We're going on a treasure hunt...

I was introduced to Geocaching around ten years ago now, when my children were still fairly young. We enjoyed it as a nice way of adding interest to a walk, but somehow fell out of the habit. However, since there's a badge for it and I'm trying to find ways of motivating myself to walk more, I've had another look at it, found my old username, reset my password and started to make some provisional plans!

Sadly the village where I live is somewhat limited in terms of (free) caches shown in the app, with only two in sensible walking distance from home, but I've checked the town I'm going on holiday to in a few weeks, and it looks as though there could be a lovely walk around there, finding a few caches along the way. Even the centre of Oxford has surprisingly few available in the app, although there are large numbers in all the less central areas. And there are a couple of Adventure Labs series near where I work - one is a Philip Pullman trail and the other goes around Christ Church Meadow, so I might see if I can talk a colleague into a lunchtime explore one day soon... For a particular challenge, I've discovered that my kayak/canoe club placed a couple of caches several years ago which are only accessible by boat and one of which is still live, so I might see if we can go and find that one at some point.

There have been quite a few changes since I was last actively Geocaching - not least the introduction of charging to access any bar the most basic caches via the mobile app, and the introduction or retirement of a number of new kinds of caches. I've refreshed my memory about the different kinds of cache and containers - and of course with the huge increase in information on the internet, I now have a far better of what sort of thing might be hidden as a microcache as these have always previously eluded me. I've also discovered that details of quite a few other caches can be accessed via a browser without needing Premium membership, so have started to look at a couple of puzzles to see if I can manage to solve them.

It doesn't appear as though there are any particularly old or notable geocaches in Oxfordshire; none of the UK's first 100 are here. The oldest in the county is near Christmas Common, so we might head over that way at some point either for some birdwatching in the woodlands, or to pick up more seasonal decorations later in the year! One of the puzzle caches in the city centre is over ten years old (GC2MP72, placed on 31 May 2012), and still live - although will apparently be archived soon. I've solved the coordinates, but am completely baffled by the puzzle bit of this, so any suggestions would be gratefully received!

I've recently completed a couple of virtual caches - they're definitely less fun when you know the answer without having to go there, but needed a photo in front of Ground Zero in order to be logged. Fortunately that's near my workplace, so was very easily sorted! And yesterday lunchtime while on my way back to the office from a quick museum visit to find the answers for a puzzle cache, I passed a micro and decided to have a look for it. Success - that's the first micro I've ever found myself (although it helps that it's definitely on the larger end of micro!). I also have a multi-cache or two on my list of ones to try and find as I'm out and about, just to keep the challenges and 'firsts' going.

I've now got one more puzzle solved, and a few others part done, and some provisional plans for weekend geocaching when I'll be out and about. And who knows, the dog might even get a good walk this evening if I decide to try and find the traditional cache which is tantalisingly close as the crow flies, but involves a much longer walk to get to somewhere I can cross the canal.

So yet again, here's something I've been meaning to try again for quite a few years now - I just needed the promise of a badge to remind me how much fun it can be!