Geocaching for BBC Radio Wales

Geocaching seems to have turned me into a media hound! Maybe not, but I did do an interview and spend a morning geocaching with BBC Radio Wales the other day.

Pendam Lake, WalesThis was completely unrelated to my recent article that was published on the BBC Isle of Man website, but I was approached by the producer of Country Focus that airs on BBC Radio Wales and asked if I would mind doing a half hour programme all about Geocaching. I got together a few other aber-cachers and we met up last week to take the shows presenter out caching for the morning.

After a quick introduction in my office explaining the concept and showing them how to get the cache details from the web an into my GPSr and iPod we jumped in the car and headed into Aberyswyth where we went in search of the Yellow cache from the Rainbow series. Red Kite (the owner of the cache) and Sarah from Idle Rocks were with me along with the shows present (Mel Doel) and producer (Pauline Smith) We gave Mel and Pauline the GPSr and let them find the cache themselves which they did easily. Sarah hadn;t foudn this one either so after signing the logbook, and leaving a BBC Radio Wales calling card it was back into the car and up to the Forestry at pendam for a search for one of my caches.

The Pendam Cache had gone missing a week or so before so I quickly restored it with a new one. We then met Gareth from Forestry Commission, and Peter Hewlett from Llyn Peninsula and had a little interview with them about eco-tourism and gecoaching. We then headed off to allow them to find the Pendam cache.

The Country Focus people had brought a Travel Bug with them so they dropped that off in the cache and will be monitoring its progress on the programme. The programme airs at 7.30am on a Sunday so not many people that know me will hear it (probably a good thing!), and we’re not sure when exactly it will go out, but I’m sure I’ll let you know here oncer I have some more info.

Overall it was a nice morning out. I wanted to stress that geocaching for me was really about the walk and the countryside rather than the finding of the cache, and a way to go to places that you might otherwise not have gone to, but I’m not sure how it will come out once they edit it all. I have a feeling they were trying to portray me as a mad geocacher who spends his time searching for plastic boxes and getting excited about the contents! I know that is what some people do and I also wanted to express the fact that geocaching is really varied and can be whatever you want it to be, but again we’ll have to see if that makes it into the show.

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.