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.
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.
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.
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.
We are always on the lookout for photos from events or cool caches, as well as any fun, interesting, unusual or exciting geocaching stories to share with the geocaching community. If you want to share yours, send it to us by emailing it to our webmasters.
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Only 2 Months to go to Mega 2016 in Cape Town and the Mega committee has been working hard to ensure everything is running smoothly. Get the details of their most recent update here. You can also visit their website to buy your tickets for the weekend. If you want to buy any of the Mega clothing, remember orders close on 31 August. Follow the Mega Event on social media:
GoSA has set up a YouTube channel to share various geocaching related videos. The first one we created is an animation of the geocaches hidden across South Africa. There are also links to other South African geocaching videos and to Groundspeak educational videos.
Pte Curb, Afrika Rocks and ROTSIP, the three South African reviewers
We are starting our Meet the Reviewers series with Bruce Pantland, who has been a geocacher since May 2008 and a reviewer since April 2012. Bruce caches under the BruceTP profile, and reviews as Pte Curb. He started geocaching after being introduced to the game by a colleague, Dakardrix. Bruce explained to us that he chose his reviewer handle by just reversing his player handle.
When not reviewing, Bruce's day job (and night job too as he pointed out) involves supporting key banking applications to keep the lights on for the customers! Given that he also spends a minimum of 25 hours a week on his volunteer reviewer work, that keeps him pretty busy. In addition, he is the reviewer liaison for the GoSA committee.
We asked Bruce to share some advice and experience from his reviewing with our readers: GoSA: What do you enjoy about reviewing? Pte Curb: Interacting with the folk from around the country as they brainstorm new caches as well as helping newbies get started.
GoSA: What advice do you have for new geocachers? Pte Curb: Read the guidelines and then read them again before placing your first cache. Also find a few before trying to hide any.
GoSA: What advice do you have for geocachers who have placed a hide and are about to submit their listing? Pte Curb: Check that everything makes sense - Check your location on Google Earth - Is it where you hid it. If not recheck your coordinates. Patience!! Although we try and get through the queue as quickly as possible at peak time this may take a few days.
GoSA: Why don’t you go for FTF’s? Pte Curb: I have never been a great FTF hunter, but if there is a traditional which has not been found and I am in the area I shall attempt it. For example Kompasberg remained unfound for over a month and I happened to be hiking in the area and so I went and got the FTF with JPMZA and MeganZA. Mystery caches are something else because we have insider knowledge which gives us an unfair advantage. So as a matter of principle, I would not chase an FTF on a Mystery.
GoSA: Anything else interesting you think our readers would like to know about you? Pte Curb: I enjoy meeting geocachers at events and finally put names and faces to handles. I really enjoy the social side to geocaching especially the camping weekends away, the PE camp outs and Tswaing Crater events.
Do you remember that tomorrow is International Geocaching Day? Earn the official International Geocaching Day 2019 souvenir by logging a geocache or attending an event on 17 August 2019. We trust you will have a great time celebrating this occasion!
Left: GPSFrodo Right: How the geocaching website looked back in the beginning of 2001, when GCZA01 was placed. Also viewable here.
Can you tell us a little about how you heard about geocaching?
My introduction to GPS ‘games’ started with the Degree Confluence project. After logging a confluence in KZN I saw a post on usenet (yes we still used that in those days ;)) about a Stash that Dave Ulmer in the USA had placed, and published coordinates for. This sounded like an awesome idea and thus my introduction to geocaching began.
We see your first intro into GPS games was with the Degree Confluence project. Can you tell us a bit about this?
The Degree confluence Project was started in 1996 by Alex Jarrett. The idea behind the project is to document all the confluences accessible on land. A confluence is an intersection of a longitude and latitude, and for the purposes of the project, only integer confluences are considered. Below is a map I created in early 2001 to show the confluences:
You can find a lot more detail on the project page for South Africa here.
What was your first gps?
My first GPS was a Garmin Etrex. It was the original, ugly, yellow model that couldn’t load maps or do any routing. It still used a serial port connection then. See this for the older model comparisons.
What made you plant GCZA01 where you did?
If I knew then what I know now …. You know the old saying. At the time of placing GCZA01, there were no real rules. My main reason for placing it on a friend’s farm was that I could get permission to place it. I contacted the botanical gardens in Pretoria first to see if I could place a cache there. Well, you try to explain this “Treasure Hunt” game with GPSs to an administrative type … and yeah, you guessed the answer. Since the 1st geocache in the States was placed on private property, I thought I’d do the same.
Can you describe the cache container and it’s hiding spot? Was there any significance to the things you added to the cache?
The cache container was a regular Tupperware plastic box. It contained some CDRs, a novel, log book and pen, greetings letter (which I’m sorry I didn’t copy) and wrist watch. The watch was the only significant item. I worked for a Danish software company at the time (Navision Software) and they had a company branded watch, which I bought specifically to place in the cache. The reason for its inclusion was that I was pretty sure it was unique in the country and there wouldn’t be 2 like it ;) As far as I know Jors still has it.
Yes, Jors kept it and made it into a trackable!
There was no reviewing process, no rules. You logged the hide and that was that.
We see you have reactivated your geocaching account and found a couple of geocaches this year. How did you get back into the game?
A friend of mine owns a motorcycle accessories shop in Centurion. While there I saw he had a handheld GPS on the shelf that mentioned geocaching on the box. Easy sell for him ;).
Did you ever think that the game would develop to what it has become – a game with over 3 million geocaches worldwide with many different cache types and geocaches suited to every type of cacher?
That question actually has 2 very different answers.
Do you have geocaches on a bucket list that you’d like to do one day?
I would love to visit GCGV0P and and GC30.
Mega 2016 is happening at The Wild Fig in Observatory, Cape Town from 1-2 October 2016. The Mega team is running a Mega Geocoin design competition. The cut-off date for your design is 31 August 2015. The winning artist will receive a Mega Geocoin, free registration to the Mega Event and a surprise goodie bag... Send your entry to
Follow the Mega Event Facebook group, SA Geocaching Mega Events for the latest news and updates.
South African Geocacher Delbadore has been fortunate to find several geocaches in India. Read about his experience on our website. There is also a photo gallery of all his finds.
After each quest begins, you’ll be able to complete it and earn your souvenir until 2 September 2015. Complete all five and you'll earn a sixth, extra special souvenir.
All the quest details are available on the geocaching.com blog. There are several events being organised around the country to support the Road Trip souvenir collection, check out our website for more details.
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