In a beautiful sunny May afternoon, Pierre and Irene two of the tourist office staff took you to a geocaching adventure.
First of all what is geocaching ? Well, in short, it’s a new kind of scavenger hunt. No more treasure maps marked with an X on a yellowish pirate style piece of paper. Here everything’s digital!
- The goal : look for caches (more or less big and waterproof containers hidden in various places around the world with a small register in it, where you have to mark your name and other info. Sometimes, there actually is some small “treasures” to find).
- What you need : almost nothing. Just download the geocaching app on your moble and you’re all set … And it’s completely free ! You can also bring a hiking GPS.
Moreover, you don’t have to be a geek to start on this new adventure. Do you know how to use the GPS in your car? Well, it works the same!
And if you’re not that handy, your children’s, grandchildren’s, friends’, neighbors’ and so on, should do it. Otherwise the Tourist Office will help you to create an account on the application.
So the initiation began at 2p.m at the Saint-Sauveur en Puisaye Tourist office. Each staff member equipped with their tourist super adventurer outfit. That is to say, if like me you don’t hike at all, a mere pair of comfortable shoes, a small bag with a bottle of water and a little snack. Any beginner can do it.
For this initiation we had to find 13 caches along the magnificent Sentier Colette, a 6km hiking trail. I highly recommend it ! You can find a map of this trail on the visorando website or in our tourist offices.
Geocaching is for everybody !
So we’ve walked through the woods paths and trails, we’ve climbed and searched and searched the beautiful woodlands of Puisaye looking for the much talked about caches. All with the help of our GPS app and a couple clues.
It’s a nice way to spend leisure time and it’s adapted to all ages. It’s entertaining for the youngest and it makes the teenagers go outdoors, how marvelous !
(It’s also great for grown ups, especially for those who have the fighting spirit : you earn points for each cache you find out if you pinpoint it or saved on your account ...) There are many caches and sometimes finding them requires some thinking.
Moreover, there’s no need to save a full weekend, if you only have little time to spare, just look for the number of caches you wish to, for as long as you want, nearby the place where you are : how convenient ! To put in a nutshell, it’s free, it’s for everybody and you can adapt it to your own convenience : who could ask for anything more ?
To cap it all, it allows you to discover a place in a different way. As for myself, I’ve discovered places I had never seen before, even though I’m a local😊
You’ll spend a great time with family and friends, but look out for muggles ! That is, if you’re not familiar with the world of Harry Potter, by the non-magical or rather, in our case, those who don’t practice geocaching and who could steal or damage a cache after seeing you finding one. So, keep it quiet, if we don’t get found out, we don’t get caught..😉
Then it all ended with a splendid view of the village, the very one where we’ve started this great scavenger hunt, between Saint-Sauveur and Moutiers.
So, ready ? Set, Geocach !
More info on : www.geocaching.com