Andy and I originally wanted a GPS to assist with accurately recording the location of businesses that we work with and subsequent photography sessions, both professional and personal, so after a few weeks of research Andy finally tracked down the ideal GPS for us and our purpose, a Lowrance iFINDER® GO2 (International) Handheld GPS.

It was reasonably priced (approx NZ$160) and it wasn’t oozing with features that we didn’t, or wouldn’t, be needing but it had one problem… the lack of data sharing. We wanted the GPS to be able to talk to our notebook but alas all the documentation stated that this wasn’t a feature and couldn’t be done, that aside we purchased the unit anyway and as soon as it arrived and was in Andy’s hot little hands, he hit the net to find a way to do what everyone said couldn’t be done (and eventually did find a way to achieve this and constructed his own data able but it was during this research that Andy stumbled across Geocaching.com, prior to then we had no idea about geocaching, let alone what it was or how quickly our addiction to it would take hold!

When Andy first started explaining geocaching to me I was listening with half an ear… it went something like…

“GPS… blah blah… satellites… blah blah… maps… blah blah *yawn*… sounds fun (yeah right!)… blah blah… we must try it (oh brother! not more technology in our down time!)… blah blah… one at Omana… blah blah.. we should go check it out… blah blah… we’ll go for coffee first (woohoo! finally something that appeals to me … I’ll take the GPS (knock yourself out …”

…so that Friday after work (26th October 2007) we trotted down to Bach’n on Maraetai Beach, I consumed my usual 2 flat white bowls while Andy fiddled with what I now, sometimes affectionately, call “the red thing” (his iFINDER® GO2). On our way home that night we parked at Te Puru and started walking towards the Omana reserve, I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about the idea but after having consumed a days caffeine intake in just over an hour I was aok with the idea It didn’t take long to get to the location where the supposed “cache” Gecko’s Hobbit Home (Auckland) – GCMFGG was meant to be and once there Andy immediately started fossicking around, I was more interested in the rock pools but managed to feign some interest whenever he checked in on how my search was going. The short of the long is that Andy soon found the cache and after I scrambling up the hill to where he was perched it didn’t take long to catch his excitement… and addiction

Since our first find in October 07 we have spent endless hours happy hours of geocaching, had our finds and DNF’s, had the great pleasure of bumping into some fellow geocachers, Tramper Ted, at Invader of the Gardens (Auckland) – GC17JYG on 25th November and have also placed some of our own caches down, which we both thoroughly enjoy. You can see more of our “firsts” at our Geocaching Milestones.

I’ve also acquired my own GPS, we are running more advanced geocaching software than we started out with and we’re doing our best to keep this blog up to date with our finds, placements and a record of geocoins and travel bugs that we are fortunate enough to stumble across. We do try to document the caches as best we can by providing photos of the cache contents and location, we’ve also put up 360 virtual tours for each cache location (example below) as this serves as record of how the area looked at the time we were there which in a few years will be fun to look back on. The virtual tours are completely interactive so you can either use the buttons on the image itself to control the direction it goes in, or you can use your mouse. With your mouse wheel you can zoom in and out, and by clicking on the image (any spot) you can drag the tour in any direction, including up and down. Have a play around with the example below which is from Marbles 2 Go (Auckland) GC186D4 which we had a great time finding and a subsequent ball (or should that be marball at the Marble Park (shown below)

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Overall, our addiction to geocaching has become well and truly embedded in many aspects of our lives, both personally and professionally, including our recent decision to become an official distributor of Groundspeak Merchandise in New Zealand over at http://www.geocaching-zone.co.nz.

Over the last couple of months we have formed some great business relationships, and friendships, with many overseas suppliers, this has enabled us to to provide New Zealander geocachers with a good supply of general geocaching products including travel bugs, geocoins, cache containers, labels etc. We are constantly on the prowl for new products and services so if you have any suggestions, or have your own products you would like sold, don’t hesitate to Contact Us.

All the above being said…
we hope you enjoy your stay here and may you have many happy geocaching days ahead of you all