Category Archives: Committee

Introducing Karen Ashford – carkisser

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Today we would love to introduce you to Karen, the current President for the GVI Committee and a geocacher since 2014, who works tirelessly to support events such as the Mega, Ballarat Geo Tour and the Maze GPS. Anyone that knows this lovely lady, knows she has some awesome stories too! For example, have you ever wondered where her caching name came from? The story goes that in 2000 she won a car by kissing it for 87 hours and 38 minutes on centre stage at a shopping centre in Townsville. And a pic of that can be found in “carkissers” geo-albums. Recently we caught up with Karen to find out more about her geo-story in her own words…

1. Share with us when you started Geocaching and what got you into this crazy hobby we love?

We were attending our yearly family “fish-a-cue” at Jells Park, when two nephews came begging everyone for a pen. Being a nurse, of course I had a pen. I wanted to know what it was for. They said they’d tell us later. At the end of the day, they told us about this hobby they have. We got home, a little inebriated and researched their hobby. There was one at the end of our street. We’d continued drinking after getting home, and headed off to find this great treasure. It was up a tree. We nearly broke several bones trying to free climb the tree before giving up and going home. At 6am, we were awake early and decided to give it another go. It’s amazing what a pair of stray legs will do.

2. How do you like to play the game? Are you a numbers person, do you chase challenges, do you love the adventures or have your own approach to caching?

We chop and change our approach. Sometimes numbers, sometimes hiding, sometimes having a break, but always trying our best to play honourably.

3. What is the craziest thing you have done in the name of caching?

Hidden over 300 caches at Mt Disappointment – an infamous ‘must do’ power trail. Nothing super crazy for a normal person, but for an old fat chick with a bung back, I’ve certainly challenged myself. Cached a 100 hide power trail near ACT over 8 hours and then drove home to Melbourne. Waded out from a beach in the dark with slippery rocks everywhere. Had a big run in with vic police and swat team. (Ed – Oh there is more to this story I am sure!!)

4. What is currently on your Geocaching Bucket-list?

LOTS. Finish SA fishy series. Scotland. Fiji. Vegas. More hides – finish off Disappointment series. Create a trail in memory of my Mum.

5. What is the most remote or unusual place you have collected a Geocache?

Hiked four hours through a treacherous creek bed, then up a little mountain for one cache. Outback NT. Thailand. Vanuatu.

For more information on carkisser and her achievements – check out her geoprofile here

https://www.geocaching.com/p/?guid=66bfd1f4-6cf7-4df6-971a-2e9d14628950

Introducing Rod Lyon – n0w0rries

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Events such as the Mega, Ballarat Geo Tour and the Maze GPS would not be possible without the hard work of the GVI committee members that work tirelessly in the background. Over coming weeks, we would like to introduce you to some of these committee members that try to make a difference to the Geocaching Community in Victoria.

Today we would love to introduce Rod Lyon aka n0w0rries.

1. Rod please share with us when you started geocaching and what got you into this crazy hobby we love?

Although I opened my geocaching account on 7th May 2012 I didn’t find my first cache until about a year later on 14th April 2013 when my eldest son, Brad, rang to tell me he had become engaged. He was out caching with his girlfriend, Tammy, and hid a jeweller’s box in a cache. When Tammy open the cache he asked what was in there. (It was a “Sards Wonder Soap” container – hidden by Spangles22 in Capel, WA) GC1KXPK – Capel railway bridge See log here: https://coord.info/GLAB8AH7 Anyhow, I then got out of my tow truck and walked across the road and found Raymond. My first find. Quite an unusual start to geocaching

2. How do you like to play the game? Are you a numbers person, do you chase challenges, do you love the adventures or have your own approach to caching?

I just love caching, tree climbing, caving, bridges, hikes, Virtuals, drive bys, ammocans, mint tins, Geocaching Australia caches. It makes no difference to me. I just love geocaching. Mostly though, events and the lovely people that make up our geocaching community.

3. What is the craziest thing you have done in the name of caching?

As Shaz put up recently, riding a bicycle up and over Mt Weatherhead at 2am, to claim FTF on a day1976 puzzle

4. What is currently on your Geocaching Bucket-list?

Completing my 5th loop of the D/T grid is high on my bucket list.

5 . What is the most remote or unusual place you have collected a Geocache?

My favourite find would still be An Irrational Fear Of Needles in the Brisbane Ranges. Found with Jacko and his pooch, Bentley Parker. Greg liked it so much that he actually adopted it for his own soon afterwards. https://coord.info/GC449PTMore recently the Team Thommo earthcache in Port MacDonnell, SA – where I took of my shoes, socks and pants to wade into the Southern Ocean, off the most southerly point of South Australia. Earning second to find and a bout of pneumonia.

Please let’s take the time to celebrate the amazing contribution that Rod brings to our community. For much is understated, he is proactive in hosting many CITO events, taking newbie geocachers under his wing and maintaining more that 80 hides. Thanks Rod for all you do.

New Members, Committee breakdown and a special mention …

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Welcome to Jo Cox, Rod Lyon and Day Gowland to the GVI Committee. We’re looking forward to working with you all, and getting some great things done after so much enforced downtime.

Hopefully we can start to organise some regular CITO’s and/or events with moveable dates or locations just in case restrictions hit again, to get us all out there, doing our thing.

The GVI Committee now consists of:

  • President Karen Ashford (carkisser)
  • Vice President Lorraine Ogilvie (half of The_Tritonz)
  • Secretary Adriaan Homburg (ahomburg)
  • Treasurer Bernie Holloway (BernieH)
  • Membership Donna Moore (half of Jaktembo)
  • CITO Rep Rod Lyon (n0w0rries)
  • General Member Gemma Siemensma (GemmaSistema)
  • General Member Jo Cox (heymissjo)
  • General Member Day Gowland (Day1976)

Our special mention!!


Jo the *better*half of ChooknChunk attended a recent CITO. She found $50 and donated it to GVI. Geocachers are widely known to be good people, and luckily for us, there are also those amongst us that are great. Many thanks to Jo for the donation, and for all who attended the CITO.

Hopefully we will see many of you soon, and look forward to the Wangaratta Event and the GPS Adventure Maze.

We Want You …

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Geocaching Victoria Inc doesn’t just run itself, in the background are a dedicated bunch of passionate geocachers just like you working away to make geocaching better for everyone in Victoria.

Do you feel you have something to offer? We’d love to hear from you. We have three positions vacant on our committee and want to fill them with people as passionate and driven as us. These are to replace one committee member who resigned for personal reasons, and to increase our team by two, to spread the workload around a little thinner.
This position is for the Geocaching Victoria Committee, not the Wangaratta Event, or any other mega event. If you would like to join us in helping further the cause of Geocaching in Victoria then feel free to nominate yourself or someone else (with their permission) by sending us an email to president@geocachingvictoria.com.au by cob Sunday June 6, 2021.

Please note any Victorian based geocacher may apply. We do have meetings that are usually held in Melbourne, but in recent times, we’ve moved over to zoom, so they can be attended in person or electronically.   All nominations will be put towards a community voting process in the next few weeks.

GVI Updates

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GVI is expanding the team, to enable us to better meet the needs of the community.

We welcome aboard Donna Moore (Jaktembo) and Rod Lyon (n0w0rries) as affiliate members, and thank them for the contributions they will be making to the team.

Donna has been tasked with a new role, Membership Coordinator. We’ve talked many times over years about having some form of membership, but without having someone tasked solely with the task, we were just floundering. Donna will look at other community groups and the different forms of membership that they have. Donna will then present the GVI Committee with two or three options to discuss and consider. Once the Committee has made some decisions, Donna will then progress with putting something together that we can present to the community at large and then put into practice.

Rod is our brand spanking new CITO Coordinator. Many of you are already aware that we have a goal of one CITO per month, somewhere in Victoria. Unfortunately, it’s proved to be a bigger job than we realised, and coupled with the time required for us to organise and run Mega’s, work in our own jobs, spend time with family and hopefully do our own caching, it was just impossible. A decision was made to appoint someone to fulfill that role for us, and lucky for us and for the wider community, Rod has agreed and is already enthusiastically working on upcoming events.

We can’t wait to work closely with both in their new roles!

On another note, Louise is having some time out. Louise is taking a 3 month sabbatical (with a potential for this being extended), and her committee spot will be temporarily taken up by Donna Moore. During this time, Louise remains Vice President, and will be available for that role if required. Donna will take on the day to day jobs that Louise was managing, and will help to keep things humming along.