GoSA Grapevine October 2016 - MEGA & EarthCache Day

MEGA 2016
EarthCache Day
Meet the Reviewers - ROTSIP

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

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.

At long last, the finalists for the 2016 Geocaching International Film Festival have been chosen and the list of finalists is available here.

These films stood out above the rest for their creativity, production quality, and contribution to the global geocaching community. Attend a GIFF event from November 3-7, 2016 to watch all 16 films and earn the GIFF 2016 souvenir.

Want to organize your own GIFF event? Visit this page to find out more.

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!

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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International Geocaching Day
Mission GC
Meet the Reviewers - Pte Curb

International Geocaching Day

This year we celebrate International Geocaching Day on Saturday 20 August. Several events have already been planned around the country. See details of them all here. Isn't one near to you yet? Maybe you should be organising your local one then.

There are some other big geocaching weekend events coming up in the next few months:

GC6FRHH At The Coast (Weekend Event) on 26 - 28 August at Silwerstroom Strand in Western Cape

GC6N132 Klipkopje Spring Sleep Over 2016 on 02 - 04 September at Klipkopje Dam in Mpumalanga

Mission GC

Mission GC is an opportunity to get three new souvenirs during July and August. You will need to decode the special GCHQ47 messages which will become available at the start of each window, although Groundspeak is sending it out to Premium Members the week before.
● The window for securing Souvenir #1 was July 30-31, 2016.
● The window for securing Souvenir #2 is August 13-14, 2016.
● The window for securing Souvenir #3 is August 27-28, 2016.
Get all the details here

MegaLogo

Mega Update

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:

YouTube Logo

YouTube Channel

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.

Meet your reviewers

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.

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Down Time
Service Time
GoSA Committee

Down Time

It's the end of another year. Travelling somewhere new? Take the chance to go geocaching. Travelling somewhere you have been to before? Take the chance to go geocaching. Stuck at home with some annoying family? Take the chance to go geocaching. Holding the fort at work? Sneak out early and ... yes.... take the chance to go geocaching.

Whatever you are doing this festive season, GoSA wishes you a fantastic festive season, travel safely and make sure you find some geocaches. Hopefully you also get a chance to attend one of the many events to celebrate the end of the year and the start of another one.

Service Time

It is the responsibility of any cache owner to maintain their geocaches. One of the volunteer reviewers has started a process to work through all the disabled caches and those with long strings of needs maintenance or DNF logs.

Should you be contacted about any of your geocaches, we encourage you to work with them, and arrange to either maintain your geocache, or archive it and remove any remnants that may be at ground zero. At the end of this process, old geocaches owned by inactive geocachers should be removed from the game, opening those areas for active cachers and making it less likely to get DNF's.

Did you manage to get to one of the GIFF screenings and watch the films and earn the souvenir?

If not, you can now watch the entire film reel here.

At the recent GoSA AGM the new committee for 2017 was elected. The committee is:
Chairman - Erik Lear (Fier)
Treasurer - Lucia Rodrigues (LuciaMPR)
Secretary - Claudia Magno (ClodsM)
Member - Bruce Pantland (Pte Curb)
Member - Graham Thomas (ThomasFamilyZA)
Member - Delbert Botes (Delbadore)
Member - Carlo Henrico (scubie999)
Member - Chris Booysen (ChrisDen)

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MEGA Feedback
You Might Be A Geocacher If ...
Cache of the Month
2018 Geocaching International Film Festival Screening Weekend
Treasure Hunting For Fun

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

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

You Might Be A Geocacher If...

Last month, Groundspeak introduced a new four-month series called “You might be a geocacher if…” Each month from September through December, you can use the Friend League to individually earn points toward a new Geocacher Personality Souvenir. Are you an Adrenaline Junkie? A Caching Connoisseur? A Social Butterfly? A Trackable Lover? Collect them all to be the ultimate geocacher.

In October, you might be a Caching Connoisseur if… you’re all about creativity, the higher the Favourite Points the better, and like a fine wine these quality caches have stood the test of time.

Find out how to earn your October souvenir here.

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 .

2018 Geocaching International Film Festival Screening Weekend

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.

Treasure Hunting For Fun

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.

A blue Lapis Lazuli was sourced from the foothills of the Himalayas, and a Rutilated Crystal ball was sourced from Brazil.

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.

Treasure hunt prize of a Kruger Rand for LUCKY 7.
(photo available on the public forum)

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

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Reviewers

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".

Read More

GoSA Grapevine October 2016 - MEGA & EarthCache Day

MEGA TIME

Meet the Reviewers - Part III

GoSA Grapevine August 2016 - International Geocaching Day

International Geocaching Day

Mission GC

Mega Update

YouTube Channel

Meet your reviewers

GoSA Grapevine December 2016 - Down Time & Service Time

Down Time

Service Time

GoSA Grapevine October 2018 - Mega Feedback

MEGA FEEDBACK

MEGA STORE

You Might Be A Geocacher If...

Cache of the Month

2018 Geocaching International Film Festival Screening Weekend

Treasure Hunting For Fun

Reviewers