Published on www.geeks.co.uk, a link to the article has also been included in geocaching.com's monthly international newsletter.
After 10 minutes of hunting through ivy-covered trees I finally find what I’m looking for – part of a fence post has been carefully wedged between a couple of lower branches. Pulling it away I discover a small Tupperware box concealed among the leaves – a geocache.
Put simply, geocaching is an international treasure hunt. There are over 42,000 of them to be found in the UK, as well as 3380 in Italy, 32 in Antarctica and even one hidden on Mt Kilimanjaro.
To start you’ll need to log on to www.geocaching.com and create an account. The site used to be completely free, but you now have the option to become a premium member for about £30 a year. The only kit you need is a GPS device. Some caches may be possible to find without one, but the majority would be nearly impossible as OS grid references aren’t specific enough to be of much use unless there is a definite landmark described in the cache’s clue.
You can get geocaching applications for iPhones for £5.99. If you don’t own one then a standard walking GPS such as the Garmin Geko 201 (£89.99) will work just as well.
If finding the caches alone isn’t challenging enough, you must do so without being seen by ‘muggles’ – non-geocachers. Some boxes are deliberately hidden in busy areas such as cities, parks and supermarkets, so a good plan is needed to retrieve one secretly. After you’ve searched for a cache, you log on to the site and post whether or not you found it.
When you’re lucky enough to find a cache there will be a logbook inside to sign. Some boxes may also contain other objects such as toys, postcards or, in some cases, CDs. If you take something you put something else back in, unless the object removed is a trackable one. There are two main types of trackable objects – coins and bugs – the latter being a dog-tag which is normally attached to a key-ring or model. Geocachers move these objects from box to box and they normally have ‘missions’ given to them by their owners. These can be anything from visiting as many British castles as possible to travelling to Australia. One cache in Folkestone has been put in place especially for people wishing to have their trackables taken across to the continent, with people going on the Channel Tunnel stopping by to pick them up.
Some caches are placed in a trail, with one box having to be found in order to retrieve clues to the next, others may only be searched for at night. My favourite cache –which I have, shamefully, yet to find – is hidden at Bletchley Park, where WW2 code breakers cracked the German enigma. The clue to finding the cache is written in code, which users have to decipher before they can search for it.
Near many landmarks such as Buckingham Palace and The Houses of Parliament, being seen hiding a small box is likely to get you arrested. Geocachers have solved this issue by creating virtual caches which are ‘found’ by answering a question about the location.
A word of warning – geocaching is surprisingly addictive. You will soon find yourself spending hours on the site checking for new caches. A simple trip to London will include a quick detour to look for that box near Victoria Square. This sport may take over your life, but it’s worth it!
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
Review - FreeLoader Solar Powered Charger
An edited version was published on http://www.geeks.co.uk/
As a camping geek I love staying in the great outdoors, but not so much the lack of electricity that come with it. How was I to cope without my mobile for a week? Would I have to ration the amount of texts I sent to my boyfriend? The wind-up chargers looked way too energetic for me to be using after a long day hiking. Enter solar technology.
With its futuristic design, looking more like something found flying about space as opposed to lounging beneath a car windscreen, I fell in love with the FreeLoader at first sight.
It can be charged either by the sun or a computer and comes with 11 different adaptors that can be used on a range of mobiles, as well as digital cameras, Satnavs, iPods and portable gaming consoles such as the PSP and Nintendo DS. With many sites selling them for about £29.95 these gadgets are also a lot more affordable than many other solar chargers.
After a few hour-long conversations and dozens of texts by phone inevitably started to flag, so I attached it up to the FreeLoader – which I’d charged by computer before I’d left - and within about half an hour my mobile’s battery was about three-quarters full.
Unfortunately for campers like me, the instruction manual states that FreeLoaders hate any kind of water. In order to avoid it being attacked by condensation I ended up resorting to placing the charger in its box and burying it beneath a mound of clothes in my bag.
But the problems didn’t end there. As soon as the sun decided to show itself through the clouds I put the charger beneath the car’s windscreen. It was sunny all day, but when I came to tap the FreeLoader’s charge I found to my amazement that it barely had enough to make its charging light switch on...and then off again.
Here’s the issue – car windscreens are very good at protecting the driver from the glare of the sun. So what hope does a solar charger have of getting those much needed rays? I couldn’t leave it outside because, as with every English summer, it likes to surprise you by going from brilliant blue skies to chucking it down with rain within the space of 30 minutes. Taking it with me to the beach where sand would inevitably make its way into some essential component didn’t seem like a good move either. In the end I had to give up – solar-chargers don’t work so well when there’s a lack of sun!
I imagine if you’re going abroad to somewhere with a good deal more sunshine than England and where you can count on it not to rain, the FreeLoader would work well. Or if you have the time to leave it on a window-ledge for long periods then, again, this may be worth your while.
Despite the potential issues caused by a lack of sun, the FreeLoader is still a good way to charge your precious gadgets without having to spend god-knows-how-long winding up a handle in a desperate bid to generate enough electricity for that last text.
As a camping geek I love staying in the great outdoors, but not so much the lack of electricity that come with it. How was I to cope without my mobile for a week? Would I have to ration the amount of texts I sent to my boyfriend? The wind-up chargers looked way too energetic for me to be using after a long day hiking. Enter solar technology.
With its futuristic design, looking more like something found flying about space as opposed to lounging beneath a car windscreen, I fell in love with the FreeLoader at first sight.
It can be charged either by the sun or a computer and comes with 11 different adaptors that can be used on a range of mobiles, as well as digital cameras, Satnavs, iPods and portable gaming consoles such as the PSP and Nintendo DS. With many sites selling them for about £29.95 these gadgets are also a lot more affordable than many other solar chargers.
After a few hour-long conversations and dozens of texts by phone inevitably started to flag, so I attached it up to the FreeLoader – which I’d charged by computer before I’d left - and within about half an hour my mobile’s battery was about three-quarters full.
Unfortunately for campers like me, the instruction manual states that FreeLoaders hate any kind of water. In order to avoid it being attacked by condensation I ended up resorting to placing the charger in its box and burying it beneath a mound of clothes in my bag.
But the problems didn’t end there. As soon as the sun decided to show itself through the clouds I put the charger beneath the car’s windscreen. It was sunny all day, but when I came to tap the FreeLoader’s charge I found to my amazement that it barely had enough to make its charging light switch on...and then off again.
Here’s the issue – car windscreens are very good at protecting the driver from the glare of the sun. So what hope does a solar charger have of getting those much needed rays? I couldn’t leave it outside because, as with every English summer, it likes to surprise you by going from brilliant blue skies to chucking it down with rain within the space of 30 minutes. Taking it with me to the beach where sand would inevitably make its way into some essential component didn’t seem like a good move either. In the end I had to give up – solar-chargers don’t work so well when there’s a lack of sun!
I imagine if you’re going abroad to somewhere with a good deal more sunshine than England and where you can count on it not to rain, the FreeLoader would work well. Or if you have the time to leave it on a window-ledge for long periods then, again, this may be worth your while.
Despite the potential issues caused by a lack of sun, the FreeLoader is still a good way to charge your precious gadgets without having to spend god-knows-how-long winding up a handle in a desperate bid to generate enough electricity for that last text.
Monday, 3 August 2009
Cradle TV Package
The TV package I did on Cradle - the outdoor art exhibition in Bournemouth's Lower Gardens
http://www.youtube.com/user/i7867722#play/all/uploads-all/0/RedNM9mjkik
http://www.youtube.com/user/i7867722#play/all/uploads-all/0/RedNM9mjkik
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