Geocaching finds followers in Northland

Geocaching ... err, geo-what? Joseph Aldridge goes deep under cover to find out what it is and who's doing it in Whangarei
 
MY INFORMANT instructs me to meet him at the beginning of the Limeburners Track at 9.30am, Saturday. I arrive to find a red Toyota waiting in the car park.
As I approach the contact - Riser5 as he is known online - I feel slightly nervous, but my curiosity gets the better of me.
I've spent weeks locating this contact online, but what will he be like in person?
Riser5 sees me coming and gets out of the car. He looks normal enough, medium build, short brown hair, an interesting-looking tattoo on his right arm.
He's joined by three associates; MiniMaxy, Butters* and Kenny897.
Riser5 lays a small bag on the boot of the car and pulls out some gear for me to inspect.
A bunch of watertight containers, batteries, a couple of pencils and a GPS device. What the heck have I got myself into?
The name of the game is geocaching and more than five million people play worldwide. You might have seen them skulking around in your neighbourhood park, peering at an electronic device and rummaging in the bushes. Or you might have stumbled on one of their "caches"; of which there are 1,328,101 hidden around the world.
Geocaching is described as a high-tech treasure hunt in which "adventure seekers" equipped with GPS devices locate hidden containers and share their experiences online.
Sort of like a high-tech hide and seek.
"Hide and geek," one of my colleagues suggested rather uncharitably at our daily news meeting. We all laughed but I wondered, "what sort of person plays this game?"
Nick Connop is one of Whangarei's most prolific geocachers. He's part tech-head, part Indiana Jones. During working hours, he's a duty manager at Onerahi New World, but when the working day is done he is Riser5 - high-tech treasure hunter.
Nick got into geocaching about a year ago after he stumbled on a hidden cache. It was a classic case of right person, right place, right time.
"Literally just before I got into geocaching, I was thinking up locations for people to do a hide and seek treasure hunt thing," he says. "I then stumbled on to geocaching and I have used some of those ideas for my geocache hides."
Nick's pretty matter-of-fact when he speaks, he doesn't waste time with pleasantries or vague chit-chat. And he's fast; you can see he's planning out his next move while he speaks with you.
Geocaching is the perfect combination of Nick's passions; high-tech gadgets, puzzle-solving, adventure, travel, nature, knick-knacks ... knick-knacks?
Yes, knick-knacks are an essential part of geocaching.
Generally they're small plastic toys, the type you buy at the $2 shop on the way to your young nephew's birthday. They're deposited in caches by geocachers who, in return, take some knick-knacks left by the last person.
And then we come to the trackables.
Trackable items carry a unique code, allowing each person who finds one to enter its code online and see where it's been.
Many of these items have travelled the world.
Trackables are "Geocoins" (specially minted coins with an embedded code) or "Travel Bugs" (similar to military dogtags and attached to another item, such as a teddy bear).
Which brings us to Nick's tattoo.
In an inspired moment of obsessive brilliance, Nick decided to tattoo a trackable code on his arm. He asked his girlfriend, Maxine, to design a tattoo that combined his two foremost obsessions - geocaching and Star Wars. The result? A sci-fi dream come true. Essentially, he is a walking, talking Geocoin. Type his code into the site and see where he's been.
Nick admits his love affair with geocaching is borderline obsessive.
Maxine says it's more than borderline, but that's okay because she enjoys it too.
The couple are part of the small group of 20-25 active cachers who make up Whangarei's geocaching community.
Geocaching attracts all sorts, Nick tells me. Retired couples in campervans, families with young kids, tech-heads, outdoors types. And they all have differing levels of involvement. Some are casual players, others are competitive, and a few are fanatics. Probably quite a few are fanatics.
Such as Nick.
I asked him what he does when he's not geocaching.
"Not geocaching? LOL. I either work, sleep, and most of my life is geocaching. I love getting out and finding new areas to explore and it's a good way to spend time with family and friends.
"If I am not out geocaching, I am thinking of where I want to go, or thinking of new places to place caches and creating them."
Thanks to people such as Nick, caches are hidden all over the place - 243 are stashed within 40km of Whangarei alone. In almost every case they'll be hidden in public places, such as Mair Park, Mt Manaia, the Town Basin.
The caches are hidden with stealth, and often disguised, to prevent their falling into the hands of "muggles".
"Muggles" is the term geocachers use for the rest of us. It's a Harry Potter reference. If a cache is disturbed or stolen, it is said to have been "muggled".
Which leads me to my final question.
Now that I've been initiated, am I still a muggle? To find out, go to geocaching.com and type GC2PQ3Z into the search bar. Scroll down to last 10 logged visits. Look for Northland Novice.