All About The Numbers

It is one thing to know that South Africa currently has 14117 caches and say Egypt has 286. But how do they really compare if one takes their cache densities into account? The following map shows the cache density for the whole continent (and surrounding islands) with a 5km resolution:

CITO Weeks 2017

Film Festival 2017

Nelson Mandela Bay Annual Caching Weekend

The weekend of 24 to 26 February saw event GC6XE7Y, the 3rd annual NMB Caching weekend away, organised by PumTim and KitchenBoss. This year the event was held at the inniKloof camp site in the Gamtoos Valley.

Once again this event was well supported with teams arriving from Cape Town, the Garden Route and East London to complement a number of more local teams from NMB and its surrounds.

Approximately 40 new caches were placed in the area with a wide variety of cache types. As has become the norm at this event, it was possible to grab eight icons over the weekend.

Cachers started arriving early with iPajero, Strandlopers w&e and k j being some of the first to park their vans and put up their tents. Most of the rest arrived on Friday afternoon with some Cape Town teams arriving late after a full day’s caching en-route to inniKloof.

The main task for Saturday was to tackle the long walk to the inniKloof Waterfall cache (GC6BNN3). A good 7km (14km round trip) walk up a mountain, along the ridge and then down an almost vertical descent to a magnificent waterfall. Luckily the weather played along and we had a cool overcast day during a week that had seen temperatures in the upper 30’s.

On arrival we were faced with a D4.5 container hidden by plainoldgraham, but that was only second priority as the first priority was to swim in the cool water and admire the magnificent waterfall. The fit people found it as they left almost at the same time as the not so fit arrived at the waterfall. The group really got spread out. Farm owner John acted as a magnificent guide on the trail and made sure everyone got there and back safely. The walk is well worth your while with some magnificent scenery along the trail. The waterfall at the end is the cherry on the top.

While most of the group sweated their way to the waterfall some teams decided to rather cache locally. The Capetonians drove through to Port Elizabeth to grab as many caches as they could.

Both Friday and Saturday evening saw a huge fire being made in the communal fire pit and lots of caching stories were told over a few beers and glasses of wine. In fact, the few glasses of wine might have been the cause of the serenading of some of the chalets late on Saturday evening (or was it Sunday morning?).

Congratulations to the organisers. Another successful one. Looking forward to next year!


Article submitted by ChrisDen

Mega Mania

Exactly 3 months to go to the official opening of Mega 2016 at the Wild Fig in Cape Town.  The plans are all coming together and everything is on track for a fantastic weekend.  There are many activities planned for the week before the Mega, on the Saturday and Sunday, and some activities for after the Mega as well.

Tickets are available on the Mega Event website as well as T-shirts and the attractive Mega geocoins. 

There is also a raffle for a Garmin eTrex Touch 35 donated by caching.co.za that will be drawn at the Mega on 1 October.  Buy your tickets here.

For the latest breaking news for Mega 2016 you can like the SA Geocaching Events Facebook group or follow the @GeocacheEventZA Twitter feed.

HQ Duck Dash: A Global Trackable Race

On 30 August 2001, Geocaching.com Founder Jeremy Irish activated the world’s first trackable, TB1 and thus began a game within a game: trackables. Today there are more than 2 million trackables traveling around the world - making friends, creating memories and patiently waiting to complete their mission.

On the 15th anniversary of trackables, Groundspeak are hosting a worldwide trackable race featuring the reincarnated Deadly Ducks and you are invited to enter!

The race will begin 20 July 2016 and end on 20 August 2016,  but you need to register your racer by 17 July.  Get all the details about the race and how to enter here.

Challenges Return

The updated framework for Challenge Caches has been finalised, and new ones can be created again. Find out more about the new guidelines and listing requirements from the Geocaching Help Centre.

Film Festival 2016

Last chance to submit your film as entries close on 1 August 2016 for the chance to have it viewed by a worldwide geocaching audience. 

Find out how to enter your movie.

Big Blue Switch Souvenir

Three Million!

Film Festival 2017

Border Camping Weekend

The Camping Weekend 2017 Areena Riverside Resort (GC6ZWE2) event was held from the 24th to the 26th March and is the third camping weekend that has been held in the East London area, with the first being way back in February 2009, Camp & Cache by iNokia (GC1KVK9).

The weather for the weekend did not look too promising as we woke up to rain on Friday morning but fortunately by mid morning it had stopped and it held off for the weekend. Kingrobert from Port Elizabeth had arrived on Wednesday, then slowly the rest of those attending arrived. In the meantime two potjiekos pots, one a lamb and bean pot and the other one a chicken and mushroom were being prepared on Friday for those attending the camping weekend. Although there was a little rain in the evening this did not dampen the spirits as everyone huddled under the awning and gazebo to share the potjiekos. The one pot was scraped clean and precious little left in the other so it appeared that it was enjoyed by all. After much geocaching talk and socializing every one retired for the night to get some rest for the day that lay ahead.

On Saturday morning the two teams from Port Elizabeth, Kingrobert and NaviMate, one cacher from Pretoria mart514 and nine local teams got together to solve the 20 Geo-Art caches that had just been published. Firstly we must say a big thank you to Pte Curb for reviewing and publishing the caches as requested. As geocachers we are deeply indebted to our South African reviewers who devote so much of their time to ensuring that we have the pleasure of enjoying geocaching. The Geo-Art series was based on two of East London’s historic claims “The world’s only surviving Dodo Egg and the discovery of the prehistoric Coelacanth”. Once the puzzles were solved the teams departed to find these geocaches culminating in finding the Dodo Egg and the Prehistoric Coelacanth final bonus caches. From the logs it can be seen that much fun and learning was experienced by the geocachers. Quotes from two logs “Lots of time and effort went into this Geo-Art and we are so lucky to have such great historical finds in our back yard” and ”Plenty of research and preparation for this very informative and historical significant series and the first Geo-Art in East London.

On Saturday evening a communal braai was organized and while we waited for the coals to be ready we were treated to an amazing fire-dance display by teams Monti’s Adventure and Jou Doring. Monti’s Adventure also produced and handed out some great wooden geocoins/tags commemorating the weekend. Thanks too to NaviMate who sponsored bottles of water for Saturday’s geocaching and pineapples to enjoy with our braai.

Sunday morning saw another 15 caches published, 10 in the Insect Series and 5 other, so it was a quick pack-up to get on their way to find these caches.

In conclusion I think this local WhatsApp post sums up the weekend that was had by all “It was such a fun weekend with cool caches. Thank you team iPajero for organizing, catering, hiding and making this weekend all in all FANTASTIC”.

Article submitted by iPajero

All About The Numbers

MEGA TIME

Mega 2016 is this weekend, and we hope to see many of you at this fantastic geocaching event.  Keep an eye on the event listing and Facebook page to stay up to date with the latest news.

You also have until Saturday to put in a bid for the special limited edition Mega GeoCoin

Meet the Reviewers - Part III

Pte Curb, Afrika Rocks and ROTSIP, the three South African reviewers

We wrap up our Meet the Reviewers series this month with ROTSIP (aka Rodney Pistorius).  Rodney finds geocaches as part of rodnjoan together with his wife Joan, and has been doing this since December 2005.  A close family friend of theirs, “greengrass.j”, got a hand held GPS for use when participating in activities of the 4x4 off-road club he belonged to, heard of geocaching and started geocaching with the other club members. He explained geocaching to rodnjoan who decided to purchase a GPS and start geocaching. 10 years later, rodnjoan are one of the few South African teams to have more than 6 000 finds.
 
Rodney was asked by Groundspeak in March 2010 to become a reviewer, and after agreeing, his profile ROTSIP (part of his surname in reverse) was registered.  Retired from his full time job as an engineering and operations manager since 2009, Rodney participates in various activities (such as University of the 3rd Age and travel club meetings) in addition to the usual routine tasks associated with home, garden and pool maintenance when not reviewing.  Reviewing takes up on average 30-50 hours per week of his time.
 
We asked Rodney to share some of his experience with our readers:
GoSA: What do you enjoy about reviewing?
ROTSIP: All aspects are enjoyable. The checking of listings for compliance with the guidelines, interacting with Cache Owners (CO's), advising CO's on how non-compliant listings can be adjusted to get them compliant, providing links to relevant information on the Internet, explaining how information should be interpreted, asking questions to get a better insight that helps with evaluation, interacting with the other reviewers to establish a consensus of opinion about specific listings that have issues, regarding how they should be handled, asking the Volunteer Support group personnel at Groundspeak for advice and guidance when necessary, etc., etc.  The least enjoyable aspect is the need to deal with friction that sometimes arises.
 
GoSA: What advice do you have for new geocachers?
ROTSIP: They should participate in geocaching for long enough to gain an understanding of the activity by finding existing caches, before considering placing new caches. (The guidelines recommend at least 20 caches). They should attend social events so that they can meet other cachers and interact with them and learn from each other by sharing experiences. They should read the rules and guidelines to get an understanding of what geocaching is about and how and why the various activities should be performed. They need to read and understand the rules and guidelines as well as the terms of use, before they 'tick the boxes' that confirm that they understand and agree to what is specified. Feel free to ask any questions that you might have. If I don't have an answer I will make the necessary enquiries to get an answer.
 
GoSA: What advice do you have for geocachers who have placed a hide and are about to submit their listing?
ROTSIP: Before submitting a listing, they should read the rules guidelines and terms of agreement, to ensure that the actual placement of the physical elements and the compilation of the listing complies with the requirements. They should provide sufficient information in a Reviewer Note (RN), to enable the reviewer to effectively evaluate all aspects of the cache placement, and the compiled listing. They should also ensure that the RN includes information that is specified as being required, for the specific type of cache that is to be submitted.
 
GoSA: Why don’t you go for FTF’s?
ROTSIP: Being First To Find is not that high on our priority list. It cannot be said that I don't go for any FTF's. As a player my wife sometimes asks me to join her seeking a FTF and in terms of our agreed 'Code of Conduct' there are no restrictions on reviewers seeking FTF's on Traditional type caches. There are restrictions on reviewers seeking FTF's on Mystery/Puzzle caches and Multi-caches because it might be perceived that a reviewer could have an advantage over other cachers, to find these, because of possible 'inside information'. On occasions when we are part of a group seeking newly published listings, we do sometimes log FTF's as part of a 'Group FTF'
 
We checked how many geocaches had been published by Rodney, and more than 7 000 of the South African ones listed since 2010 were published by him, that’s a lot of reviewing!

CITO Weeks 2016

Mega 2016

Cape Town 2016 (GC5YRDE) is the next South African Mega-Event. For the latest news and updates about this exciting event, you can:

• like the SA Geocaching Events Facebook group
• follow their Twitter Feed at @GeocacheEventZA
• visit the www.capetown2016.co.za website to register to attend the event and to get the full activity program. Early bird tickets and various items of Mega gear are already on sale and the Mega Geocoin will be shortly.

Film Festival 2016

The Geocaching International Film Festival is back for the fourth year in a row.

The GIFF 2016 theme is Story Worthy Moments. Groundspeak are asking you to think of your most noteworthy, most exceptional geocaching stories...and get them on camera.

Submit your film by August 1, 2016 for the chance to have it viewed by a worldwide geocaching audience.  Find out more.

Down Time

Service Time

Cache of the Month

We are excited to reveal a special addition to the monthly newsletter for 2018!

Do you know of a cache that is worthy of the title of Cache of the Month? Please nominate it for the GoSA Cache of the Month for January 2018 by emailing the details (name, GC code) as well as a justification as to what makes it so amazing. You can send your nominations to .

Please note that you cannot nominate a geocache that you own. The GoSA committee will decide on the winner each month and the criteria for each month's Cache of the Month may change. We will announce the criteria for the upcoming month in the preceeding month's newsletter.

The owner of the selected Cache of the Month will be notified and sent a badge which they can add to their cache description.

Big Event 2018 Update

Geocaching International Film Festival Winner

GoSA Annual General Meeting

Souvenir Time

Cache of the Month

This month's Cache of the Month award goes to a special Mystery cache part of a new Geoart series - GEO-EYE: E11 - Light at the end of the tunnel. The logs and favourite points clearly show what an enjoyable geocache this is and eye trust it will go onto everyone's bucket list!
 

With January's COTM we will take a look back at 2018. Please nominate any cache published in 2018 that you think deserves the title of COTM. Email your nominations to .

Film Festival Reel

Did you know that some of our PE geocachers made it into the GIFF 2018 recap video?  Spot them at 5:28 in this video on YouTube. If you missed the events held across the country, pull up your armchair, get your popcorn ready, as we have all the movie reels from the last few years' GIFFs available here.

From the Desk of the Chairman

Community Contribution

Bunny Chow Fridays

By waydom

There is nothing as quintessentially KZN-caching related as the BCF or Bunny Chow Friday Event Cache. There are few things that beat a tasty quarter mutton bunny, a cold beverage, and some geo-chatter to see in the weekend.
 
Did you know: The first official BCF event was held on the 11^th October 2013 and was hosted by the official “father of the BCF”, Peter (TechnoNut) Tiedt. (GC4NY9R) The event was held in the Britannia Hotel and the narrative for that cache has become the event description for most of the approximately seventy BCFs held to date:
 
The History of Bunny Chow
The bunny chow was created in Durban, home to a large community of people of Indian origin. The precise origins of the food are disputed, although its creation has been dated to the 1940s. It was also sold in Gwelo, Rhodesia, during WWII and is still sold in the nearby town of Kadoma, formerly known as Gatooma.

One story which provides an etymology for bunny chow has it that a restaurant run by people known as Banias (an Indian caste) first created the scooped-out bread and curry dish at a restaurant-cum-cafe called Kapitan's on the corner of Victoria and Albert streets in Durban. The food was a means to serve take-aways to excluded people. During the apartheid regime, Indians were not allowed in certain shops and cafes and so the shop owners found a way of serving the people through back windows, etc. This was an easy and effective way to serve the workers. The traditional Indian meal was roti and beans, however rotis tended to fall apart as a take-away item. So, they cut out the centre portion of the bread and filled it with curry and capped the filling with the portion that was cut out.

Another story of the bunny chow's origin is that, as in India, merchants who traditionally sold their wares under the 'bania' tree (also known as the banyan, or Ficus bengalensis) were called 'bania'. The use of this name is known in India going back to antiquity.

Stories of the origin of bunny chow date as far back as the migrant Indian workers arrival in South Africa. One account suggests that Indian migrant workers from India who were brought to South Africa to work the sugar cane plantations of Kwazulu-Natal (Port Natal) required a way of carrying their lunches to the field; a hollowed-out loaf of bread was a convenient way to transport their vegetarian curries. Meat based fillings came later. The use of a loaf of bread can also be ascribed to the lack of the traditional roti bread, in the absence of which a loaf of bread would be acceptable as an accompaniment to curry.
 
I recall my first bunny chow event. it was held at the “Look Out bar” in Glen Ashley – not specifically a bunny chow venue but certainly close enough for me to be able to make it there and back to the office in a reasonable time. It was back in 2014 and I had told Dom that we couldn’t possibly go to the event before finding at least 100 caches as we didn’t want the “veterans” to think that we were newbies!
 
I still recall sitting next to Beetles and Bentleys with my notebook out, making notes of peoples handles and corresponding names because a number of people exclusively made use of handles – super confusing for the newbie in awe of all these “big name” cachers with thousands of finds to their names.
 
My fears of being mocked or laughed at for our relatively low find total were soon allayed as we were welcomed into the midst of a number of likeminded, friendly strangers who shared a passion for this bizarre hobby which had taken hold of my free time (and some of my not-so-free time).
 
Pic. Post Lock-down Bunny in the Park (held 12 June 2021)

I soon learned that the only reason that one might get a bit of good old-fashioned “chirping” is if you decide to tackle your bunny with a knife and fork!

If you are in KZN and a weekend is nearby, keep an eye out for a possible “BCF” (or “BCFOS” – Bunny Chow Friday on a Saturday) near you!

Community Contribution

Geocaching Adventures

By Adventure_T

• To inspire you to try new things.
• To give you a sense of achievement and create memories.
• To prove that anyone can have a geocaching adventure.
• To show, through stories, that having geocaching adventures adds colour to your life.
• And to demonstrate how you can create the types of adventures that suit you.

Adventure is taking each experience, whether you know the ending or not, and tackling it head-on. It’s about looking at the world from a different perspective. It’s choosing to see the beauty in the mundane and finding ways to do it differently.

Some of my favourite geocaching adventures include climbing Devil’s Peak in what became a misty day, when I could just see the rock hiding the cache, and then a misty drop off into nothing.
 

Also a time when I was hanging on the end of a rope, while trying to read coordinates on the sheer rock at my feet; and finally, finding the oldest active cache in SA (Sentinel View) with my wife on our 21st wedding anniversary.
 
So, you are now officially challenged to go out there and have an adventure. If you survive, please send in your story and it could be featured in our bimonthly Geocaching Adventures article.
 
Drop us a mail on

GIFF 2021

Current Souvenirs

Souvenirs are virtual pieces of art that you can earn, discover, and display on your profile page. They are associated with a particular location and may also be bound by time.

Get Outdoors Souvenir

There is a new souvenir up for grabs on Saturday, the 11th of June 2016.

Initially this souvenir was only going to be available to Geocachers in the USA as it is related to a USA initiative called Great Outdoors Month. The Get Outdoors Day souvenir is part of a bigger initiative with the American Recreation Coalition and other US-based outdoor organizations to get more Americans outside during National Get Outdoors Month.

Given the interest expressed by geocachers all over the world in participating in Get Outdoors Day, Groundspeak decided to make the souvenir available to anyone who finds a geocache or attends an event (anywhere in the world!) on June 11, 2016.

Find out more here.

WWFM XIII

World Wide Flash Mob #13 is scheduled for the 4th June 2016.

There are flash mobs organised around the country for this annual event, so keep an eye out for one near you. Find out more.

Film Festival 2016

Remember to submit your film by August 1, 2016 for the chance to have it viewed by a worldwide geocaching audience. 

Find out how to enter.

Get Connected

One of the things that GoSA is trying to do is encourage geocachers to communicate with each other and meet each other.  There are already many regional Facebook groups up and running, and we know geocachers have their own blogs to share their experiences with the wider community . The list we know about is on our website, if you know of any other Facebook groups or blogs, please share them with our webmasters so we can add them to the website.

iPajero's trip across America

16 Years of Geocaching

Mega 2016

Cape Town 2016 (GC5YRDE) is the next South African Mega-Event. For the latest news and updates about this exciting event, you can:

• like the SA Geocaching Events Facebook group or follow them on Twitter at @GeocacheEventZA
• visit the www.capetown2016.co.za website to register and get the activity program. Early bird tickets and various items of Mega gear are available already.
• The stunning Mega Geocoin has gone on sale during April, order yours now from the Mega Team or from the Caching store or from the Capri Cache Store.

Film Festival 2016

The Geocaching International Film Festival is back for the fourth year in a row.

The GIFF 2016 theme is Story Worthy Moments. Groundspeak are asking you to think of your most noteworthy, most exceptional geocaching stories...and get them on camera.

Submit your film by August 1, 2016 for the chance to have it viewed by a worldwide geocaching audience.  Find out more.

Movie Time

• help organise and coordinate events across the country
• manage the website, newsletter and social media accounts
• handle queries from the muggle public on geocaching
• support the Mega committees when they are organising Mega events

Breaking News
Geocaching International Film Festival
Year End Geocaching Events

Breaking News

Geocaching International Film Festival 2019

We are in the middle of the GIFF 2019 souvenir weekends, which is from 7 November to 17 November 2019. We hope you are making  a plan to get to watch this year's movies.

Cache of the Month

MEGA FEEDBACK

So the Mega Event, GC7DAJM 2018 Jolly Jozi Jol is a memory now, but it certainly isn't fading yet.  For those of you able to join us from all over the country (and some from all over the world), thanks for making the trip. It was a day of great adventure, and many interesting stories.  The highlights included having all the South African reviewers on a talk panel (even those not usually based in South Africa).

Afrika Rocks/geoawareAFR (Grant Little), Xanthe Terra (Andre van Vuuren), Knagur Green (Christina van Vuuren), ROTSIP (Rodney Pistorius), Pte Curb (Bruce Pantland)

We performed a CITO with a difference when in addition to cleaning up a bit, we also planted some new trees.

And that was all on top of discovering hundreds of geocoins at the coin fest, as well as finding many awesome geocaches hidden just for the event.
 

MEGA STORE

Cache of the Month

Multi geocaches are often not found as much as they could be. This cache type and especially this month's COTM which is GC7CKVM Teamwork Puzzles definitely deserves to be found! Well done to TheSchuttes on creating an epic 7 stage multi with unique puzzles at each waypoint.  

For the month of November, we will highlight a geocache placed for the recent Mega - Jolly Jozi Jol. Please tell us which Mega JJJ geocache really stood out for you. Please send your nominations to .

Treasure Hunting For Fun

Merlin’s Wand
(image sourced from the Armchair Treasure Hunt Club)

GoSA AGM
International EarthCache Day
Geocaching International Film Festival
Adventure Lab Caches

GoSA AGM 2019

International EarthCache Day

Geocaching International Film Festival 2019

This year, the GIFF 2019 souvenir weekend will be from November 7 to November 17. That's right, GIFF 2019 will extend over two full weekends!  We are already seeing some events published, as local geocaching communities start planning the popcorn for movie night to watch the best geocaching short films of 2019.

Find out how to host your own local event here.

Cache of the Month

Geocaching International Film Festival

2016 Update

The Mega 2016 organisers published their event, GC5YRDE Cape Town 2016 last month.  Help them achieve Mega status by logging your "Will Attend" so that they can get to the 500 required.  They are currently sitting on 301.

For the latest news and updates, follow the Event Facebook group, SA Geocaching Events or visit their website.

Extreme Geocaching

Some geocachers went extreme in Rustenberg a few weeks ago, read their story...

A few others tried a different way to get some of the high terrain Gauteng caches, read their story...

Share your geocaching stories

International EarthCache Day

Mega 2016

The Mega 2016 organisers have just published their event, GC5YRDE Cape Town 2016.  Help them achieve Mega status by logging your "Will Attend" so that they can get to the 500 required.

Follow the Mega Event Facebook group, SA Geocaching Mega Events for the latest news and updates.

GIFF 2015

Watch out for the Geocaching International Film Festival events from 5-8 November. There are already a few events organised around the country to watch the finalists. 

Find out more...

Share your geocaching stories