Paphos Life

Well we had our first attempt at Geocaching this afternoon with a 50% success rate. We found one cache but not the other one that we were looking for, so that one is still on the list and we will try again next time we are in the Tala area. As we were in the UK last week, and Amazon had them on offer, we bought a Garmin GPS, and I may read the instructions one day! Might have found the missing one if I had already done so, but why break the habit of a lifetime. Could have used our smartphones but they aren't as robust as custom GPS kit, and it is safe to assume that it is only a matter of time before I / it go flying on uneven ground. Lots of interesting walks ahead, and thanks to Dominic as his occasional mentions of geocaching is what sparked our interest.
On reflection probably should have put this into a new thread, but no idea how to do that now that I have (one fingured) typed this here.

I have split the thread for you.

You will have plenty of walks ahead of you. And if enough people show an interest in this thread I will start a geocaching section where we can compare notes etc.

I plan on doing a blog in the future, which will be about me placing a cache in a remote area of the Akamas. I'm just waiting for the weather to cool a little bit first, as it is a bit of a hike.

Many thanks Dominic. I just PM'd you asking you to do this but you beat me to it!

If you have a Garmin, you may find this site useful:

https://talkytoaster.me.uk/

They do very cheap maps, if your model didn't come with one. The default world map is not very useful.

If you have shelled out for a GPS, you should also become a premium member at geocaching.com. Once you are a premium member, you can run pocket queries, which enable you to download every cache on Cyprus onto your GPS.

Thanks for the tips. I have now signed up for the Premium membership.

That explains where my 'orphaned' reply to D&PG (Dave) went in the original thread, Dom...

Are you able to move my reply to Dave into here, please? As I was replying, while you were splitting, LMAO!

Cheers- AL

PaphosAL wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2017 7:38 pm That explains where my 'orphaned' reply to D&PG (Dave) went in the original thread, Dom...

Are you able to move my reply to Dave into here, please? As I was replying, while you were splitting, LMAO!

Cheers- AL

Um, I tried, but I am not sure where it ended up. I think your info was more aimed at car GPSes though. Geocaching GPSes don't tend to have map updates like that, hence the Talkytoaster site I linked to.

I think my reply ended up in a black hole in cyberspace, Dom... I just bought a Garmin DriveAssist™ 50LMT-D for my grandaughter. 5" Satnav, Dashcam, live traffic, Lifetime free map updates for all of Europe, Bluetooth hands free to smartphone, etc etc.

Point is, when you want to go yomping on foot into the countryside up in them thar hills, you really want to park the car and take the the Satnav with you as a pedestrian guide? Think again!

The internal Li-On battery when fully charged is only good for 30 mins of use when unplugged from the car 12v power supply. In other words, useless! My mission (should I choose to accept it) is to try and source an individual 5v usb pre-chargeable power pack for GPS, that fits in your back pocket or backpack, and keeps the GPS running for 3 or 4 hours (with Dashcam off, or on if you want to record stills and/or video).

Watch this space, as GPS should give the coordinates needed for geocaching, I reckon! And still shots will show those coordinates, as well as date and time etc

Cheers- AL

You are missing the point as there is no suggestion about wandering around off-road with a car SatNav in my hand, although I am sure it could be done in a rudimentary way. I mentioned "custom GPS kit". If you Google Garmin Etrex 30x you will see the type of kit we are talking about.

D&PG wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2017 7:34 am You are missing the point as there is no suggestion about wandering around off-road with a car SatNav in my hand, although I am sure it could be done in a rudimentary way. I mentioned "custom GPS kit". If you Google Garmin Etrex 30x you will see the type of kit we are talking about.

Yes, car GPSes and Geocaching GPSes are different beasts altogether. For a start, a geocaching GPS runs on batteries, it is very rugged, to withstand being dropped etc, and is designed for geocaching, so has a menu system allowing you to locate and place geocaches etc. They aren't really designed to tell you what direction to go at a T junction. That is not their primary function.