We’re thrilled to welcome Ross to the Geocaching Victoria committee. So that you get to know our committee members, we like to share a glimpse into what drives them. I had the chance to ask Ross a few questions, and here’s what we discovered about him and Team Suscoe!
Lets start with your geocaching name and how you came about it?
Our caching team name is Suscoe and I cache with my wife, Sue. When we were starting we were trying to work out a Geocaching Team name that was made up from parts of both our names. So “Sus” is from Sue’s full first name and I was called Roscoe at times so that is where the “coe“ came from. That was how the team name “Suscoe” was born.
I always wondered how the “Ross” part played into it. It makes for a handy short name for those log books! When did you and Sue start geocaching and how did you find out about it?
We started our Geocaching membership on the 5th of September 2009 after we read about it in a newspaper article. We thought that it sounded interesting, so we got started around Geelong and we thought it was pretty good. That was where we met our great friend Bushfire. He helped us so much in our early days of caching and we spent many trips with him wandering the countryside finding caches. Little did we know that we would still be involved some 16 years later and have found just over 34,000 caches in Australia and overseas.
That’s an impressive haul, in fact it puts you in Victoria’s top 10 ten cache finders – that’s no small feat. With so many finds, what is your preferred way to geocache?
We simply enjoy having a day out geocaching either by ourselves or with friends. We don’t have a particular style of caching, but we like to be prepared and we often plan a list of caches to look for. We enjoy trying to solve puzzles, tracking down a good multi cache, particularly those in cemeteries, and finding traditional, EarthCaches and Adventure Labs. We also like to attend events, when we have the opportunity, to catch up with people that we know, and to meet new cachers. We have also tackled a few power trails and Geoarts. But what we really do like about Geocaching is just getting out to enjoy the countryside or urban areas, following where the cache placements take us and enjoying the locations, the history, solving the hides, accidentally meeting other geocachers at a hide and catching up with members of the wider geocaching community.
It sounds like a good mix of everything, which is a great way to do it. In amongst it all, what do you currently have on your geocaching bucket list?
Now that is an interesting question. It would be fabulous to finally find a cache in every
Australian State and Territory, we still have a couple to visit. We also hope to get to New
Zealand one day to find some caches.
Queensland and Northern Territory… watch this space! So what is the craziest adventure you have had in the name of caching?
We joined a couple of other cachers one morning in search of a letterbox located in a drain under the CBD of Ballarat. There is something special about standing below a grate, hearing the voices of people going about their daily business while we were 4 metres below, signing a cache log.
Ahhh the famous Subterranean – If you know, you know! Other than exploring the drains below cities, what is the most remote or unusual place you have found a geocache?
Well there are a couple of locations that come to mind.
Finding some caches at Ankor Wat near Siem Reap in Cambodia would have to be a highlight because of the amazing history in the age and size of the temple complexes and the remoteness of the location. We also enjoyed finding caches in and around the historical sites of Paris, like the Eiffel Tower or Monet’s Garden Lilly Ponds. There is something so very special about standing near significant buildings and artworks, finding a sneakily placed cache in a location that we had only ever read about.
One of the most amazing caches that we have found is RV 5.08: Brugge GC4XMCM. It is located in the City Square in Brugge. The associated field puzzle had us looking at the buildings around the square in order to solve the cache access process. It had thousands of favourite points back in 2016 and at the current time it has 7792 favourite points. Simply stunning.
Wow, they are some impressive locations. So with all that adventure under your belts, what made you join Geocaching Victoria and what are you most looking forward to?
I decided to join Geocaching Victoria to be able to give back to the geocaching community through this organisation. Geocaching has brought us so much pleasure over the years in exploring the outdoors and meeting terrific people. I am looking forward to being part of this team that provides opportunities for others to become involved in geocaching and to support the diverse community that enjoys geocaching in Victoria and further afield.
Thank you Ross for taking some time to tell us about yourself, and most importantly, for joining the Geocaching Victoria committee. We are very much looking forward to your energy and insights as we head into 2026. Please join me in welcoming Ross to the team!