Today was International Earthcache Day. This meant that if you went out and found an earthcache today you'd get yourself a sparkly souvenir from geocaching.com!
The nearest unfound earthcache to me is, according to geocaching.com, 0.3 miles away from my house. Unfortunately it is my own.
Then the next one is 8.6 miles away - Holme Fen Posts. I found that back in 2012.
It's also eldest daughters 15th Birthday today. Guess what she DOESN'T want to do?
The only way I am bagging an earthcache today is by finding my own!
But it's often thought of as bad form to 'find' your own caches; but is it bad form to find your own earthcache? I have put a poll in the Geocaching UK Facebook group to see what others think.
I don't want to acquire the image of a geo-cheater and I stick strictly to the spirit of the game.
If I cannot sign the log I cannot log the find. (Although I have utilised my car keys to make my mark on a log before!)
If I can't find a cache I won't do a throwdown. (Unless with specific permission from the CO on a second or subsequent attempt.)
I have never 'found' my own caches. (Although I have found them and subsequently adopted them!).
I have attended my own event, but that's different. You're not finding something that you yourself hid. You are actually 'attending' an event, and in fact it's probably considered a pretty poor show to host an event and then not actually turn up!
But in my mind there a shadey middle ground. What about an earthcache? The main point of an earthcache is to take somebody to an interesting geological location and from either that or the cache page for that person to learn something about the site. There is no container to find or a log to find. The experience of visiting the location teaches you something about it.
Unless you are a post-graduate geologist then going out and finding a suitable location and researching what needs to go on the cache page is actually teaching you about the geological feature or location.
So by visiting the site and composing the earthcache page you have accomplished those goals. So I would argue that you should be able to log your own earthcache.
However, the general consensus on the Geocaching UK Facebook group is that you shouldn't.
As I've already stated, I don't want to acquire the image of a geo-cheater so I guess I won't be getting my sparkly souvenir! Maybe next year.
