Connective Visions

Five full days into my Norwegian trip, and I had found five geocaches.

Tveit Kirke, near Kristiansand. Norwegian cache #1 was on the grounds.

Or rather, we had found five geocaches. My friends here in Kristiansand have strongly endorsed my “mission” to track down peculiar hidden items. They have approached the cache hunt with successful zeal, sometimes turning up the sought item before I have gotten my bearings at the particular fence, creek bed, or staircase being scrutinized.

Yesterday, I got behind the rocks first. And it is that phrase – “behind the rocks” – that captures the real appeal of geocaching for me. I get to poke about in places that, as an urban-dwelling American, I wouldn’t normally visit, much less take a closer look at, shift, and search through.

Geocaching on the surface does not seem an activity for the anxiety-prone person, which unfortunately describes many Americans today. If you believe the world is threatening; that strange places, people, plants, and objects should be avoided (or regulated) at all costs; and that directions are evil attempts to undermine your God-given right to determine your life, you may find it horrifying to contemplate.

Imagine – skulking about in the woods or in gutters or at drains, seeking a clandestinely dropped package while using anonymous online directives and a GPS to track down the location! I can almost hear my grandmother (or local Philadelphia newscaster) saying, “You don’t know a thing about the person who put that there. And that Internet is all full of weirdos.”

One of the greatest hardships for the anxiety-prone is the loss of the ability to have fun – just as you did when you were a kid doing a treasure hunt. (This is if you’re over the age of 30. I’m not at all sure it’s been allowed for children born post-1990 to have fun.) And this is why I think geocaching is a great activity for the anxiety-prone – if they would like not to be so anxious.

Geocaching takes you outside the house and outside of yourself. It requires you pay attention to concrete things, not imaginings about the possible impact of this or that action. You have a goal, and you have directions, and you put the two together to explore the possibilities.

A micro- or nano-cache - my first-ever find in the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia.

I was introduced to it by a Norwegian, who considered it a good long-distance shared activity. I don’t yet have a GPS, but with the directions on the Web site and Google maps, I was able to pinpoint rough locations.

Unfortunately, my first site was almost incessantly occupied – either by dog walkers or by the Philadelphia Streets Department. (My investigation did enhance my appreciation for the widespread presence, if not actual activity, of the Streets Department.) Soon thereafter I found a “micro-cache,” however, and that sealed the deal. If I could manage to find a day under 90ºF to engage in doing this, I would.

Geocaching while on vacation is a fantastic way to explore the locale. Since the caches are often hidden near sites of local interest, you learn a lot more about your destination than you will from a guidebook. You can visit oft-overlooked historical spots and particularly interesting geological formations, discovering intimate facts about the area even as you puzzle out clues and mull over what you would consider to be good hiding places.

Knarestad - "trolling" for another cache.

Here around Kristiansand, on the south coast of Norway, my journeys have taken me to Tveit kirke (Tveit Church); an old cottar’s farm and parish museum at Knarestad, along the Topdalsfjord; the Kjevik Airport outside Kristiansand; and the Christiansholm festning (Christiansholm Fortress) along the city’s harbor. These have been five quite different experiences, and as you’ll see when I touch on them in more detail, each has added to my appreciation of the area’s history and culture.

In these searches one makes the ultimate global connection: leaving a harmless trace (a signature on a log, a note on the Internet, and perhaps a trade item) that one has visited the site. In geocaching, we make fleeting contact with the imagination of someone who lives or visits a particular site regularly, who is eager to share something of personal value. You may never see this person – but in a strange sense, you’ve “met.”

It’s a little like messages in bottles, or cards on balloons, granting a peek into a fellow human in a world that still has room for exploration. And that, perhaps, is the best part of the whole activity: realizing that in a global atmosphere both unpredictable and often tedious in the recurrence of its problems, there are still discoveries to be made … adventures to be had … things to learn.

Let’s get started.