Gotta cache all the clues
Scavenger hunt with fun tricks
It’s late in the afternoon on a weekday and I’m in a small park at Palm Cove trying very hard not to look like I’m doing a drug deal. I have my iPhone out and it is guiding me to the location of a small container hidden in the bushes, which holds a logbook and an assortment of trinkets left behind by other treasure hunters. There are a couple of tradies nearby, packing up from the day, and I am eagerly waiting for them to leave before I start rummaging through the bushes and trees in the park.
IT’S late in the afternoon on a weekday and I’m in a small park at Palm Cove trying very hard not to look like I’m doing a drug deal.
I have my iPhone out and it is guiding me to the location of a small container hidden in the bushes, which holds a logbook and an assortment of trinkets left behind by other treasure hunters.
There are a couple of tradies nearby, packing up from the day, and I am eagerly waiting for them to leave before I start rummaging through the bushes and trees in the park.
I brought my dog along for the mission, and hopefully, the tradies just think I am picking up after she’s done her business, rather than rummaging through the leaf litter to find the container.
Stealth is everything in the world of geocaching, a “secret” scavenger hunt played by thousands of people around the globe, including plenty of folk here in the Far North.
Geocaching can be best described as a cross between orienteering and Pokemon Go. It involves the use of GPS to find hidden containers, called caches, at set locations all over the world marked by co-ordinates that are shared online by the sport’s participants.
Caches, which are hidden by other enthusiasts, take many shapes and forms, ranging from World War II ammunition containers, through to magnetic tins the size of your thumbnail.
Caches usually hold a log book for people to sign to prove they have found it.
In the past month I have been geocaching in and around Cairns, some of the trickiest caches I have encountered included: a fake rock at a historic site near the Barron River; a magnetic button on a street sign on the northern beaches; and a plastic bird in a tree next to a Tableland waterfall.
Some of the geocaches have taken me and friends I have introduced to the sport to some incredible places.
At a World War II memorial that I have driven past on the Tablelands dozens of times, we followed the compass to a spectacular rainforest oasis in otherwise dry grassland.
A small container buried among rocks at a popular freshwater tourist attraction was only found after discovering a previously unknown walking track down to a stunning picnic area.
At Holloways Beach, my beach-loving dog and I discovered the site where 26 Chinese refugees ran aground in 1999.
Geocaching has been around for at least a decade and some of the logbooks I’ve found have been signed by visitors as far back as 2009.
Some caches are full of small toys, so it’s not unusual for them to go missing.