Geocaching history in South Africa

The start of Geocaching in South Africa:

The very first geocache in South Africa was hidden on the 14^th January 2001, 8 months after the 1^st geocache in America, and was hidden by team 'GPSFrodo'. The geocache was called 'GCZA01' (GC163) and was the 163^rd cache worldwide.
This cache was only found once by team 'Jors'. From their log:

Quite a feeling of acomplishment came over me as I saw the stash where it was hidden, the walk was well worth it!
...
I really enjoyed this, and will hide my own one of these other hot! days.
Lets keep this fun thing going!!

It took team 'Jors' another 9 years and 3 months to make good on their promise and placed a cache called 'GCZA01.2' (GC1RNAY) very close to the original first cache as a way to commemorate the first South African placement.
Team 'Jors' also has the very first South African swag item, a watch, as a Travel bug, which can be discovered at certain events.

The 2^nd geocache hidden was 'Sentinel View' (GC185) and hidden on the 18^th January 2001, only 4 days after the first one, and was hidden by 'Prof Charles Merry'. The geocache, or stash as it was known at the time, was first found by team 'netic' on the 3^rd of February 2001. From their log:

After a 40 minute hike we found the cache about 5 meters off the gps spot.
It turned out to be a spectacular view and well worth the walk.

This geocache is still active and still contains the original log book.  It is currently the oldest geocache in South Africa.  
The geocachers of Cape Town organised a 10 year anniversary celebration on the 10^th of January 2011. A video of the event can be seen here on YouTube.

The uptake of Geocaching in South Africa:

Geocaching was slow in taking off with team 'Peter Scholtz' and team 'Chris Smith' (now known as Chrisbloem) planting most of the geocaches around the South African landscape in the first 2 years.

In the 1st year (being 2001) only 72 geocaches were hidden.
The 2nd year saw 84 added and in 2003 there were a total of 250 hidden.
At the beginning of 2005 there were a total of 343 hidden, and then geocaching started taking off as at the end of 2005 there were a total of 703 hidden, almost doubling the cache count.

The perspectives of early geocachers were very different to those starting out now and here are a few examples:

On the forum (here) Brick stated this in January 2008:
"...In Mpumalanga Snowwolf placed a few, and those days 4 caches in an area justified a trip there."

Peter Scholtz's perspective on the game of geocaching here is a very interesting read.

Geocaches hidden over 2002-2018:

Cache count hidden per province:

*Note: This is the hidden count at the end of each two year period. This is NOT the same as the active (to be found) count.

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GoSA Grapevine January 2016 - Happy New Year

15 Years of Geocaching in South Africa Cape Town 2016 update GoSA's new look
Happy New Year!
We hope you were able to earn both the Goodbye 2015 and the Hello 2016 souvenirs.  Here's to wishing everyone a fanastic 2016, filled with lots of fun-filled geocaching.
15 Years of Geocaching in SA The very first geocache in South Africa was placed on the 14th January 2001, 8 months after the 1st geocache in America, and was hidden by team "GPSFrodo". The geocache was called "GCZA01" (GC163) and was the 163rd cache worldwide. This cache was only found once by team "Jors". From their log: "Quite a feeling of acomplishment came over me as I saw the stash where it was hidden, the walk was well worth it! ..... I really enjoyed this, and will hide my own one of these other hot! days. Lets keep this fun thing going!!" The 2nd South African geocache was "Sentinel View" (GC185) and it was placed on the 18th January 2001, only 4 days after the first one, and was hidden by Prof Charles Merry. The geocache, or stash as it was known at the time, was first found by team "netic" on the 3rd of February 2001. From their log: "After a 40 minute hike we found the cache about 5 meters off the gps spot. It turned out to be a spectacular view and well worth the walk." This geocache is still active and still contains the original log book.
Cape Town 2016 The Mega 2016 organisers published their event, GC5YRDE Cape Town 2016 in October last year. It is happening at the Wild Fig in Mowbray on the 1st and 2nd October 2016. Help the event organisers achieve Mega status by logging your "Will Attend". They have just passed the 500 mark, so hopefully we do have enough geocachers to earn the Mega status. For the latest news and updates about this exciting event, like their SA Geocaching Events Facebook group or visit www.capetown2016.co.za for more information and to download the full program.	New Look GoSA has decided to update our look. After much internal debate, we ended up with a logo that we believe does represent both Geocaching and South Africa. We hope you like it, and will be using this on all our digital media going foward. We have also realised that we need our own Facebook page. Although there is a South African Facebook group, and many regional groups on Facebook, as well as other forums like the Groundspeak forums, these are just being used to communicate between geocachers. We have decided to create a GoSA Facebook page to increase general awareness of GoSA and our website, to promote geocaching in South Africa, and to improve communication within the geocaching community. Please visit our page to stay in touch, at www.facebook.com/geocachersofsouthafrica/
Share your geocaching stories We are always on the lookout for your fun, interesting, unusual or exciting geocaching stories to share with the geocaching community. If you want to share yours, then send it to us by emailing it to our webmasters.

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GOSA Newsletter May 2015 - Happy 15th Birthday Geocaching

Celebrate Geocaching's 15th Birthday Learn Geo Language from the Geocaching Glossary
Welcome to an early May newsletter. With the public holidays and short week we don't want you to miss out on the May happenings which start this coming weekend with Geocaching's 15th birthday.   15 Years of Geocaching This May celebrate the history of geocaching by unlocking your mission for 2015. On 2 May 2000 GPS signals were descrambled, increasing the accuracy of GPS devices worldwide by ten times. The following day, what would become known as the first geocache (now called the The Original Stash and with GC code GCF) was hidden. 8 Months later, a geocache called GCZA01 (with the GC code GC163) was hidden as the first South African Geocache on the 14th January 2001.  A few days later, Sentinel View (GC185) was hidden on the 18th January 2001, and this is the oldest active cache in South Africa. Celebrate 15 Years of Geocaching on May 2nd and 3rd by finding any geocache or attending any geocaching event (click here for details of the local birthday party events). You’ll earn a new digital souvenir for your geocaching profile. Unlock details of your 2015 geocaching mission by reading the souvenir’s description. Join the conversation with your fellow geocachers on social media by tagging #Geocaching15 in your posts. Find out more here.
13th Annual Cache In Trash Out Weekend Did you do your bit for the environment and attend one of the 8 CITOs organised around the country during the 13th Annual Cache In Trash Out Weekend?
Other upcoming geocaching activities include: World Wide Flash Mob # 12 (WWFM XII) on 13 June 2015 Annual Tswaing Crater event over the weekend of 17-19 July 2015 International Geocaching Day on 15 August 2015. We will provide more information as these events are planned.  Gauteng has already organised their event for the day.
Geocaching Glossary Confused when you read about PAF, OPOR, BYOP and JOMBWGH? We have built up a glossary for South African geocachers on our website. Get it all in our Geocaching Glossary.	Mega 2016 Follow the Mega Event Facebook group, SA Geocaching Mega Events for more details and to stay up to date as this gets planned for October 2016.

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