Cache kid aims to get 100

Rose Heaslip, 10, wants to discover 100 geocaches before she turns 11 on January 29. Photo / Ben Fraser

Ten-year-old Rose Heaslip is crazy about geocaching and wants her enthusiasm to rub off on to other young people keen on the outdoors.

Geocaching involves finding a hidden item, or a container holding several items, using GPS co-ordinates posted online by the person who hid the cache.

"I heard about it in a speech at school. It's a container hidden underground and it can be from anywhere in the world."

Rose told her dad Morgan about geocaching, and then he read in the Rotorua Daily Post that the Department of Conservation had planted geocaches around the district as part of Conservation Week.

Rose has located 61 caches so far, with only six left to find in Rotorua.

Her goal is to find 100 caches before her birthday on January 29, so she will have to go further afield to achieve it.

In a bid to raise her numbers, she hopes to find 24 geocaches on Mt Maunganui in 24 hours when she visits with her dad.

Rose leaves behind things she would like to find, such as loom bands, in the caches she discovers.

Her favourite find was a travel bug, a small cowboy boot figurine that had travelled from Canada to Mexico and Australia before being cached in Rotorua.

Rose wants everyone to catch the geocaching bug.

"I have tried to get my friends to like it. Some do, but there are some that don't ..."

Geocaching was an awesome hobby that she never wanted to give up, she said.

"I like it because you get out and about instead of staying in all day.

"I like going in the forests. We want to do all the DoC ones. I like the Redwoods because it's like a scenic walk at the same time as doing geocaching," she said.

-To start geocaching, visit www.geocaching.com