Unplugged: Who Knew The Outdoors Could Be So Fun?

The countdown started at around 300 feet and grew louder as we walked closer. 

My eldest child, holding a GPS device, shouted ever-lowering numbers as we walked closer to our destination a mile deep into the woods at Shark River Park.

“Two hundred,’’ she said. “One hundred feet! We’re almost there!”

My other two kids wondered aloud what the treasure was gong to be at the end of this muddy hike. Their excitement was palpable, and gleefully unexpected.

It was, after all, a hike through the woods, with nary a game system or television in sight. Yet these young digital natives, inundated with more media than any generation of humans preceding it, were actually enjoying walking through the mud on a sunny day in search of hidden treasure.

* * * * *

Geocaching, or the practice of using a compass or GPS device to find a previously hidden store of trinkets somewhere in the woods, is not new. People have been hiding little containers of stuff in odd places for at least a decade, according to Geocaching.com, a site dedicated to the practice.

_________________

The Monmouth County Park System also runs a drop-in Geocache program in Thompson Park in Middletown. Cost is $15 and everything is supplied.

_________________

There are about a million hidden caches in the U.S. and two million worldwide, with the hidden stores in nearly every country around the globe, according to the site.

And in Wall, there are dozens of hidden caches all over town, mainly along pre-existing trails through county or state parks, such as Shark River or Allaire State parks. There are also numerous caches hidden along the Edgar Felix Bike Path.

The idea is simple. First, get off the couch.

Second, get a GPS device – your smart phone will do nicely – and sign up with a site such as Geocaching.com to get coordinates to caches that others who preceded you have already hidden.

If you have a dedicated GPS device, you can directly enter the coordinates and be off on your adventure. If you’re using a smart phone like we did, you’ll want to download the dedicated application, which includes all manner of goodies, such as driving directions to the start point of the geocache, suggestions on where to park and other nearby geocaches to keep the adventure going. For us beginners, that seemed the best route.

The app wasn’t free. But $10 to get everyone excited about being outside seemed worth the admission price.

There were several geocaches hidden in nearby Shark River Park, according to our application, so it was decided. After the whining over having to unplug from the games/television/iTunes was finally quelled, we were off.

* * * * *

We parked at the main entrance of the park, off Schoolhouse Road. And once I gave up orienteering duties to those more suited to the task (read: anyone else), we found our way to the starting point of our journey.

But once we were out of the house, the battle for the kids’ attention was over. They were immediately on board with finding hidden treasure.

Without this to focus their attention, however, I believe this would have been a different story altogether.

All along trek over felled trees, through mud, under picky overgrowth, they talked about what might be in the treasure and how close we were to getting to it.

Dare I say it, they were actually enjoying themselves – outside, nowhere near an electrical outlet or wifi signal.

* * * * *

The GPS will get you within 30 feet or so of your prize, but the rest is up to you. It could be hidden anywhere – under rocks, up a tree, covered by leaves. For each geocache, you’re given a general description of the size of the cache, and little more.

But seek and ye shall find.

This part took only about 10 minutes or so of scouring but we unearthed a brown plastic container about the size of a lunchbox, hidden under some branches a few feet off the path.

There was much rejoicing.

It wasn’t exactly gold bullion that we found inside our treasure box, more like a bottle cap, a couple of business cards, an old matchbox car and other assorted bric-a-brac. That part may have been a little disappointing, I’ll admit. But the hunt, we all agreed, was the fun part anyway. And we left a few of the nicer trinkets we brought along with us.

We looked through the logbook, included with every cache, where those who previously found the stash sign and date their discovery. Ours dated back to 2011, with numerous signatures. We proudly added ours as our first geocache find.

Since there were so many nearby geocaches, we decided to hunt another located nearer to the entrance to the park, since it was on our way back. That one was a little more difficult than the first, but conquer it we did.

After solid two hours in the woods, goofing around and generally enjoying the park, the day and each other’s company, even my teenager had to admit it was a fun day.

“See?’’ my wife said. “There’s a whole world out there outside of YouTube.’’