Beautiful York and some Geocaching and Munzee's

We are just back from our annual meet up with friends, this time in York.  We try to visit a city somewhere in the UK and Pat and I will go off and do some geocaching or look for Munzee's t

Pat and I were at infant school together and lived around the corner from each other. But over the years, with moves and marriages we lost touch, until about 12 years ago when Pat found me on Friendsreunited,and since then we have met up each year in a city.

Pat introduced me to geocaching 3 years ago. She is a pro at the sport with a good number of caches and Munzees found.  It was in York 3 years ago that she showed me how this all worked with a GPS, once I was shown I was hooked……..big time.    Our husbands would start off helping us then end up wandering off to the pub for a refreshment ! so Pat and I would walk around the city finding caches and now we have Munzees as well so we covered a good bit of the city.

Scotland is so empty of Munzees there are some, but nothing like down south where there are hundreds maybe into thousands.     We managed maybe 31 Munzees in York with still loads to discover within the city.

In case you do not know of Munzee's it's another game where you use a smart phone with the app and off you go following the instructions looking for a QR code to scan with your phone, it may be stuck to a post either under or on the back.  It could be on a sign somewhere, there are many many options to hide them.   So there the two of us were, bending down or kneeling down looking underneath things trying to scan the QR codes.  But we just switched off to the folk passing by, although when we were with our husbands trying to scan a Munzee 2 men one after the other, asked if we needed help, we explained what we were doing but still not sure they understood.   At another Munzee my husband being the taller of the 4 of us was trying to reach up to scan a QR code, it just would not work, 2 American men were standing right next to us watching, we told them what we were doing when one of them suggested turning the camera phone to a different angle and sure enough the *ping* was heard and another Munzee bagged, I told the men it was a *duh* moment for us so we all had a good laugh together.

York is such a beautiful city, with the walls surrounding the city on which you can walk around giving lovely views of different parts of the city. Pat and I went up onto the walls to try and find a cache, she
had tried to find it the last time she was in the city with her husband with no luck, but even though there were folk sitting on the seats there, we spotted the container and with my friend shielding me it was a quick grab of the cache, a sit down to sign the log and again a quick placing back of the cache, and non of the other folk were any of the wiser.

 
                                                          One of York's city gates.

                                                           The Stonegate Devil (below) I had to have my photograph taken with a GPS or smart phone in view to prove I had been there, this is a cache, no log to sign or cache container to find, just a photograph taken.   I have just noticed the name of the shop we are standing outside, very apt!   plus I am amazed my husband agreed to be in the photo as he is not the cacher in the family.
                                                                     

Then the next day it was on to a lovely area for the search for a geocache in a big park, there was also a virtual one where you needed to have your photograph taken but I am not putting that one up on my blog as it is a horrible one I am not smiling and refuse to show you all lol We were in York for 2 nights, the first day was lovely and dry but the second it rained off and on most of the morning and early afternoon, but on we went in between coffees and lunch to search out more Munzee's and geocaches.

We went to St.Mary's Abbey ruin, where we did the virtual and found a traditional cache in the rain.   If the ruins could talk, amazing to walk through the grounds and read the plaques on the ground telling us what had stood there hundreds of years ago. I did take photographs but for some reason my camera said it was full, but it wasn't as I had only taken a few.


                                               That's the black cache box and it was inside the camo bag.

                             It was really wet that day, this was after the cache had been placed back.

I think at this point we let the men leave us, to hunt ourselves!  If you decided to ever take up looking for Munzee's, do as my friend does, she takes a spare phone battery because boy does the battery soon drain when you are Munzee scanning, so I will be doing the same.

      Pat looking on her phone ready to go and look for the next Munzee, we had just scanned one here.

One part of the walls, this was nearby to where we stayed in a B&B

On our journey back to Scotland yesterday, whenever we stopped for coffee at the service areas, off we would go to stretch our legs looking for Munzee's, we managed 3 on our way home, 2 QR codes stuck on sign posts and one virtual, where you just need to keep an eye on your phone and if you are within 300 ft or so, you press your phone and hey presto you get another Munzee without searching.