Geocaching

[Corindi]

Does any one here do it, or are you all mugglers?

Can't believe it has never been mentioned, would make a great mag article!

[Harb]

Can you do it without having to get out of your car ? .......................:)

[Mark Olsen]

Yep .. do it all the time. I've actually found some awesome tracks, especially around the Blue Mountains that I wouldn't have found any other way.

I'm currently up to 49 .. must get out this weekend and crack the half century!:)

[Corindi]

Can you do it without having to get out of your car ? .......................:)
Haven't heard of any drive through caches yet, sorry. Maybe you get a passenger to do it.

[woolgoolgaoffroad]

hey dave, not being iggnorant but what is geocaching ???

[Corindi]

Yep .. do it all the time. I've actually found some awesome tracks, especially around the Blue Mountains that I wouldn't have found any other way.

I'm currently up to 49 .. must get out this weekend and crack the half century!:) just had a look on Google earth, there are plenty around the blue mountains that for sure. That's the sorta caches to sus out. I'm planting one in a five star difilculy and terrain area this weekend providing it is dry and I can get to it. Anyone that hasn't heard of it, would think we were talking a different language.

[Corindi]

hey dave, not being iggnorant but what is geocaching ???
Hey Kev, It's like a global treasure hunt with your GPS. Go to www.geocaching.com (http://www.geocaching.com) and have a read. If you have Google eath down load the caches layer. There are 20,000+ world wide and about a dozen in our area. I left one at the statue last year and someone planted a matchbox trackable jeep that had come from germany in it. This is a link to it's page http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=5004b96c-1120-406d-80ef-6cd350f16045 and this is a picture of the cache, it has photos, swappable trinkets and the story about Jonaas in it.

http://img.geocaching.com/cache/e2879d29-00e2-4586-93cc-de42c932bdb7.jpg

[Patrolman Pat]

I've done 50 or so caches, not a keen caher but it's a good way to see new area when on holidays and it passes a few hours for the kids.

[Michi]

Hey Kev, It's like a global treasure hunt with your GPS. Go to www.geocaching.com (http://www.geocaching.com) and have a read. If you have Google eath down load the caches layer.
http://img.geocaching.com/cache/e2879d29-00e2-4586-93cc-de42c932bdb7.jpg

Where can I find the layer? I've looked around in google earth but I couldnt find it.

Thx.

Michi

[Corindi]

I couldn't find it either, long time since I downloaded it. I've uploaded my file and this is a link to it. Once the page has loaded go to file save as and call it anything.kml
http://www.billabongfurniture.com.au/geocaching.kml

Or PM me your email address and I will send it.

Dave

[woolgoolgaoffroad]

nar, sorry dave , i cannot get it to work

[Corindi]

Try pasting this into notepad, then go to save as then change the dropdown menu at the bottom to "all files" and call it anything.kml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<kml xmlns="http://earth.google.com/kml/2.1">
<NetworkLink>
<name>Geocaching Network KML</name>
<description>Geocaching.com Caches located in the view window of Google Earth.</description>
<Url>
<href>http://api.groundspeak.com/networkkml/geocache.aspx?key=HW%2fHkUL%2fZBxZ9%2fWBbMvKoj6%2b GBR9FkEkRGmWBdSWtQqP0N%2fvwacWSq2jOxE45KlQvkNQCF9V F8hmQidnCQTbpg%3d%3d&amp;</href>
<viewRefreshMode>onStop</viewRefreshMode>
<viewRefreshTime>3</viewRefreshTime>
</Url>
</NetworkLink>
</kml>

[yowie]

I've not long started. Only found one to date.

[Michi]

found it, and it works...

thx. corindi

[gofour]

i tried geocaching once with my 4x4 club and now i have a gps on layby the kids love the electronic treasure hunt as they call it (lol)

[gofour]

http://www.geocaching.com/login/default.aspx?RESET=Y&redir=http://www.geocaching.com/kml/buildnetworkkml.aspx


here is the link for the goole geocache layer

thanks for the info corindi

[V Williamson]

Its a little while since this thread's been active. I tried geocaching again this afternoon and the GPS directed me to a small boulder in a park. I was close to the right location, but is there a possibility that my gps is not properly calibrated and throwing me out by several metres? My success rate at this game is not good. Any clues from successful cachers. I have a magellan explorist xl and transferred the gps location info via mapsend so I was not transcribing info by hand.
Cheers Vaughan.

[utedriver]

There was a few blokes from work doing it one bloke was getting a bit obbseesed by it, Even looking for them on the way home from work.... He made up some neat looking things that he was leaving out in the scrub!!

rich

[niftienev]

hi all i started geocacheing on friday in my local area and all ready found seven am also looking at planning a holiday around doing it shortly best thing ever that brings a family a together

[troopmaster]

Spied these two guys out the back of our farm a few times, they wern't locals, they always stopped at this burnt out stump and stuffed around there for a while.

At first i just wrote it off as a coincidence, but my intrigue got the better of me!!

One arvo i went to the stump to hopefully find the thousands of dollars in which the (supposed) drug dealers had left in the stump, turned out to be a Geocaching Canister!!

I had never heard of such a thing before, i was so surprised when i went to the web site, Geocaching is enourmous!!

A pleasnt surprise...considering i was expecting to find drugs, or the proceeds of growing / making them!

:)

[Corindi]

Spied these two guys out the back of our farm a few times, they wern't locals, they always stopped at this burnt out stump and stuffed around there for a while.

At first i just wrote it off as a coincidence, but my intrigue got the better of me!!

One arvo i went to the stump to hopefully find the thousands of dollars in which the (supposed) drug dealers had left in the stump, turned out to be a Geocaching Canister!!

I had never heard of such a thing before, i was so surprised when i went to the web site, Geocaching is enourmous!!

A pleasnt surprise...considering i was expecting to find drugs, or the proceeds of growing / making them!

:) Haha, funny story with a good ending. I got into it because my son walked in to the bush to do a pee, and tripped over an amo box cache. He then rang me and said "dad look up this on the computer"

['98Pudge]

Spied these two guys out the back of our farm a few times, they wern't locals, they always stopped at this burnt out stump and stuffed around there for a while.

At first i just wrote it off as a coincidence, but my intrigue got the better of me!!

One arvo i went to the stump to hopefully find the thousands of dollars in which the (supposed) drug dealers had left in the stump, turned out to be a Geocaching Canister!!

I had never heard of such a thing before, i was so surprised when i went to the web site, Geocaching is enourmous!!

A pleasnt surprise...considering i was expecting to find drugs, or the proceeds of growing / making them!

:)

LMAO...:p Awesome Troopy! lighten my day that did!

Seriously, GEOcaching is awesome, I highly recommend it. But do sign up to the movement as there are many benefits!:thumb:

[V Williamson]

Any clues on how to succeed at this game? eg I looked up "vh-usu" at gerroa (nsw illawarra/south coast). My gps lands me at a boulder with a plaque on it. No way within 4m could anthing be hidden, but there had been recent work by the council. I could start pulling the nearby retaining wall apart but I don't think that would go down well and it is well removed from the cache "gz". Two caches at nearby Berry and another two on the Saddleback ridge behind Kiama eleuded me too. I could log "no find", but it would be the norm the way I am going... So what am I doing that's wrong?

By the way, I hope these blokes planting a cahe had permission to do so. Permission is supposed to be a part of planting a cache.

[Ezookiel]

Any clues on how to succeed at this game? eg I looked up "vh-usu" at gerroa (nsw illawarra/south coast). My gps lands me at a boulder with a plaque on it. No way within 4m could anthing be hidden, but there had been recent work by the council. I could start pulling the nearby retaining wall apart but I don't think that would go down well and it is well removed from the cache "gz". Two caches at nearby Berry and another two on the Saddleback ridge behind Kiama eleuded me too. I could log "no find", but it would be the norm the way I am going... So what am I doing that's wrong?

By the way, I hope these blokes planting a cahe had permission to do so. Permission is supposed to be a part of planting a cache.


Having found 199 caches, and planted 6 of them, it sounds from the look of it like you are in approximately the right place.
Two things to check.

All the co-ordinates on Geocaching are in WGS84 so you must have your units datum set to that when you load the cache or you can be out by up to 200 metres.
That is the most likely problem. Set unit co-ordinate position format to:
hddd mm.mmm
Set map datum to
WGS 84

Note, that if you then want to play around with the Australian Topographic maps, and look things up on them, or locate your position on one of them, then you will need to set your format back to the correct format for them which is - from memory and don't quote me on it - GDA (Geodetic datum Australia or something like that)

Barring that, it could be very well disguised.
Caches that have troubled me have been:
* a fake plastic rock the type you hide a key in, took my wife to find that one.
* a micro or nanocache welded on the end of a bolt, that was added to the bolts on a parking barrier made from coppers-logs
* a micro inside a hollowed out bolt shaft, where the hider had placed an extra nut onto the nuts and bolts used to build a bridge, and had then lightly screwed the hollowed out bolt shaft into the extra nut, so it just looked like one bolt was longer than all the others and had two nuts on it, where all the others were shorter, and had a single nut.

OH, and as far as permission goes, it is only required if on private property is my understanding. But do use some sense when hiding them. The sport got the WRONG kind of publicity just after 9/11 when someone placed a large one visibly under a support strut on a bridge in the US, and emergency services, bomb squads, etc all closed the bridge and converged on it, only to find it was a cache.
I find around here, that if National Parks know about the sport, they are generally pretty keen for you to hide with care, as it attracts more visitors. I have a cache at Yarrangobilly that they were more than happy for me to place, they just expect you to be careful to not wreck or block up an animal's potential home, and not place it where those searching will damage flora or fauna.

Good luck with it, if all else fails, you can normally email the cache owner from the cache page itself, and ask for help.

[Brendan B]

Hah!

Glad there are some other 4WDers into chaching. A few mates and I will sometimes choose a direction (N, S, E or W) then just drive stopping and looking for whatever cache is the closest. We have spent a few nights sleeping on the side of the road, but thats all part of the fun.

Also for V Williamson, I agree with Ezookiel. Some cahces are so well hidden we have only found them by accident. One I have seen, the hider had made a fake bolt and attached it to a statue. Very clever.

Batty

[V Williamson]

Well I got out again last Friday and Saturday. On Friday, it included two second attempts, success on one, a found first time and a third attempt where I rang the cache owner (his username was sufficiently identifiable) whilst hanging off a sandstone cliff and got some hints. On Saturday, I tried my 1st multicache and whilst looking for the first clue, a family came by, then I was asked was I geocaching and they were out for the first time. the 1st waypoint was 5m out on my gps. The "geowife" of the othere cacher found it! (Is this what you're looking for?) I think this may be the common problem for me in that I am trying or expecting for too great a ground accuaracy.

I now have a geocoin in my possession to move to another cache. We'll keep at it, but well hidden?.... yeah right.... sometimes

[Brendan B]

Yeah accuracy is a bit of a problem. Because most GPS are only accurate to about 5m, if the person who hid the cache was 5m out and you are also 5m out there can be up to a 10m (theoretically) radius in which the cache could be. It might be even worse if there is bad reception or its a cloudy day.

Batty

[V Williamson]

So yesterday a mate a mine comes around and we test some stuff we bought at the amateur radio club auction the other night. Have some "great radios" thatwill "readily" convert to the 70cm band etc etc. Before he goes I ask would he like to geocache? So off we go and have another crack at vh-usu again. I'm trying to explain a little about the sport and I get to gps indicated gz. I start saying how it can't be here and I have to look..... "here it is" he says. "how did you manage that" I ask. "obvious as a dog's nose in a rice pudding". And only about 2m from my imagined pinpoint which read as 1m on the gps! Ohhh- kayyyyy