![\"Favourites](\"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Favourites-are-Forever.png\")
<\/a>Favourites are Forever<\/p><\/div>\n
The\u00a0Souvenir was one of the Summer series that Geocaching HQ tend to organise each year. This year they are in the form of puzzles as part of “Mission GC”. Anna did most of the work solving the puzzle – or at least, she worked out the cipher and deciphered it but then\u00a0couldn’t quite put the letters into words even though that bit was obvious! We soon had\u00a0the details of the mission that we had to complete to get the souvenir. The souvenir was called ‘Favourites are Forever’. We simply had to find a geocache with 10 favourite points or more. A quick check of the Geocaching database and there were a few we hadn’t found on Cadair Idris that met the criteria, one on Plynlimon and a Wherigo in Aberystwyth.<\/p>\n
Anna and Morgan weren’t too keen on the big hills, so the Wherigo looked the most appealing. We’d struggled with the Wherigo App last time we tried it, so I reloaded it and all seemed good. We downloaded the Wherigo cartridge for the Aberystwyth Royal Mint Wherigo Geocache and it\u00a0seemed to be working. Next we headed into Aberystwyth with two phones; one in Morgan’s hand with the Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon Go app running and one in Anna’s with the Wherigo App running.<\/p>\n
The Wherigo cartridge took us on a nice little walk around some historic points of interest in Aberystwyth, including down a little alley and flight of steps that we\u00a0didn’t even know existed. Yep, after more than 20 years of living in Aberystwyth geocaching still took us somewhere new.<\/p>\n
After about an hour strolling around in the sunshine, pausing to read the Wherigo instructions and pausing to catch Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon we came to the final coordinates and found the cache. With the log book signed we had completed geocache number 720, found a Wherigo cache and had gained the ‘Favourites are Forever’ Souvenir. Not a bad morning strolling around Aberystwyth.<\/p>\n
We also popped into Coffee #1 for coffee and cake, and into Isaac’s for sweets and fudge.<\/p>\n
Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon Hunting in Aberystwyth<\/h2>\n
As mentioned above we were also Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon hunting. In case you haven’t already heard of the latest digital craze of Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon Go, here’s a brief intro –\u00a0don’t worry, I knew nothing about Pok\u00c3\u00a9moin a few days ago either.<\/p>\n
As you travel around\u00a0you come across \u00a0Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon and then have to interact with them on your phone by throwing something known as Pok\u00c3\u00a9balls at them in order to catch them. Once you’ve caught them they are added to your inventory and registered in\u00a0your Pok\u00c3\u00a9dex – this is a list of all the Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon that you have found.<\/p>\n At the moment there are 148 different Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon to find (142 of which are available in the UK). Apparently different types of Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon are more likely to turn up in certain environments than others. Some live near water, some in towns, some in grass and so on which means you need to visit different places and different areas in order to “catch them all”. Some are only available in certain regions of the world as well, hence the limit of 142 available in the UK.<\/p>\n Catching Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon not only adds them to your inventory but also gives you experience points, candies and stardust which you use to level up and progress through the game and also use to evolve or power up your pok\u00c3\u00a9mon into stronger forms.<\/p>\n Morgan and James Pokemon Hunting<\/p><\/div>\n There’s a little more to the game than just running around the place finding Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon though. The Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon themselves can pop up anywhere and tend to hang out in certain environments. There are certainly more Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon in Aberystwyth than in Ynyslas so I imagine that cities are full of them. \u00a0There are also things called Pok\u00c3\u00a9stops. Pok\u00c3\u00a9stops are in fixed locations, usually at landmarks or historic features such as statues or plaques. These are locations that you can visit in order to stock up on Pok\u00c3\u00a9balls and other game items.<\/p>\n Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon gyms are also in fixed locations and tend to be at more significant features. Once you are at level 5 in the game you can enter these gyms and do battle with other Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon. I won’t go into the details of battling gyms, owning gyms, training Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon in gyms and the various teams that you can join. \u00a0You can find that out elsewhere if you need to, but it’s an added dimension to the game that can be fun. We managed to get Pokemon into 4 gyms yesterday.<\/p>\n<\/a>As far as I know, Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon started out as physical cards that you collect and traded with friends. This soon became a digital game in which you travelled around a virtual world catching and collecting Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon.\u00a0The latest Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon Go game takes you out into the real world where you move around the landscape looking for and catching Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon with your mobile phone. This ties it in a little with the geocaching above as it uses your GPS location as you move around your surroundings to determine where you are and what you see on the Pok\u00c3\u00a9mon Go map.<\/p>\n<\/a>Pok\u00c3\u00a9stops and Gyms<\/h2>\n