Unfortunate first geocaching experience
Posted: 19 November 12 8:54 pm
Thought I would quietly nip out and find my first cache - that would be First Name Basis : Wallace near the town of Wallace in VIC. I must stress that this is absolutely no fault of previous geocachers or its creater. I went alone.
As the grass was long on either side of the road and I didn't want to block someone's driveway, I did a u-turn at the end of the no through road in order to find the best spot to pull up. I noticed a female muggle jogging, who also did a u-turn at the end, and waited for her to pass before walking off the road and going to the cache. I found it, updated the log, and swapped an item.
When walking back to the car I was approached by a man in another vehicle demanding to know what I was doing and saying that I was following his daughter, and threatening to call the police. I wanted to be completely honest with him and told him I was geocaching, and that more importantly, I was following coordinates that were published on the internet with no expectation that his daughter would be there.
Maybe its the fact that I am non-white, male, and have a fairly thick accent, I do not know if I mispronounce the word 'geocacheing' and may seem more thretening in Australia. I pulled out my Garmin and offered to even show him what it was all about, that it involved a container placed at those coordinates, but he wouldn't hear any of it and just insisted I leave before he called the police. I felt it was only considerate to both him and future cachers to mention that other people would likely also go to the cache after myself, and that it was nobody's intention to alarm his daughter.
Other than simply not being on the same stretch of road, I don't know if there was anything I could have done to avoid the situation. Waiting till the muggle had passed me in order to discreetly access the cache was seen as following her, and there did not seem to be a better way to position the car without blocking other vehicles. I hope this is not a regular occurence.
Should I also mention this in the website? I fear the man may attempt to remove the cache to prevent people from going there in the future, but since he refused to see it or look closely at my Garmin, I don't know if he'll find it. Then again, being a large-ish and easy beginner's cache, who knows?
I'm truly sorry if my first trip had inconvenienced others
As the grass was long on either side of the road and I didn't want to block someone's driveway, I did a u-turn at the end of the no through road in order to find the best spot to pull up. I noticed a female muggle jogging, who also did a u-turn at the end, and waited for her to pass before walking off the road and going to the cache. I found it, updated the log, and swapped an item.
When walking back to the car I was approached by a man in another vehicle demanding to know what I was doing and saying that I was following his daughter, and threatening to call the police. I wanted to be completely honest with him and told him I was geocaching, and that more importantly, I was following coordinates that were published on the internet with no expectation that his daughter would be there.
Maybe its the fact that I am non-white, male, and have a fairly thick accent, I do not know if I mispronounce the word 'geocacheing' and may seem more thretening in Australia. I pulled out my Garmin and offered to even show him what it was all about, that it involved a container placed at those coordinates, but he wouldn't hear any of it and just insisted I leave before he called the police. I felt it was only considerate to both him and future cachers to mention that other people would likely also go to the cache after myself, and that it was nobody's intention to alarm his daughter.
Other than simply not being on the same stretch of road, I don't know if there was anything I could have done to avoid the situation. Waiting till the muggle had passed me in order to discreetly access the cache was seen as following her, and there did not seem to be a better way to position the car without blocking other vehicles. I hope this is not a regular occurence.
Should I also mention this in the website? I fear the man may attempt to remove the cache to prevent people from going there in the future, but since he refused to see it or look closely at my Garmin, I don't know if he'll find it. Then again, being a large-ish and easy beginner's cache, who knows?
I'm truly sorry if my first trip had inconvenienced others