Author Archives: Geocaching Victoria

Four letter words that aren’t so bad

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Not all 4 letter words are bad.
Some are good and create feelings of happiness and excitement

1. Free

This is a great word. Basically it means that you are going to get something for nothing. That was the idea for our event and we are proud to be upholding that.

2. Mega

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Yes that’s right. We did it!
From the start there were no promises that this would happen and with no history of an event of this size ever being held in Melbourne before, it was unlikely that our first attempt would be anything but a normal event.
Fortunately for us we have a great network of fellow cachers and sponsors who believed in us. So we got there! Victoria and Melbourne’s first Mega event!!!! Roll on November!
Oh wait! It’s FREE too!! Free Mega!

3. Fern Coin

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What’s that? TWO four letter words? Yeah buts it’s cool, not to mention stylish AND its collectable. You can pre-buy them over here.

4. GIFF

Ok that’s not a word but an abbreviation. It stands for Geocaching International Film Festival. Remember that crazy German who did a two-day overnight hike in the High Country in a single day while you could track him via satellite? We finally got around to edit the film and  above you can see our entry for the GIFF 2015.

Mid Week Fun Facts – About

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Welcome back to the mid week fun facts. Here are another three:

A – About Time
ag_GPS_Operation_low_resDid you know that every GPS unit has a built-in temperature sensor? Although you might not be able to access this information it is essential for the accuracy of the system. In order to function properly your device needs a super accurate time signal. It gets it from the satellite broadcast and syncs it with an internal quartz crystal and that very crystal oscillates in different frequencies based on temperature. There you go – The  device uses some fancy algorithm to compensate for that but why is the time signal so important? It’s pretty simple – if the time is off by only a microsecond (that’s a millionth of a second or 0.000001 seconds) ,  your location is out by about 300m!

B – About Sustainability
Geocachers in general are in touch with nature and that’s a good thing. Aside from cito_72physical and mental health benefits, it also shows our game in a good light. We’re not only take care for the environment when we go on the hunt, we sometimes even meet up to clean up ourplayground. This is called a Cash In Trash Out Event (CITO). It not only scores you an special icon in your found statistic but also bragging rights. So why not do something good and mark down the next CITO in your calendar on the 12 July 2015 – it is for the greater good after all 🙂 Brookland Greens CITO & CUAD

C – About History
Did you know that Melbourne’s 1st geocache GC7A was the result of a car-crash? George who placed the cache was a member of the local SES when a car went down the side of the hill. He was involved in getting it out of there and back on the street. As far as I know the car wasn’t roadworthy after that. Anyway, in the end he decided that this is actually quite a nice spot and worth a geocache. Fifteen years later it is still there and if you have been to the place, you probably agree with George.

Save travels until the end of the week and I hope you are already planning your next geocaching adventure 🙂 Don’t forget the Geo-vehicle, Show & Shine event on Sunday.

Cheers
Philipp

Mid Week Fun Facts – Going

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Here are three random things you might not have known about Geocaching in Australia:

A – Going Federal
Geocaching made an appearance in the federal parliament last week. The independent MP Cathy McGowan shed some light on the positive effects our little game can have on rural communities. If you wonder who that mentioned Steve is – that’s our very own Clever Monkey. Well done 🙂

B – Going GIGA
Some floated the idea that having a Giga event in Australia should be feasible – that’s an event with 5000 or more attendees. After Geocaching Australia provided valuable insight, a fair assumption is that you can determine the active Geocaching population by counting cachers with more than 100 finds. Yes some will have left the game beyond the mark however they are offset by fresh cachers who haven’t crossed the magic number yet.

That taken into account the GC-poGC population AUpulation is around 6000 in South-East Australia (NSW, SA & VIC). In order to get 5000 caching-teams in one spot, you would have to mobilise over 80% of the whole community. Yes. For now that is a bit of a stretch 🙂 By the way – if you are a business owner, who was always wondering how large your potential customer base is: You’re welcome.

Until then, get ready for The Melbourne Event 2015. Mark it in your calendar and log your will attend today!

C- Going Lazy
By now you probably stumbled upon the Road Trip 2015 souvenir collecting promotion. If you want to take a short-cut there are some caches which can score you two or more souvenirs in one hit. The WinterCamp 2015 which is organised by the friendly cachers of the Bushrangers Women’s Walking Club in cooperation with the Victorian Climbing Club, is one of them.
Get some snow under your feet and enjoy the High Country in winter. There is an info night on snow camping for the attendees on the 9th July. Get in touch with the Rangers to secure your spot or get more information.

Save travels until the end of the week and I hope you are already planning your next geocaching adventure 🙂

Cheers
Philipp

Geocaching Stickiness

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Do people stick to the game? An analysis* by Geocaching Australia:

Have you ever wondered what are the chances that you will see that cacher again you just stumbled upon? While the number of people who heard about or even tried geocaching are constantly increasing, it’s always a mystery if they will be around for longer. So here are some numbers and hard facts:

Out of the 110,497 people who have logged caches in Australia since 2000, 3/4 of them (82,000) have only ever found 17 caches or less!

If you include our friends across the ditch and set the bar a bit higher it draws a similar picture: From the 110487 people who found at least one cache before 2015 in Australia and New Zealand, only 11353 have found more than 100 which is about 10% of all cachers. It is fair to say that 90% have left before hitting 100 (or are just have yet to hit that mark).

3/4 of all people who’ve cached in Australia stopped logging caches at or before 224 days! 1/2 of them (55,000 or so) stopped caching within two weeks!

While the growth of new geocachers is pretty spectacular with over 32,000 new players in 2014(!), the longevity of most is still quite low: 3/4 of those people found less than nine caches and logged for only one month (approximately). It would seem that geocaching, although increasing in numbers does not have any real significant “stickiness”.

new cachers

The moral of this story:
Geocaching is as sticky as polytetrafluoroethylene. Embrace the new players, but don’t be surprised if you never run into them again … statistically speaking. 

Thanks to Geocaching Australia for providing these most interesting statistics. Have a look at their website. There you will find a lot more number crunching.

P.S.: If you are in the 1000+ club you are one of the 1%!

* There are plenty of uncertainties on these statistics (e.g. overseas cachers) but these are marginal errors

Safety First

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Fairly recently one of us had a nasty fall in a very remote location. What happened after that was the use of a PLB and probably a text-book rescue but have a read for yourself:

For those who may not know, Sylvia has had a fall during a bushwalk in the West MacDonnell Ranges, Northern Territory. Slipped on wet rocks at 5.30 am enroute to the toilet, did a backflip and landed on her back, cracked a rib and punctured her lung. Then walked 15km with a 16 kilo pack before they set the emergency beacon off. Helicopter rescue and a 3 day stay at the Alice springs Hilton (hospital)
She is a tough old bird!

Rescue

First of all Sylvia is on the way to a full recovery and except for some problems with coughs, sneezes and left-hand car turns, she doing well 🙂

The moral of this incident is, that it doesn’t take much to turn a perfectly fun geocaching trip into a nightmare. However a PLB or satellite tracker can take the stress and worry out of a rescue operation. In general by activating these devices, you will alert a professional emergency centre which then takes the necessary steps to get you to safety.PLB

The used device was a kti safety alert PLB – SA2G owned by the Maroondah Bushwalking Club. You can pick up PLBs for as cheap as $200 and with a shelve-life of over 5 years and no subscription fees, this is a very low price for maybe saving your life one day. The list of people who perished in remote Australian areas because they did not have proper communication, is unfortunately fairly long. The recent case of Dane Kowalski is just one of the more prominent ones.Chopper

Before you are going into remote areas, take some precautions. Think TREK:

  • T – Take adequate supplies of food, water, navigation and first aid equipment.
  • R – Register your planned route and tell friends and family when you expect to return.
  • E – Emergency beacon (PLB’s) can be hired from a lot of shops around Melbourne. In NSW they are available free of charge from the Police Force and NPWS.
  • K – Keep to your planned route and follow the map and walking trails.

You wonder how this might look in the real geocaching life. Easy! This weekend I will head out to a remote and unloved cache in the Victorian High Country. This will be a solo hike which enforces the need for a proper emergency communication channel. But let’s have a look at my TREK plan:

  • T – Take adequate supplies of food, water, navigation and first aid equipment.
    I have a enough food for 4 days with 2 days worth in the day-pack. I also got a paper map in case my GPS runs dry and a proper first-aid kit.
  • R – Register your planned route and tell friends and family when you expect to return.
    Yesterday evening, I briefed Anna about the planned trip, the route and possible deviations.
  • E – Emergency beacon (PLB’s) 
    I own an inReach SE which not only serves as an emergency beacon but also as a two-way communication device. You can follow my progress from 6pm tonight at https://share.delorme.com/Philipp or on the Geocaching Melbourne facebook page
  • K – Keep to your planned route and follow the map and walking trails.
    Although I don’t have any intention of doing so, I have the option to let Anna know I changed plans. The iridium satellite network has 100% global coverage.

Although all of this sounds pretty scary, leaving the beaten path in the suburbs for the true gems of geocaching, can be one of the most rewarding things. Thanks Ian for the pictures and all the best recovery wishes for Sylvia.

See you on the trail
Philipp