Geocaching

Cache in – Trash in

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A bit of a rant here, if you don’t cache it’s a bit of a dull read. Feel free to move along, I won’t hold it against you…😉

As I’ve mentioned before I’m currently attempting to fill my geocaching calendar, although an imminent new job may put an end to that.  I’m still going strong at the moment however.

I make no secret of the fact I appreciate a special cache. Not necessarily the hide itself but the location where it’s hidden and the experience I have there.

There are of course lots of bread and butter geocaches out there. The staples of geocaching. Perfect for a quick fix, and when filling a calendar these are what keep me going. Easy to get to, easy to park at and easy to find. Sorted!

When selecting a cache for the day I scour the map for a suitable looking cache and dash and that’s what I had thought I had just the other day. The cache in question had a high difficulty level so it would be challenging but people seemed to be finding it so seemed worthy of a try.

I maybe should have read the logs in more detail though.

I stopped at the designated parking spot at the side of a busy road. Not a lay-by, merely a patch suitable for one car to park. No nearby footpath, no nice location. Seemingly with no other purpose than to encourage people to fly-tip.

Fly tipping drives me insane. I simply cannot understand the mentality of loading your car with rubbish,  to then dump it in the countryside not the tip.  You really do have to be a special kind of arsehole I feel.

Looking at my phone the cache was hidden very nearby. I looked at the rubbish in disgust. The red mist descended.

A closer look at the cache page spelling out that cachers need not search the rubbish.

Oh! So that’s ok then?

No it bloody isn’t.

There was rubbish here when the cache was placed.

Again I’m seriously struggling with the mentality here.

The CO has by all accounts devised a clever and sneaky cache. Hmm now where to hide it?  Oh I know this unspirational spot by the side of the road that’s full of rubbish is just perfect. The toilet brush on top of the pile being the cherry on top of this particularly shitty cake.

Am I being seriously thick here?

Come on, even my nine year old can judge a sensible place to put a cache.

IT’S NOT DIFFICULT!

There was no way on earth I was getting out of my car in a fly-tipping zone to find a cache.

Can somebody have that little respect for others that they expect them to search for caches in such a place?

From the comfort of my car I posted a  snotty note to the cache page informing them of the reason I was refusing to play this game. A later check of the page revealed I wasn’t the only person to do so.

Then further horror, the discovery that four people have awarded this cache a favourite point. *Bangs head on wall*

It might be a perfectly genius cache but I won’t ever know, I refuse to look for it.

Am I being too harsh? Does it matter? Would you look for it? Should we expect more from a hobby that promotes the principles of a clean and tidy planet? My finger is twitching over the NA button – can you tell?

So people, please. Don’t place caches in fly tipping zones, or if you must trash out first. If not expect a tantrum from me. A noisy one.

I might even set my judgy-pants daughter on you. 😉

22 thoughts on “Cache in – Trash in”

  1. Well said! I could not agree more with your utter bemusement at someone’s reasoning for putting a cache there when there was litter there already. I had a similar cache a while back that whilst not at a fly tipping site was in a fairly grotty location that was obviously in use by the local druggies. I did choose to find the cache which was a innovative water pipe cache but made my feelings known in my log and specifically withheld a favourite point as protest. Good on 9 year old too for having a good sense of what is right and wrong in terms of cache placement!

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    1. It just beggars belief that you go to the efforts of making a decent cache and then putting it somewhere like that.
      The nine year old is possibly more opinionated than I am, the cache she was actually talking about was just a fairly dull number in a fairly dull location. Like you say though she’s got the gist of good cache placement.

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  3. Oh we are with you on this! We stopped for one in a lay-by on a dual carriageway (because we had been foiled in our attempts at two town caches… we hate those… so just wanted to get a cache!) but at the appointed spot we were put off by the piles of discarded nappies, food cartons and drinks bottles, and we gave up looking because we figured it was probably a ‘pee stop’ for goodness knows how many passers by… yuck! Perhaps we were looking in the wrong place but we didn’t feel inclined to look further. Cache and dash at the roadside isn’t us… I’m a dog so we like a good walk, with a nice sprinkling of caches, or perhaps a cache and dash at a viewpoint or somewhere with a bit of interest. Quality not quantity.

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  4. Eww, no, no one wants to pick their way through rubbish. I can never understand why people can’t go to the tip either, if they can find their way to the side of the road why not the tip? Hope you manage to fill your calendar, and congratulations on a new job? Exciting.

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    1. Exactly, drive a tiny bit further to the tip/recycling centre. Argh!
      Thanks, new job not exciting but zero stress compared to the old one. 😊 I fear it will hugely hamper the calendar though. Oh well!

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      2. Very true. I can’t believe others actually bother to look and comment how clever the cache is. Most do mention the rubbish but what good does that do?! This one is going to bug me for a very long time I think.

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  6. Our council are consulting on closing several recycling/waste centres in Oxfordshire which will sadly end in more fly tipping. I don’t understand the mentality of those who do this (a bit off topic but our local farm shop owner had a fly tipping incident. The person who did it had left their business name and address on some of the things. He was local so she named and shamed his business on social media – he came and cleared it up)..

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  7. We found a cache like that on the I o W. Reached GZ by walking up and over a lovely metal bridge then we were supposed to put our hands through the railings to reach the cache. Needles, syringes, beer cans, broken vodka/whisky bottles all behind the railings. It was a ‘perfect’ dumping ground but no way was I going to put my hand through those railings. I emailed the CO, as had many others, but nothing had been done last time we looked.

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    1. Yuck! I’m not keen at poking my hands in places at the best of times. Sometimes I wonder if these things should be more highly monitored but actually common sense should really prevail!

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  8. Oh such a great point!! We have eventually found a couple that were in really unsafe locations i.e on the side of a stream that regularly floods and the ground was so slippy, however two steps away it was fine by the path. It didn’t make it any better that we all slipped into the stream before we found it, thank god for wellies xx

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  9. Oh no! That’s horrible! Im on your side! I wouldn’t have looked. Or…cleaned up and posted an even another note about taking care of said “rubbish” and doing the geocache placers job of making sure it’s a suitable place to cache. People don’t like to dig through trash, if they wanted to they would have been a garbage collector!

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    1. I’m now at the point where I’m getting a bit pissed off as the cache owner doesn’t seem to give a damn about the logs and notes mentioning the area. Maybe I’ll go poke the bear with a stick and add a needs archive log! 😉

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  10. Definitely not too harsh! I don’t place caches but wouldn’t dream of using somewhere like that as a hide. I go geocaching to find lovely new places to walk the dog and take photos, to reconnect with Mother Nature and appreciate what’s on the doorstep.

    If it was that special a cache, surely you’d find somewhere else for it or be active in making the location nicer for others to visit?!

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    1. The CO doesn’t seem to care, it’s still bugging me! I’m a bit geo obsessed so I do readily find all sorts of caches but what really floats my boat are the ones on a nice walk, especially in a newly discovered local place. 🙂

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