Enthusiasts: Hot, Hotter, Cold

Hide and Seek for Grown-Ups

This city is enchanted. Not by Adderall-chomping tulle-stuffed Disney princesses pining singingly after strong-jawed manchildren, but something far less irritating: little boxes of plastic tat, bolts that aren't bolts at all, and miniature notebooks with friendly messages or cryptic codes that send you on missions. We live in a landscape of lilliputian adventure and few people even know it.

May 1, 2000, satellite technology previously accessible only to the military was made available to anyone who could get their hands on a GPS. Two days later in Portland Oregon, a guy called Dave Ulmer hid a bucket containing CDs, a can of beans, and a logbook, and posted the coordinates on the Internet, inviting people to find, look at, touch, but not take the stuff. Thus Geocaching was born.

Geocachers hide containers of objects then post coordinates on a website, sometimes with detailed descriptions, history or personal stories. Other geocachers find them, sign the logbook, and put them back, careful not to disturb the landscape (one of their guidelines is that they don't dig holes).

It's a disconcertingly sunny Saturday morning and I meet Kyle and Donnacha for a Geocache Ireland event on Howth Head. I expect nine or ten people, but there are more like thirty: from all over Ireland, a guy from Austria who came to Dublin for caching, and a family who came from the UK for the day. People geocache at home and abroad to discover new places, or new ways of seeing a place they know. Eoin, a founder of Geocache Ireland likens it to having a tour guide in every town in Ireland, and that seems to be the sentiment worldwide.

Discovering there are trinket troves lurking all around us is second only to the childhood revelation that there's stuff under the ground from the past. It's like the good bits of archaeology (walking, finding stuff) without the boring bits (measuring dirt).
The first cache in Europe was placed on Bray Head eight years ago. Kyle was the first to find it, and was instantly hooked. “No one had heard of GPS. I remember saying, 'Donnacha, look, there's this hidden cache on the Sugarloaf,' and he was like, 'Come off it.'”

“I had this vision of a treasure chest with diamonds and rubies coming out of it,” says Donnacha. He was hooked even without the precious gems.

“If I'm away on holidays I'll do it,” says Kyle. “You know generally that people are going to take you to a nice area.”

The most exciting thing is not the gadgetry – though Kyle enjoys experimenting with the technology – or even the treasure. These caches make a narrative map where the geographical, the historical and the personal overlap, and invite you to add your own layer of meaning. It's experience, not a 'tourism product'. They observe and share, not intrude and consume.
Most of the people I meet seem to see it as a way of spicing up a walk. I wonder is it a coping mechanism for the sense of purpose we feel so pressured to fulfil during every waking moment, tempering the isolation of modern life.

In the city, caches are everywhere, including on the Ha'penny Bridge and on Molly Malone. Developers' eyesores commingle with the the personal touches of Geocachers. No matter how much the Docklands are squandered with joyless architecture, they can't pave over fun.
City caching can arouse curiosity or suspicion. Niall, in charge of ensuring caches adhere to guidelines says, “Some people search for urban caches wearing a hi-viz vest and a hard hat because they look like they're working.” That guy worrying the box hedge at the edge of the park may be neither the ESB man nor a pervert, he could be looking for tiny pound shop assemblages with his doohickey, and that jumbo breakfast roll could just be a prop.

There are personalised caches, like the Pop In For Coffee cache in the west of Ireland, where the couple who placed it (in their garden) invite fellow geocachers in for a hot drink. There's a Dermot Morgan memorial cache near the house from Father Ted, filled with trinkets, notes, and photos from the series. Some caches mark an unknown private ritual. “In the Phoenix Park,” says Eamon, a Dublin-based Donegalman, “there's a stage at the grave of a dog that was buried there about 30 years ago. Still there's a cross and anytime you go there're fresh flowers on the dog's grave. Somebody does that.”

Even today, I am escorted through a new experience of a familiar place. I also manage to bang my shin hard on a rock, get soaking wet, and nearly fall face-first into the sea.

Eoin's partner Helen and I run ahead, determined to be the first to find the final cache of the day, which we are, and we're giddy. There's something exciting about the box of toys, the cheery messages in the logbook. No matter how shitty a rainy Tuesday morning when you've just been splashed by a truck and you're late for a meeting, a few feet away there could be a reassuring note from some benevolent person, even if everyone around you is ornery.

I'm sure it's not the first time military technology has been turned into a way to make friends, but if there was ever a danger that I might go native with the anoraks, we're at code red.