Travel bugs, caches, muggles and more. Sound like a movie, an adventure novel or some sort of catalogue of outlandish diseases? Nope. These are just some of the terms you'll learn when you immerse yourself in the world of geocaching.

Agassiz is fortunate to have its very own expert in this hobby. Agassiz Angel (the handle for Sue Sandar) is one of the most famous of the geocachers in the Fraser Valley. She has set and sought more caches than probably anyone else in the area, and is the Fraser Valley ambassador for this activity.

"It's about getting out, having fun and being happy," she sums up of her love for geocaching.

The largely-unknown passtime gained media attention last summer when MLA Barry Penner announced a series of special caches set across the province to celebrate B.C.'s 150th birthday. But geocaching has been around since 2000 when a series of satellites were connected together and made accessible to personal GPS users.

Once you're a geocacher, you start to look at the world differently, Sandar explains. Someone standing around just looking a bit lost could actually be a geocacher looking for his or her latest find. Your eyes are constantly on the lookout for either good spots to hide caches or spots where caches might be hidden.

Sometimes, non-geocachers will come across a cache. That's where the 'muggle-cards' come in, Sandar explains. As in the famous Harry Potter series where a muggle is a non-wizard, muggles in geocaching are non-cachers. Muggle cards explain to non-geocachers what the container is for, invites them to take part and to leave the container as they found it.

The most obvious goal of geocaching is to find hidden objects, known as caches. The cache can be as small as a paperclip and as large as a car, and contains a variety of objects. Inside each cache you will find a logbook to indicate you've been there, and items that you can exchange with something you brought, like a little toy or coin.

"I always put trinkets in from the Dollar Store. Some people put phone cards in, money - anything but food (as it will attract bears)," Sandar states. "You trade for something of equal value."

Real enthusiasts will buy specially designed tags called travel bugs to place in caches. Travel bugs are numbered tags that can be tracked as they move from one cache to the next. Travel bugs can have requests on them for locations to reach, like Alaska, or simply to a sunny place or a muddy place, for example. A geocacher that finds that bug can take it one step closer to the destination, track on a site where that bug went and the owner can watch as the bug makes its way to the final destination.

Geocaching is definitely on the rise as GPS units become more affordable and the word gets out about this adventure-seeking activity.

"There are caches all over the world, in every continent," Sandar says.

According to the official geocaching website, as of Monday afternoon there are 739,359 active caches worldwide. In the last 7 days, there have been 496,367 new logs written by 64,399 account holders.

Sandar says there are people that are more serious than her - people who will drop anything and everything when a new cache is posted - but insists she is not one of them. However, there was that one time where she was stopped by a nice policeman to inquire what she was up to. It could have been because it was late at night, Sandar couldn't sleep and decided to go out and find a cache instead of tossing and turning in her bed. Being a Citizen on Patrol, as soon as the policeman realized who it was, all was fine.But Sandar says lurking around late at night but might not be the best way to go about caching.

For Sandar, if anything comes up with Tigger, you can bet that she will be the first to get it, or do her darndest to try to be the first.

She recalls the story of one particular cache in the Blue Heron Nature Reserve in Chilliwack. Someone posted a new cache, siting there was a Tigger travel bug in the box.

"It was midnight, and my daughter and I were down on the dike with flashlights looking for that cache," Sandar laughs.

Other geocachers like to collect novelty items like the BC 150 coins that were placed last summer.

Sandar first learned of geocaching when a friend of hers in Ohio told her about it back in 2001. She decided to try out this relatively new hobby, and borrowed a GPS from a friend. Her first cache was at the Cheam Wetlands. She punched in a few numbers, went to the location the GPS directed her towards, and the hidden treasure was nowhere to be found. That might have been the end of the story. But Sandar does not give up easily. She figured out she had entered the co-ordinates incorrectly. Going back to Cheam Wetlands a few days later, Sandar easily found the cache and was hooked from that moment.

For Sandar, geocaching has become more than just a weekend hobby. It's a chance to bond with her kids and do an activity they all enjoy while getting outdoors. And the kids? They love it.

"They would rather go caching than play videogames or watch TV," Sandar remarks.

The family has adventurous walks, finding new places and spending time together.

It is not always a walk in a park though.

"I do have some battle scars," she laughs. "Blackberry bushes, stinging nettles, spiders - all sorts of surprises."

Sandar sets caches around the Agassiz area, encouraging GPS enthusiasts to come out to the valley and search for new caches to add to their 'found list', which is tracked on a website for all geocachers. She has set more than 25 caches, and keeps them well maintained.

"I go at the beginning of the summer to change the log books, restock the trinkets and make sure the container is still in good shape," Sandar says.

While many would consider geocaching just a summer activity, it can be great fun in the winter too, she assures. But with Spring upon us, now is the perfect time to try something new.

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