We’re not sure how much of a boast this really is, but Perth is currently enjoying the biggest ever geocaching event held in Scotland attracting more than 1,800 people from pretty much every corner of the world to partake in what is essentially a giant high tech treasure hunt which is probably a lot more populat than you would ever imagine with millions of goecache sites found in every continent of the world and with thousands of websites dedicated to the game.
The principle of geocaching is that a geocacher will place a waterproof container with a pencil, sharpener, and log book along with a trading item at a chosen location and then mark the site’s coordinates on a listing site. Other geocachers can then track the coordinates using their GPS or other navigation device and log their find in the log book.
If a trading item has been left then the geocacher can choose to trade by leaving a higher value item and taking one or more of the items left, or leave the cache as it was found. The geocacher will also record their findings online.
Geocaching has actually become that popular, now, that there are estimated to be more than 1 million active geocaches running in 100 countries across all seven continents. What’s more, a variety of other variants of caching have now cropped up, some with physical objects, others without.
The event in Perth has been arranged to celebrate it gaining Bergh status 800 years ago. The event has been named Mega Scotland and has seen a massive number of people merge on the region. People from 40 countries have stepped up for the event including people from every age group and generation.
Were you part of Mega Scotland?
Are you a geocacher or is this the first you’ve heard of it?
