On October 9, you can earn a new souvenir by learning more about the Earth (aka geocaching’s game board). All you have to do is go out and find an EarthCache on International EarthCache Day!
EarthCaches don’t have physical containers, but instead bring you to a unique location and teach you a geological science lesson. To make the find, you’ll have to check the EarthCache’s description and answer questions based on where you are and send your answers to the cache owner.
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!
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.
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.
The 2018 Geocaching International Film Festival asked filmmakers to film a great story about the game we love. See how the community has turned geocaching into an art form by attending a 2018 GIFF Event. The films screen worldwide over 8 - 12 November 2018 at an event near you.
Also, anyone who attends an official GIFF Event will receive the 2018 GIFF souvenir.
Our list of South African GIFF events is available here together with instructions on how to register your own GIFF viewing event if there isn't one near you yet.
Africa and South Africa have had a few reviewers over time.
The first reviewer was erik88l-r (Eric van Dyk from the USA - who is one of the original global reviewers who has been reviewing continuously since 2001) and is an American geocacher who reviewed caches for the African continent. He was often supported by another long time international reviewer – Crow-T-Robot.
Eric came out to South Africa in December 2007 and met the various geocachers in each region on his visit.
Team "Fish Eagle" then took over the role of reviewing caches from March 2008 till February 2011, and gave over the reins to team "ROTSIP" who was soon joined by team "PTE Curb". For a short time team "Ingwe9” also reviewed South African caches.
Another two South African expats are also involved in reviewing – team "Xanthe Terra", based in the UK after relocating from Abu Dhabi, who looks after the Middle East and assists in North Africa, and team "protea sangomas" is a reviewer for Norway.
All EarthCaches were originally reviewed by the Geological Society of America (GSA), but due to team "Carbon Hunter" placing so many earth caches on the African continent, and being in the same line of work, he was offered the position to review earth caches for the Africa and Middle East area. He used the reviewers team name of "geoawareAFR”, and has since taken up the role as a non-EarthCache Reviewer using the name “Africa Rocks".
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