This is it.

• The final trailer before Episode VII gets into the cinemas
• The sunrise before the final summit ascent
• The drive to the airport to pick up your loved one after a long trip
• The final blog post before The Melbourne Event 2015

We can’t wait to see you there, it will be amazing 🙂 If this doesn’t get you excited, have a read through this blog post and all the other announcements we made over the past few months. And if you really can’t wait this is how it looks like on google streetview.

It’s Free

Yep, we’re saying it again: The event is free to attend. You can turn up any time over the whole weekend, walk around the grounds, and browse the stalls of your favorite geocaching stores that will be there, including the famous Geostuff.com.au. It is free to attend most of the sessions (providing you register), participate in a multitude of games that will be running over the weekend, or just sit back and have a chat with some friends and have a good old yarn about geocaching. Oh, and maybe even head out and find a geocache… Whatever you choose, all of the above is free! Don’t forget to sign the log book – that’s free too – and

please log an attended online if you were there

Thanks 🙂

Plus, you get stuff!

Want something for nothing? Well guess what, you guessed it – there will be event bags full of random stuff! What’s in these event bags? Well, at the moment that is a VERY closely guarded secret. To find out you will need to register, follow the instructions to register for your FREE event bag….

• You’ve already logged your will attend up to (and including) the 26^th September 2015.
• Go to our Eventbrite page and register for the showbag ticket. The number of tickets and therefore the showbags are limited. If the ticket doesn’t show up, use the access code WUNDERTUETE. Make sure your GC account name is exactly the same spelling as it shows up on Geocaching.com

Sponsors

First things first: We’d like to thank our awesome sponsors, who have helped us put this whole thing together.

• geostuff.com.au
• Anvil Angus
• City of Casey
• geocaching.com
• Southern Cross Fire Works
• pathtags.com
• Here Map creator

BBQ and Fireworks, GC63717 in Tooradin

Of course we are super-excited about this one. Imagine it!

• Free entry,
• Free food,
• Free fireworks!

That’s right, it’s been published! Check it out and if you can make it, log you “Will Attend” on GC63717. Entry is free and there will be fireworks later in the night. Plus, to get your free food lovingly supplied by Anvil Angus on the night, you can just go to

S 38° 12.783 E145° 22.813

grab a wrist band head over to where the scouts are cooking and eat to your hearts content! All for absolutely nothing! How good is that? If you’re attending the Meet the Mountaineer session on Saturday, we’ll give you a wrist-band so you don’t have to rush.

Drinks will be available for purchase from the scouts, or you can bring along your own (non-alcoholic). Sorry our music act had to cancel – he will be on a last minute bucks night.

 You-insta-twitter-book

Once upon a time there was geocaching but no social media. Can you believe it? If you’re going out there this coming weekend share your adventures using following hashtag.

#gcmelb2015

You don’t have to share what you had for breakfast … actually that would be funny: Everybody! Share what you had for breakfast on the 14th November using the hashtag 🙂 And don’t forget to check what everybody else is up to!

BYO Nametags

Do you also have problems remembering all those faces, names and geocaching names? We get confused on a regular basis. If you wan’t to be called e.g Andrew instead of talla 2xlc, make yourself a nice tag which makes it easy for everyone to figure out who you are. You’ll be surprised how many cachers have read your account name somewhere and have a story to share.

Canoeing

We didn’t get as many takers for the canoeing as we hoped! What did we do wrong? Was it something we said? Anyway… we have enough people to make it a go-er if at a slightly higher price.  Please head over to the booking page if you’d like to give it a go.

TRY Spotto Competition

In the next couple of months, you might be seeing TRY Mentoring on the back of buses running between Tullamarine to the Outer South East of Melbourne, including Frankston, Berwick and Dandenong. This is exactly where the Mega is happening!

If you see any of these posters, take a photo and post it to the TRY Australia Facebook page for your chance to win a prize!

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Official The Melbourne Event merchandise

Geocoins (no more pathtags)

Sorry, the pathtags have sold out but there are still some very nice geocoins which can be purchased from our pre-sale page. In fact the coins have arrived at Fern’s Forest Fairy HQ and they are awesome. If you can’t wait to see one in the flesh check out the trackable code MEGABM and discover it now. These coins can be picked up at the event, or for a small postage fee, we can send them to you once we have them. 

Everyone who has pre-ordered, we will be putting them into the post on Wednesday.  We are making sure you get your precious shinies, so the pack will require a signature.

How to Obtain the Unobtanium.

Finally, another great example of how awesome this weekend is really going to be. You will have the chance of obtaining the unobtainable. That’s right, a hallowed, pure sort of gold, unobtanium “The Melbourne Event” geocoin. Imagine the prestige, the fame, the fortune that would come with ownership of this uber rare coin? So how do you get your hands on one of these babys? Well, we will be running some competitions over the weekend…

• FTF Raffle Draw. Yep, when you log your attendance in our log book at the registration desk, you will have the option of buying tickets in our FTF raffle draw. Tickets are only $1 each and you can buy as many as you like, proceeds go to The Friends of the Leadbeater Possum. The winner not only gets to claim FTF on the first MEGA event in the state of Victoria, but they also get one of the unobtanium “Melbourne Event 2015” geocoins!
• Bingo. What would a large scale Geocaching Melbourne event be without a large scale BINGO competition? Grab your bingo sheets at the registration desk and set about ticking off the boxes. Submit your completed forms and you too may have a chance at nabbing the top prize, an unobtanium “Melbourne Event 2015” geocoin!
• Guess the number of caches. So we have procured a rather large fish tank. We are in the process of filling it with geocaches big and small. Your task is to head over to the TRY Australia stall, buy a ticket and have a guess at how many geocaches are actually in the fishtank. Closest to the pin gets one super rare unobtanium “Melbourne Event 2015” geocoin and all profits go directly to TRY!
• Widegame. Something a bit different and new. You will need a smartphone with location services enabled on your web browser. Head over to the registration desk to get the details of the places that you are looking for and the link to play the game. Figure out where you need to go. Once there, on your phone, submit your position and caching name “on location”. Our central computer will tally the results live back at HQ at the pavilion at Casey Fields on the big screen for all to see. Those who complete the game will go into the draw to win prizes, the ultimate prize of course being the hallowed unobtanium “Melbourne Event 2015” geocoin!

CITOs

There are two CITOs running over the weekend of the MEGA event. The Casey Council has been fantastic in helping us put this event on and so we would like to thank them in the best way we know how. Cleaning up some rubbish! You can join in the fun and get your hands dirty on either day.

• Saturday 14th November, GC61TQ9 – Narre warren
• Sunday 15th November, GC61TWN – Lysterfield

There will be an announcement on the CITO page later in the week regarding some safety issues at these sites.  The most important being that you must wear solid footwear.  The terrain around these sites is uneven and it a real concern of council that some people may turn up wearing inappropriate footwear.  If you turn up with open toed foot wear (ie sandals or thongs) you will be allowed to sign the log book and help out around the registration desk, but you will not be allowed to help clean up the rubbish.  If there are adverse weather conditions, or a fire danger rating at or above a “severe” level, the events will be cancelled.  You will be required to sign the log book before you begin collecting rubbish.  The log book doubles as also your registration for CUAD (Clean Up Australia Day) which covers us for our liability insurance.

If you are coming to one of the CITOs, and you are able to, if you could bring along any of the following from home, it would be very useful…

• Your own gloves
• Your own hi-viz vest
• Your own bottle of water
• Sun hat/sun glasses
• Anything else you may have at home that you think might be useful.

Finally, if you are coming to one of the CITOs and you have a certificate 2 or above 1st aid, if you could let one of the organizers know, it would be very appreciated.

LAB Caches

Exactly what are these things? Well they are a geocache creators license to experiment outside the normal rules! No proximity rules, no commercialization rules, no review process, no log book. Just imagine the possibilities! All those really cool cache ideas that wouldn’t normally get past the review process can be done as a LAB cache. Geocaching Melbourne is excited to announce that we will have a LAB cache adventure at the Melbourne Event 2015 that will rival the absolute best out there. So who is creating this adventure? Well we have asked some of the best geocache makers in Victoria to get their creative juices flowing, untie the normal shackles that would hold them back from being truly creative and to create an adventure that participants will walk away from saying “WOW, that was awesome!”

Kids area

Kids love geocaching and we know there are some awesome juvenile geocachers out there, so we have dedicated a whole area for the geocaching kids to play in at the MEGA. Whilst this is not a crèche and a parent will still be required to be in attendance whilst the kids are there, we will have plenty of fun-filled really cool activities for the young geocachers to do. Simply look for the kids area in the main room at The Melbourne Event

A souvenir

Yep, that’s right, we are very pleased to announce that there will actually be a souvenir awarded to everyone who logs our MEGA event as “attended”! It features the infamous feet at Princes Pier in Port Melbourne as well as cute little Fern playing in the forest.

What to bring on the day. (Don’t forget your $1 coins)

Melbourne weather can be unpredictable but we are expecting good weather (at this stage). It would be a good idea to bring plenty of water, sunscreen (we will have some on site just in case), a warm top, a chair or picnic blanket (see above post re: BYO chairs), a towel and a raincoat/umbrella. Geocachers are good at having things on hand. So load the car with everything you might need. There is nothing like sharing for those that forgot.

Also as most of the competitions are $1 to enter, bring as much change as possible. This just makes life easier for everyone and gets you moving onto your next competition quicker!

And so the big event in November draws ever closer, so what exciting news does the organizing committee have for you now, well click on the link that interests you the most, or grab a cup of coffee and sit down and have a read of some of the fun filled excitement that we are planning…

Event Show bags!
Geocoins and Pathtags for sale!
Official The Melbourne Event merchandise
Sponsors
Sessions
Other activities on the MEGA weekend
CITOs

Event bags

Registration

Yes there will be showbags however since this is a free event we have to limit them somehow. How do you get your hands on them? It’s fairly straight forward:

• You’ve already logged your will attend up to (and including) the 26^th September 2015. Yes that was yesterday.
• After 9pm on tonight (the 27th of Septmeber), go to our Eventbrite page and register for the showbag ticket. The number of tickets and therefore the showbags are limited. If the ticket doesn’t show up, use the access code WUNDERTUETE. Make sure your GC account name is exactly the same spelling as it shows up on Geocaching.com

Personal Trade items

Do you have some pathtags, geocoins, trackables or any other type of personal trade item that you would like randomly distributed amongst our event bags?  Then get in contact with us and we can do this for you.

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Coins and Pathtags..

On our Geocoins and Collectables Pre-sale page, we are selling some limited edition geocoins as well as pathtags. They have our little mascot, Fern and they are inscribed with “The Melbourne Event 2015”. This is the VERY first MEGA event in the state of Victoria, as well as being the largest geocaching MEGA event ever in the southern hemisphere!  So these are definitely set to become absolute collectors items. Besides our regular geo-coin, we have an awesome set of VERY limited edition coins in Lemon, Lime and Cherry. Only 75 of each of these special coins will ever be minted and we are selling an entire set of three for only $99.
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Merchandise.

Geostuff.com.au is proud to be a Sponsor of The Melbourne Event 2015, and has rights to produce all of the Official Clothing for the event.

 These are, of course, exclusive to Geostuff.com.au. Made from high quality polo shirts by “Aussie Pacific” and embroidered in Melbourne Australia.

You can buy them online now and have them delivered to you, or optionally pickup from the Geostuff retail store or the Geostuff.com.au stall at The Melbourne Event 2015.

Until the 30th September 2015 you can specify different embroidery “extras” on your shirt:

• Your team name embroidered in white text on the chest – $6
•  A new unique tracking code (supplied by Geostuff) embroidered in white text on the chest – $7.50
•  An existing tracking code (supplied by you) embroidered in white text on the chest – $6

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Sponsors

Where would we all be without our sponsors?  Our main event sponsors, Geostuff, Anvil Angus and Groundspeak have all been amazing.  Also we would like to thank our other sponsors, pathtags.com, Sougthern Cross Fireworks and the City of Casey.  We’d also like to introduce a new sponsor, HERE Map Creator.  Finally a shout out to the two charities that we are fund-raising for, Friends of the Leadbeaters Possum and TRY Australia.

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Sessions

Geocaching Melbourne have put together some really cool informative sessions on all aspects of geocaching.  From creating wherigo’s to using GSAK, building creative containers, putting together Earth Caches, climbing tall trees or using all those really cool phone apps like GC buddy, geosphere and c:geo.  There are so many really cool sessions that you can attend and Geocaching Melbourne have been able to secure the best in each field to present them.  Numbers are strictly limited and most of these sessions are filling up very fast.  Some are already full, so you need to be quick and register to secure yourself a spot.  Unfortunately though, the numbers for our canoeing/kayaking session that is to be run on the nearby lake at Casey Fields have been kind of low, which is a pity.  If we don’t get more people subscribing to this one, we may have to cancel these sessions.
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Other Weekend activities

Besides all the fun things that we have already announced, we would like to announce even more cool things that are happening on the weekend of the MEGA that you might like to get involved with…

FTF raffle draw

It is always an issue at every event.  Who gets the FTF?  Well we have decided that for the Melbourne Event 2015, we will hold a raffle.  Tickets are only $1 and you can purchase as many as you like.  Tickets will be available for sale at the administration desk, near the log-book signing for the event will be.  On the Sunday afternoon we will draw a name at random and who knows, you could have the honor of being the FTF for the very first MEGA event in the state of Victoria!  All proceeds from this raffle are being donated to the Friends of the Leadbeater possum.

Wide game

What happens when you take a traditional wide game like that played by many scouts groups and blend it with technology?  Well Geocaching Melbourne has mixed these two things together and then added a healthy dose of scavenger hunting to form a cool location based game that you can join in on with your (web enabled) phone.  The result is a fun new experience that will get you out and about, enjoying locations around the event and learning all sorts of cool new things.  More details will be released on this in the near future, but certainly……Watch this space!

LAB Caches

Exactly what are these things? Well they are a geocache creators license to experiment outside the normal rules! No proximity rules, no commercialization rules, no review process, no log book. Just imagine the possibilities! All those really cool cache ideas that wouldn’t normally get past the review process can be done as a LAB cache. Geocaching Melbourne is excited to announce that we will have a LAB cache adventure at the Melbourne Event 2015 that will rival the absolute best out there. So who is creating this adventure? Well we have asked some of the best geocache makers in Victoria to get their creative juices flowing, untie the normal shackles that would hold them back from being truly creative and to create an adventure that participants will walk away from saying “WOW, that was awesome!”

Guess the caches in a fishtank – TRY Australia

Who comes up with this kind of stuff? Oh, yeah, we do!

To add to the list of fun-filled activities, there is going to be one MEGA big fish tank filled with all sorts of unused geocaches.  Mint tins, berocca tubes, cliptop containers, ammo cans, nanos.  Many, many many geocaches.  But the question is how many?  For a $1 donation to TRY Australia, you get to guess how many geocaches are in the fishtank!  The person (or persons) with the closest guess will win one of those super cool and totally rare unobtanium, golden “The Melbourne Event 2015” geocoin!

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CITOs

Yes, we have some CITOs published on the weekend of the MEGA.  So you can give back to the Casey Council who have been absolutely marvelous in helping us get this MEGA off the ground.  Clean up crews will be assembling in Narre Warren on the Saturday afternoon between 1pm and 3pm for GC61TQ9 and also at Lysterfield South on the Sunday morning between 10am and midday for GC61TWN.  Come for the full two hours or just lend a hand for a few minutes.  There is plenty of parking and LOTS of rubbish to pick up!
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