.

This site best viewed with . . . a new geo-coin in circulation.

Go to Top . . . © RmH.2011 . . . Email me here

Previous walk - 6th June 2011 Barrow 1st for Ann and Ian

A previous time up here - 25th March 2009 Suunto / GF Great Wood

Next walk - 10th June 2011 Knott Rigg ~ Ard Crags