Letterbox
When Himself and I first met, our favourite type of walk was '
Letterboxing', which really only occurs down on Dartmoor with the rare out of area 'guest box'. A fore runner to geocaching, it was a Victorian invention whereby a calling card was carefully stored under a small cairn in the centre of Dartmoor and anyone intrepid enough to walk there and find the bottle with it's precious calling cards would collect one as proof of the adventure.
It progressed to the modern day version where a box would be hidden, then clues given. We'd set off with a flask and sandwiches and spend a happy day yomping around the moors finding boxes. Each box would contain a book and a stamp. Once found, we would ink up our personal stamp - a fox - and leave an impression in the log book and we would 'collect' the stamp from the box. Our books soon filled up and we quickly were members of the Letterbox 100 club, then the 200 club and then, just before we moved away we were working towards our 500. Despite this day and age and the accessibility of the internet, Letterboxing has managed to maintain it's traditional style of paper catalogue of clues and collecting of a physical stamp.
We now
Geocache, not as much as we used or would like to but a combination of completing most of the local ones and where we generally walk, our weekends seem even more fleeting and brief so to squeeze in a long drive out, big walk and long drive back doesn't quite fit in - it might again, but just not now.
You can join in too - just pop over to her page
HERE for the list and instructions as well as see the other bloggers who are taking part.
#stories #walking #
Glad to hear that is still going on. We took our sons to do that once for something different to do one year back in the 1990's
ReplyDeleteJulie xxxxx
Interesting...never done it...but eldest and her hubby have. x
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely fascinating story for your Letterbox, Kate. Mine's not half that good & won't come for a few days, but this has given me the impetus to make sure I've a few interesting ones for this hunt. Take care.
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time I had a little book all about the history of letterboxing and clues to the boxes on Dartmoor, never got to do any though - sadly and the book is long gone. Thank you for the reminder
ReplyDeleteI live in Somerset (not a million miles from Dartmoor) but knew nothing about this, how interesting.
ReplyDeleteGreat story. Thanks for telling us about it; most interesting. I'd heard of geocaching but not letterboxing.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of letter boxing before - very interesting.
ReplyDeletexx
Have seen this done on the TV, but never had a go. Think we'd both enjoy it too....fellow lapsed geo cachers here. I like your alternative take on the advent word.
ReplyDeleteArilx
Very interesting, great take on todays word.
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, this is socool! I have enjoyed the odd geocache in Northumberland and I wouldlik to go again so thank you for this reminder!
ReplyDeleteYes, I remember you going off on your Dartmoor Letterbox Yomps. Do I recognise Abbey sitting with you in that photograph? Long time ago. xx
ReplyDeleteThis is so interesting...I've never done this but we have geocached in the past...maybe we should start again in the New Year. x
ReplyDelete