Geocaching Australia

A general question:
What does everyone think about getting "descriptive" waypoint locations without getting any GPS co-ords?
Eg, ones in which if you are smart and/or lucky you can interperate the precise location correctly, but if you are wrong you'll be chasing your tail in the wrong area.
Just curious
EcoDave

I would make searching for caches by distance from a point interesting..<br>

or are you thinking of intermediate waypoints?

Sounds interesting. 2 Dogs "Picture" caches start out without numbers, and we certainly enjoyed doing a couple of those a few months back.

Sounds good Ecoteam and yeh I'm keen for it. I wasn't going to air my plans but it sounds very similar to a plan that I have. The idea I have is called "where am I". It uses your knowledge of Sydney, the internet and a street directory with no coordinates.

Is it possible to use a gps in some part of the finding? A section of a multi that uses the gps? Otherwise its not supposed to be approved. A bit like the 2 Dogs picture caches.

I'll take that into consideration, thanks embi.

4 Little Pigs.
This cache is exactly as you describe. Though a GPS will get you within cooee if you dont happen to know the area.<br>
http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_de ... x?ID=47367

I had an idea (it hasn't matured yet) about giving clues, and then just the last three digits or so of the coordinates. (for example, it's in a place where cats meet kangaroos at S XX°XX.615' E XXX°XX.572')

That way, you would need to work out the general area from the clues, and then mark a waypoint when you are in that area and have the first part of the coordinates.

If you don't get the clues, then there would be hundreds of locations to search, for those who like to do it brute force.

Are there any similar caches like this in existance already?

bmac.

Yes, it's basically like the Rats and Bmac have in mind.
Embi, co-ords would be used for a traditional initial waypoint plus maybe some others as well.
Have to suss it out more but sounds as though many people would be interested.
It's a fine line though, people tend to interpret clues entirely differently depending on many factors. I guess it would be hard to come up with something that's reaosnably hard but fairly foolproof. We had this dilema with the MacGyver cache.

EcoDave

This type of game is , apparently, played widely in England where it is called "letterboxing" (google search for info). The first 'letterbox' was placed back in the 1800s so the idea is not new.
There was some discussion on geocaching.com some years ago the result of the debate was 'if it doesn't require a GPS then it is not geocaching'. I tend to agree with that philosophy but accept that the clue search could be fun.

What you are talking about here is a kind of Letterboxing Hybrid cache. There is already provision for this on the geocaching site although it does not seem to have been widely used. I have no objection to these sort of caches as long as the GPS usage component remains. Also bear in mind that interpreitation of "descriptions" is a both a personal and extremely variable thing. It could thow up some weird even overly frustrating results for the prospective finders, that is why I opted for a picture rather than a description in my Picture Thiis caches

BTW, stay tuned for more "Picture This" Caches coming up.

Hounddog.