Category Archives: Our Community

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.

Geocaching and First Aid

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We all love to get outdoors and geocache. Whether it’s the thrill of the hunt, the excitement of the find or sometimes the frustration of a DNF on a tricky hide. A DNF however isn’t the worst that can happen on a geocaching adventure.

Have you ever spotted a snake while out exploring? If you or your caching partners were bitten by a snake, would you know what to do? What about if you broke a limb climbing a tree, or your caching buddy suffered a sudden cardiac arrest. How would you react?

On Saturday, Geocaching Victoria was pleased to have Darren Mannix (Omegaman1971) from Healthguard First Aid as a special guest at a geocaching event GCAGHHH: First Aid Knowledge is Invaluable.

Darren was able to share his wealth of experience regarding the importance of First Aid and just how valuable knowledge can be. He also shared some shocking statistics including the fact that currently in Australia, only 1 in 10 people will survive a sudden cardiac arrest.

We can all play a part in improving those statistics as well as being prepared in the event of an emergency while geocaching and beyond. Some of the key takeaways from the introduction were:

  • There are 3 simple steps to potentially help save a life in the case of a sudden Cardiac Arrest: Call, Push, Shock. This is a key part of Heart Safe Australia’s awareness and education campaign.
  • Ensure you and your families emergency information is setup in your mobile phone so that it can be used by first aiders to help you in an emergency. Setup your iphone or android smart device today.
  • First aid TOTTs – We are familiar with carrying numerous TOTTs to retrieve caches – Is a first aid kit one of your TOTTs?

Following the event, 17 lucky geocachers had the opportunity to attend a three hour information session to learn more about First Aid. Darren shared information about emergency response, CPR, wound management, bandaging and much more. That is 17 additional geocachers in the community that are now better equipped to assist in the case of an emergency. Are you lucky enough to cache with one of them?

If you would like to learn more, attend a First Aid course, or purchase First Aid equipment, please reach out to Healthguard First Aid at www.healthguardfirstaid.com.au.

Geocaching Victoria would like to send our sincere gratitude to Darren, and Healthguard First Aid for helping to keep our geocaching community safe.

Farewell 2023, Welcome 2024!

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It’s been a big 2023 and as the year comes to a close, we’d like to give a big shout out to all of the geocachers in our wonderful community. Whether you have published a new cache for others to find, hosted or attended an event, helped someone solve a puzzle or find a tricky hide, or shared a great log for the CO to read, you have all contributed to making 2023 a great caching year.

We’d especially like to thank everyone who has volunteered their time throughout the year or supported us through the purchase of merchandise, donations, or recycling your cans and bottles. Every little bit helps.

Here are just some of the things that happened in 2023:

  • February – The Ballarat GeoTour celebrated its 2nd year (how quickly time flies).
  • April – Our first Easter Mega was held in Rutherglen with a long weekend extravaganza.
  • May – We celebrated all our volunteers and announced the amazing list of nominees for the 2022 Victorian Cache of the Year Awards.
  • June – Makers Magic was happening all over the state including a huge celebration in Mitcham showcasing gadgets, games, presentations and cache painting to name just a few of the activities.
  • June – Victoria celebrated 21 years of geocaching events, returning to the site of the very first event in the Lerderderg State Park to celebrate.
  • July – The Cachemas in July festival took off, bringing together 100 smileys from 75 different CO’s as well as a big family Cachemas lunch at Kensington Town Hall.
  • August – The community celebrated International Geocaching Day with another Great Victorian Cache Crawl starting in Ararat and finishing in Upper Ferntree Gully – 10 stops (including a midnight event).
  • October – Geocaching Victoria turned 9. Double digits next year!
  • November – Popcorn, choc tops, and a huge theatre set the scene for our Geocaching International Film Festival event with special guests, Peoples Choice Award winners, chooknchunk.
  • November – Glitz and Glamour was in order as we crowned the winners of our 2022 Victorian Cache of the Year Awards while enjoying dinner and trivia.

All of that in amongst a number of community “Introduction to geocaching” sessions, hosting some geocaching activities for schools, and working with other community organisations.

There is plenty in the works for 2024. We’ll be starting with a First Aid initiative in February (stay tuned) as well as saying farewell to the Ballarat GeoTour. There is lots more to come.

As we wrap up the year, here are some of our state’s geocaching statistics for you. They may even prompt you to start filling some of the less common gaps:

  • Total 2023 hides: 1,615 (inc 320 event type caches)
  • Favourites accumulated on 2023 hides: 4,451
  • Total finds on 2023 caches (non event): 34,627
  • Event attendances: 6,974
  • Average D/T: 1.98 / 1.89
  • Most common/Least common difficulty: 1.5 (538) / 4.5 (6)
  • Most common/Least common terrain: 1.5 (639) / 4.5 (9)
  • No. of D/T combos with nil placements in 2023: 17
  • Most common/Least common size: Small (586) / Large (32)
  • Most common/Least common type: Traditional (865) / Wherigo (8)
  • LGAs with most new hides: Northern Grampians, Greater Geelong & Wangaratta
  • LGAs with no new hides : Warrnambool, Buloke & Loddon
  • No. of unique cachers with 12 or more finds (average 1 per month): 2,380
  • No. of unique cachers with 365 or more finds (average 1 per day): 166
  • No. of unique hiders: 326

Note: These stats are based on “Placed Date” and were generated on 30/12/2023 therefore will exclude some late logs and event attendances for the final days of 2023. Some statistics are limited due to the availability of data and time constraints.

Will you be the next cacher to hide a large cache? Perhaps you’d like to fill in your D/T grid? Looking to find a few more caches than you did this year? Or maybe you’d like to be the first hider to place a D4.0/T4.5 cache in over 12 months.

Whatever your geocaching goals for 2024, we hope you have a wonderful new year, and get off to a great start this January.

From all the team at Geocaching Victoria, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Geocaching Victoria Welcomes Jo (chooknchunk)

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It’s time to welcome the third and final new member of the Geocaching Victoria committee, Jo from chooknchunk. Getting in contact with Jo’s publicist is near impossible of late, and once you do, the global requests for interviews following the amazing People’s Choice Award win in the 2023 GIFF have meant access is limited. We were thrilled to hear that Jo had insisted her schedule be cleared to make time to chat with us. Now where did I put that list of “no go” questions?

Jo, what is your geocaching name and how did you decide on it?

I am the “chook” of chooknchunk. My partner Chunk calls me this because I’m vertically challenged and as such my backside is close to the ground like a chook. Chunk has always been given that nickname by his family. 

A name now known globally! So when did you start geocaching and how did you find out about it?

Prior to geocaching, we had both been involved in horse endurance competition. An endurance friend had told us how she would go riding in the hills with her friend who would find these little treasures. Months later we had a weekend off together and asked her “what is that treasure hunting thing you do?”. We looked at a GCA map on the laptop and found a nearby cache without a GPS. Then we realised we needed to join up to get info and co-ords, and to log a find.

Over the next year we found about 20 caches, including a couple close to home that showed us places we never knew about. We noted an event in Ballarat, so we rocked up to that and learnt that there was an app on the phone we could use, rather than plugging co-ords into the old Garmin wrist watch. Everything accelerated rapidly into an addiction after that.

Giddy Up! Looks like you’ve been cracking the whip since your first 20 finds. Now what sort of caching style suits you both?

We love a bit of everything, but in particular we like geocaches that bring us to interesting locations, which might be a good view, a bush hike, some local history or a key place for that particular community or area. We also love events and Chook is also into solving puzzles.

Sounds like a great excuse to explore. What do you love most about geocaching?

Definitely the people. We have made many good friends through geocaching. Caching with friends adds so much more fun to the adventures.

It provides access to some cheap acting talent also… or so I hear. Having ticked off producing a GIFF from your bucket list, what is still on the list to achieve?

More interstate trips, particularly to go to the three states that we haven’t visited yet – WA TAS and NT. 

Road Trip!!!! On your caching adventures to date, what has been the most memorable?

Nearly every caching outing turns into an adventure of some sort. From the shenanigans deployed to dodge muggles in the suburbs, to the Little Desert trips with The Tritonz, the bush hikes with my friend WendyB158, the CSI adventures in Wangaratta and boat-caching on Lake Eildon. There’s way too many to list. However our most memorable cache so far is probably Underworld (GC4VM05) in Mt Buffalo. I used to love going back to work the next week and have my bemused colleagues say “you did WHAT for a cache?”.

I think we can all relate to those remarks. In amongst your adventures, what made you consider volunteering your time to support Geocaching Victoria and what are you most looking forward to?

Having recently retired from nursing, I feel I can now give some time back to the activity that has given us so much over the past decade. I am particularly keen to try to facilitate more caching networking and activity in the country regions of Victoria.

We look forward to your contribution to geocaching and to additional networking in regional Victoria. Thanks for taking the time to share your caching journey with us and for joining Geocaching Victoria. I know we inflated your new found fame a little, and that the reality is a much more humble and gracious win, so congratulations from all of us (although that list of demands in your pre interview rider was… interesting!).

Please join me in welcoming Jo to the Geocaching Victoria team.