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

[Hendo88]

Just my 2 bobs worth about geocaching!, much fun indeed! ARound Darwin here there are loads of WW2 sites, and some blokes go to heaps of effort to hide their caches, by having you crack mystery codes, and war time codes etc, then when you find the cache, you learn all about the area, who was based there (anti aircraft battery, tent camps, bomb shelters etc, excellent stuff for boys and their toys eh? so get out there and discover some more of Australia! and even learn something
Cheers

[Wombat1965]

One of my workmates is into it in a BIG way...I mean really committed, he's got dozens of caches of his own and has found many hundreds more. I know some people who do it who will actually go on holidays to especially hunt down caches...

I've found a few...I didn't go out of my way to find them, the ones I've found were around my old home town, my current home town, and down around Rockhampton and coastal area where I lived for a few months while doing training.
I've hidden one myself, but only one person has found it.
Have a look at Geocaching Australia - Free and Open Geocaching (http://geocaching.com.au) and check out the "sport".

It's interesting, but I'm only a very casual follower...some people, as I said, are super dedicated to it...

[HiCountryCruisr]

First time I've heard of geocaching. I think I saw something about it on my gps playing around with it one day.
Sounds like fun, definately have to give it a go.

[peteinoz]

Hey Corindi

thanks for starting this thread mate :)

Ive never heard of this before. and it sounds like fun. What I like about it, is its a real family thing, Ive got 2 and 5 year old girls. I think the 5 year old would have lots of fun with this, and we'd be outside doing something , cannot have enough fun things to do outside. and the best thing is its everywhere :)

If anyone else has younger kids, I'd love to hear if they like it or not..

cheers

Pete

[jushldntgthr]

hey
I love this what a great idea i will be so getting into this anyone can just leave one of these canisters anywhere what a great i idea am going to get a few mate with 4wd and do a trip out to jurien and see how many we can find in a week.

[peteinoz]

I just ordered this GPS. looks like it will be perfect for geocaching..
Garmin Oregon 300 with free topo map on DVD and free screen protector (http://www.octapc.com.au/prod196.htm)

got the streetmaps on cd aswell and the cradle..

not that I needed "another" bloody gps, though this will be perfect for my daughter to help find em, should be fun :)

[V Williamson]

Having a bit more success! Have found that (as suggested in other posts) you need to sweep a wide area. I found "Saddleback" this morning on the way to work about 5m from the gps gz. I had looked here about three times before. Found "highway" on the way home from work the other day which was very neatly hidden (again after several previous attempts). I have found that I need to take note of what I am looking for e.g. "highway" was a microcache. This gave me a clue that it was most likely a logbook only tucked inside a magnetic container. Now where might a magnetic container be?...
cheers vw

[peteinoz]

We are loving Geocaching :)

we went to Byron Bay for 5 days, I had 5 caches prepared before I left. only found one of them, but gecocaching took us to many places. 1 we'd never heard of before around the byron area and 2. Interesting ways to get places.

What I found is, after all the rain recently, some that might have been deposited when it was dryer times are now over grown considerably. just adds to the fun trying to find them :)

Cheers

pete

[Bundyrulz]

G'day All,

We just did our first search. An easy one close to home to get the kids (7 & 8) interested. We had fun with the code and the search. Kids were happy with the outcome and want to do more over these holidays. Must remember next time bring a token to leave.
Would recommend it to people with kids!!!!!

Bundyrulz

[Rumluva]

My 13 year old son is doing this at school. they brought a gps and are heading out into the bush and finding caches.

last weekend i brought a Nuvi 255 for car navigation and we discovered we could down load sites to the Nuvi and use it to try and find some sites in town. I said try because we couldn't find any, do i have to change any settings in the unit to make it more accurate as mentioned in a thread above?

Also now that i know some caches could be bolt size i will relook, but one downloaded site that we couldn't find had us standing in the middle of a road.

My three kids 13, 11 & 5 all want to do this but we will need to find one soon as a family or the fun will fade.

[Adricat]

Good idea to read the logs of previous finders as this can provide good clues on where to look.
Also check the size of the cache you are looking for, ie micro, small, med...etc

Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site (http://www.geocaching.com/)

[peteinoz]

My 13 year old son is doing this at school. they brought a gps and are heading out into the bush and finding caches.

last weekend i brought a Nuvi 255 for car navigation and we discovered we could down load sites to the Nuvi and use it to try and find some sites in town. I said try because we couldn't find any, do i have to change any settings in the unit to make it more accurate as mentioned in a thread above?

Also now that i know some caches could be bolt size i will relook, but one downloaded site that we couldn't find had us standing in the middle of a road.

My three kids 13, 11 & 5 all want to do this but we will need to find one soon as a family or the fun will fade.


taking note of the info supplied for each cache will help.. :)

my girls love it.. but we are going to look for larger ones with things in them , we already have things to leave in their place. just need to find a big one to keep the girls happy...

great to download some close to where you are going for holidays too.. we went to byron recently and the caches took us places we'd have never thought of before :)

pete

[Rumluva]

Thanks for the info. We'll give it another go this weekend, but this time I'll decide which ones to look for and do some reasearch on each one. Particularly the size, I think the larger the better at this stage.

Cheers.

[peteinoz]

Let us know how you go mate :)

Pete

[marvic]

Got me interested now, have got the info on 4 near or in my town, so will have a look around this weekend.
What do you do with it when you find it???? put something inside or sign or what????

[peteinoz]

Got me interested now, have got the info on 4 near or in my town, so will have a look around this weekend.
What do you do with it when you find it???? put something inside or sign or what????

so far the three we have found have been small, we were able to complete a log etc.

We are looking for bigger ones, so we can take something that my daughter will like and leave something in return.

its a bummer when you cannot find them though.. you know its there somewhere but cannot find it..

great when on holidays,, you get some locations before you leave , when you arrive, you have things to do straight away.. great way to keep the kids happy.

Cheers

Pete

[marvic]

Thanks Pete, don't you sleep either???

1 is near where I used to fish all the time at home, probably walked on it by the clues.

[peteinoz]

LOL not as much as I'd like.. I work nights , as well as days ;)

Cheers

Pete

[V Williamson]

Got me interested now, have got the info on 4 near or in my town, so will have a look around this weekend.
What do you do with it when you find it???? put something inside or sign or what????
Depends on the cache. Some are "log only" (usually microcahes). For those larger caches, the ethic is that if you take something, leave something. But then there are transferable items like travelbugs, geocoins etc which you "grab" and log and then move to another cache and leave it there and you follow the adventures of that piece. One that I had involvement with was "METAMORPHOSUS". It has a "mission" just like many other pieces and has travelled quite a distance. TNLN (took nothing, left nothing) is frequent.
cheers vw

[marvic]

Interesting,there seems to be that many around my area I'll never find them all.

Just about to go ahunting very soon, hope they are full of gold.

[marvic]

Found my first one today, change to walk in the bush instead of just driving through it.

Filled in the log book, swapped a little gift and replaced it in it's hide.

Got the bug now I think.

[peteinoz]

unreal mate :) we love it. .cannot wait till we find one, that my daughter can remove something and replace it..

I love the idea of GeoCoins.. watching them travel all over the world . Im going to buy some for my daughters.. who are 2 and 6, they will be able to trace them all over the planet as they grow up. which I think is pretty cool

Pete

[marvic]

Pete, what are GeoCoins, I know the basic will be a coin but more info would be great as I haven't seen any info on them yet.

What I take from one cache I'll put in the next and keep things moving around or if I go away maybe put something from my town.

[peteinoz]

read more on Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site (http://www.geocaching.com) etc..

the geocoins have an ID number.. when you find one. you enter it in geocaching.com for tracking purposes.. you can look up any ID's aswell.. or the one your found to see who placed it and where and when :)

from memory they are about $10 i think.. but sounds fun :)

Im really a novice at this.. but the site above has info about everything related to geocaching.. Sounds like V Williamson is a bit of a pro at it :)


pete

[marvic]

Thanks Pete, will do some reading.

Never realised that there were so many of these things hidden around the place.

Got 4 to look for tomorrow to fill in some of the day and there are dozens left around town.

[Adricat]

Pete, what are GeoCoins, I know the basic will be a coin but more info would be great as I haven't seen any info on them yet.

What I take from one cache I'll put in the next and keep things moving around or if I go away maybe put something from my town.

Further info on the different types of trackables
Geocaching > Trackable Items (http://www.geocaching.com/track/)