This weekend we celebrated the 21st Birthday of geocaching events in Victoria.
The first ever Victorian geocaching event, GC5C5D, was held on 23 June 2002 at O’Briens Crossing in the Lerderderg State Park. So what better location to celebrate the 21st birthday than back where it all began. Geocachers came from far and wide to celebrate the day whilst enjoying a bbq, Crack’n’LeeLee’s famous soup, and plenty of party snacks! A huge thank you to Leah and Craig (Crack’n’LeeLee) for initiating the celebrations and for all their hard work hosting.
David from team maccamob, who was at the very first event, shared some insights on the inaugural activity. He noted there was a lot less infrastructure at GZ back in 2002, however the weather had not changed with it being just as cold. The difference was, they had a warm fire to cozy up to, something no longer permitted at O’Briens Crossing.
At the time of Victoria’s first event:
- Maccamob had just reached their 100 cache find milestone (currently 47,000+).
- Brain and some of our other active cachers hadn’t even been born!
- The first iphone was still 5 years away from release.
- We were up to Edition 30 of the Melways, with extra maps newly added for Queenscliff, Mickleham and Wyndham Vale.
- Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” was the number 1 song for the year, which is exactly what many cachers did (and still do).
Since the first event, there have been almost 1,700 amazing events across the state, with plenty more still to come.
In fact looking ahead in July and August alone, Victoria already has 30 events and CITO’s on the calendar with 21 different CO’s contributing to the fun. Excitingly, four of those CO’s are hosting an event for the very first time. To find an event near you, check out the Upcoming Events page on our website.
Be sure to log your will attend on any of these events to join in the fun. If you’d like some help to host your first geocaching event, feel free to reach out to one of the Geocaching Victoria committee members or one of the existing event COs to help get you on your way.
We look forward to seeing you at the next event!
