Category Archives: geotour

March Spotlight: Award Nominations Begin As the Ballarat GeoTour Wraps Up

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As the curtains close on the film and television awards season, the caching awards season is only just starting. Dive into the details below to discover how you can participate, relish in the highlights of the Ballarat GeoTour, and mark your calendar for our upcoming April fundraising BBQ.

  1. 2023 Victorian Cache of the Year Awards – Nominations Open
  2. Ballarat GeoTour Farewell
  3. Bunnings Fundraising BBQ

2023 Victorian Cache of the Year Awards – Nominations Open

We are excited to launch the Victorian Cache of the Year Awards for 2023. Each year we continue to be amazed by the creative, inspirational and adventurous caches that are created within our community and the awards are a great way to celebrate them.

This year, the committee has invested time to enhance the nomination resources, guidance, and program transparency. This includes incorporating community feedback into the program. For comprehensive details on the program, including eligibility and nomination criteria, please visit our awards webpage: Cache of the Year Awards

The 2023 award categories are:

  • Best Traditional Cache
  • Best Multi Cache
  • Best Mystery Cache
  • Best Other Cache (incl Wherigo, Letterbox, Virtual and Earthcache)
  • Best First Hide
  • Best Cache Series
  • Best Cache Location
  • Best Regional Cache (non metro LGA)
  • Best Adventure Lab
  • Best Cache Log (includes Found It and DNF)
  • Best Overall Cache

Nominations are now open and will remain open for 4 weeks, closing on Wednesday 17 April. If you haven’t already, take the opportunity to reflect on some of the remarkable 2023 caches you have discovered to ensure your favourites are recognised. You might even like to embark on some new adventures to uncover even more 2023 hides. These geocaching lists can help you to pinpoint the caches eligible in this years awards:

The shortlisted candidates will be announced at our awards nomination event at Cherry Lake on Sunday 21 April (GCAK9V2). Everyone is welcome to attend and there will be a free sausage sizzle so be sure to log your will attend for catering purposes.

The awards have a tradition of being generously sponsored by fellow cachers within our community. If you’re interested in learning more about sponsoring one of the 2023 awards, please visit the donations section of our shop or reach out via email at president@geocachingvictoria.com.au. Sponsors have the option to remain anonymous if they wish.

While you are nominating, give some thought to what amazing caches you are planning for 2024.

Ballarat GeoTour Farewell

After three very successful years, the Ballarat GeoTour officially concluded on Monday, 4 March. The final weeks were bustling with activity as teams from all across Australia (and some international guests), pushed to complete the tour before its closure.

Being the only GeoTour in the country it was no surprise the tour attracted an incredible turnout, drawing over 1,700 unique geocachers to explore Ballarat. The 25 caches and Adventure Lab garnered nearly 13,000 logs and close to 1,600 location completions respectively. Remarkably, 340 geocachers successfully completed the entire tour, earning themselves the coveted GeoTour souvenir. GeoTour participants journeyed from every corner of Australia, along with visitors from 19 other countries. Geocaching teams collectively spent 3,853 days searching for GeoTour caches!

Behind every one of our successful adventures lies the invaluable support of dedicated volunteers, and the Ballarat GeoTour is no exception. GemmaSistema spearheaded this remarkable project with incredible commitment and vision from the beginning. A huge thank you is owed to her for her leadership, drive, and determination. With the support of her Geocaching Victoria committee colleagues, Gemma was able to turn this ambitious idea into a reality. The financial backing provided by Vic Health played a pivotal role in bringing this dream to fruition. However, it was the collective effort of the Ballarat and surrounding caching community that truly brought the GeoTour to life.

We would like to extend our sincere appreciation to everyone who contributed their time and expertise to help design the tour, place and maintain caches, and ensure the seamless operation of the GeoTour over the past three years.

– ChooknChunk
– GemmaSistema
– Feathertop
– Fergzter
– Glanville Girls
– Kenare 		– LouiseAnn
– Mazzy May
– McAdies
– McLookers
– PerpetuallyLost
– Saint Anthony 		– Sally Mally
– Sean.75
– Sunset62
– The_Tritonz
– Wozzle68

In addition a massive thank you to our reviewers Bunjil and GeoAwareANZ2 for their ongoing support throughout. To each and every participant of the tour, as well as those who bought GeoTour coins and those who contributed to the nine GeoTour events, thank you for being a part of it.

The winners of our final 3 GeoTour unobtanium coins have now been drawn and they are:

  • jaamc_3335 (Completed the whole tour)
  • BlackOpal2005 (Completed the whole tour)
  • SciFiRulz (Supporting merchadise purchase)

Congratulations to all of the winners and we will be in contact with you soon to arrange your prize. If you haven’t ordered your GeoTour coins yet to celebrate, there are still a small number of each coin left available on our website.

Bunnings Fundraising BBQ

Join us for our upcoming fundraising event at the infamous Hammerbarn, scheduled for Sunday April 14 at Bunnings Mernda. Led by our fundraising champion, Grub62 (Belinda), our team of volunteers will be cooking up a storm, enticing the public to support us with their generosity.

We’re still in need of a few extra hands on the day, so if you can spare a couple of hours, we’d greatly appreciate your assistance. Feel free to reach out to Belinda at grub62@geocachingvictoria.com.au. Alternatively if you can’t stay for long, why not drop by anytime between 9 am and 4 pm to meet fellow geocachers and enjoy a snag. Don’t forget to log your ‘Will Attend’ at GCAK9VM.

If you can’t make it but would still like to support our fundraising efforts, why not donate the equivalent of a packet of sausages and some loaves of bread towards the day. Simply use the ‘Give ingredients for a fundraising BBQ‘ option on our website or explore one of the other donation alternatives.

We extend our gratitude to Bunnings Mernda for their ongoing support of Geocaching Victoria. Special thanks to the activities team, Michelle, and Chloe, for providing us with this invaluable opportunity.

February Update

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February this year is a whole 24 hours longer than usual and there is no shortage of action occurring on Leap Day to maximise this rare opportunity. Whether you are heading to the Great Leap Forward Mega in South Australia, attending one of the six events being hosted here in Victoria, or heading out to add to your combination of finds for this unusual day, don’t forget to plan ahead so you don’t miss out. It is a long wait for the next one. Here are some other updates while we’ve got your attention.

10 Years of Volunteering

Late last year as the final caches for 2023 were making their way through the review queue, our local reviewers, Bunjil, aka Peter and Helen, reached their 10 year milestone as volunteer reviewers. That’s a mega amount of volunteer time dedicated to this great activity of ours.

Just how many review hours you might wonder? Well enough to have published over 20,000 geocaches, and write over 43,000 reviewer notes – HUGE!

Ten years is an incredible milestone, so on behalf of the community, THANK YOU for all of your hard work and tireless contribution. A lot of your work is often hidden behind the scenes and goes unnoticed, however geocaching is not possible without the incredible support of volunteers like yourselves and we really appreciate it.

Events, Events and more Events!

The event calendar is pretty busy these days with lots of social activities to choose from. Following some great community feedback, we have updated our event page to include the Local Government Area (LGA), which will hopefully make it easier to find what you are looking for. We are also working with some of our interstate colleagues on some future updates to further enhance the page and ensure you can keep up your social fix.

Check out the new format and all the events happening around town on our website here.

Rutherglen Cache Series – Retirement

The Rutherglen Mega Committee and their very talented cache crew led by Robmc, have been tirelessly maintaining the 300 Mega related caches in Rutherglen for almost 2 years now (since Easter 2022). This is a commendable effort and takes substantial volunteer time to keep on top of the huge number of caches, which also involves significant travel.

Out of respect to our amazing volunteers, this is advance notice that these caches will soon be retired. They will remain active until after Easter, however they will be archived post 8 April 2024. If you are travelling up to the Canberra Geobash, this could be good opportunity to drop in and claim any hides you have not yet found.

Thank you to Robmc, day1976, BettyBoo3747 and the rest of the team who have worked tirelessly to create and maintain these caches over the last 2 years.

Save The Date / Cache Of The Year Awards – Nominations

Don’t forget to add these upcoming dates to your calendar:

18 February GCAFQ8B – Farewell Ballarat GeoTour (THIS WEEKEND!)
14 April    GCAK9VM – Mernda BBQ
21 April   GCAK9V2 (coming soon) – Victorian COTY Awards – Nominations Announcement

We will have all the news on the awards for the 2023 year and how you can nominate your favourite caches in an upcoming announcement. In the meantime, get out and find as many 2023 caches as you can in preparation. Check out the following lists to help you focus your caching maps:

2023 Traditional Hides – https://coord.info/BMCEG0W
2023 Non Traditional Hides – https://coord.info/BMCEG0V
2023 First Time Hides https://coord.info/BMCEG0Z
2023 Cache Series https://coord.info/BMD15XQ

You can find plenty of other lists on our Great Caching Lists webpage.

Jam Packed Mega Fun

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Easter is always a great time for families to come together, enjoy some downtime, camp or of course geocache! This year we are excited to host The Rutherglen Event (GC9MHM) for our community for some Easter fun.

In case you didn’t know, each Mega has a colour theme and we celebrate this in many different ways – through the flags, merchandise and of course car ribbons! For those of you that may not be familiar with these ribbons, we encourage anyone travelling to the Mega to attached the designated colour ribbon to your car, so as you descend upon the town of Rutherglen and travel around the surrounding towns over the weekend, you can spot your fellow geocachers! This year our colour is Maroon. Be sure to attach this ribbon to your car over the weekend of the Mega!

New Merchansise Available

Just in case you haven’t heard, we now have polo t-shirts available in the Geocaching Victoria online shop, in addition to the Rutherglen shirts, jackets, pathtags and geocoins. Be sure to place an order as these are priced to sell fast!

The Mega Easter Egg Hunt

After the big night you will have on Saturday, you will probably feel like sleeping in on the Sunday. After all Sunday is the day of rest. But I would suggest you might not want to sleep too long, otherwise you will miss the Easter Egg Hunt!

Yes, Easter Sunday come one, come all and bring your sleuthing abilities along. There will be many colourful eggs to be found around the showgrounds and camping area. These will be made of coloured paper and ribbon – very fancy.

“Paper & Ribbon!” you say? What kind of Easter Bunny is there for the Mega? An origami one? Fear not, depending on the egg you find, it can be exchanged for something more suitable. More information will be announced closer to the day.

Age is no limit – this is open to all. So keep Sunday morning free, and join in the fun. Any questions please reach out to Elizabeth Baulch (BettyBoo3747)

Make Rutherglen a Milestone

With only 34 days left until the Mega, we are keen to hear how many of you will be celebrating a Geocaching Milestone in November 2022. Please let us know!

The definition of a Milestone is number of finds ending in:

0 for 2 digit numbers – i.e. 10, 20, 30 etc
00 for 3 digit numbers – i.e. 100, 200, 300 etc
000 for 4 digit numbers – i.e. 1000, 2000, 3000 etc
Of course we also have 10,000, 11,000 etc

To register your interest, please completed the below form and let us know if you will celebrate your milestone at the Maze Event or the Mega Event

Registration Form

Cut off will be approximately 8pm on Friday 31st March 2023

Ballarat GeoTour Event

If you have nothing planned this weekend, don’t forget we have our latest Ballarat GeoTour Event (GCA4DRJ) on this Sunday. We hope to see you there!

Be sure to purchase some GeoTour Merchandise whilst stocks last.

Other Important Snippets

  • There are still unpowered campsites available if you are looking for accomadation. Be sure to check our webpage for further details
  • We are aware that Thursday GCA4DQ8 and Monday Dinners GCA4DQK have been sold out at the Mega, however we are looking at extending seating – we will come back to you soon.
  • Plenty of room at Saturday Dinner GCA4DQE  is available, so be sure to register your interest.
  • For complete schedule of events and activities, check out our website
  • Remember if you are bring your geo-dog to the Mega to read our geo-dog etiquette

Subscribe to our Blogs

We aim to share regular stories, event details and updates with our community and have a variety of channels where we share. But to ensure you don’t miss out on our updates, why not subscribe to our regular blog and get it delivered to your inbox. Subscribe now by entering your email address.

2023 is off to a flying start!

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Hello February!! With January come and gone in the blink of an eye, we are now firmly in the new year. Hopefully many of you had the chance to have a holiday or some downtime with your family and friends over the Christmas and New Year period. It has been great to see many of you celebrating new geocaching milestones, so it’s a good sign that many of you had great geocaching adventures! Below are some key events and updates to share. Be sure to check out our events page too as its updated weekly.

GeoTour Ballarat Event #7

Geocaching Victoria is excited to invite you to the lastest GeoTour Event in Ballarat. (GCA4DRH). If you are yet to visit and start the tour – this is a great opportunity to start the year with a new souvenir and attribute. We also still have some limited edition Geocoins available – so be sure to place your order in our shop, as they won’t last long.

The Rutherglen Event Coin & Pathtag Set

We are excited to announce that the Rutherglen Event Coin and Pathtags are now available for order. In case you missed the teaser blog yesterday, check out this small video on our Rutherglen Reflections Facebook page, alternative you will find more details in our shop.

Brolga Bill’s update on the Bike Trail Puzzles

Brolga Bill mentioned to me the other day that not that many cachers are doing his Bike Trail Puzzles by bike. He said “Although I drew the geoart in the shape of a penny-farthing (I use one because of my long legs), you can use a safety bike to collect the caches.”

“I designed them to all fall along the Rutherglen to Wahgunyah Murray to Mountains Rail Trail which starts across the road from the Rutherglen Visitor Information Centre and is an easy 9 kilometres one-way ride. The path is flat, flat, flat, and well sealed.” He said.
“Easy for anyone to ride. What is the point of walking?”

He mentioned that even if you didn’t want to bring your own bike up, or you don’t have one, bikes can be hired locally (see details below). Standard bikes, tandems, and ebike are all available (but probably not penny-farthings!).

“Also bikes are a great way of visiting a lot of the wineries in the area.”

So hop out of your cars and get onto a bike – the best way to cache!

Local Bike Hire

Bike hire is available at the Rutherglen Visitor Information Centre.
They have all-purpose touring bikes of different sizes and two tandem bikes available for hire. For the age group between 4 and 7, there are two tag-a-long bikes (suitable for children 30 kilograms and under) that attach to the back of the adult’s
bike. They also have bikes suitable for 10 years and over age bracket.
Hire includes bike, helmet and maps. Highly recommended to bring your own water.

Price: $25.00 – $65.00
Half day single bike $25, full day single bike $40. Half day tandem $40, full day tandem $65. Child tag-a-long $15 a day
Different rates for 2-5 day hire.
Bookings and information: 02 6033 6306
Rutherglen Visitor Information Centre

Rutherglen Radler E bike hire
The cruisiest way to explore the Rutherglen and Wahgunyah region is on an electric cruiser bike from Rutherglen Radler. These bikes making cycling fun and easy and as they assist you when you’re cycling you can explore more of the region than you normally would on a standard bike.
Ride the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail with ease, ride down the many dirt tracks between the local wineries, your options are endless.
Fun and adventure is guaranteed when you ride one of these beauties.
Please note you must be 18 years and over to hire these bikes.

Price: $45.00 – $85.00
Half Day $45.00 Full Day $85.00
Contact: Caffeine n machine 62 – 64 main st, Rutherglen 0414 613 984

Shout out for some Rutherglen Volunteers

As we start to count down to our Rutherglen Mega (GC9MHM), the Mega Committee are working hard to plan and organise what looks to be an amazing weekend of geo-goodness. But events like this are only possible with the help of many volunteers. If you can spare a few hours over the weekend, please do let us know and complete the Volunteer Form. We would really appreciate it.

Subscribe to our Blogs

We aim to share regular stories, event details and updates with our community and have a variety of channels where we share. But to ensure you don’t miss out on our updates, why not subscribe to our regular blog and get it delivered to your inox. Subscribe now by entering your email address.

The Shop is open!! Check out these great products!

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Hey Geocachers,

We just wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know that the shop is now open!! We are just a little excited about the new MEGA offerings we have available. See flyer below.

To order any of these products, please head over to our GVI shop and place your order.

Also don’t forget that this weekend we have our next Ballarat GeoTour – Saturday 18th June – GC9QJK6. – so let us know if you are able to make it.

We still have some GeoTour coins available in our shop too – so while you are checking out your MEGA merchandise, make sure you look at the GeoTour stuff as well!

SHOP LINK IS HERE