CITYWEST 4x4 Club - Geocaching

Ian Stuart.jpg While we were enjoying our Queens Birthday 4WD Weekend in the Grampians, Penny and I took the opportunity to introduce those present to a new activity—Geocaching! We wondered if some of our younger members would like to participate in an “electronic treasure hunt”. Needless to say our casual question over the radio sparked a great deal of interest and enthusiasm from everyone! We searched for, and found two caches. The Andrews girls are now proud owners of a new wrist compass.

Colin and Kathy have renewed their interest in their GPS, (and may have discovered a couple more caches before they came home.) And Mark has the distinction of discovering the second cache. Penny and I have been ‘geocaching’ for quite a while now, and we have found that the game can take us to many unusual and interesting places. Some are not too far from the beaten track, but others take a bit of trip preparation and planning to get to the final destination.

What is Geocaching? Simply put, geocaching is the treasure hunting adventure game of the 21st century. If you enjoy the outdoors and have a healthy sense of adventure, you can set off armed with a GPS receiver, a set of coordinates that tell you the location of a cache—and go out looking for caches of goodies hidden by other geocaching enthusiasts. When you find a cache, if any of the contents strikes your fancy, you can take it, provided you leave another item in its place—that’s the rule. In addition to the ‘treasure, caches always contain a logbook of some sort so that you can record your thoughts and scribble a note for future cache visitors. Individuals and groups have, and continue to set up caches all over the world. The cache locations are shared with other ‘cachers’ over the Internet. (Check out the following sit for more information: http://www.geocaching.com). GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the caches. (Penny and I have found that cache hunting is a good way to learn about and take advantage of the many features and capabilities of our GPS unit.)

When you find a cache it can provide you with a wide variety of rewards. All you are asked to do is fill in the logbook and; if you take something from the cache you should try to leave something (of equal or greater value) in return. It’s that simple—and it’s fun. There are now many variations of the game, including virtual caches, offset caches, puzzle caches, and multi-stage caches. New ideas and new great games crop up every day.

A Brief History: When it was originally set up, GPS signal information from orbiting satellites was intentionally degraded, so that only the US military (or those with the appropriate military hardware) could use them to find their present location with any precision. President Clinton had this GPS signal degradation, (called Selective Availability) removed on May 1st 2000. When this happened, it opened up the possibility of games like this one. So on May 3rd, Dave Ulmer hid a container of goodies outside Portland, Oregon in the United States, to celebrate the removal of Selective Availability. Three days later, two people who had read about the cache on the sci.geo.satellite-nav newsgroup found the cache and entered their names in its log.

A new world-wide game had begun!

Mike Teague was the first to find the container, and decided to build a personal web page to document these containers and their locations. In July 2000, Jeremy Irish found this web site and discovered his first cache outside Seattle, Washington. Jeremy recognised the potential of the game (but never expected the growth that would occur) and approached Mike Teague with a new web site design. Since the launch of the website, the sport of Geocaching has grown to include caches all over the world. At the time of writing there are in excess of 104,000 active caches in over 200 countries!

During the seven days ending 15 June, there were 61,285 new logs written by 13,107 registered Geocachers!

What are the rules? Geocaching is a relatively new phenomenon. Therefore, the rules are very simple:

Take something from the cache
Leave something in the cache
Write about it in the logbook

What’s the catch? The catch is, that getting there is half the fun. Simply knowing that a cache is 16.5 km northwest of you doesn’t do you much good if there’s an impassable mountain range, a lake, or something else in your way. You need to find your way around. Of course, if you brought a canoe with you or a 4WD, a lake might not be so much of a barrier.

What’s in the cache? Caches generally consist of a waterproof container placed tastefully within the local terrain. Caches take many forms, but in just about every case you can always expect a logbook. (In its simplest form a cache can be just a logbook and nothing else.) The logbook contains information from the founder of the cache and notes from the cache’s visitors. It can also contain some valuable, rewarding, and entertaining information. A cache might also contain information about nearby attractions, coordinates to other unpublished caches nearby. If you get some information from a logbook you should give some back. At the very least you can leave the date and time you visited the cache.

As well as the logbook the cache may contain any number of more or less valuable items. It is these items turn the cache into a true treasure hunt. You never know what the founder or other visitors to the cache may have left there for you to enjoy.

Where’s the Cache? At last count there were over 500 active caches in Victoria alone. The locating of quite a few we have found has been very entertaining indeed. As many a real estate agent has been heard to cry, “location, location, location!” The placement of a cache demonstrates the founder’s skill and possibly even daring. Caches may be located in cities or the bush, both above and below ground, inside and outside buildings—anywhere at all! The skilful placement of a small logbook in an inner-city environment may be quite challenging to find even with the accuracy of a state of the art GPS unit.

What Types of Caches are there? Well, there’s the Traditional type – Go to the co-ordinates and there it is. If that’s too easy, and you need a challenge, how about 'Offset Caches' – these ones are not found by simply going to some coordinates and finding a cache there. With the Offset Cache the published coordinates are usually of an existing historical monument, plaque, or geographical feature that the cache owner you would like you to visit. From this site you will most likely have to look around and find offset numbers stamped/written in or on some part of the marker site, or continue based on instructions posted on the web site www.geocaching.com.

Then there are 'Multi-caches' - the first cache gives coordinates (or partial coordinates) to the next location, or multiple caches have hints to the final cache. 'Virtual caches' are different again. These caches are actually an existing landmark, such as a tombstone or statue. You have to answer a question from the landmark and let the “cache owner” know as proof that you were there. Geocaching is heaps of fun and can involve the entire convoy, or just you. Enjoy!

- Ian Stuart & Penny Rodwell

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