His bags are packed and he's ready to go. All he needs is a friend to travel with. Our little red hippo is out there somewhere, hiding in a geocache box, waiting for someone to take him along on their journey.

It all began when he was travelling buddy to Chris Packham. The wildlife expert and TV presenter took the little fellow with him as he travelled to far-off places, taking photographs of him wherever they went.

A GPS receiver will lead you to the cache

Now Chris has sent him out to make his own way in the world, with a little help from the geocaching community.

If you find him, take him with you and hide him in another cache. While you're at it, take a photo so we can all see where he's been.


He's wearing a tag which explains in more detail.
Our hippo isn't the first stuffed geocacher. He got the idea from a geocaching celebrity - a bear called Gulliver.

Tim and June Tate

Tim and June Tate are enthusiastic geocachers, trekking around with their GPS unit almost every weekend.

They placed Gulliver in a cache near Winchester in 2001, with a note asking those who found him to move him on.


Since then, Gulliver has been all over the world and now he even has his own website, www.gulliverbear.co.uk

Stuffed toys which travel from cache to cache like this are called travel bugs and there's a special section on the geocaching website where you can track their progress.

So, look out for our little red hippo while you're geocaching. He could be anywhere and he'd be very grateful if you would take him with you, to the next cache you visit.

If you want to see where he's been so far, take a look at his travel diary on this website. He also has his own travel bug page on the geocaching website, but to access it you'll need to register.