The 2018 Jolly Jozi Jol, GC7DAJM is now officially a MEGA event! The event takes place on 29 September and must definitely not be missed! Stay tuned for updates and news from the organising committee as we count down the days to the event - less than 90 days to go!

This month we have a special feature from the caching team, family Behrens! For those of you who don’t know about their amazing geocaches, they reside in Cape Town and have acquired quite a reputation for their hides. To date they have acquired over 1 500 favourite points!
First off some Geocaching history:
family Behrens (Jamie, Candice, Nate and Adam) started geocaching on 21 October 2012 with our first find being African Tides. This was after 3 DNFs and nearly giving up on this silly idea that my wife had come up with, but we kept on and after the first find we were hooked. Just 7 days later we placed our first geocache hide – Silvermine River Cache which is still active today.

At some point the FTF bug got us and we managed to grab a few over the years. The coin and TB bug also got us and we have over the years got some lovely coins that have some really good memory’s attached to them.

I often get asked the following 3 questions regarding Geocaching:
What made you decide / want to make creative and unique geocaches?
We were very lucky to start caching in the Deep South (Fish Hoek) and this area has some lovely caches and some very interesting ones.

Some of our early finds were caches placed by Paddawan. You may know him for his Shipwreck series, but he has also placed a number of other well-hidden and creative caches.

One of our early finds was one of his caches in Simonstown (part of the Shipwreck series). This cache was a micro hidden behind a sign board. But what amazed me was that Paddawan had taken the time to come and measure up and cut some square tubing to fit in behind the sign board to hide the cache in. Unfortunately the cache was archived, so I am not giving anything away.

Straight away I liked this type of hide and knew I wanted to find more like this. A few finds later we found another creative hide from Paddawan, we were hooked. I knew that I wanted to place hides that I would want to find and by now had found some ‘not so good’ hides and did not want to do that.

So, this got me going with the creative hides.

Where do you get your ideas?
This is a very hard question to answer, the short answer is everywhere.

What I do is walk around the shops, mountain or even at work looking at everything thinking could that be or be used in a geocache. Then when I do see something that looks interesting I start thinking about how I can use it. I also use the internet to get some ideas and then using what I have found and seen, I start my planning. Often my ideas change as I am making the cache. Something that started as the ‘hide’ may end up been part of a bigger hide. Sometimes I take two ideas and make them in to one big hide. The key is to always be looking and asking the question to yourself – can that be a geocache?

I also decided to try keep making different hides, this way it keeps me thinking and that way challenging myself to find something new. I also like to try keep doing it better if I can. So often I will go back to a hide and remake it a bit better or just improve it in some way. I also find that the listing is some thing to be creative with. For this I often look to movies and series for some ideas.

How do you get your permission to place your geocaches and find the location?
After spending weeks, sometimes months making a geocache it is nice to know that it is going to be in a good spot. We do work a bit backwards as most people find a cache location and then make the cache. We make the cache and then find the location.

How we go about this is we drive around looking at the potential places (we often have places in mind). The cache guides us most often. Once we have found a location we then work on the permission. We have sometimes got permission for a location and decided that the cache is not the right fit and then made a new cache for the approved location. Some places are easy as you can find someone on site and ask to talk to the owner / management. I find that after a 5 min chat about geocaching and what you want to do most people are happy to help. In other cases you need to go home and do some research about the place you want to use and perhaps get a phone number or email address. In every case I get the permission in writing. This often takes a few weeks but it is all worth it in the end.
Article submitted by family Behrens

Last week Geocaching HQ’s next challenge started. Sightings of magical creatures and otherworldly beings have been reported. Have you seen any of these creatures yet? Find out more…

This month's theme was Best Golden Oldie and we received some excellent nominations.

The opinion of the committee was mixed but after much deliberation it was decided that South Africa’s oldest geocache is July's COTM. GC185, Sentinel View, placed on 18 January 2001, sits in Silvermine Nature Reserve and commands amazing views of Hout Bay. On top of this, it is a large container that has stood the test of time and should definitely be on every cacher’s bucket list!For the next several months the COTM will not have a specific theme. Caches that have been nominated so far this year (from January to April) will be eligible again. Please send your nominations to .
 

 

The 2018 Jolly Jozi Jol, GC7DAJM is now officially a MEGA event! The event takes place on Saturday, 29 September, at Hobby Park on the West Rand and must definitely not be missed! The day is starting to take shape and the organising committee is hard at work ensuring that the day will be a mega success.

We will also be hosting another event on the Sunday at the same venue for everyone who is still in town.  This will be preceded by the GoSA AGM, so join us on the Sunday morning if you want to get more involved with GoSA in your local geocaching community.

There is also a special geocoin on auction to raise funds for the Mega, the auction closes later today (1 August 2018) at 17:00 CAT, check out the details on this Facebook page

Stay in touch by following the Jozi Jol Facebook Group and keeping an eye on the page listing.

For the next few months the COTM will continue to be general caches with no specific theme. Caches that have been nominated so far this year (from January to April) will be eligible again. Please send your nominations to .

 

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.
 

The GoSA Store still has some Mega silver geocoins for sale, you can place your order online.

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 .

It is engrained into our psyche to go treasure hunting and if you had any doubt, watch how kids love to go searching for a treasure at parties. The reward one feels when finding a treasure is worth much more than the treasure itself, whether the treasure be pieces of eight, doubloons, alchemical wands or just trinkets.
 

It is believed that Robert Louis Stevenson was inspired by the notorious Captain William Kidd when writing Treasure Island. Captain Kidd was originally tasked by the English government to rid the waters of pirates and other enemy vessels (such as the French) in the 17^th century. His pay would have been half the spoils. He crossed the line from privateer to pirate when he attacked an American vessel, commissioned by an English company, flying a French flag.
 

When he was finally arrested and tried, Kidd was unwilling to testify against the lords who had originally contributed to his appointment as privateer and furthermore, it was discovered many years later that records which would have saved Kidd’s life were deliberately suppressed. He was sentenced to be hanged on the May 23^rd, 1701.  If Jack Sparrow was real, he would have been inspired by how Captain Kidd managed to survive the first two attempts by the executioner because the rope snapped each time. The third attempt was successful.   Captain Kidds’ ship, Adventure Galley, was sunk off the coast of Madagascar, and it has taken 300 years of searching the area for the first 50kg bar of silver to be recovered from the wreck. It was later discovered that this bar of silver was actually mostly lead, and if it was in the Adventure Galley, it might have been there just to help weigh the ship down to sink it. Diving deep into the ocean trying to find a pirate’s treasure is an extreme form of treasure hunting, but finding that bar of lead-infused silver must have been such a thrill for Barry Clifford, the explorer who found it.

There have been modern treasure hunts set up by inspired people. My favourite so far is in the category of armchair treasure hunting and is called The Merlin Mystery. Information for this treasure hunt can still be found on the website http://www.treasureclub.net.  The format of this treasure hunt was to purchase the book, find 75 objects in the page borders, get the order of the clues right to work out how to array the objects and then discover what words were used to cast the spell.  What fascinated me most was that the clues were all visual, and there was no need to understand English to solve the puzzle or submit the solution.

The full solution is explained in a multi-page article, available online. The prize was a beautifully designed wand which includes metals and stones sourced from across the world. For example, a blue Lapis Lazuli was sourced from the foothills of the Himalayas, and a Rutilated Crystal ball was sourced from Brazil. The artwork of the wand is magnificent, every little bit has a meaning, and the New Zealand jeweller who acted as the goldsmith had to work for several months to bring it all together. The effort put into crafting the wand seems to mirror the idea that Kell, Blaise and Merlin spent centuries making the wand truly magical with infused Pendragon Alchemy.   When time was nearly up, many people were close to solving the mystery, but in the end, nobody got it correct. The wand was auctioned, and all the prize money was donated to the World Wide Fund for Nature.

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

There is a modern day treasure hunt using the Internet and GPS receivers that is taking over the world. On May 2^nd, 2000, the U.S.A. switched off the scrambling of the GPS signals from 24 satellites and instantaneously, thousands of GPS receivers were vastly more accurate. On May 3^rd, 2000, the first stash was placed in a bucket in the woods somewhere in the west of the U.S.A. N 45° 17.460 W 122° 24.800.

This stash is now considered the first geocache hidden and was found a few days later. South Africa has 20 active geocaches which were placed in 2001. There are over 14000 active caches nation-wide and over 3 million world-wide.  Geocaching is a modern blend between screen-time and getting outdoors and feeling the reward of finding the treasure.  Looking up a geocache when travelling can often result in finding a place you would never have known about and even if you did not find the geocache, the place can be a treasure enough. For the more socially inclined geocacher, there are also organised events. Quite often these are just opportunities to sit at a coffee shop or restaurant and discuss the adventures, but other times there are competitions with prizes. In South Africa, an event catering for 500 people has been held every 2 years since 2012.

Online puzzle solving and treasure hunting is becoming more prevalent. In 2012 a complex challenge, that is claimed to be the hardest online challenge, was created by Cicada 3301. Some think that either the Illuminati or the Stone Masons are behind it, but that seems rather unlikely.  I became quite interested in this and had to see what it was about. Because the palindromic prime number 1231507051321 appeared in the puzzle I looked it up to see what the significance was. To my surprise I found a twitter account with that name and I read the only tweet on that account.  Then I started my journey into wonderland.  Incidentally, it was my maiden journey into the dark web, and I emerged a few hours later feeling the victory of being unaffected by this over-stigmatised deep dark place and the uplifting reward of yet another puzzle solved. Other than deciphering computer encodings to solve the puzzle, I learnt all about what onion is and how the Tor Project makes things secure and private … and a little slower.

A story that brings together armchair puzzle solving (by the Armchair Treasure Hunt club), the geocaching community and a real treasure minted in South Africa is about a hunt called Lucky 7. This short story took place in March 2005 and concluded with a lucky participant finding a Kruger Rand.  The only information for the puzzle is the following image:

LUCKY 7. Puzzle
 

Many geocachers participated in a forum to share ideas where one can see how the comments progressed from “this can’t be real” to “Yes, I got it!”  The solution (summarised from the treasureclub.com website) is:  The black line leads to the point farthest from the sea (‘C’) within the UK.  The Ordnance Survey mapping of the spot shows the yellow road with a small building at a junction. A little to the south of the crossroad is a footpath and a timber signpost. The signpost is square in cross section and oriented as shown by the black 'point' next to the '7', relative to the road. At the foot of the post, on the south east side (indicated by the arrows), lay the treasure.

 

Whether one is stuck in an armchair or keen to get outdoors, or if one likes alchemical mysteries or prefer to just find gold, taking on the hobby of treasure hunting does result in personal rewards.

 
Let the hunt begin!

Article submitted by Fier