I’M a little lost. But hear me out before you suggest legal highs and a gap year in Thailand. I did the “finding myself” bit a long time ago; unsurprisingly I was almost exactly where I’d left myself. No, my crisis is slightly more practical than all that.

I just have a real problem with geography. It’s not that I have no sense of direction. I’m sure I have one somewhere. I’m just not quite sure where I last put it down. There’s something about the outside world that spins my compass; inside, I’m fine, as long as there’s breadcrumbs. But don’t be worrying that I’m propping up another hackneyed gender stereotype; my lack of navigational skills bears no relation to the socio-cultural roles into which I fit most easily. I just can’t find the end of a one-way street with an arrow and a guide rope. Trying geocaching this week then was never going to be the most straightforward adventure. For one thing, straightforward isn’t as easy a direction to follow as I’d first imagined.

For the uninitiated, geocaching is a modern-day treasure hunt of which The Goonies would be envious. Think scavenger-hunting, where the entire world is your backyard and you don’t have to invite the next-door neighbour’s annoying kids. Officially launched in 2000, geocaching has fast become a popular pastime, with apparently two million caches available for the best-travelled initiates to find.

As adventures go, this one is a great excuse for a wintry walk or a sunny saunter, and there’s the added bonus of rummaging around in the long grass like the CID. With only a mobile phone and a sense of adventure required, geocaching is the great intersection in the Venn diagram of technology and exercise. On the recommendation of my go-to geocaching girl, Susan Marsh, I downloaded the c:geo app, which provides all the information needed to take up the hobby. Maps pinpoint the countless locations nearby playing host to hidden hoards, and hints and comments from fellow foragers help narrow the search. X doesn’t mark these spots; GPS does.

Once registered, and able to access the particulars of each geocache, there was nothing left to do but pull up my Christmas stockings and go a-hunting.

Whitelee Windfarm in East Renfrewshire is the UK’s largest onshore windfarm, and a damn good place to try geocaching for the first time. The 215 turbines dotted around Eaglesham Moor provide a moody backdrop and soothing soundtrack for any quirky quest, and, having already visited the site, I figured the open expanse of peatland and 130km path network couldn’t really harbour too many tricky hiding places for tiny treasures. Did I mention that I’m bad with geography?

Dressed in my customary three layers of thermal, I dragged my ever-patient husband to what is the most blustery corner of the country to search of our own One-Eyed Willy. The Whitelee caches, like many others, are a series, with 12 to find around a 6km loop. Listed as Cache Wars, the collection is Star Wars themed and dedicated geocachers can bag them all to discover the bonus co-ordinates and unearth Darth Vader’s mask. Needless to say, this padawan was happy to settle for whatever empire she could find.

With a difficulty rating of one out of five and a terrain rating not much higher, the first cache – Han Solo – shouldn’t have posed much of a challenge, but the force was as strong as a two-ply tissue with this one. The co-ordinates led us to an anonymous spot on the track and then it was time for good old-fashioned exploring, under damp tree roots and in boggy mounds. I’m not embarrassed to say though that our mucky efforts were to no avail, since without prior experience it wasn’t clear for what exactly we were looking. Caches tend not to be fluorescent and are never buried but, besides that, you’re pretty much trying to find a stack in a world of hay.

Fortunately the area wasn’t busy, with only a few hardy dog-walkers around, since the first rule of geocaching club is that you shut your mouth about geocaching club; not through shame over this niche hobby, you understand, but because it’s just a bit cooler to be part of a big, open secret.

Admitting defeat in battle, we waged on with the war, in search of the second piece: Luke Skywalker himself, to be found just a little further along the path. As many before us, we used a cipher to decode the hint – feeling just a little bit Bletchley – and, after a five-minute scrabble and swearing session, there it was! And who could have imagined that a small plastic tub, containing a pencil, some paraphernalia, and the log of all its previous finders could engender such childish delight? My happy dance in a puddle in Eaglesham probably gave it away. Signing and dating the log, which had been uncovered last only four days before, we returned the cache and headed with fresh insight towards the next. Rain stopped play on our fourth discovery, with R2D2 and Princess Leia’s unique cache-holders already ticked off. But, like The Terminator, I’ll definitely be returning to find the rest one day.

I’ll admit, I’m a tad taken with geocaching. Not only does it speak to my inner Indiana but now, even when I’m lost, I know there’s always something around to be found.