Game spurs breaches of lockdown

A gamer drove half an hour from home and trekked another 30 minutes into the bush to find ‘treasure’ during the nationwide lockdown.

That was just one of thousands of instances of GPS treasure hunters breaking the rules playing the popular Geocaching game during the five weeks of level 4 coronavirus lockdown.

Geocaching, similar to cult game Pokemon Go, is a global outdoor pursuit where players use a GPS or mobile phone to hide and find containers, or treasures called geocaches. In New Zealand, there are about 30,000 caches hidden across urban and rural environments.

A geocaching statistics website showed 4628 caches were found in New Zealand between March 26 and April 27.

In April, there were 2300 people actively playing the game nationwide.

Marlborough geocacher Tom Siegenthaler said he did not go hunting for caches during lockdown. He already had 250 caches hidden, and received a notification every time someone found one – 17 times.

‘‘Some look like they are families trying something new, going out for a short walk and a bit of exercise,’’ he said.

But that was not always the case.

One treasure hunter drove 30 minutes and then walked through bush for 30 minutes to reach a cache.

‘‘Some of those I’ve seen have definitely gone beyond what the public health guidelines are.’’

On finding a cache, the player opens the container, extracts the logbook, signs it, and swaps any treasures.

‘‘Some have reported in their log that they did use sanitiser. I suspect they won’t have sanitised the logbook.’’

As an experienced geocacher, having found more than 13,000 caches, Siegenthaler had already found those near his home and said he would not drive and hike to find more during lockdown.

Earlier in the year, about 800 caches were being found each weekday, and about 1500 caches were being found on Saturday and Sunday.

Fellow geocacher Lee Capper didn’t think anyone should have been out geocaching.

‘‘The danger is that the person before you may have touched it.’’

Although it was an online game and people logged their movements, this was not always required, he said.

‘‘I could have touched something five minutes after someone else had touched it and I would never have known they had been there.’’

About seven people found his caches during lockdown, all of which were ‘‘new geocachers’’.

Each time he emailed them saying that he didn’t agree with their find.

‘‘I see no mention of you using sanitation or gloves...’’ he wrote.

He disabled each of the caches after they were found, so they could not be found again soon after they had been handled.