With another exciting Mega on the horizon and an influx of new geocachers within our community, Geocaching Victoria thought that it would be great to launch a new blog series – specifically for Beginners. I am sure that many of us have been in a conversation on a Monday morning, where you are asked what you did over the weekend….

“I went geocaching and ….” geo-what?

“Yeah I climbed some sand dune looking for…..” Tupperware?

“Drove a few hundred kms for a find….” insert look of disbelief here…..

But how often do you find that you spark the interest of someone that can see passed your geo-nerdiness and can appreciate the adventure, the opportunity for great family time but perhaps also the challenge.

As we count down to our next Mega, (yes in only 126 days) – we would love to introduce this crazy game to those whose interest is sparked, to let them in on our little geo-secrets and perhaps convert them from being a “muggle” to one of our own. Do we dare?

Recently I spoke to Tim from veevers12 who started playing the game in 2019, precovid and asked him how he got into the game and what advice he had for those curious about geocaching.

Hi veevers12, can you please share with us when you started Geocaching and what got you into this crazy hobby we love?

My daughter had a school geocaching excursion to Westerfolds Park in Templestowe in mid 2019. We had not heard of geocaching before then, so we gave it a try by looking at GC60BE0 Eltham Fire Brigade (now archived) after the kids had their swimming lessons at Eltham Leisure Centre. We soon wanted to find another, then another, then another, then we were hooked and we have been hooked ever since. We started with a basic membership, but on one of our early geocaching outings my daughter and I bumped into shack1961 who told us we would probably sign up for premium soon and never look back. She was right!

Some of the things we love most about geocaching are:

• It gives us something really fun to do as a family.
• It takes us to lots of different places and when we are at a loose end, instead of being bored, we go and find a cache.
• We have met lots of really nice people. We love how people of all different ages and different interests are able to get along and talk about their adventures.
• It connects us with other people, some of whom we may never meet, but who have interests in geocaching in common.
• Every time someone posts a find log on one of our caches. We love reading every log, especially the ones with a story.

Okay so I am a little bit excited with your response, sorry total #geonerd here – I have to ask what is your favourite type of geocache and why?

We find this hard to choose as we like them all, however there are three particular types that we like. One is a good puzzle, another is a good gadget cache, and the other is any cache that takes us to a really nice secluded location. A geocache that does all three of these is the ultimate.

When you first started geocaching, what helped you learn more about geocaching (cache types, styles of hides, puzzles etc)

Quite often, it was other geocachers that we bumped into at caches or at events that have helped us with this, however most of what we have learnt has been from solving and finding geocaches of all different types and styles. We also looked at lots of geocaching videos on YouTube when we were stuck at home during lockdown. We particularly enjoyed the videos from West Virginia Tim.

Research is a great suggestion, what advice would you give a newbie geocacher just starting out?

If you can’t find a cache, don’t give up. Don’t ask for hints too soon as it is much more satisfying to go back to a cache multiple times and eventually find it than it is to ask someone where it is. If you can’t find it, check the hint, check when it was last found and read some of the past logs. If you still can’t find it, leave it and try again with a fresh mindset. If you can’t find it after multiple visits then message the cache owner (CO) for an additional hint.

Look for good areas to go geocaching. We looked for caches that had lots of favourite points when we were starting and they gave us lots of joy and helped us to get hooked (thanks Mister Doctor!)

We also recommend that you write a good log. Something more than ‘got it’ or ‘found’. This is much more rewarding for the cache owner who has gone to the trouble of hiding the cache for you. Try to log your finds promptly and try not to copy/paste logs too much.

Over the past few years, what has been your most memorable cache/cache adventure?

We remember most of them. There are a few that stand out. Winding Waters (GC367RT) was one of our first as it was in a beautiful location and we went back to it so many times with more and more ideas and tools before we finally managed to locate and retrieve the cache. My daughter really enjoyed our time at Hillcrest Hike (GC1CD5F) because it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. We also really enjoyed our adventure after the Community Celebration Event at Wangaratta when we decided to do the Wherigo 3MC Workout (GC8HWM6) because it just kept going and going. We bumped into The Easter Bunnies, who I went to uni with, who joined us for the adventure. We didn’t know when the adventure would end and by the time we got back to the car it was very late and very dark!

Thank you so much veevers12 for sharing your insights! Now for those of you that are new, or for those geocachers that have friends and family that are curious about geocaching – we have a brand new event scheduled which is perfect for newbies.

Geocaching Victoria is excited to announce a newbie event in the lead up to the Whittlesea Mega (GC9WXFY). This will be held at the Whittlesea Showgrounds on Sunday 28th August 2022 @ 10.30am. We encourage all those new to geocaching or curious about what geocaching is, to attend.

For those in the community who have been caching for a while, we would love you to tag a muggle and introduce them to this great game of ours.