I've just come across this site about Letterboxing in Dartmoor: http://www.dartmoorletterboxing.org/. Do we have any letterboxers on the EF?

I had never heard of letterboxing before but I am intrieged. Wikipiedia informs me that 'Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly-accessible places (like parks) and distribute clues to finding the box in printed catalogs, on one of several websites, or by word of mouth'

I do like a good treasure hunt and thought this sounded a nice alternative weekend activity. Does anyone know if such a thing exist in/around Basel. If not, maybe I'll hide a few boxes and sprinkle a clue or two on the EF .

Kit Williams of Masquerade fame was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 recently; see if the story is still up for an insight on this most famous hidden treasure of the last twenty years...

Geocaching (www.geocaching.org) is quite big here. (Req. a GPS device though)

Wow, I never knew of Kit Williams/Masquerade

Details found here Masquerade_(book)
Now that was a proper treasure hunt

Unfortunate that a dishonest friend of a friend of an ex-friend found it

I think I could quite get into the Geocaching but all the clues re local caches are in German. My level A2 doesn't cut to well here .

I could cut and paste into a translator (Google translator doesn't seem to work within the page) but wonder if am losing the nuances that make a cryptic clue work

Thoughts? Are there are Geocachers on EF (or is the done thing to stay anonomous?)?

Waiting in anticipation....

You are right to some extend. However the ones with a lower difficulty you certainly can find - I've done 20 or so here.
Many of the descriptions are also offered in English too.

I looked for two Geocaches yesterday and found neither (both were suppose to be easy). Now it's true that I don't have a GPS but I thought if I searched in the right area and armed with roughly translated clues perseverance should get me there.

Generally are the containers pretty much in public view (if you look hard enough) or are they hidden with some cunning? ie should I be poking around in bushes/under benches or are they more likely to be on top of a phone box, found only if you ask the local shop keeper?

Is it just me, or doesn't the term "Letterboxing" have somewhat disturbing connotations?

In my experience, I wouldn't have found a single one without my GPS - it is simply too difficult.
And in my experience there are no clues in the text of the easy ones.

Finally, no the containers are NOT in public view, otherwise the caches would be lost too quickly - they are usually hidden in clever places.